Men to Trust: Boss Man / The Last Good Man in Texas / Lonetree Ranchers: Brant
He shook his head. What a pity that people had children before they thought about the consequences. They never improved a bad marriage. Kemp’s clientele shot that truth home every time he handled a divorce case. The children were always the ones who suffered most.
Beka Wright had never admitted it, and Kemp never pried, but local gossip had it that Duke had deliberately hidden her birth control pills at a critical time, hoping that a baby would cure her of ambition. It hadn’t. He was an overbearing sort of man, who expected a woman to do exactly what he told her to do. His father had been the same, a domineering autocrat whose poor wife had walked in a cold rain with pneumonia while he was out of town one January weekend in a last, fatal attempt to escape him. Death had spared her further abuse. Duke had grown up with that same autocratic attitude and assumed that it was the way a normal man dealt with his wife. He was learning to his cost that marriage meant compromise.
Blake looked around at his house with its Western motifs, burgundy leather mingling with dark oak and cherry wood furniture. The carpet and the curtains were earth tones. He enjoyed a quiet atmosphere after the turmoil of his working life. But he wondered what a woman would do with the décor.
Mee curled her claws into his arm. He winced, and moved them. She was sound asleep, but when she felt his hand on her, she snuggled closer and started purring.
He laughed softly. No, he wasn’t the marrying sort. He was a gourmet cook. He did his own laundry and housework. He could sew on a button or make a bed. Like most other ex-special forces officers, he was independent and self-sufficient. A veteran of the first war with Iraq, he mustered out with the rank of captain. He’d been in the Army reserves after he graduated from law school and started practicing in Jacobsville, and his unit had been called up. He and Cag Hart had served in the same mechanized division. Few people knew that, because he and Cag didn’t talk much about the missions they’d shared. It forged bonds that noncombatants could not understand.
He reached for the remote control and changed the channel. He paused on the weather channel to see when the rain was going to stop, and then went on to the History channel, where he spent most of his free time in the evenings. He often thought that if he ever came across a woman who enjoyed military history, he might be coaxed into rejoining the social scene.
But then he remembered the woman he’d lost, and the ache started all over again. He turned up the volume and leaned back, his mind shifting to the recounting of Alexander the Great’s final successful campaign against the Persian king Darius in 331 B.C. at Gaugemela.
Violet was late getting home the following Friday. She’d stopped by the gym and then remembered that there was no milk in the house. She’d gone by the grocery store as well. When she pulled up into the driveway of the small, rickety rental house, she found her mother sitting on the ground beside the small flower garden at the porch steps. Mrs. Hardy wasn’t moving.
Panicking, Violet jumped out of her car without bothering to close the door, and ran toward her parent.
“Mama!” she screamed.
Her mother jerked, just faintly. Her blue eyes were startled as she turned her head and looked at her daughter. She was breathing heavily. But she laughed. “Darling, it’s all right!” she said at once. “I just got winded, that’s all! I’m all right!”
Violet knelt beside her. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Her face was white. She was shaking.
“Oh, baby.” Mrs. Hardy winced as she reached out and cuddled Violet close, whispering soft endearments. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to weed my flower bed and put out those little seedlings I’d grown in the kitchen window. I just worked a little too hard, that’s all. See? I’m fine.”
Violet pulled back, terrified. Her mother was all she had in the world. She loved her so much. How would she go on living if she lost her mother? That fear was written all over her.
Mrs. Hardy winced when she saw it. She hugged Violet close. “Violet,” she said sadly, “one day you’ll have to let me go. You know that.”
“I’m not ready yet,” Violet sobbed.
Mrs. Hardy sighed. She kissed Violet’s dark hair. “I know,” she murmured, her eyes faraway as they looked toward the horizon. “Neither am I.”
Later, as they sat over bowls of hot soup and fresh corn bread, Mrs. Hardy studied her daughter with concern.
“Violet, are you sure you’re happy working at Duke Wright’s place?” she asked.
“Of course I am,” Violet said stolidly.
“I think Mr. Kemp would like it if you went back to work with him.”
Violet stared at her with her spoonful of soup in midair. “Why would you say that, Mama?”
