Tall, Dark, and Determined (26 page)

“That's that then.” Miss Higgins, her low voice carrying well enough for everyone to hear, put an end to the disagreements. “No one's leaving but Granger. Until his return, Mr. Dunstan will help keep the peace and fill the stewpan.”

“Thanks to him, tomorrow night we'll serve beaver-tail soup.” Miss Thompson—the cook—gestured to the tables lining the room, already outfitted with plates and the like. “Now, if you'll get seated, we'll start bringing out your supper.”

“If I may ask before you leave?” The supercilious, reedy voice belonged to a thin man Chase hadn't seen before. Stooped as though trying to escape notice and far too pale to be a worker, he stuck out anyway. With sparse blond hair tufted around his forehead and glasses, slipping down his nose toward a twitching mustache, he gave off an air of a nervous rabbit.

“Yes, Mr. Draxley?” Miss Lyman didn't like the man.

Chase read it in the way her shoulders stiffened and her chin rose. She looked down at him with the appearance of polite interest, but Chase could tell she wasn't inclined to waste much time on Mr. Draxley.
How did he get on her bad side?

“We're all wondering …” He went ahead and asked the question on everyone's minds. “What is on the menu this evening?”

In his interest over the answer, Chase stopped wondering what Draxley had done wrong. During the entire time they'd been preoccupied with Williams, delicious smells had filled the air.

“Fried chicken, baked potatoes, coleslaw, and buns.”

“Fried chicken!” Men scrambled for seats as the women whisked into the kitchen. At Granger's nudge, Chase followed.

The second he hit those swinging doors, the smell made his mouth water. Things looked even better. Platters heaped high with golden-fried chicken waited on a table next to baskets overflowing with plump buns. Bowls held the potatoes and massive quantities of coleslaw, none of which would be wasted.

“Now that it's official.” Granger took the beaver to the largest pantry Chase ever saw. “Welcome to Hope Falls.”

“Haven't you left yet?” Braden's truculent greeting warmed Lacey's heart the next morning. “With you not showing your face in three days, I'd started to hope you had a change of heart.”

“In a short time, we've managed to hire on a crew of workers, chosen a mill site, and are pulling up the stumps to finish clearing it. By now I hoped you'd want this sawmill enough to stop asking us to leave.” Lacey pulled up a seat beside the bed, refusing to let him disconcert her.

He harrumphed. “Between Evie's cooking for motivation and Granger's know-how to get things moving, you've gotten farther than I expected. I'd say you're lucky, but we both know better.”

Not even five minutes, and he's angling to bring up that incident with Twyler
. She gritted her teeth. Some small part of her had hoped her older brother, whom she used to look up to, would be supportive after her ordeal. Failing that, she'd try to avoid the worst of the conversation by skirting tricky topics.
I'd best pretend I don't know where he's heading with that
.

“It takes more than luck to start up a business. What you refer to is actually the result of research and planning.”
My research into how to save Hope Falls from becoming a ghost town. My plan to advertise for husbands with sawmill experience. Lacey wavered for a moment. All right. That didn't go according to plan, exactly, but having the men reply to our ad in person brought us the workers we needed. If they'd responded by telegraph, as instructed, we'd have needed to hire some on
.

“You stole my property and dragged Cora and the others up here on the vague hope you could break into the lumber market.” Braden no longer looked petulant. He was spitting mad. “Any success isn't yours. It's my land and Granger's effort!”

“The site for the mill and most of the lumber surrounding it are not your land!” Lacey burst out. “When word came of the collapse, we found our investment in Hope Falls next to worthless. I wondered about the lumber, did a great deal of reading, and asked some of Papa's contacts for their advice—same as you when you started to think about buying into the mine.”

Braden opened his mouth, ready to refute what she said when he had no idea what things were like after news of his death. Lacey didn't let him get a word in; she kept going.

“Only when I was convinced of the project's potential did I move forward. I made the arrangements to purchase the other half of Miracle Mining and the surrounding land. Now when I've begun to prove my decision worthwhile, you call it luck? This took painstaking effort, thorough research, and personal investment.”

And I did it all alone, thinking you were dead
. Lacey felt a stinging in the back of her nose, the earliest warning of tears. She wiggled her nose and pushed the sentiment away.

