the pot to help support your children and then give them a call and invite them out for a beer when you know you won’t live long enough to get to really know them.
He’d be damned if he let that happen.
“I’d like to be a part of their lives,” he said.
He meant that, even if it involved staying in touch with Hadley. Even if it meant a constant ache to hold her in his arms and take her to his bed knowing that he could never satisfy her.
“We’ll work something out,” she said. “When this is over and the girls are safe at home with me.”
Sadness crept into her voice where only fear and anxiety had been before. It cut him like a knife slicing into old wounds.
“Let’s get out of here, Adam. I can’t deal with this right now. And I’ve basically said it all.”
His phone rang as they started back to the truck. “Hello, Fred. Welcome to Dallas. And not a minute too soon.”
Adam caught Fred up to speed on the video and gave him directions to the ranch. It’d be best for Adam and Hadley to beat him there so that Adam could let R.J. know he was about to get a lot more family trouble than he’d bargained for.
* * *
ADAM STOPPED AT the metal gate and the rusty metal sign that announced they were at the Dry Gulch Ranch. “This is it,” he said.
“Where’s the house?” Hadley asked.
“About a quarter of a mile down that dirt road you see in front of you.”
“I’m not sure our coming here was the best option.”
“I don’t see any media blocking the road.”
“Give them time,” Hadley said.
Time was the one thing they didn’t have much of—time and money. At least not five million dollars. He was eager to hear Fred’s plan for how to handle the ransom exchange without the cold, hard cash.
Hadley opened her door. “I’ll get the gate.”
He drove over the cattle guard and she closed and latched the gate and jumped back into the truck.
“What’s the ranch house like?”
He had a feeling she was making conversation, but that was okay with him and better than the awkward silence that had held most of the way to the ranch.
“It’s your typical hundred-year-old raised cottage gone wild,” he said. “It’s been added on to so many times that it rambles like a patch of poison ivy that can’t decide which direction to spread.”
“In that case it should be large enough that we won’t inconvenience your father. Does he live there alone?”
“As far as I know. There was no mention of a wife the other day—at least not a current wife.”
“How many times has he been married?”
“I’m not sure. According to my mother he changes wives and family more often than she changes the sheets. Mother has been known to exaggerate.”
Hadley stared out the side window. “I see lots of barbed-wire fencing, but I don’t see any cattle.”
“They’re around somewhere.” Adam pulled up in front of the old ranch house where he’d spent the first four years of his life. There was a black pickup truck parked in front of the house. If R.J. was there, he should have heard them drive up.
Adam climbed the stairs with Hadley at his side. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and rang the bell. No one answered. No one answered on the second ring or the third ring, either.
He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. R.J. didn’t seem the type to stand on formality, so Adam opened the door and walked in.
It felt a hell of a lot like he’d just entered the enemy camp.
* * *
MATILDA TOOK THE last pan of chocolate chip cookies from the oven and set the hot baking sheet on the cooling rack. She was in no mood for baking, but once she’d started preparing the dough, the familiar rhythm had a calming effect on her that let her think more clearly.
She knew exactly what she had to do. She’d preached the importance of truthfulness to Alana and Sam all their lives. Now she had to admit to them that she hadn’t practiced what she’d preached.
The uncle they’d practically worshipped wasn’t dead as she’d told them. He was alive and about to be arrested and possibly locked away for the rest of his life.
She’d explained everything to Detective Lane this morning. The faked death, the missing key, the recent visit from Quinton. And then she’d given him the names of the thugs Quinton had hung out