“Mabel, who works at your office, stopped by to see me at lunch. She says Mr. Kemp is so moody they can hardly work with him anymore. She said she thinks he misses you.”
Violet’s heart jumped. “That wasn’t how he sounded when I ran into him in the post office the other day,” she said. “But he was acting…oddly.”
The older woman smiled over her soup spoon. “Often men don’t know what they want until they lose it.”
“Bring on the day.” Violet laughed softly.
“So, dear, back to my first question. Do you like your new job?”
She nodded. “It’s challenging. I don’t have to deal with sad, angry, miserable people whose lives are in pieces. You know, I didn’t realize until I changed jobs how depressing it is to work in a law office. You see such tragedies.”
“I suppose cattle are a lot different.”
“There’s just so much to learn,” Violet agreed. “It’s so complex. There are so many factors that produce good beef. I thought it was only a matter of putting bulls and heifers in the same pasture and letting nature do its work.”
“It isn’t?” her mother asked, curious.
Violet grinned. “Want to know how it works?”
“Yes, indeed.”
So Violet spent the next half hour walking her mother, hy-pothetically speaking, through the steps involved in creating designer beef.
“Well!” the elderly woman exclaimed. “It isn’t simple at all.”
“No, it isn’t. The records are so complicated…”
The sudden ringing of the telephone interrupted Violet. She frowned. “It’s probably another telemarketer,” she muttered. “I wish we could afford one of those new answering machines and caller ID.”
“One day a millionaire will walk in the front door carrying a glass slipper and an engagement ring,” Mrs. Hardy ventured with a mischievous glance.
Violet laughed as she got up and went to answer the phone. “Hardy residence,” she said in her light, friendly tone.
“Violet?”
It was Kemp! She had to catch her breath before she could even answer him. “Yes, sir?” she stammered.
He hesitated. “I have to talk to you and your mother. It’s important. May I come over?”
Violet’s mind raced. The house was a mess. She was a mess. She was wearing jeans and a shirt that didn’t fit. Her hair needed washing. The living room needed vacuuming…!
“Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Hardy called.
“It’s Mr. Kemp, Mama. He says he needs to speak to us.”
“Isn’t it nice that we have some of that pound cake left?” Mrs. Hardy wondered aloud. “Tell him to come right on, dear.”
Violet ground her teeth together. “It’s all right,” she told Kemp.
“Fine. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up before Violet could ask him what he wanted.
She turned worriedly to her mother. “Do you think it might be something about me coming back to work for him?”
“Who can say? You should wash your hair, dear. You’ll have just enough time.”
“Not to do that and vacuum and pick up around the living room,” she wailed.
“Violet, the chores can wait,” her mother replied amusedly. “You can’t. Go, girl!”
Violet turned like a zombie and went right to the bathroom to wash her hair. By the time she heard Kemp pulling up in the driveway, she had on a nice low-cut short-sleeved blue sweater and clean white jeans. Her hair was clean and she left it down, because she didn’t have time to braid it. She was wearing bedroom shoes, but that wasn’t going to matter, she decided.
She opened the door.
Kemp gave her a quiet going-over with his pale blue eyes. But he didn’t remark about her appearance. He was scowling. “I have something to say that your mother needs to hear, but I don’t want to upset her.”
There went her dreams of being rehired. “What is it about?” she asked.
He drew in a sharp breath. “Violet, I want to have your father exhumed. I think Janet Collins killed him.”
Chapter Three
Violet wasn’t sure she was hearing right. She knew there was something going on with Janet Collins. Curt had come by her office when he carried a note to Duke from Jordan Powell, his boss. He’d told her that he and Libby were going to have to have their father exhumed because there were suspicions that Janet, their stepmother, might have killed him. She was suspected of killing at least one other elderly man by poison. Violet and her mother knew about the waitress Mr. Hardy had had his fling with. But they’d never questioned the cause of death. And they’d never found out who the waitress was. Now, a lot of questions she hadn’t wanted even to ask were suddenly being answered.
Her lips parted on a husky sigh. “Oh, dear.”
Kemp closed the door behind him and tilted Violet’s chin up to his eyes. “I don’t want to do this,” he said softly. “But there’s a very good chance that your father was murdered, Violet. You don’t want Janet Collins to get away with it, if she’s guilty. Neither do I.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “But what about Mama?”
