He hadn’t been welcome then, either. But his mission had been the same: revenge. He’d only been twelve at the time. Angry, out for blood, furiously waving a knife. Impulsive, with no plan.
It had taken him twenty years, but he’d learned to control his anger. He was no longer impulsive, and this time he definitely had a plan.
Everything about the house was as he’d remembered it. The hunter-green marble floor, the sweeping walnut staircase and high, paneled walls, the gaudy antique entry table and oversize gilded mirror above it. Dark. As cold and as lifeless as a corpse.
There were ghosts here, Lucas knew. He felt them shiver up his spine. They needed to be put to rest.
“This way, sir.”
He could have told the maid that he knew the way to her employer’s office. That he’d been there before, that he’d tried to kill the man in that very room. He wondered if that would distress the young woman. Knowing how Hadley treated his servants, hell, how he treated everyone, the woman would probably be grateful.
It was when he stepped into Mason’s office, when he saw his portrait over the large oak desk, that he felt it. The rage he’d struggled with all these years. It poured through him, threatened to explode, but he forced it back down, corralled it deep inside of him and stepped away from it.
“Are you all right, Mr.—” She hesitated, realized she hadn’t asked his name.
“I’m fine, Heather.” Lucas had no intention of giving her his name. He wanted to see the surprise on Hadley’s face, the shock, when he recognized his visitor.
Every risk, every gamble, every back-breaking hour of every eighteen-hour day for the past ten years had brought him here, to this very moment. He’d imagined it a thousand times: what he’d feel, what he’d think, what he’d say. What Hadley would do.
At the sound of a car door slam from the driveway outside, Lucas realized he was about to find out.
Julianna Hadley had heard all about the stranger who had come into town. All there was to hear, anyway, which hadn’t been much more than a whisper in the dark. At the drugstore she’d been standing in line behind Roberta Brown, who was arguing with the clerk, Millie Woods, about whether the car the man drove was a Porsche or a Ferrari. The one thing the two women had agreed on was that the car was black and had roared down Main Street and into the parking lot of the Four Winds Inn like a shiny bat out of hell.
Noses had been pressed up to every window within sight of the town’s newest and biggest hotel—a whopping twelve stories high with a fancy restaurant and bar inside. But other than hair as black as his car, no one could make out the man’s features as he unfolded his long body out of the sleek foreign frame, whistled, then handed the keys to Bobby John Gibson, a teenage bellboy whose status amongst his peers was about to rise substantially. After all, no teenager in Wolf River had ever stood within spitting distance of a Porsche or Ferrari, let alone driven one. This was horse and cattle country. Trucks and four-wheeldrives were the vehicles of choice, and of necessity, in Wolf River.
But a black Porsche. Now that was something to set tongues wagging faster than a thirsty dog. Lord knew, a little excitement in Wolf River was just what the town needed.
“What the hell—?”
At the sound of her father’s sudden growl, Julianna pulled herself out of her musing and glanced up.
In their driveway, its chrome gleaming brightly in the late-afternoon sun, its long, sleek body black as polished onyx, sat a brand-new sports car.
A Ferrari.
Her breath hitched, then slowly slid over her parted lips. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“It’s damned foreign,” her father snapped and slammed out of the truck to head for the house.
That makes it no less beautiful, she thought, but knew better than to argue the issue with him. Anything different, anything Mason Hadley didn’t understand, was useless to him.
Packages in hand, Julianna followed her father into the house. Heather stood in the entryway, arms laden with a silver coffee server. The cups rattled from her nervous shaking as Mason hotly berated her for letting a stranger into the house.
“He’s your three-thirty, sir. Said Mr. Cantrell was called out of town.” Eyes downcast, the young woman struggled to steady her hands. “I was bringing him some coffee while he waited.”
“Damn it all to hell,” Mason hissed through his teeth. “That Cantrell fella might have been an idiot when it came to business, but at least I had his number. Smooth brandy and a Cuban cigar and that boy was eating out of my hand. Makes no difference now, I suppose. It’s a done deal. This must be some errand boy, delivering the papers I signed last week.”
An errand boy in a Ferrari? Julianna glanced at the closed office door. Highly unlikely.
“What the hell you standing around for, girl?” Mason shrugged out of his denim jacket. “Go take the boy some coffee.”
“Let me have that, Heather.” Julianna set her packages down and took the tray. “Why don’t you take my things and put them away?”
Thankful for the opportunity to be anywhere but around her employer in a foul mood, Heather smiled at Julianna. “Thank you, ma‘am.”
Julianna sighed at Heather’s formal address. At twenty-nine, Julianna didn’t want to be a ma‘am. It made her feel so old. But then, a lot of things were making her feel old these days. A couple walking hand in hand, pictures of brides and babies, the sound of cheers from the Little League field at the edge of town.
All the things she would never have.
Shrugging off the thought, she followed her father to his office. He’d been negotiating with First Mutual Financial for the past two months and had been gloating ever since he’d finally signed the papers, puffed up with self-admiration that he’d finagled such a low interest rate. What First Mutual hadn’t known was that he’d been so anxious for the deal to go through he would have signed anything. After the drop in value of some stocks, and the rise in price of grain and the fall in beef, he’d desperately needed the loan to cover losses and raise operating capital. She knew that he’d also been quite full of himself at his successful manipulation of figures and falsified statements, had even laughed that Adam Cantrell, the loan representative, was too stupid to find his way out of a corral, let alone find a discrepancy in a profit-andloss.
Which was strange, because she hadn’t thought the man stupid at all, even though she’d only spoken with him a few minutes once or twice. If anything, he’d seemed extremely sharp.
It made no difference to her either way. The only thing that mattered, that had ever mattered, was her own five acres of land and house on the south edge of the Double H property. That was the one thing, the only thing, her mother had left to her when she’d died that her father hadn’t gotten his hands on. It had been almost a year since the funeral, and he’d managed to stonewall her from repairing and moving into the old house, but he hadn’t gained title. And she would do anything to ensure he never would.
Mason turned sharply at the door of his office and looked at Julianna. “Just serve the damn coffee, then leave us alone. Last thing I need is a woman underfoot when I’m trying to do business.”
