Texas! Chase #2 (8 page)

As bad as things have been, I'm happier than

I ever dreamed possible."

"Good," Chase said solemnly. "That's good."

Another silence fell between them. By an act of will Chase threw off his melancholia again and got down to business.

"One reason I came over this morning was

to see if there was any money in the till. I find myself indebted to a certain redhead."

"Devon? What for?"

"Another redhead. Marcie. She paid my hospital bill. God knows how I'll pay her back."

Lucky stood up and moved to a filing cabinet.

From the drawer he took out a savings account passbook. "This is yours," he said, handing it to Chase, who looked at it curiously.

"What is it?"

"Chase, I sold that house you had me buy after Tanya was killed."

Everything inside Chase went very still. He had forgotten all about that. He had insisted his brother buy the house Tanya had been viewing the afternoon of the accident. In retrospect he realized it had been a knee-jerk reaction to her untimely death. He hadn't given it another thought. He had never seen the house, never wanted to. He certainly never planned to live in it.

He flipped open the vinyl cover of the passbook.

There was only one entry—a deposit.

The amount was staggering to a man who had believed himself penniless. "Jesus, where did all this come from?"

"Tanya's life insurance policy."

Chase dropped the passbook as though it had burned his fingers. It landed on the desktop. He shot out of his chair and moved to the same position in front of the window where Lucky had stood earlier. The scenery hadn't improved. It was still a dreary day.

"I didn't know what to do with the insur

ance check when it finally worked its way through all the red tape and was delivered.

You were still around then, but you were drunk all the time and in no condition to discuss it or deal with it, so I endorsed it by forging your name, then used it to buy the house.

"About a year ago, Marcie came to see me.

She had a client who was interested in buying the property. She thought you might want to sell the house since you had never occupied it and evidently never intended to.

"You were unavailable, Chase, so I had to make the decision on my own. I decided to unload it while I could, make you a couple of grand, and bank the money until you needed or wanted it."

Lucky paused, but Chase said nothing. Finally

Lucky added uncertainly, "I hope I did the right thing."

Coming around, Chase rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, you did the right thing. I never wanted the house after Tanya died. The only reason I had you buy it was because she wanted it so damn bad."

"I understand. Anyway," Lucky said, shifting moods, "you've got a little nest egg you didn't know you had."

"We'll use it to pay off our loan."

"Thanks, Chase, but it won't make a dent.

It'll cover the interest, but we've got to take care of the principal too. This time, they're getting nasty."

It was too much to deal with all at once. He felt like someone who had suffered a debili tating injury and had to learn to function all over again—walk, talk, cope.

"Let me see what I can do," Chase told his brother. "Maybe if I talk to George, assure him that I'm back and ready to get busy again, we can stave them off another few months."

"Good luck, but don't get your hopes up."

Chase took the keys to one of the company pickups. It hadn't been driven in months and was reluctant to start. The cold weather didn't help any. Finally, however, he got the engine to cooperate.

As he drove away from Tyler Drilling Company headquarters, he couldn't help but wonder if it would be there much longer. As the elder son, could he live with himself if it failed?

From all appearances she was a kook. She had a pixie haircut that cupped her small head, eyeglasses that covered a large portion of her face, and earrings the size of saucers clipped to her earlobes. The name plate on her desk read esme.

"I'm sorry, but Ms. Johns has left for the day," she told Chase. "Can I help you?"

"I need to see Marcie."

He supposed he could leave the check with

Marcie's secretary, but he wanted the satisfaction of handing it to her in person. She had been so snippy about it last night, he wanted to place it in her greedy little hands and finish their business with each other. He was uncomfortable feeling indebted to her.

He was in a querulous mood. His ribs were aching because he hadn't taken any of the prescribed pain medication that day. His interview with George Young had been as unpleasant as Lucky had predicted.

Not only was the banker trying to protect himself from the bank examiners, but Chase suspected him of holding a grudge against the Tylers because

Lucky hadn't fallen head over heels in love with his devious daughter.

