Leslie LaFoy Read Free Page B

shoulders, width. He wore a dark charcoal-colored suit, and while the lines of it were a season or two past truly fashionable, it clearly spoke of a good tailor, conservative taste, and a powerful physique. Heavy-heeled boots, she noted. They'd been polished, but no amount of lampblack would ever cover the scuffs on the insides of each. He held a large, relatively flat-brimmed black hat in his hands and the expression on his face told her he didn't want to be there. She knew how he felt.
    “Allow me to present Mr. Jackson Stennett,” Otis said too loudly, turning to wave the man farther into the room. “Mr. Stennett is a citizen of the Republic of Texas. Mr. Stennett, may I present Miss Lindsay MacPhaull and Mr. Richard Patterson.”
    He had dark hair and intelligent brown eyes, she noted as he stepped toward her. High cheekbones, too, and a solid, square jaw.
Definitely handsome
, Lindsay thought as he barely nodded.
    “Ma'am,” he said, the word rolling off his tongue in a way that was somehow both lazy and hard-edged.
    From somewhere deep inside her a voice whispered,
and dangerous.
Puzzling the notion, she watched Jackson Stennett step forward and extend his right hand across the desk toward Richard Patterson.
    “You're a long way from Texas,” Richard observed pleasantly, shaking the offered hand. “What brings you to this part of the world, Mr. Stennett?”
    Stennett took a step back from the desk and squared his massive shoulders. His chin came up and Lindsay thought she saw anger flash briefly in his eyes.
    Otis Vanderhagen didn't give Stennett a chance to reply. Pulling a thrice-folded document from the inside pocket of his coat, the attorney thundered,
“William's dead,”
and thrust the paper toward Richard. “Mr. Stennett has presented a copy of a recently dated Last Will and Testament.”
    As Richard opened the document and began to read, Lindsay turned the announcement over in her mind, searching for her feelings regarding the news. Her father was dead. Seventeen years ago she would have cared. His death now was no more final than his departure had been then.
    She'd grieved his loss when she'd been eight years old, crying herself to sleep at night and offering God whatever He wanted in exchange for her father returning home. But her father hadn't come back, and her life had gone on without him. Now … She didn't have any tears left to shed for William MacPhaull.
    Jackson watched the emotions play across her face: mild shock, a wistful sadness, and then cool, deliberate detachment. His gut, already tight, clenched another degree as what had been a niggling suspicion moved closer to certainty. If Billy had done what he thought he had …
Better to get it all out in the open and know for sure
, he told himself. Shifting his hold on his hat, Jackson met Lindsay MacPhaull's gaze and said quietly, “My sincere condolences on your father's passing, ma'am. He was a good man.”
    She studied him, her blue eyes darkening, her heartbeat pounding along the slender column of her neck. After a long moment, she arched a slim brow and said, “Good men don't abandon their families, Mr. Stennett.”
    Jackson shifted his gaze to the window and gritted his teeth. Damn Billy to hell and back. How many more ugly surprises were out there waiting for him to find? First had been the revelation in the Will that Billy had lived his last seventeen years under an assumed name. The second had been Vanderhagen's announcement just over an hour ago that Billy had three children. And now to learn that Billy had burnt the bridges when he'd headed off to Texas. Jesus. A
mess
didn't even begin to describe what Billy had left behind.
    Anger crawled through Jackson's veins. Of all the godawful predicaments he'd ever been in, this one ranked right near the top of the list. Billy had given him the means of saving the ranch—provided he was willing to take a legacy that wasn't rightfully his.
    Jackson glanced back at the crippled man