Twins Under The Tree

Was that possible? Then why not store all the important papers there? He supposed there might be layers to Amy that he knew nothing about. As a minor example, Hadley could never reconcile their bank and credit card statements with the purchases she’d made, and whenever he questioned her she’d told him not to worry.

Hadley rose, his knees popping from sitting too long. “I’ll check with Barney Caldwell at the bank tomorrow.”

Hadley needed to find out what he was up against.

WAS IT JENNA’S bad luck, or some kind of weird karma? The very next morning when she walked up to the main entrance of the Barren Cattlemen’s Bank, Hadley reached around her to open the door. Without glancing up, Jenna coolly thanked him. “Have a good day,” she added, then went straight for Barney Caldwell’s office. As vice president, he had a window that looked onto Main Street, and more than once she’d glimpsed him peering out to see what was going on in town and with whom.

Hadley was right behind her—again.

“You seeing Barney, too?” he asked, not taking a chair in the waiting area.

“I’m applying for a loan,” she said, “to invest in Fantastic Designs.” Jenna still had no clients. She needed capital to jump-start her business. And because of that, she would have to deal with Barney. Some women in town called him creepy, and he’d recently sent her several cryptic messages she’d never answered. What was Hadley saying…?

“That’s not a bad idea. Clara and I should try that.”

Which wasn’t why he was here now then. Jenna tamped down her curiosity. Her only interest, she reminded herself, was in the twins. Remembering how she’d held them in her arms yesterday, she felt quivery and soft inside as she had all the way home.

Barney, who’d been at his desk poring over some papers, came to his doorway. “Who’s first?”

“Go ahead,” Hadley said with a motion toward Jenna. “I can wait.”

“No, please. I’ll probably have to fill out a dozen forms.” And she wasn’t eager to be alone with Barney. In school he’d had a crush on her, the memory of which still embarrassed Jenna.

“Well, I shouldn’t be long,” Hadley said. “Just have a question.”

Barney, his short-cut hair the color of hazelnuts, clapped a hand on Hadley’s shoulder, a gesture that seemed to make Hadley tense. “Have a seat. Ask away.” The door shut behind them.

Jenna tried not to observe their interaction, but it wasn’t long before Hadley’s dark brows drew together over his piercing blue eyes. He juggled a brass paperweight from Barney’s desk, then set it down again. They exchanged a few more words. Then Hadley abruptly rose from his slouch in the small barrel-shaped chair and stalked to the door. He jerked it open. “You’d better hear this,” he said to her.

Following him into the office, Jenna took the chair Hadley had vacated. He stood next to her while Barney straightened the papers he’d been reading earlier. He studied her with his too-small eyes. “Hadley has asked me about his wife’s relationship with this bank. It appears he didn’t know she had an account—in addition to their joint checking—in her name alone.”

That wasn’t unusual; many women had their own accounts. So had Jenna during her marriage. “Yes, I remember that.” She glanced at Hadley. “Amy once told me about a bank account, but that’s all she said.”

Barney said, “She opened the account some time ago.” He checked the dates.

“Soon after we got married then,” Hadley said.

“And Amy deposited money each month.”

“Where did she get it? We never had extra.”

“I believe, um, her parents sent the checks.”

“It’s like she was married to them, not me,” Hadley muttered. “Why would she keep that secret? Because she worried that I might leave her high and dry?”

To Jenna, that didn’t seem so unlikely.

Barney fidgeted in his chair. “Maybe her family wanted Amy to know she could use the money if she ever needed to—”

“Because she was married to a guy like me,” Hadley said under his breath.

Jenna looked from him to Barney, whose gaze had fixed on his computer screen as if its contents were written in Sanskrit. “But what does all this have to do with me?”

Barney glanced up. “Not long before she gave birth, Amy amended the account to include a POD—payable on death provision. Which avoids probate. When the primary account holder dies, the money in the account goes straight to the named beneficiary. In this case to you, Jenna.”