He drew in a long breath. “I have to have her signature. I can’t do it on yours alone.”
They exchanged worried looks.
His eyes suddenly narrowed on her oval face in its frame of dark hair. Her skin was clean and bright. She wasn’t wearing makeup, except a touch of pink lipstick. And that sweater…His eyes slid down to her breasts with quiet sensuality. They narrowed, as he appreciated how deliciously full-breasted she was. She had a small waist, too. The jeans emphasized the nicely rounded contours of her hips.
“I’ve lost weight!” she blurted out.
“Don’t lose any more,” he murmured absently. “You’re perfect.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Sir?” she stammered.
“If I weren’t a confirmed bachelor, you’d make my mouth water,” he replied quietly, and the eyes that met hers were steady, intent.
Her heart began racing. Her knees were weak. He wasn’t blind. Any minute, he was going to notice her helpless, headlong reaction.
“But I am a confirmed bachelor,” he added firmly, as much for his own benefit as for hers. “And this isn’t the time, anyway. May I come in?”
“Of course.” She closed the door behind him, unsettled by what he’d said.
“I planned to come by your office and tell you,” he said, his voice low, “but I got caught at the last minute and by the time I finished with an upset client, you’d already left Wright’s place. I’d hoped to have a little time to prepare you for what we have to do.” He glanced toward the living room door. “How is she?” he asked.
She bit her lower lip. “She’s had a slight spell this week,” she told him worriedly. “She thinks she’s stronger than she really is. Losing Daddy and finding out about his affair ruined her life.”
He bit back a harsh reply. “Should we have the doctor here while I tell her?”
She sighed wearily. “I don’t think it will matter.” She looked up at him. “She has to know. I don’t want Janet Collins to get away with murder. Neither will she. We both loved Daddy, in our way.”
“All right then.” He nodded for her to go ahead of him and he followed her into the room.
Her mother looked up and smiled. “Mr. Kemp! How nice to see you again!”
He smiled, pausing in front of her to shake her hand gently. “It’s good to see you, too, Mrs. Hardy. But I’m afraid I may have some upsetting news.”
She put down her knitting and sat up straight. “My daughter thinks I’m a marshmallow,” she said with an impish look at Violet. “But I’m tougher than I look, despite my rickety blood vessels.” She set her lips firmly. “You just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll do what I have to.”
His blue eyes twinkled. “You are a tough nut, aren’t you?” he teased.
She grinned at him, looking far younger than she was. “You bet. Go on. Spill it.”
His smile faded. Violet sat on the arm of her mother’s chair.
“It must be bad, if you’re both expecting me to keel over,” she said. “It’s something about Janet Collins, isn’t it?”
Violet gasped. Kemp’s eyebrows arched over the frames of his glasses.
“I’m not a petunia. I don’t just hang on the porch all the time,” Mrs. Hardy informed them. “I get my hair done, I go to the doctor’s office, I see a lot of people. I know that Libby and Curt Collins are up to their ears in trouble about their stepmother, and there’s a lot of talk that she’s been linked to the death of an old man in a nursing home. They said she took every penny he had. And then she went on to cheat Arthur and me out of our savings, a quarter of a million dollars. It wasn’t ever proven that it was her.”
“I’ve found an eyewitness who thinks she can place Janet Collins at the motel with Arthur the last day of his life,” Kemp told her, “just before the ambulance came to take him to the hospital. She ran out the door and was seen. At the hospital the doctor, not aware of any foul play, diagnosed a heart attack from the symptoms. There was no autopsy.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Hardy said. She gave her audience a knowing look. “And you think she killed him, don’t you?” she asked Kemp.
He was impressed. “Yes, I do,” he told her honestly.
“I didn’t want to think about that, but I’ve had my doubts,” she said. “He never had heart trouble. There had been some mixup at a clinic in San Antonio and he ended up getting a heart catherization that he didn’t really need. What it showed was that his heart and arteries were in fine shape, no blockages at all. So it came as something of a surprise when he died only a month later of a supposed heart attack. But I was far too upset at his affair and his sudden death to think clearly.”
