The Heart Of Texas Read online

  Jack blinked steadily. What the fuck?

  "We are not for sale," he answered coolly. His heart was thumping in his chest, belying the calm on the surface.

  "No, I'm not looking to buy the D," Riley reassured instantly. Jack frowned. That playboy Hayes even knew the name of his family's ranch was a shock. "I'm looking for another way that maybe I can help you. Pay off the ranch debts, the death taxes, and release you from the burdens of it all so you can make the place pay for itself again." Jack scooted forward, his temper starting to build in the base of his spine. What the fuck is this man on? Riley hesitated, standing and crossing to the window to stare at the city far below.

  Jack didn't push. He remained sitting, dusty and temper-tight in worn denim, watching Riley who was clearly struggling with whatever he had to say.

  "A year," he finally started. "I would need your help for a year, with a contract. In return I would agree to pay off every debt, and pay you on top of that."

  "A year of what? Working for you?"

  "No." Riley sucked in a huge lungful of air and then let it out in a noisy exhale. "A year of marriage. I want —need— a partner, to be married for one year and for many reasons. Not the least of which is giving me a win-win situation with my father."

  "Marriage." What the hell? "You— and me?" Jack managed to form that simple question on sheer shock alone as Riley nodded earnestly. Jack couldn't bring himself to move. He just sat there, stunned.

  "So what do you think?" Riley finally asked as Jack rose to his feet.

  For several beats, Jack neither moved nor spoke. Tension coiled in his body, what he imagined to be a combination of shock and disbelief.

  "I'll tell you what I think, Hayes." Riley's surname dripped acid as Jack snarled the single word. "Your family has fucked with me and my mine one too many times."

  "It would be beneficial to us both."

  "Fuck! What kind of planet are you living on?"

  "I don't understand."

  Jack shook his head, Riley looked confused. He clearly couldn't see that he was crazier than a cat hill coot.

  "This crazy shit is a fuckin' bad dream and a waste of my time." He'd had enough.

  "Jack, please, can you just listen?"

  Jack paused with his hand on the door handle.

  "Fuck you." Distaste and furious anger dripped from his voice as he turned the knob.

  "I know what you need. I know about Elizabeth." There was sudden steel, and a sly superiority in Riley's words. Clearly the younger Hayes was finally showing his true colors.

  Jack stopped, the door half open. Grief and a sudden anxiety twisted in him before calm returned and he analyzed Riley's words dispassionately. Anyone who read the Dallas Morning News knew about Beth. It was open knowledge she suffered from a congenital heart problem, had been ill on and off for most of her life, and had spent more time in the hospital than out. But Riley's tone, the sly use of the words "I know about Beth" set Jack's teeth on edge. Something didn't sound right.

  Medical bills had piled up, but the Campbell family had worked their way through. It was what they did. They dealt with the crap, pulled together, and made a difference to their lives through sheer single-mindedness. It left them near broke, but it didn't matter. Beth had gotten her medical treatment, the operations, and the drugs she needed. They managed, and they certainly didn't need any help, financially or otherwise. So if Riley freaking Hayes thought that bringing up Beth was gonna swing things his way, he had another thing coming.

  Jack laughed low in his throat. "Hayes, after the Dallas Times spread, everyone knows about Beth," he said over his shoulder. That article had hurt. It must have been a slow news week, because some low-life journalist had decided to dig up the old feud story and focus on the next generation. It had headlined as The Campbell Curse Strikes Again. Josh was portrayed as abandoning his family, Jack as the useless high school dropout, Beth as the poor little innocent, suffering nobly under her death sentence. "There is nothing you can give her that is better than what we can. That was lame and kinda sad." He turned back to the door ready to walk away. Game over.

  Riley's next words froze Jack to the spot. "My money can't help make her better, Jack, but it can help her get through her pregnancy."

  What pregnancy?

