his checkups. He’s long overdue—and one of these days, he’s gonna drop in his tracks.”
“All this at sixty?”
“His vision upsets him the most. He’ll spend hours in his office in the house poring over bills and reports, but I can tell he’s struggling. It’s no wonder he didn’t catch what was going on—he can barely see to read.”
Ryan sat back in his chair trying to absorb the enormity of that news. Clint was well-known as a powerful force in state and local politics; a wheeler-dealer who was ruthless in his business dealings and who carefully cultivated a broad spectrum of cronies to help him meet his ends. What was it like for him, now that he faced the potential loss of his independence?
“Can’t the lawyer help out with all of this?”
“Leland is on retainer. Dad consults him on financial matters sometimes—investments and so on—and he has limited power of attorney to oversee major business decisions if Dad isn’t available. He doesn’t cover day-to-day management. It might be different if he was always in town, but he lives in San Antonio and just comes to his satellite office in Homestead a couple days a week. I can’t do it all, no matter what Dad thinks. Frankly, I don’t even know where to begin. So—” Trevor ended on a long sigh “—we’ve had overdue notices. The hunting lease program is a mess. Records are missing. Dad is land rich and cash poor right now, and last winter he missed a chance to pick up a big piece of property that borders the Four Aces.”
“He needs more land?”
“You know Dad.” Trevor shook his head. “Money. Power. Land. He wants it all, but the K-Bar-C was far more than that. It controls the aquifer that supplies a large percentage of our land. It was tangled in foreclosure for over a year. When it finally came up for sale, he couldn’t pull enough money together in time. That still rankles him to no end.”
“I’ll bet.” Ryan gave a short laugh. In Texas, prime access to a substantial underground aquifer could mean the difference between bankruptcy and success. “He’s never been one to lose happily. What about Nate—has he been caught?”
“He died a few months after being fired. Leland worked for a couple weeks on the bookkeeping disaster Nate left, then gave up and hired a forensic accountant and a private investigator. They discovered that money disappeared through cash withdrawals, and large checks to fictitious companies in Austin and Dallas. Some was filtered into an account in Llano, in the name of a nonexistent crop-spraying service. That doesn’t account for all of it, though…not even close, from what we can tell.”
“Was any of it recovered?”
Trevor snorted. “Very little.”
“Do you have a copy of that report?”
Trevor hitched a thumb toward a bank of drawers behind the desk. “In there—but it really doesn’t say any more than we already knew.”
“What about the sheriff? Didn’t he investigate?”
“Dad said he wanted to keep this quiet until he had enough evidence.” Trevor lifted a brow. “Personally, I think he was more worried about the election year ahead—didn’t want voters thinking he’d mismanaged his own business. And knowing Dad, he probably has a few financial affairs he doesn’t want brought to light.”
“But when Nate died, surely—”
“Nope. The P.I. discovered that Nate had quite a gambling problem, so it must have disappeared on the gaming tables. There was no paper trail indicating he’d transferred the money to anyone else.” At a sharp rap on the doorjamb, Ryan looked over his shoulder.
Clint stood there, as tall and imposing as ever, his lean, hard face reddened and his eyes flashing with anger. “Guess I’m part of this here discussion, wouldn’t you say?”
No hello, no good to see you. Which was, Ryan reflected, no surprise at all. “Hey,” he said lazily, lifting a hand from the arm of his chair in greeting.
“Adelfa said you two were out here.” Clint glared at his sons. “You should have come to my office.”
Trevor cleared his throat. “I just—”
“I haven’t seen my brothers in a good long while, Dad.” Ryan swung out of his chair and met Clint’s steely expression head-on, knowing that any show of sympathy or support for the old man would likely spark a tirade. “When I run into Garrett, I plan to have a good, long visit with him, too.”
An uncomfortable silence lengthened until at last Clint swore under his breath, stalked into the room and scraped a chair against the floor before dropping into it. He gave Trevor a narrowed glance. “I understand you and Garrett sent for Ryan. It wasn’t necessary.”
“Sounds like it was,” Ryan said mildly, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “I understand y’all need some short-term help to get everything back in order. After that, you can bring in a new business manager, and I’ll be out of here.”
“Interference, that’s what it is,” Clint snapped. “You had no right.”
“Trevor didn’t hire anyone behind your back, Dad. He and Garrett asked me to come home for a while and pitch in.” Ryan gentled his voice to a lethal, dead-calm tone. “I know I have no stake in this place anymore, and I sure as hell know how you feel. Believe me, I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t felt I owed it to my brothers to make sure their legacy was secure.”
OVER THE YEARS he’d captured infiltrators. Rescued team members from impossible situations. Tracked, caught and interrogated enemies who would have welcomed death and the chance to take him right along with them.
Convincing his arrogant and irritable father to get into his own Lincoln the next morning and driving him to town—winning a ten-dollar bet with Trevor in the process—had been one of the greatest challenges of all.
Glancing at the sign over the door of the small clinic, Ryan stepped out onto the street and pocketed the car keys. “I’m sure this Dr. Hernandez is competent, Dad. We were lucky to get you in this morning.”
Clint climbed stiffly out of the car and straightened to his full six-foot-one height, his hand still on the open door of the car. From his thick white hair to the tips of his custom-made Lucchese boots, he exuded an imperious air of power—the Texas kind, an unshakable belief that he controlled everything in his part of the world.
The tense silence in the car on the way to town had proved that nothing in the rocky relationship between them had changed over the passing years…and it never would.
“Doc Grady died five years ago, and there hasn’t been a doctor here since. What the hell does that tell you?” Clint leveled a glare at Ryan. “This guy probably couldn’t get a job in a real town—or got chased out of the one he was at. If he’s any good, why in God’s name would he come to a town like this?”
Excellent point. Ryan looked down the deserted sidewalk, taking in the boarded-up storefronts and empty parking spaces. The only signs of life were a couple of old gents dozing on benches in front of the massive, yellow stone courthouse across the street, and a handful of dusty pickups nosed up to the local diner.
The Homestead, Texas, city limits sign still claimed a population of 2,504, but he’d bet a good thousand of those people had long since fled the area, for better jobs and a brighter future.
“You’re not having heart surgery here—just a quick checkup and some lab work,” Ryan said dryly. He opened the door of the clinic, and jingled the car keys in his pocket. “I’m sure the guy can handle that much. Get this over with, and we can go home. Unless you want to drive clear into Austin, fight traffic and sit in a busy waiting room all day for the same thing.”
Clint stalked to the clinic and brushed past Ryan as he went inside, muttering under his breath. He thrust an impatient hand toward the empty receptionist’s desk. “See? No one’s here.”
“But the door was