“If it’s any consolation, Janet Collins had a way with men,” Kemp replied. “She was known for playing up to older men, and she isn’t a bad-looking woman. Most men react predictably to a head-on assault.”
Violet was wondering irrelevantly if it would work with Kemp, but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind.
“Arthur had strayed before,” Mrs. Hardy said surprisingly, and with an apologetic glance at Violet. “He was a handsome, vital man, and I was always quiet and shy and rather ordinary.”
“You weren’t ordinary,” Violet protested.
“My people were very wealthy, dear,” she told her daughter sadly. “And Arthur was ambitious. He wanted his own accounting firm, and I helped him get it. Not that he didn’t work hard, but he’d never have made it without my backing. I think that hurt his pride. Maybe his…affairs…were a way of proving to himself that he could still appeal to beautiful women even as he got older. I’m sorry, Violet,” she added, patting her daughter’s thigh. “But parents are human, too. Arthur did love you, and he tried to be a good father, even if he wasn’t a good husband.”
Violet clenched her teeth. She could only imagine how it would have felt to her, if she’d been married and her husband thought nothing of having affairs with other women.
“By the time Arthur started straying,” Mrs. Hardy continued, “I was too fragile to leave him and strike out on my own. There was Violet, who needed both her parents and a stable environment. And I could no longer take care of myself. Arthur paid a price to stay with me, under the circumstances. I don’t really blame him for what he did.”
She did, though, and it showed. Violet hugged her close. “I blame him,” she murmured.
“So do I,” Kemp said, surprisingly firm. “Any honorable man would have asked for a divorce before getting involved with another woman.”
“Why, you Puritan,” Mrs. Hardy accused with a smile.
“I’ve got company,” he jerked his thumb at Violet.
Mrs. Hardy laughed. She folded her hands in her lap. “Okay, so we’ve settled that Arthur probably had an affair with Janet Collins and she may have been responsible for his death. But unless he’s exhumed, and an autopsy done, we can’t prove it. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Mr. Kemp?”
“You’re amazing, Mrs. Hardy,” Kemp replied with admiration in his pale blue eyes.
“I’m perceptive. Ask Violet.” The smile faded. “When do you want to do it?”
“As soon as possible. I’ll make the arrangements, if you’re willing. There will be papers to sign. It may make news as well.”
“I can manage. So can Violet,” Mrs. Hardy assured him, smiling up at her daughter.
“I can,” Violet assured him. “We’ll both do whatever’s necessary. Whatever Daddy did, she had no right to kill him.”
“Very well.” Kemp got up from the sofa and shook hands with Mrs. Hardy one last time. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got things underway. You’re taking this very well.”
“Surprised you, did I?” The elderly woman chuckled.
He nodded. “Pleasantly, at that,” he said, adding a smile. “I’ll see you.” He glanced at Violet. “Walk me to the door.”
She got up and followed him out into the hall, her eyes wide and curious on his face.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked down at her for a long moment with narrow, intent eyes.
“I’ll let you know the details as soon as I work them out with the proper authorities,” he told her. “You think she’ll handle it all right?” he added, alluding to her mother.
“She will,” Violet replied with certainty. She looked up at him with soft, hungry eyes. “How is everything at work?”
He grimaced. “I have to make the coffee myself,” he muttered. “Mabel and Libby don’t make it strong enough. And Mabel is ready to tear her hair out over the extra work. So I guess we’ll be advertising for a new secretary.”
Violet didn’t notice that he had a hopeful, anticipatory look on his face, because her eyes were downcast. She thought he was criticizing her for leaving him in the lurch, and after he’d all but forced her out of his office.
She squared her shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll find someone to suit you, Mr. Kemp,” she said in a subdued tone.
The formality and her lack of interest irritated him. He opened the door with a jerk. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, and left without even looking back.
Violet closed the door behind him, forcing herself not to look hungrily at his departing back as he left. She’d hoped just for a few seconds that he might be offering her back her old job. That was obviously not the case.
Kemp climbed into his car, irritable and unsettled by Violet’s lack of response when he’d practically laid her old job at her feet. Duke Wright wasn’t bad-looking, and he had an eye for a pretty woman. He was all but divorced now, too. Violet was attractive. He hoped Wright wasn’t trying to turn her head. He was going to check into that. For Violet’s own good, of course. He wasn’t interested in her himself.
