but Hayden Monroe will be fine. There’s a question about him ever walking without a limp, but he’ll survive.”
“He’s at County?” Nadine asked, involuntarily reaching for her purse.
“That’s right.”
She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “I hate to do this, missy,” he said, his voice rasping with regret, “but you’re not going anywhere.”
“I’ve got to go....” She felt everyone’s eyes on her.
“You’re grounded,” her father said. “Don’t even ask me for how long ’cause I can’t begin to tell you. Now you listen hear, young lady. There’ll be no more sneaking out. Until Hayden Monroe is transferred to a hospital in San Francisco to be with his own doctors, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me, Nadine. Believe me, I know best.” His faded eyes held hers. “I’ve learned my lesson about the Monroes the hard way, and I’m not going to stand by and see you get hurt.”
Panic surged through her. “I won’t—”
“You heard me. That’s it. We won’t speak of it again. As far as I’m concerned, you’re to forget you ever met Hayden Monroe.”
BOOK TWO
San Francisco, California
The Present
Chapter Five
MIST GATHERED OVER the tombstone, and the sod, recently turned, smelled fresh and earthy. Chilled to the bone, Hayden shoved his hands in his pockets. Sleet drizzled past the upturned collar of his old leather jacket and dripped from his bare head and nose.
He stared at the final resting place of his father, strewn with roses and carnations and lilies, and he whispered under his breath, “I hope you got what you deserved, you miserable bastard.”
A lump filled his throat and his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. Hayden Garreth Monroe III had been a pathetic excuse of a father. He’d shown his son no love, nor kind words—only strict discipline and upper-crust values.
From his pocket, Hayden withdrew a leather baseball, autographed by Reggie Jackson, and hurled it into the soil. The ball wedged deeply, nearly buried with the old man. Fitting, Hayden thought bitterly. His father had paid a fortune for that baseball, given it to Hayden and never once played catch with his only son. He’d never had the time, nor the inclination.
“Rest in peace,” Hayden muttered, before turning and never once looking over his shoulder.
His old Jeep was idling at the curb, and Hayden slid into the torn driver’s seat, wrenching the wheel and gunning the accelerator. Leo, a battle-scarred Lab and his best friend in the world—perhaps his only friend—was seated in the backseat. “One more stop,” Hayden informed the dog. “Then we’re history around here.”
Driving through the gates of the cemetery, he headed into the city for yet another ordeal—a meeting with William Bradworth, of Smythe, Mills and Bradworth, his father’s attorneys.
* * *
BRADWORTH’S PRIVATE SUITE fairly reeked of blue blood and big bucks. From the mahogany walls to the leather club chairs situated stiffly around a massive desk, the rooms were meant to invite conversation about money, money and more money. Even the view of San Francisco Bay didn’t disturb the Wall Street atmosphere that some high-priced decorator had tried to transfer from East Coast to West.
The phony ambience made Hayden sick.
Shifting restlessly in his chair, he glanced from the balding pate of William Bradworth to the window where sleet was sluicing down the glass and the sky was the color of steel.
Bradworth’s voice was a monotone droning on and on. “...so you see, Mr. Monroe, except for the money that’s been set aside for your mother, her house, her car and jewelry, you’ve inherited virtually everything your father owned.”
“I thought he cut me out a few years back.”
Bradworth cleared his throat. “He did. Later, however, Garreth had a change of heart.”
“Big of him,” Hayden muttered.
“I think so, yes.”
“Well, I don’t want it. Not one damned piece of rough-cut lumber, not one red cent of the old man’s money, not one stinking oil well. You got that?”
“But you’ve just been left a fortune—”
“What I’ve been left, Bradworth, is a ball and chain, a reminder that my father wanted to control me when he was alive and is still trying to run my life from the grave.” Hayden gave a cursory glance to his copy of the last will and testament of Hayden Garreth Monroe III, lying open on the polished desk. He slid the damned document toward his father’s arrogant son-of-a-bitch of an attorney. “It won’t work.”
“But—”
Standing, Hayden planted both of his tanned hands on William Bradworth’s desk and leaned forward, his gaze drilling into the bland features of a man who had worked for his father for years. “I didn’t want the company when the old man was alive,” he said in a calm voice, “and I sure as hell don’t want it now.”
“I don’t see that you have much choice.” Always unflappable, Bradworth leaned back in his chair, putting some distance between himself and Hayden’s imposing, aggressive stance. Tenting his hands under his chin, like a minister ready to impart marital advice, he suggested, “You can sell the corporation, of course, but that takes time and you’ll have to deal with your uncle—”
Hayden grimaced at the mention of Thomas Fitzpatrick.
“Tom owns a considerable amount of shares. Meanwhile the employees will want to keep getting paid and, unless you want to close the doors and put those people on the unemployment rolls, Monroe Sawmill Company will keep turning out thousands of board feet of lumber from the mills.”
Hayden’s back teeth ground together. Even from the grave, the old man seemed to have him over a barrel. Hayden didn’t have much love for Gold Creek, where the oldest and largest of the mills was located, but he didn’t hate the people who lived there. Some of them were good, salt-of-the-earth types who’d worked for the corporation for years. Thrown out of work, they’d have no place to turn. A fifty-five-year-old millwright couldn’t be expected to go back to school for vocational training. The whole damned town depended upon that mill one way or another. Even the people who worked at Fitzpatrick Logging Company needed a sawmill where they could sell the cut timber. The banks, the shops, the cafés, the taverns, even the churches depended upon the mill to keep the economy of that small town afloat. It was the same with the other small towns around the smaller mills he now owned.
With the feeling that he was slowly drowning, Hayden said, “Look, Bradworth, I know about selling companies. I just got rid of a logging operation in Klamath Falls, Oregon. So there must be some way to get rid of the mills around Gold Creek.”
The attorney drew