  Emotions flooded through him— shock, disbelief, pain, and anger at the blatant lies. He turned slowly, willing the panic, the fury, to stay behind his mask. What did Riley mean? She couldn't be pregnant. The doctors had said carrying a child full term could kill her. They had warned that her heart couldn't take it.

  Riley visibly winced, and Jack knew his mask had cracked. He tried damned hard to regroup, to settle his disbelief.

  "Fuck you, Hayes!" he hissed. "Pregnant or not, we'll manage. She'll have an abortion." That was the only solution. If this was true, then she'd just have to terminate. He wasn't going to lose his sister after trying for so many years to keep her alive.

  Riley hesitated, clearly measuring his words, his expression carefully blank. "All you can hope is that she lives through it. It's too late to abort now, far too late." Riley's words dripped like ice, and Jack's eyes widened even as he tried to tell himself this fucking bastard was lying. The thought of his sister pregnant, close to killing herself, not telling him… Skepticism shot through him. No. She wouldn't have kept it a secret. She would have told him or Josh, if not their mom. Wouldn't she?

  The overwhelming force of what Riley was saying hit Jack in the gut, exposing an unexpected vulnerability. He knew then he would do anything to protect his sister, and he prayed Riley couldn't see it. Jack straightened his spine, shoulders back, armor reinforced.

  "Marry me," Riley blurted out suddenly. "Marry me and I will get the best doctors. I know people, my money can buy people. I can get the best for Beth and have medical help on call twenty-four seven. All you have to do is say yes. Just one year, and your debts are paid, the ranch is free from mortgage and death duties, and your sister lives. Just one year."

  Jack blinked steadily, his head spinning, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't focus on the monologue Hayes was spouting or register what the other man was saying. He needed to see Beth. She would tell him this was all wrong, that Hayes was lying.

  Without another word Jack left, pulling the door shut behind him. He hesitated only briefly, getting his breathing and emotions under control, before heading to the glass elevator. He wasn't aware of what he was doing, or where he was going, he only knew that Hayes didn't follow. He thanked God for that, because he knew he would have likely killed him.

  Chapter 4

  The journey back to the ranch was torturously slow. The cacophony of horns and swearing was deafening, and streams of tangled rush hour traffic impeded Jack's progress home. It was a good two hours before the D was in his sights, and he had thought of nothing other than betrayal and fear. She hadn't told him. That's because it isn't true. His beautiful sister was dying. It isn't true. His beautiful baby sister, the very person who had shaped him as a man, was hiding something so vitally important from him? It can't be true.

  He found her sitting quietly in the sun-room, the early evening light putting an ethereal light about her head as she bent over her book, her lips moving soundlessly to the music in her iPod. She looked impossibly young, heartbreakingly beautiful, fragile. But it was as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes, and Jack could see how much more pale she was than normal. His eyes instinctively went to her belly, looking for a sign, anything, that would prove Riley Hayes wrong.

  He moved closer and Elizabeth started at the sudden intrusion into her space. She pulled the ear buds out and smiled up at him. The smile turned to a frown as she saw the expression he could not keep from his face. She watched without word as he fell to his knees next to her chair, his hands curled into the hem of her dress, pleading silently. And he saw when the realization hit her that he knew…

  "Beth—" His voice broke, and tears blurred his vision, but not enough that he couldn't se
e the tears beginning to track down his sister's pale cheeks. He didn't need to ask if it was true. He could see it in her face, see the pain there, the guilt. "Why— why couldn't you tell me?" You tell me everything…

  The book on her lap dropped to the floor, the noise breaking into her own sobs, and she caught Jack's hand tight, pushing it against her stomach. She was only just starting to show.

  "I couldn't kill my daughter," she said unsteadily, and winced as Jack's hand pressed harder against her soft belly, his head suddenly bowing. But not before she would have seen his pain.

  "A daughter?" he finally managed to push out. He wanted to yell, to rail at her, to call her stupid, and an idiot. His anger stilled at the touch of her hand over his.

  "Please, Jack." Her voice was broken. "Please. I'm so scared. I don't know what to do."

