Dreamless

What was this business about dynamite?

He grabbed the cell phone off the seat and dialed his attorney.

Yes, Edward Hughes reported, they’d just now received a fax from C. J. McClean’s lawyer. She’d filed a countermotion to force open the road and she’d apparently beaten them to the draw on the noise injunction by planning to bring forth evidence that the noise was not excessive.

“Not excessive!” Jake hollered into the phone. “Listen to this!”

He rolled the truck window down to give Edward the full benefit of the crushers. “And apparently,” he said as he rolled it up again, “she plans to do some blasting with dynamite to finish the job.”

“I know. I know,” Edward Hughes groaned. “But my guess is they’ve got enough crap in this motion that the judge will be forced to conduct a trial. And there is no way the court can hold a trial before a week from now, because Jewett is in the middle of a big criminal case.”

“Can’t some other judge do it?”

“No. The district court is one judge short. Judge Baker is recovering from a heart attack.”

Jake sighed into the phone. He was headed for a heart attack if he didn’t get a grip. “A week from now, none of this will matter. If she starts dynamiting, my mares all will have lost their foals by then.”

“I expect she’ll have succeeded in getting her rock out of there in a week and the whole thing’ll be moot. Pretty sharp maneuvering. Is that McClean woman a total hellcat or what? Chip off the old block, I say.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s Boss McClean’s daughter.”

“That name rings a bell.”

“The old man went to prison a few years back for insurance fraud…and there was something else. I can’t recall. But he was the same way. Anybody who got in Boss’s way paid for it.”

Jake did recall a trial, years ago. “His daughter sure seems to want her way about everything, and pronto,” Jake confirmed.

“Yeah. As in, yesterday,” Edward agreed dryly. “The court appearance has been set for the day after tomorrow. That they managed to schedule a hearing on Judge Jewett’s docket so fast is amazing. Must have some pull.”

“Figures. Apparently, she doesn’t intend to lose a single day getting her damn fancy houses built. Says she has to beat the first freeze.”

“You talked to her again?”

“I’m just now driving back from a little jaunt up to The Heights.” The last two words were soaked in sarcasm.

“Well, then, did you explain the value, the rarity, of an Andalusian foal? And did you tell her the amount of money you’ll lose if your thoroughbred quarter horses foal before January first? The risks?”

“Didn’t get a chance. She was too busy explaining to me that I could simply move my horses. I said maybe I’d have to get the sheriff out there and she was telling me to meet her in court, when all of a sudden one of her men got hurt.”

“Somebody got hurt? Was it serious?”

“Some guy grabbed the business end of a hot wire. The fella survived the shock, but he took a real nasty fall. Can’t say how that’ll turn out.”

“Hmm,” the attorney mused. “That’s awful. In the meantime, maybe we can get the judge to give us another temporary restraining order—at least on the dynamite. That’ll buy you some time. If we can hold off for a couple of weeks, you might not actually lose a foal, even if one does come early. I hate to say it, but maybe Miss McClean will be so distracted by this accident that she won’t show up, and the judge’ll favor us.”

“Oh, she’ll show up. She’s one of those tiny, determined types that likes to make a man sweat.”

“Nevertheless, you don’t have to be present. If you’re too busy with the mares, I’ll get the noise stopped one way or another.”

That’s what Jake liked about having Edward Hughes in his corner. Nobody had to tell Edward what to do. Without Edward, Lana and her daddy would have pounded Jake into the ground by now, and where would that leave Jayden?

“I’ll show up,” Jake assured his family friend and longtime attorney. “I want Ms. McClean to understand that this is as vital to me as it is to her and that I won’t back down any more than she will.”

And the truth was, he was itching to see C. J. McClean again. Hell, just admitting that to himself made him realize he was in more than one kind of trouble with this woman already.

WHEN JAKE DROVE HIS TRUCK under the iron gates at the head of the long driveway leading to the ranch house, he immediately spotted a whole other kind of trouble.

Lana Largeant’s champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator was parked up by the house, sparkling in the sun, looking like one of her daddy’s men had just given it a fresh wax job. He eased his dusty truck past the showy vehicle and saw that it was deserted, meaning Dad had let Lana into the house, despite Jake’s instructions not to.