George had obviously taken Lucky's rejection of Susan as a personal affront. Or, Chase thought uncharitably, maybe he was simply disappointed that Lucky hadn't taken her off his hands. The girl was bad news, and for the time being, George was still stuck with her.

Chase was stuck with a check he wanted badly to get rid of. Finding that Marcie wasn't at her real estate office didn't improve his disposition. "Where does she live?"

"Can your business wait until tomorrow?"

Esme asked. "Were you wanting to see Ms.

Johns about listing your house or were you interested in seeing one? The weather isn't—"

"This isn't about a house. My business with

Ms. Johns is personal."

The secretary's eyes were magnified even larger behind her lenses. "Oh, really?"

"Really. What's her address?"

She eyed him up and down. He obviously

passed muster because she reached for a sheet of tasteful, gray stationery with Marcie's letterhead engraved across the top and wrote down an address. "The road is probably muddy," Esme said as she handed him the piece of paper.

"It doesn't matter." The company pickup had navigated creek beds, rocky inclines, thick forests, and cow pastures to reach drilling sites. No terrain was too rough for it.

He glanced at the address, but didn't recognize it, which was unusual since he'd grown up in Milton Point and had spent his youth cruising its streets. "Where is this?"

Esme gave him rudimentary directions and he set out. His windshield wipers had to work double time to keep the rain and sleet clear.

There were patches of ice on the bridges, and after skidding a couple of times, he cursed Marcie for living in the boondocks. His family lived outside the city limits, too, but at least he was familiar with that road.

When he reached the turnoff, he almost missed it. The gravel road was narrow and marked only with a crude, hand-lettered sign.

"Woodbine Lane," he muttered.

The name was appropriate, because honeysuckle vines grew thickly along the ditches on either side of the road. They were burdened with a glaze of ice now, but in the spring and summer when they bloomed, they would perfume the air.

The road was a cul-de-sac. There were no other houses on it. At the end of it stood an unpainted frame structure nestled in a forest of pine and various hardwoods. The entry was level with the ground, but the house sat on a bluff that dropped away drastically. The back of the house was suspended above the ground, supported on metal beams.

He pulled the pickup to a halt and got out.

His boots crunched over the icy spots on the path as he carefully picked his way toward the front door.

Slipping and falling on ice wouldn't do his cracked ribs any good.

The northwesterly wind was frigid; he flipped up the collar of his lambskin coat. When he reached the front door, he took off one glove and depressed the button of the doorbell. He heard it chime inside.

In a moment Marcie pulled open the door.

She seemed surprised to see him. "Chase?"

"I thought the kook might have called you."

"How did you know about the kook?"

"Pardon?"

Shaking her head in confusion, she stepped aside and motioned him in. "It's gotten worse."

She commented on the weather as she closed the door against the gusts of cold wind. "How did you know where I live? Come in by the fire. Would you like some tea?"

She led him into one of the most breathtaking rooms he'd ever seen. He hadn't known there was anything like its contemporary design in Milton Point. The ceiling was two stories high. One wall had a fireplace, in which a fire was burning brightly. Another wall, the one suspended above ground, was solid glass,

from the hardwood floor to the ceiling twenty or more feet above it.

An island bar separated the large living area from the kitchen. It was utilitarian; it was also designed for casual dining. A gallery encircled the second story on three sides with what he guessed were bedrooms opening off it.

"There's another room behind the fireplace wall," Marcie explained, obviously noticing his interest. "I use it as an office, although it could be a guest room. There are two bedrooms and two baths upstairs."

"You sound like a realtor."

She smiled. "Habit, I guess."

"Have you lived here long?"

"Awhile."

"Aren't you afraid to live alone in a house this large, this far out?"