Involuntarily, his mind went back eight years, to the only woman he’d really ever loved. Shannon Culbertson had been eighteen the year they started dating. It had been love at first sight for both of them. Kemp, who was already a junior partner in a local law firm, having graduated from college late at the age of twenty-eight, was in practice with Shannon’s uncle. They met at the office and started dating. Within a month, they knew they were going to be married one day. Shannon had gone to a party with a girlfriend, at Julie Merrill’s house. Nobody understood why Julie wanted her worst enemy at the bash, least of all Shannon—but she thought maybe Julie was willing to bury the hatchet over the rivalry of the two girls for senior president. Someone, probably Julie herself, had put a forerunner of the date rape drug into Shannon’s soft drink. She had an undiagnosed heart condition, and the drug had killed her.
It still hurt Kemp to remember the aftermath. He’d mourned her for months, blamed Julie, tried to have her arrested for the crime. But her father was a state senator and wealthy. The case never got to trial, despite Kemp’s best efforts.
He still resented the Merrills. He missed Shannon. But since Violet had come to work for him, he’d thought less and less about his old love. In the mornings, he’d looked forward to Violet’s smiling, happy face in his office. He was afraid of the feeling he got when she nurtured him. He didn’t ever want to risk loving someone again. Tragedy had hallmarked his life. He’d had a sister, Dolores, who’d died in a swimming accident his senior year of high school. His mother had died of cancer soon afterward. There had only been the two of them, because his father had gone overseas to work for an oil company in the Middle East when he was only a child, fallen in love with a French woman, and divorced his mother. He had no contact with his father. He had no interest in him.
The experiences of his life had taught him that love was dangerous, and so was getting too used to people. Violet was still infatuated with him, but she’d get over it, he told himself firmly. Better to let her go. She was young and impressionable. She’d find someone else. Perhaps Duke Wright…
His teeth clenched hard on the thought. It was strangely uncomfortable to think of Violet in some other man’s arms. Very uncomfortable.
Violet looked up from her typing one morning at the sound of approaching voices, and was surprised to find Curt Collins, Libby Collins’s brother, standing at her desk.
“Curt’s just joined the operation, Violet,” Duke Wright told her with a grin. “We’ve stolen him from Jordan Powell.”
“It wasn’t much of a steal,” Curt drawled with a grim smile. “I quit my job. Jordan’s changed lately.”
“Curt’s going to help with the cattle operation,” Duke told Violet. “If he needs any information, you can give it directly to him without having to ask me first,” he added with a smile.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Come on, Curt, I’ll show you around the rest of the operation,” the older cattleman beckoned.
“See you later, Violet,” Curt murmured.
She nodded, smiling. She watched them leave, frowning. Libby was crazy about Jordan Powell, and Curt had worked for him for years. What in the world was going on?
Curt came by just as she was getting her things together. “I suppose you’re wondering how I landed here,” he said.
She nodded. “It’s a bit of a surprise,” she replied.
“Have you talked to Kemp lately?”
Her heart jumped just at the sound of his name, but she recovered quickly. “No. I haven’t spoken to him for a week or two, I guess.”
“There’s been some unpleasantness, shall we say, between Libby and Julie Merrill.”
Violet looked blank. “I wasn’t aware that they even knew each other,” she replied.
“They’re not even acquaintances,” Curt agreed. “But Julie wants Jordan, and Libby was getting in the way.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, Julie attacked Libby and Jordan didn’t stand up for her. Jordan made some nasty remarks to Libby.” He shrugged. “I’m not working for any man who bad-mouths my sister.”
“I don’t blame you one bit. Poor Libby!”
“She can take care of herself on good days,” he said. “But Julie has some unsavory friends. Sadly for her, she walked into Kemp’s office while Libby was there.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled. “You don’t know, do you? There’s bad blood between Kemp and Julie. She had a party at her house eight years ago and invited Shannon Culbertson, who was all but engaged to Kemp at the time. There was a rivalry between Shannon and Julie for a class office at school. Somebody put something in Shannon’s drink. She died. Julie got the office.”