“Ah, but that's just it.” Braden leaned forward, eyes snapping. “It wasn't a personal investment at all. You used
my
inheritance to fund this project. And when you discovered you had no right, you contrived a way to keep control of
my
money.”

    TWENTY-ONE    

T
here. He finally came out and said it
. Lacey drew a shuddering breath. Oh, Braden had been griping about her use of the family funds since he learned she'd sold Lyman Place. Even worse, he'd been caterwauling about taking back control of their finances since the second he heard Lacey held the reigns.

But until now he hadn't tried to claim all of Hope Falls.

Lacey started smoothing her skirts and rearranging the way its folds draped around her chair.
It wasn't pessimistic to take those legal measures
. But that didn't make her feel any better about needing to implement safeguards against her own brother.

“You're wrong.” She fought to keep her voice level. Whether she fought not to yell or not to cry, even Lacey couldn't say. “I used
our
inheritance. I know I invested the bulk of mine in the mercantile and its goods, but you sank your funds into your half of the mines.” She held up a hand to keep him silent. “But aside from those, our father left us each certain assets. You were given the house, and I was given a dowry. That dowry became accessible four months ago. When I reached my eighteenth birthday, you no longer held it in trust.”
Not your money. Mine
.

Braden started, obviously unprepared for that reminder. Or perhaps he'd not realized she'd reached her majority in his absence. Either way, the news didn't sit well with him at all.

“You sold Lyman Place.” The pain of that loss sat on his face for a fleeting moment, almost making her regret it. Then his jaw thrust forward. “As you said, that was mine and mine alone. Whatever the sale price, I'll expect every cent of it.”

“I never touched it.” Hurt beyond what she expected, Lacey stared at him. “Lyman Place was sold because we couldn't transport you there, and we thought you needed care.”
We thought you needed us
. “Also, when the mines failed, your investors and creditors came crawling out of the woodwork. There weren't funds enough to maintain the house indefinitely.”

“But somehow you scraped together the sum to buy land here.” His sneer, Lacey knew, covered his shame and anger that his own grand venture failed. “I guess I should be grateful you took what was left and reinvested in Hope Falls. Seems I'll be a wealthy man when the doctor clears me and the attorneys give control of Lyman assets back to me. And they will, you know.”

“In a manner of speaking.” The moment she'd dreaded had finally come. “They'll return control of Braden Lyman's assets to you. These include the money earned from the sale of Lyman Place, one-half of the land formerly owned by Miracle Mining, and one-third of the property sustaining the new sawmill.”

“Not so fast, little sister.” Braden slapped the bed. “You're forgetting something. Since you're an unmarried woman, you can't own anything. I'll control all of your share. And since Evie and Naomi invested in my name, I'll control theirs, too. That means it all belongs to me after all.”

Lacey sighed. “We were afraid you'd try something like that. It's why I consulted Mr. Rountree about this very topic.” She saw her brother pale, as though he suspected. “My house, my mercantile, my half of the mines, and my third of the sawmill lands have been placed in a new trust in the guardianship of Mr. Rountree himself. Not you. My approval is required for any transactions until the time of my marriage, when management is transferred to my husband. The same has been done for Naomi and Evie's houses, Evie's diner, and their shares of the mill.”

He was silent for a long time, wrestling with the news she'd given him. And, more importantly, wrestling with the question she'd left unanswered.

Finally, he lost the battle. His shoulders hunched forward, and Braden looked every bit as tired as Lacey felt. The lines around his eyes and the grooves bracketing his mouth deepened, and she decided to ask the doctor to give him something for pain when she left. He'd been overly agitated, moved around too much, and his shoulder and legs must be paining him even more than usual.

But it seemed something bothered him more because the brother she'd always admired finally asked a question Lacey wanted him to. “You didn't mention Cora. What about her?”

“My sister refused Lacey's generous offer.” Evie stormed into Braden's room.

Jake watched her go and silently debated following her for a moment. Overhearing what sounded like the end of Lacey explaining how she'd divided her property from her brother's made for poor timing. He'd missed too much to know the particulars of the conversation. The main thing he'd caught was how badly Braden needed another man in the room, now that Evie'd joined in.
Actually, he needs to shelve his pride and come to his senses
. Barring that, the conversation promised to pit Braden's pride against Evie's protective instincts for her little sister.