"Not really. It has a security system. I'm used to the solitude." Tilting her head to one side, she said reflectively, "I guess it's rather selfish for one person to occupy so much space, but I needed the tax shelter. The property is an investment, and with the mortgage that I—"

He held up both hands. "All that stuff is lost on me. I have never understood it. Suffice it to say you've got a nice place."

"Thank you. Let me take your coat."

He hesitated; he hadn't counted on staying that long. However, the fire did look inviting.

After coming all this way, he might as well stay awhile and warm up.

He shrugged out of his coat, removed his other glove, and handed them to Marcie. While she was putting his things away, he moved to the fireplace, placed one foot on the low, stone hearth, and extended both hands toward the friendly flames.

"Feels good," he said when she moved up beside him.

"Hmm. I've been curled up in front of it most of the afternoon. Not too many people are house-shopping today, so I decided it was a perfect time to catch up on paperwork."

, The cushions of a sprawling cream-colored leather chair were littered with contracts and property plats, as though she'd left them there when she got up to answer the door. There was a pencil stuck behind her right ear, almost buried in a mass of hair that his sister had said was to die for. She was dressed in a soft, purple suede skirt, a matching sweater, opaque stockings… and fuzzy, blue Smurf house shoes that enveloped her feet up to her slender ankles.

She followed his amused gaze down to her feet. "A gag gift from my office assistant."

"The kook."

Marcie laughed. "You met Esme?"

"I stopped by your office. She gave me directions here."

"Her zaniness is a pose, I assure you. She affects it so people won't know how smart she really is.

Anyway, I'm always complaining about cold feet."

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Literally for myself, figuratively for buyers who back out at the last minute."

Chase suddenly realized that the conversations he and Marcie had engaged in were the longest conversations he had had with a woman since Tanya died. After asking a woman what she was drinking, few words were exchanged until he said a terse "Thanks" and left her on a tousled bed.

The thought made him wince. Marcie misinterpreted it. "Are your ribs hurting?"

"Some," he conceded. "I've been out and around today, so I haven't taken any painkillers."

"Would you like a drink?"

His eyes sprang up to connect with hers.

They held for a moment before moving down to the cup and saucer sitting on the end table next to the leather chair. "Thanks anyway, but tea's not my bag."

"If you meant that as a pun, it's terrible."

"You were the word whiz."

"Instead of tea, what I had in mind was a bourbon and water."

"Thanks, Marcie." He spoke soulfully, thanking her for the vote of confidence she had placed in him, as much as for the drink.

She moved toward the island bar and opened the cabinet beneath it. Selecting a bottle from the modest stock, she splashed whiskey into two tumblers. "The bourbon can't be any more anesthetizing than one of your pain pills. Besides, you can't sip a pill in front of the fireplace." she added with a smile. "Ice?"

"Just water." He thanked her when she handed him the glass. She stacked together the paperwork she'd been working on and resumed her seat in the leather chair, curling her feet beneath her. Nodding toward the hearth, she suggested he sit there so they could face each other.

"And while you're at it, you can add a log to the fire. That's the price of your drink."

After adding to the logs in the grate, Chase sat down on the hearth, spreading his knees wide, and rolled the tumbler between his hands. "I have a check in my pocket for five hundred seventy-three dollars and sixty-two cents. That's why I came out. I wanted to repay you in person and say thanks for all you did."

She lowered her eyes to her own whiskey and water. "I behaved badly about that. I lost my temper. It made me angry to hear you say you wished you were dead. It was a stupid thing to say, Chase."

"I realize that now."

"So you didn't have to worry about paying me back so soon. Anytime would have been all right."

He laughed mirthlessly. "I might not have the money 'anytime.' If you hadn't sold that house, I wouldn't have a red cent."

"Then you know about that, and it's okay?

Lucky was concerned."

He nodded. "I never intended to live there.

I'd even forgotten about it until today." He sat up straighter and attempted a smile. "So you can credit your salesmanship for your having a check today." He extracted it from the breast pocket of his shirt and handed it to her.