Lone Tree (36 page)

Lainie swallowed hard. Knowing she’d misread him
hurt like hell. That oversight was much worse than underestimating Miles.

When he got no response, Reed said, voice holding
quiet warning, “I want an explanation.”

“So do I,” she snapped, head jerking toward him.
“You asked me to marry you but ran it by him first. Explain that.”

“Lainie,” Miles said.

“Shut up,” she shot at him, then nailed Reed with a
gaze she hoped carried her fire but not her heart. “Didn’t realize there was a
hidden motive behind your proposal last night,” she said, putting contempt in
her voice to mask the hurt.

Reed’s lips tightened.

“Lainie,” Miles said again, voice sharper.

She flicked her hand at him, dismissing him without
looking his way. Her glare remained on Reed. “You can’t run my life,” she
ground out. “Decide between yourselves what you want and then set about to get
me to do it.”

“What was my hidden motive, Lainie?” Reed’s voice
was quieter than she’d ever before heard it.

“You tell me. But seems that between my husband and
my grandfather, I’d have no more control over my life than a programmed doll.”

Reed jerked as if he’d been hit. His gaze shot to
Miles then immediately back to her.

“Grandfather,” he repeated. His face closed off.

Then, after a brief moment, his tone both steely and
soft, he went on. “That makes sense. Actually explains some things.” He nodded
slowly as his eyes took on distance, as if he was recalling the past and making
connections. Then his eyes cleared, and his gaze turned sharp as it settled on
her. “But what still doesn’t figure is why you got riled at me. Where’d you get
the idea I’m working with the old man—excuse me, your
grandfather
—and
trying to run your life?”

He glanced at his boss and got a single headshake in
response. Lainie also looked at Miles, who was still up on his high horse. She
opened her mouth to contradict him, but then realized he’d neither confirmed
nor denied that he’d conspired with Reed to get her married and settled, tied
to the ranch and to him.

When Reed looked back at Lainie, his expression was
so brittle it seemed it might crack. “Well, which way is it? Am I guilty as
charged?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “So maybe you’re thinking now he
didn’t tell me anything. Didn’t
conspire
with me. But instead of giving
me benefit of the doubt back there, much less a little information, you chose
to take a swing at me.” He snorted with disgust. “Smart of you, Lainie. And
trusting. Real trusting.”

Miles’s stance faltered. His gaze darted from her to
Reed and back again.

Lainie stared at Reed as if mesmerized, registering
both his surprise and his hurt. She saw now, beyond doubt, that it wasn’t his
breach of trust but her lack of trust that was the issue. Her knuckles felt raw
and sore. His left cheekbone was red, but the hurt she saw in him wasn’t
physical. It mirrored her own. And he was masking it with anger, just as she
had.

Suddenly she felt exhausted, defeated by her own
deception and suspicions. She’d not gotten anything right since she’d first
crossed the Texas border—except for loving Reed, and even that she’d messed up.
She put her face in her hands, fingertips pressing into her forehead, and
wished she could rub away the whole past year.

Reed’s cold gaze settled on his boss. “And you were
playing your own game, calling me because you were so worried about her. But
you just wanted her back and used me to get her here.” His voice was so tight,
it occurred to Lainie she might not get to slug Miles after all. Reed would
beat her to it.

“Neither one of you trusted me enough to tell me the
truth.” His voice was harsh, no more respect in his manner now than in Lainie’s
or her grandfather’s. “You’re a couple of real winners.”

When his gaze again fell on Lainie, it felt so heavy
she flinched. “Seems to me you deserve each other, so I’ll leave you to it. For
now. But we’re going to talk—all three of us—real soon.”

He turned curtly on his heel. She heard his boots
striking the floor, fast and hard, then the front door opened and closed with a
thud. She glanced at Miles, who was still looking at the empty doorway. Just a
little honesty, she thought, some straight shooting, but all she shared with
her grandfather was temper. Distrust. One-upmanship. Reed was right. They deserved
each other.

She slammed the office door shut with as much force
as she could muster, and Miles’s attention snapped back to her. She crossed the
room, stopped in front of his desk and flattened her palms atop it.

“Now, just what the damn hell do you think you
proved by dragging me back here?” Gripping an edge of the desk’s leather pad in
each hand, she swept it to the side. It crashed to the floor, taking everything
with it, and the action was as satisfying as it was destructive.

Miles’s face darkened, but in her reckless rage she
felt immune.

“Reed has my keys. I want them. And I want them
now
.”
Her first sweep had missed a crystal vase of yellow roses at the corner of the
desk. She slashed it with the back of her hand and sent it flying.

Miles’s gaze followed the flight of the vase, then
his attention snapped back to her. He shot out one hand and gripped her wrist.
His fingers tightened enough to hurt, but she didn’t struggle. He had her right
hand but her left was free—to make a fist or to rake her nails down his face.

His eyes narrowed briefly, then he released her and
straightened. He was too tall and the desk too wide for her to reach him. He no
longer looked angry. She saw wariness, and speculation—smug speculation.

“You want to hit me, don’t you? You’d give just
about anything to take a swing at me.”

“You got that right, old man.” She made sure the
title didn’t imply endearment.

“Appears you’ve been a mite too free with your fists
already tonight. Maybe if you’d talked to Reed instead of swinging at him, you
wouldn’t be asking me now for your keys.”

“You shouldn’t have sent him after me.”

“You think he would have let anyone else bring you
back?”

“Why bring me back at all? What’s the point?”

He made no response, his face that familiar mask she
couldn’t read. Placing her hands on the desk she leaned toward him. “The way I
see it, you just plain got mad. I defied you, but you have to win. At whatever
cost. Guess my mother knew that, too.”