  She bowed her head, her dark blonde hair falling across her neck. Jack tilted her chin with his fingertips and gazed into cerulean eyes so like their mother's. For the first time he recognized the exhaustion bracketing her face. How had he not noticed? Not seen her with a boyfriend, not noticed how ill she was looking? After all those years of reading his sister, how had he failed her so badly this time?

  Guiltily he looked away, lowering his eyes. The ranch, the money, balancing the weariness of twenty hour days, especially recently with foaling so close, with juggling the finances of debt repayment against the day-to-day running of the ranch. It had all served to take him away from the one thing that was important in his life— his family.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" he finally asked as calmly as he could. He didn't want her spooked at his question, but he needed to know.

  "I didn't want to kill my baby, Jack," she whispered. "I knew you would want me to."

  Jack blanched. The taking of life, especially that of a tiny defenseless baby… To Jack, it was a baby from the moment of conception. He may have thrown the idea at Riley, but he couldn't condone abortion, didn't believe in it for so many reasons. But this was his sister, his beautiful gentle fragile sister, and the baby inside her would kill her, take her away from him as sure as murder.

  "Elizabeth—"

  "You would have made me see it was the only way. I couldn't let you do that. Jack, I couldn't."

  "Who is the father? Why didn't I know you were seeing someone?"

  New tears sparkled in her eyes, and she shook her head, obviously unable to form the words.

  Jack looked at the tears, fear sudden in his heart, "Beth, tell me, who is the father? Who did this to you?"

  Beth lifted her head. "Please, Jack, don't make me tell you. I'm not ready to tell you, please." Her voice shook with despair, one hand on her belly, the other on her heart, where, Jack knew, the scars were hidden under her thin summer dress.

  Panic rose in him. For so many years, he was the brother, the father figure, the one she always ran to, the one who held her hand as she slept after her last surgery.

  "Did he… force you?" he demanded.

  "No, he— I—"

  "Shh, it's okay." He couldn't do this to her. What would it achieve? Forcing her to face who the father was wasn't going to solve the problem. "Hush, darlin', it'll be okay…"

  She started to rock, not listening to him. "I can't— I can't," she whispered between sobs, turning away and closing her eyes to hide her grief from him. "Please don't make me, I can't. I'm so scared, Jack! I don't want to die, and I don't want to lose my little girl!"

  She was the four-year-old in a hospital bed. She was the ten-year-old sobbing because she couldn't go to normal school like her brothers, and she was the fourteen-year-old who was told she would never carry a baby to term. She was his beautiful baby sister, and Jack could deny her nothing. Leaning up, he eased her into a hug, rubbing soothing patterns on her back, his words slow and careful.

  "It's okay, shhhh, we'll do this together. We'll do this. It'll be fine. Shhhh, baby girl."

  Chapter 5

  Riley glanced once more at the clock. It was three hours and forty-three minutes since Jack had left, and his head was still spinning with the enormity of what he'd done. God! Maybe he was more like his father than he'd ever imagined. This wasn't him. Lost in thought, his fingers curling at the corner of a map, right then he wouldn't have heard if the ceiling had fallen in. Jim was suddenly standing next to him, his hands in his pockets and a concerned look on his face. Riley startled like a spooked deer.

  "How did it go?" the older man asked sympathetically. Riley sank deeper in the couch in a dejected slump. "I'm guessing he didn't agree?"

  Riley was silent, his head down, not wanting to look Jim in the eyes. Guilt was eating away at his insides.

  "Not at first, but I think maybe he will," he finally answered. He flinched when Jim sighed, knowing what was coming next.

  "You used it, didn't you?" There was fury in Jim's voice, and a very present disappointment. "Riley, for God's sake! You said you wouldn't go that far!"

  Riley looked up. "I didn't have a choice, Jim."

  "I'm so disappointed in you, Riley Hayes."

  "Jim—"

  "You went ahead and did exactly what you promised you wouldn't do. You are a better man than this. Much more than your God-damned daddy or your pissant brother."

