LITMIR.BIZ

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with the Ward family. They hold a significant minority share in my father’s company.”

      “Please. Hear me out.”

      She nodded her somewhat confused assent and he continued. “I happen to own the mineral rights to a parcel of land next to Merris Oil’s Vacarro Field.”

      Even she knew what the Vacarro Field was. It was Merris Oil’s cash cow—a stretch of oil field about an hour’s drive west of Vengeance that churned out millions of barrels of oil each year and was the main source of her family’s income.

      “Dawson Exploration just completed a survey of the Vacarro II parcel, and it so happens that the seismic data from my land also paints a fairly complete picture of your father’s field.”

      “And?”

      “And I took a look at it,” he announced heavily.

      She frowned. Okay. Seismic data wasn’t classified or secret. It wasn’t illegal to survey anywhere if a person felt like paying to look at mineral rights they didn’t own. When Gabe didn’t continue, she said, “I fail to see why you felt obliged to share this with me.”

      His frown deepened. “I gather, then, that your father didn’t speak with you about the state of the Vaccaro Field before his passing?”

      “What about it?”

      He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again and pointed their pained green depths at her. “The field’s played out. In another year at most, Merris Oil’s Vacarro wells are going to run dry. All of them. Frankly, I’m shocked they’re still producing.”

      Played out? Dry? Blank shock closed in on her, much like it had when she’d gotten the call two weeks ago that John Merris was dead.

      Gabe leaned forward and took her hand in his. She supposed hers must be cold, because his fingers felt like a warm, gentle vise around hers. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

      “The Vacarro Field is done. And the way I hear it, most of Merris Oil’s income is derived from that field. Very soon, your family’s primary revenue source is going to disappear. I couldn’t in good conscience withhold this information from you and your mother if, as I suspected, John failed to share it with you.”

      The glass horse in her soul did shatter then. It was too much. Every direction she turned, another disaster ambushed her. Any one of them was overwhelming, but in combination, they were drowning her.

      First, the completely shocking attack by James Ward. Her father’s insistence that she not go to the police, not make a scandal that could kill his chances for re-election, that she cancel all her public appearances until the swelling in her face had gone down and the bruises faded. John Merris had hidden her away like she was the one at fault, and not the victim of a vicious attack.

      And then there’d been her father’s horrifying and unsolved murder, part of a triple homicide for goodness’ sake, followed by her mother’s complete mental collapse. And now this. Her family was teetering on the verge of financial ruin.

      Pulling her hand away from his, she folded her arms across her middle and hung on for dear life, so sick to her stomach she thought she might throw up.

      How could Gabe do this to her? Why now? Was it some sort of plot by fate to destroy her? Or maybe… a terrible thought occurred to her… maybe this was Gabe’s final revenge. He might not have managed to ruin John Merris, but he could finish off the man’s family.

      Gabe probably couldn’t wait to rush right over here, her father’s body barely in the ground, to spill this devastating news to her. She’d heard he’d been summoned from somewhere halfway around the world when his ex-wife had been reported missing two weeks ago. No one knew if she was dead, too, as part of the murder spree, or maybe kidnapped. Supposedly, he’d been in an all-fired hurry to get back to Vengeance over the news. But concern for the woman he obviously still loved wasn’t enough to keep him from gloating over his archenemy’s grave.

      Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I thought better of you, Mr. Dawson. I can’t believe you would be so crass as to tell me this on the very day I buried my father. I hope you are happy. Not only did you outlive my father, but now you’ve gotten to fire the final shot in your feud with him. I guess you win.”

      Gabe’s jaw went slack and he leaped to his feet. Instinctively, she matched the gesture and stood up, which had the effect of bringing them chest to chest. She was nearly five-foot-eight, but he still towered over her.

      Her voice gained a little strength. “What have my mother and I ever done to you to deserve you taking your hatred for my father out on her and me in this way?”

      “It’s not hatred,” he sputtered. “I thought you ought to know before you make any major financial decisions….”

      Before she realized what he was going to do, he took a quick step forward and wrapped his arms around her. His body was big and strong and so very masculine against hers… and scared the living hell out of her.

      She tore away from him in ill-disguised panic and squawked, “I’ll thank you, Mr. Dawson, never to darken my family’s doorstep again.”

      His hands fell to his sides and he looked bewildered as she cleared her throat and gathered herself to announce more strongly, “While I have no intention of continuing my father’s feud with you, neither will I disrespect his memory by entertaining you any longer under his roof. I’ll have to ask you to leave now.”

      Gabe looked deep into her eyes, and she forced herself not to look away, not to blush, not to reveal her terror at being this close to a man. She noted that her entire body was trembling. She hated being this afraid. But Gabe Dawson frightened the living daylights out of her.

      “I swear, Willa. I meant no harm. I just thought you ought to know, and there never was going to be a good time to tell you. I’m truly sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” With that, he turned and strode out of the library, leaving her standing and staring at nothing.

      Was he telling the truth? Was the entire house of cards that was her life about to come crashing down around her and her mother? She’d caught a few whispers of her father pulling a lot of cash out of Merris Oil to make up shortfalls in his campaign fund-raising. If he’d gutted the company and the Vacarro wells weren’t going to replenish the coffers, what was she going to do?

      She wasn’t worried about herself. She had her job as a kindergarten teacher and she lived relatively modestly. But her mother? What would Minnie do? The woman hadn’t worked a day in her entire pampered life and wouldn’t have the first idea how to rein in her lavish lifestyle. The family name would be ruined. And Lord knew, in a town like Vengeance, Texas, appearances were everything.

      Forty miles outside of Dallas, it was a hidden enclave of North Texas’s social elite, rife with sprawling ranches and rustic mansions for when folks wanted to “get away” from the Big D. Which was to say, Dallas’s bored and rich came to Vengeance to play. Longhorn cattle roamed their pastures and expensive quarter horses stood in their barns. They wore designer cowboy boots and thousand-dollar-a-pair jeans, hosted lavish, catered barbecues and called it the simple life.

      She much preferred a classroom full of noisy five-year-olds to the social rat race. However, her father’s business and political position made being a mere schoolteacher an impossibility for her. She was expected to make campaign appearances, do the social circuit of parties and fund-raisers, smile in the background of television commercials and never, ever cause a scandal.

      Even if the son of an old family friend raped her, she thought bitterly.

      The dark-paneled library walls closed in on her all of a sudden, and she hurried out of the room, through the foyer and grand dining room and burst outside through the French doors. The broad, covered patio, with its deeply cushioned sofas, lazily turning ceiling fans, and flat-screen TV mounted high under the eaves mocked her with their casual display of wealth. Wealth that was evaporating even as she stood here.

      She ran down the

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