When he finally spoke, instead of responding to her
question he asked one of his own. “Why did you come out here in the first
place, Lainie Sue?”

She noted again that his eyes were much like her
mother’s. Silently she answered,
I was looking for family
, and then she
wrenched inwardly at the thought. She said, “I don’t know why I was stupid
enough to ever show up here. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t.”

“I’m a wealthy man—”

She guessed where he was going and blew up before he
got there. She slammed the side of her fist down hard enough on the desk that
she hurt her hand. She cradled it at her chest, staring coldly at him and
silently cursing herself for being such a fool. She couldn’t hurt him, so she’d
hurt herself.

“You poor, pitiful old fool. You can’t see beyond
yourself. Never could. That’s why you lost my mother all those years ago, and
now you’ve lost me, too. You ever give me anything, ever try to give me a
damned thing, I’ll spit on it and throw it back.”

Miles seemed to age as he stood there, showing all
of his years and more. She came close to regretting her words, but in that
moment she wasn’t capable of compassion.

“Now I want my keys.” She felt as implacable as
she’d ever seen him be. Perhaps it was a family trait. “And I want them right
now, or you and I are both going to find out just how much fight I’ve got left
in me.”

Heavily, he dropped into his chair and then rubbed
his hands across his face as she had earlier, possibly also wishing he could
rub away the past. Then he nodded without looking up. “All right. You can have
your keys in the morning.”

“
Now
.”

“No. Getting behind the wheel in the mood you’re in
would be like trying to drive when you’re drunk.”

“I want them now.”

“I said no.” He continued to massage his forehead.

As she watched him, she felt her anger slipping away
by degrees. Like it or not, she wasn’t going to get the keys tonight. And he
might be right. In less than an hour, she’d run the gamut between tense rage
and draining exhaustion, and then right back again.

“Okay,” she breathed. As she let the tension go, she
swayed, came close to collapse. Quickly, defiantly, she pulled herself up
straight. “Someone has to go after my car. But don’t send Reed, with the car or
the keys.”

He looked up then. “He’s not guilty of anything,
Lainie. This was my doing. All of it.”

“Don’t send Reed,” she repeated. Yes, it was her
grandfather’s doing, and hers. Reed had been dragged into it and thrown every
which way like a leaf caught in a windstorm.

“Lainie, don’t—”

“I don’t want to see him.” She couldn’t see him.
He’d break through what little control she had left, and she wouldn’t be able
to leave. But she had to get out of here. Off the ranch. Out of the state.

Miles slumped. “I’ll have it seen to.”

She started across the room. The brunt of anger had
worn off but a residue lingered. She felt it in extremities, fingertips and
toes. Guilt lay heavy in her gut, and hurt still burned behind her eyes.
Traveling to Texas was a mistake, the worst she’d ever made. The urge to run
almost blinded her, and on its heels was a sense of loss so sharp it wanted to
bend her double.

“Lainie.”

She paused, muscles tightening, but didn’t turn
around.

“Where will you go?”

With a soft laugh, but no humor in it, she shook her
head. “Why even ask? You’ll trace me, too.”

When she turned and faced him from this distance,
she got the whole effect. The computer sat at the short end of the otherwise
bare L-shaped desk. The floor was littered with pens, pencils, notepad and the
notary deck of file cards. A limp yellow rose rested atop the broken picture
frame. The telephone hung by its cord, receiver not quite reaching the carpet.
Because it wasn’t beeping to tell the owner it was off the hook, she figured
she’d broken it. Too bad.

“You can start looking for me in California.
Should’ve never left there in the first place. Or you could just wait for me to
send my address. That should be simple enough. I can’t pack everything tonight
so I’ll have to send for my things.”

He remained slumped in the chair. She got the hall
door open before he spoke again.

“You were right about one thing tonight,” he said
quietly. No strength, no life in his voice. “And you were wrong, too. I let
your mother go all those years ago and shouldn’t have. When you ran out of here
tonight, I was furious, yes—maybe still at her as much as with you. I was bound
and determined you weren’t going to run away from me, too. But I can’t stop you
now, any more than I could’ve stopped her then.”

Staring into the hallway, she almost relented. If
not for the detectives’ reports he’d so freely admitted to—the fact he’d kept
vigilance from a distance, unknown to Elizabeth or Walter or Lainie—she
probably would have. But she couldn’t get her mind around such cold-hearted
noninvolvement. He’d known Elizabeth was dying, yet even then had refrained
from reentering her life.

And Lainie’s life had been an open book long before
she’d even considered traveling to Texas. All the time she’d been regretting
her deceit, he’d been practicing it on a far grander scale than she. She was
guilty, but so was he. Too bad they didn’t have a family trait more bonding to
share.

“Listen very carefully.” She turned one last time,
and waited for him to look up. “This is the first and last time in your life
you’ll ever be called by this title. Goodbye, Grandfather.”

*

Dawn was breaking when Lainie heard the sound of her
car’s engine. Dressed and ready, half zombie and all nerves, her gaze shot to
the front door. She held her breath, clenched her fists. If Reed was out there,
she’d lose the only option she had.

Staring at the door, strained almost to the breaking
point, she heard the car door open and close, then receding footsteps. She
opened the house door just far enough to recognize Randy’s lanky form as he
disappeared around the corner of the main house.

She stepped outside, bent to look inside the car and
spied keys dangling from the ignition. Her purse still lay on the passenger
seat where she’d thrown it last night.

Moving with brittle urgency, she went back for her
single suitcase, packed with the bare necessities, and threw it into the back
seat. The driver’s seat was too far back and she fought with the lever, almost
dissolving into the tears she’d been fighting all night. Finally it gave, and
she got the seat in position, but that jab of emotion cost her. An image of
Reed, steadfast and sure, flashed into her mind’s eye.