  "Have you ever thought that maybe I'm no different than them?"

  "You're a good man, a hard worker. Look at what you've done at Hayes Oil."

  "Exactly. Look at what I've done, and look at it being snatched away from me."

  "Your father and the whole break-them-then-make-them shit. You can't let him destroy your self-respect."

  "I had to," Riley said firmly. "I had to use it. Campbell was going to walk."

  Jim moved closer. "You know Steve is never going to forgive you."

  Riley lifted troubled eyes. He knew Steve would disown him if he ever found out it was him who had done this. Steve had talked to Riley in confidence. He snorted. What did he mean, if? That was where Campbell was now, checking on his sister, asking her if it was true, finding out she had kept secrets from him.

  Steve had needed a friend, had talked to Riley in confidence. "Beth is pregnant and I am so scared for her. What do I do?" he'd asked, a hand over his own heart where he wore matching scars to Beth's, a victim of the same fragile pulse as Beth herself. For all that there was ten years between them, Beth was important to Steve and had been since they'd met in the hospital when they were under the same surgeon.

  Riley had been drunk, another night where his failures chased him to drink. He had felt sorry for the Campbell girl that night, given a shoulder to Steve, said all the right things. Then he had forgotten it all as he fucked a blond girl in a backroom, up against paper towels and bleach until she screamed his name, and he lost it with his face buried in her neck. Steve had been hurt that night, had needed a friend, and instead had got something-to-prove-Riley. Riley had apologized the next day, they'd hugged, and nothing more had been said. Not until he'd blurted it out to Jack today, with no remorse but just one purpose. To get him to agree.

  Jim touched him on the shoulder. "I hope it was worth it."

  "Yeah," Riley muttered. "So do I."

  Riley's secretary's voice echoed in the silent room. "Mr Hayes, I know you said no calls, but I have Jack Campbell on line three." Riley said nothing. His teeth worried his lower lip again, and he tasted the metallic tang of blood as he lifted the receiver.

  "D ranch, now. Bring the contract," was how Campbell started, and then he added almost too quietly to hear, "I have terms."

  Chapter 6

  Riley was aware that his coming to the D ranch had to be akin to the enemy at the gate. No one actually knew what had happened all those years before when Donna and Alan had married and Gerald struck oil on his own. But the bitterness, the anger, that Gerald and Alan had filtered to Jeff Hayes, was being carried on with all the delicious enmity that Jeff seemed to enjoy as much as Riley's father. Riley didn't hold the old grudges and couldn't really see why he should. It had all happene
d long ago and was nothing for him to worry about. Still, if he could use it against his dad, then that was a good thing, however he managed it.

  As Riley's low car bumped and scraped over the rutted and potholed track, he cursed that he hadn't thought to drive one of his off-roaders instead. The damage he was surely doing to the red sports car as each hole shook the frame didn't bear thinking about. He felt like a fish out of water, seeing the rough edges of this growing horse operation, and he wondered at the customers who had to traverse the way to get to their horseflesh without damaging their cars.

  He would need to talk to Jack about that one. Maybe they should improve the road. No wonder the Campbells were struggling if this was how prospective buyers were introduced to the ranch.

  He finally reached the main house, a modest two-story L-shaped spread. It curved around a dusty courtyard where several beaten vehicles stood their ground. He switched off the engine, grabbed the folder and climbed out of the car, looking around with a cautious eye. He could see disuse and disrepair juxtaposed with tidy and clean. The house itself was tired and worn, but the windows were bright and clean. The road behind him may well have been pitted and stoned, but the fencing around the paddocks was pristine and white. The horses grazing there were sleek and glossy in the sun. The two barns to one side looked old, but the corral for the training was a match for the paddocks. There were strong contrasts, and it was easy to see that the Campbell money was being ploughed into the horses where it mattered. It smelled of hard work and cut grass, of Texan heat and stubborn courage. Unbidden and unlooked for, the thought suddenly arrived— it was like Jack. Just like Jack.

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