He suppressed the familiar irritation at his father. The poor old man couldn’t remember what day it was, much less keep the complications of Jake’s relationship with his ex-wife straight. Lana treated Dad like a dear old pet, and his confused mind lapped up her attention.

At least Jayden was at school. This time Lana wouldn’t be able to work her manipulative magic on their daughter.

Another reason not to get involved with some cute little number, he reminded himself as he jerked the parking brake. Relationships brought all kinds of entanglements—like unplanned pregnancies that could complicate your life for good.

Not that he regretted having Jayden. Oh, no. That child was the only joyous thing about his life these days. Besides the horses.

What he resented was the tie Jayden had formed to Lana. As he climbed out of the truck, that fact coiled up in his gut, mean as a sidewinder. Over the past year or so, he had succeeded in setting aside his resentment of Lana for Jayden’s sake, and, thanks to some long, honest talks with his brother Aaron, he had found a measure of peace about the whole deal. But Lana still found clever ways to disrupt that peace, keeping him lightly tethered, silently bound, through Jayden.

He always ended up asking himself the same circular question. How could he raise a daughter without giving the child the benefit of some kind of mother? Wasn’t any mother—even a seriously flawed one—better than no mother?

But last year he’d sworn that if Lana called Jayden one more time when she’d been drinking, he’d order Edward Hughes to find a way to terminate the woman’s parental rights. And, true to form, that’s exactly when Lana had stopped her boozing. Just dried out. Like she’d read his mind or something.

But, sober or not, Jake didn’t trust the woman. As far as he could tell, Lana’s life always revolved around Lana, what she wanted, how things affected her—and to hell with everyone else. The woods seemed full of those self-centered types these days. What he wouldn’t give for one sensible, honest, decent, unselfish…sexy woman.

The screen door banged and Lana stepped out onto the porch, into the morning sun. The newel posts and white siding on the east-facing house glowed around her slim silhouette. Lana’s sleek blond hair and svelte form—wrapped in some kind of clingy high-fashion dress that was printed to look like army jungle fatigues—created a sharp contrast to the simple homey setting. She jutted a bony hip against a newel post and shaded her eyes.

“Well, hello!” she called brightly, as if she were surprised to see Jake walking up to his own home at ten o’clock in the morning.

Instead of returning her chipper greeting, he sighed and planted a boot on the bottom step. “Lana, what are you doing here?”

She immediately adopted a stunned expression. “Don’t be like that,” she sighed. “Just when Dad and I were having so much fun, remembering when Jayden got up on Arrestado and rode him all the way down to the river. Remember that? When she was only six?”

Jake narrowed his eyes at the woman. She had a lot of nerve, persisting in calling his father “Dad” a full two years after the divorce. And she had a lot more nerve, bringing up the memory of the time she’d been so drunk she hadn’t even noticed that their daughter had run off on the back of a dangerously high-spirited animal—commiserating about it with his addled father as if it were something cute, instead of the most terrifying day of Jake’s life. Nothing pissed him off more than when Lana tried to rewrite history this way.

“Lana, look. This is not a good time.”

“That Jayden!” Mack Coffey exclaimed from beyond the screen door. Poor Dad had always had a way of falling right into Lana’s hands, even before the Alzheimer’s had eaten away at his good sense. “That child always was a real cutter, even as a baby!”

Even with the shadow of the screen over his dad’s face, Jake could see that Mack was overexcited—his cheeks flushed, his eyes unnaturally bright. Lana didn’t give a thought to getting him all worked up like this, the same way she never gave a thought to feeding Jayden too many sweets.

Jake turned his attention away from the task of getting rid of Lana. “Dad, you look tired. Where’s Donna?”

Before the old man could get his mind around the question, Lana answered. “I sent her to the store, Jake.” She moved down the steps, closer to him. “I hope you don’t mind. Y’all never have any of those cookies Jayden likes. And Dad and I need a pack of smokes.”

“Dad—” Jake tried not to grit his teeth, but he was losing what little patience he had left over from the confrontation up on The Heights “—does not smoke anymore.”