Acquiring Trouble (10 page)

"I never tried a frying pan, I always
,
accid
ently
of course, dropped
a horse
shoe on
Beauford's
foot,
" Katelyn's grandmother, Mrs. Wyatt, respon
ded in her slow Georgian drawl.

"Well, a woman's
gotta
do what a woman's
gotta
do." Miss Daisy said as she started to pick up empty cake plates.

"Oh fidd
le
dee
, put that down Daisy Mae. T
his is my house and you're not cleaning up my granddaughter's wedding shower. Now sit down a spell and enjoy yourself."

"Well, now that the shower is over and most of the people
are gone
, I have something I want to know about,"
Kenna
said as she took a seat next to her best friend,
Danielle De Lucca Ali
Rahman
, who became the princess of
Rahmi
when she married
Mohtadi
Ali
Rahman
, or Mo to everyone who knew him.
Dani
had just found out she was pregnant at Christmas, but
wasn’t
yet showing.

"Oh! Gossip, do tell," Kate
ly
n giggled as she too joined the circle.

"Don't start without us
!" Paige Davies Parker shouted from the other side of the room along with her similarly
baby-
toting
sister-in-law, Annie Blake Davies.
Little So
phie and Ryan
weren’t
quite three
weeks old yet and
were
enjoying being fussed over at
their first outing.

"Well,"
Kenna
began, "
Last week
when I was in town a black Mercedes pulled up
at
the courthou
se. I thought it was
Dani
or Mo,
and so I waved and waited for you to get out. Only, it wasn't you."

"Who was this impostor
?"
Dani
teased.

"Some woman with black hair and eyes so dark blue that they actually appeared to be violet. She looked l
ike Elizabeth Taylor
and with the diva attitude to match! Who is
she?"
Kenna
asked.

"She's my sister," Pam said as she sat down with a glass
of Rose sister special ice
d
tea.

"I never knew you had a sister."
Kenna
leaned forward along with
Dani
, Annie, and Katelyn. Paige however, just scowled.

"I haven't seen her for seventeen years now."

"Too bad it couldn't have been another seventeen," Paige sneered.

"Paige! I've only heard you talk that way about
Kandi
and her sultry ways. What's this person ever done?" Katelyn asked as she took a tiny sip of the tea. She'd learned her lesson
about
the Rose sis
ters' drinks. They were potent.

"She destroyed Miles'
s
life!" Paige exclaimed.

"She wasn't very nice or good growing up," Pam's motherly voice cut in, "She had a crush on Miles and kissed him on her last night here.
His
girlfriend walked in and saw it. She broke up with him because of Morgan. It seems Morgan ruins whatever she touches."

"Geez Pam, that doesn't sound like you
either
. What is it about her that makes people who are so open and nice
talk
so harshly?"
Kenna
shook her head and look
ed from Pam to Paige.

"She was a bad apple," Miss Lily put in. "She stole little things from the store, she
vandal
ized some properties with paint, knocked over trash cans and so on.
"

"She pierced her eyebrow and dyed her
hair purple," Miss Daisy added
.

"She tortured my father by acting up
constantly. She wore my mother's nerves out.
She not only broke up Miles and Stacy, but she made my boyfriend break up with me too.
Then she just up
and left graduation night and was never seen or heard from
again
until she waltzed back into town last week.
She never even came back for my mother's funeral or my father's wh
en he passed a
few years later," Pam explained.
"But, my parents wer
e very hard on her. Now that I’
m a mother, I see that
maybe they were a little too harsh on her. I just don't know, can someone really change?"

"I’
ve been thinking the same thing," Miss Lily shook her head, "I yelled at her and hit her with my broom that night when I caught her messing with
my roses before she left town
. I don't know what's she's been doing all these years, but she appears to be very successful, even with a big chip on her shoulder."

"And, every year on the date of my mother's death,
there’s
a fresh bouquet of red roses placed on her grave," Pam told them.

"Do you think
it's
Morgan?"
Dani
asked, getting more into the legend of Morgan.

"
I don't know. I don't know what to think or how to handle having her back in town," Pam shrugged.

"Well, you may be in doubt, but
I’m
not. Miles was heartbroken over losing Stacy. I don't know if he ever recovered. He certainly hasn’t had any long
-
term relationships since then." Paige scowled
as she rocked Ryan to sleep in her arms
.

"
I think she sounds interesting. M
aybe I just need to get to know her. You know, one bad girl to another," Annie laughed.

"
Pish
Posh
, you're not bad!" Miss Lily smacked Anni
e's leg and Annie just laughed.