How could that be? “But if I’m the beneficiary, why wasn’t I notified after her…death?”

Barney frowned. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for some time,” he said, “but you didn’t respond to any of my messages. Or the letters on official bank stationery.”

“I thought those were merely forms to solicit investment.” She’d thrown the letters away, unopened. The funds from her divorce settlement were earmarked for savings to buy a house, and Jenna didn’t want to risk losing any of that.

“My next attempt was going to be knocking on your door,” Barney said. “Which I intended to do until you came in this morning.”

“Doesn’t sound to me like you tried hard enough.” Hadley glanced at him, taking in his dark suit and conservative tie. Barney might look the part of a vice president, but he wasn’t known for his management skills or much else. He lived with his overbearing mother and was inclined to startle at his own shadow. “What do you do? Shuffle papers all day then go home at four o’clock? You’ve read those—” Hadley pointed at the stack of printouts on the desk “—three times since I walked in. Bet you couldn’t tell me what a single line said.”

“Are you calling me negligent? Pardon me, but I couldn’t force Jenna to answer my messages.”

“Pardon me,” Hadley said, “if I call you a liar.”

Surprised that he’d defended her, Jenna held up a hand. “Please. This isn’t getting us anywhere. If I understand, Amy’s accounts are now mine to control?”

“Yes. And the amount is substantial.” Barney read a figure aloud that made Jenna’s eyes widen. Amy had complained several times about her money woes with Hadley when all along she’d had access to these funds. Amy hadn’t trusted him. As for Jenna, she had to admit she’d been avoiding Barney and couldn’t blame him for this misunderstanding. An oversight on her part.

“But why me and not her parents?” she asked.

“I can’t say. She made that change in the account with my assistant.” Barney cleared his throat. He turned to Jenna and handed her a thin sheaf from the stack. “You’re authorized, at your discretion, to use the account for the sole benefit of Lucas and Grace Smith.”

In other words, Amy had again provided for her children’s welfare in case Hadley disappeared when they were born. As she read, Jenna twisted her fingers together. She shot a look at Hadley. Their quasi-relationship wasn’t friendly, as Clara had noted, not that she wanted it to be, but this new detail would make things worse. Now she wouldn’t simply be paying a few visits to the twins; she’d be managing a rather large pot of money for them, overriding Hadley as their father. At least in his view.

His gaze bored through her, his eyes shards of blue glass.

Jenna stood. “This isn’t my doing, Hadley.”

“Like your agreement with Amy about the standby guardianship?”

“You can’t think I put her up to that,” Jenna said. Barney fidgeted at his desk, his face a dull red. A glance through the glass window into the bank revealed several people, including a teller, staring at them. “We’re making a scene.”

“I don’t care. Obviously, Amy agreed with everybody else in this town that I’m not to be trusted with my own children.”

Hadley turned, yanked open the door, then stalked from the office. “Like it or not, which I’m sure you don’t, Jenna, I’ll have something to say about this money.”

CHAPTER FIVE (#u4c1dd979-e42f-549f-9259-52b654d85705)

WHEN THE SUN went down, Hadley was still fuming. He imagined that the red ball of fire sliding toward the horizon, as if to define the western edge of Clara’s ranch in the blaze of color, might draw him with it. Hadley would slip right over the boundary of her pancake-flat land like a man falling—or jumping—into an active volcano, then vanish from the twins’ lives. That would probably suit Jenna.

The rare spurt of self-pity lasted just long enough to remind him that he didn’t have the luxury of thinking about himself.

Before Barney had revealed the surprise bank account, he’d told Hadley that Amy did not have a safe-deposit box at the bank. So the location of the guardianship papers was still a mystery, and now he had a different problem. The threat Jenna posed as the beneficiary of Amy’s account. He felt hamstrung. He didn’t want anyone else in charge, especially a woman with no blood ties to the twins; he could take care of his own babies.