There was a lot about her life that no one knew. She had a feeling
she
and Morgan would get along great.

*
    
*
    
*

Miles hung up the phone and raked his
fingers through his hair. In two
week
s
Morgan Hamilton ha
d
swayed thirty
of his farmers to her s
ide while he only convinced twenty-three.
He
wasn’t
used to losing, and he wasn't going to this time, even if he couldn't stop thinking about grabbing that long black hair and wrapping it around his hand as he pull
ed her head back
for a blazing kiss
that would leave her quivering.

Bill howled and
Miles opened his eyes and readjusted his pants before the door to his office opened. He was sure Claire had
scheduled
more appointments with his members, so he was surprised when he saw his youngest brother walk in instead.

"Bill, quiet." The little dog stopped his howling and laid back down, putting his gray face on his stubby little legs
before falling back to sleep.

"Miles, do you know you have a dog in your office?"
Peirce looked skeptically
at the dog. "And is he wearing a bandana?"

"Yes.
He’s
easy
to miss being so close to the ground an
d
all, but that long tail is lethal when he wags it.
As for the bandana, I had one from when we go riding. It just seems right for him, don't you think?
"

"I'm glad I came then.
One,
you’re
not a dog person. Two, Morgan's be
en in town for a week and you’
ve disappeared since then. I know Marshall is who you normally talk to and he's tied up with all the last minute details for the wedding next month
, and Cade is all baby talk nowadays.
A
nd Cy, well, who knows what he's doing
?
So, I thought the responsibility fell to me to come check on you."

Miles looked up at his baby brother and almost laughed. Pierce was ten years younger than him and was just a kid when he went off to join the Rangers. He still thought of him that way even though
Pierce
had just bought his first farm and was in the process of rebuilding the old farmhouse by hand while he cleared the land. Miles
and the rest of his brothers had
even turned over control of their farming to him for the past five years, but it was hard to think of him
as a confide
nt
adult
.

"Tell Ma I'm fine, just busy."

"You thin
k Ma sent me? I came because I’
m the only one
who’s
noticing you'r
e not yourself. What's going on?
I’m shocked you’ve decided to keep this
mutt.
"

"Bill was sitting on my front porch
this fall and has just decided to hang around
. He's a pretty co
ol dog. Nothing is going on. I’
m just working hard to meet with the farmers to try to get a con
sensus on blocking this takeover
." Miles started to get agitated. Who was
Pierce
to think he knew anything about this?

"Well, Morgan paid me a visit this morning. She put forth a real good argument
for Top Producers
.
Bigger contracts, more bargaining power, lobbying efforts in Washington to help farmers…
"

"What?" Miles shot up in his seat. Oh, this meant war. Morgan went to
his own
family to try to force the
so-called merger
!

"Yup. I learned her high points and her weakness
es
, but I guess you're too busy to hear what
your
little
brother has to say."

Miles softened his face. Pierce seemed to have picked up on his lack of
enthusiasm
while talking
to him about business. Miles looked again and maybe his little brother wasn't so little anymore. He was almost as tall as Miles, same hair and eyes, sharper featu
res though and he was leaner
. Miles work
ed
out every day to keep in Ranger shape, but Pierce had muscles from wrestling and branding cows, tossing hay bales, and all the ot
her physical
ly
demanding jobs of
being a farmer.

"You're right. Sorry. Tell me about Morgan."

"You firs
t. You seem so distant recently
and it doesn't l
ook like you're sleeping much."

"Pierce, I'm fine. I never sleep much, you know that." Miles sat back in his chai
r and suddenly felt very tired.

"I know you don’t
sleep much since you
’ve
c
o
me back from overseas. Maybe you need to talk to someone," Pierce said quietly.

"I certainly do not. There were people who came home in body bags
—I
just can't sleep very well. I count myself lucky."

"Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here for you."

"No offens
e, but you couldn’t handle what I saw or had to do." Miles flashed back briefly to the feeling of his hands around a terrorist's neck the second b
efore he snapped it.

"Miles. I can handle it. But if you don't want to talk about it, then let's hear
about Morgan
,
then and now." Pierce sat down and absently started to scratch Bill's head.

"Fine. If it’
ll make you leave. She kissed me the night I graduated and it was the kind of kiss that stays with you after all these years. We may have kissed since she came back in town and it may have been even better that it was the first time."

"Oh, so she's using sex against you. How can you fall for that?" Pierce laughed.

"
I’d
never fall for that," Miles said indignantly.

"Oh no? She's out talking to the farmers and you're here moping about her instead of using it against her."

"You may be
onto something, Pierce. Turn the tables against her and use sex appeal against her
."