Against the Wind (15 page)

“Hey, Mom!”

“Hi, honey.” Sarah smiled down at her. “Sounds like it's stopped raining.” She listened but no longer heard the soft patter on the roof.

“It's mostly stopped. Jackson says he wished it would rain all week.”

Sarah shoved aside a memory of their incredible lovemaking in the meadow, knowing the danger of that line of thinking. “Your clothes are damp. You better go put on something dry.”

“Jackson says the next time you two go riding, I
can come with you. He says I can ride with him on Galahad—that's his horse.”

“If you keep up your lessons on Midnight, someday you'll be able to ride by yourself.”

Holly chattered on about her morning with Sam and Gibby—Rags had to stay outside because he was too muddy to come in the house—then dashed off to change and watch TV.

Sarah went back to her email. Among assorted spam, she found several anxious messages from Patty, who was worried about her. Patty wanted to be sure she had made it to Wyoming safely and that everything was working out all right.

Sorry to take so long getting back to you, Sarah replied. Just got my email up and running. Hope you weren't too worried. Andrew left me with some problems, but we're coping. Holly and I both love it here. Maybe someday you can come for a visit.

 

Sarah didn't say more. Though she and Patty had never met, in the ways that mattered the woman was the best friend she'd ever had. Patty Gorski lived in Chicago, the only daughter in a poor Polish family of six. She'd gotten pregnant her junior year in high school, had an abortion, then a year later married the guy who had fathered the baby.

For years, she had lived as a battered wife, unable to build up the nerve to leave, but with the help of a support group, she had finally found the courage to break free.

If it weren't for Patty…

Sarah shook off the thought, refusing to imagine what
might have happened if she hadn't become friends with such a strong, caring woman.

Sarah returned the emails in her in-box, then decided to work on the synopsis of a book she had been dabbling with for more than a year.
Trials of Passage
was the working title, a novel about a young woman from a small town trying to raise a child and make her way in a troubled world. It was loosely based on her own life, but not entirely.

There were things she would never write about, things that were too frightening or too painful—and the book
was
a novel, after all.

If she ever got the project off the ground.

“The rain's all the way stopped,” Holly called out from the living room. “I'm going back out to play.”

“Try to stay out of the mud!” Sarah called back to her. She glanced out the window. The ground was so dry the rain had soaked right in, but if there was a puddle, Holly was sure to find it.

The front door slammed as Holly ran out, and Sarah thought of the changes in her daughter since their move to Wyoming. Here the little girl was outside most of the time instead of inside watching TV. With the harsh winters, hot summers, bugs and wild animals, it wasn't an easy place to live, but for Sarah and Holly, the trade-off was worth it.

Sarah opened the file marked
Passage.
She hadn't worked on the novel since before Andrew died. It was something he knew she was doing, patronized her about, but didn't take seriously. Since she had been at it for what seemed ages, maybe in this instance he was right.

She was going over the opening chapter—which was as far as she had ever gotten—when she heard a
faint knock at the door. Rising from the chair behind the small oak desk in her bedroom, she walked into the living room and, through the window, saw Jimmy Threebears standing on the porch.

“Hello, Jimmy.”

He held his damp felt cowboy hat in his hands. “Hello, Sarah…I was…ah, wondering if you might have a minute to talk.”

He was a tall man, and imposing, with all that long black hair, black eyes and dark, smoothly carved features. She opened the door, curious as to why he was there. “Come on in.”

Jimmy pulled off his muddy boots and left them by the door, the way most people did in Wyoming. They walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa and chair in front of the rock fireplace.

“I saw you had a visitor yesterday.” Jimmy turned the hat in his hands.

“Nan Hargrove. Yes, she was here.”

“Did she…ah…tell you we went out?”

“She mentioned it. I don't know what you want me to say, Jimmy. Nan is a friend. She told me what happened, and to be honest, I was surprised you would treat her that way.”

Jimmy glanced off toward the window. “That's the reason I'm here.”

“I'm listening.”

Jimmy released a slow breath. “I don't know exactly what happened that night. I'd been wanting to ask Nan out for a real long time. I knew Ron, her ex-husband, before the divorce. After they split up, I tried to work up the nerve to ask Nan for a date, but then I started seeing her down at the Canyon Club.”

“She told me about that. It was a bad time for her, Jimmy. Her marriage had failed. Ron was gone and she was lonely.”

He turned the hat in his hands. “The truth is, those times I saw her at the Club…I wanted to be one of the guys she went home with. I was jealous she picked one of them and not me.”

“Nan's not really that kind of woman. She never was, and the way I understand it, that was several years ago.”

He nodded. “I know. Like I said, I don't know what happened. I guess my feelings kind of spilled over. I took my past jealousy out on Nan.”

“And you expect me to do…what?”

He ran a callused finger around his sweat-stained hatband. “Talk to her, I guess. See if you can convince her to give me another chance.”

“I don't know if she will, Jimmy. From what Nan told me, she wanted to go out with you, too. The way you acted, those things you said… You hurt her, Jimmy. I don't know if she'll take the risk.”

He looked her straight in the face. “I know about your husband—the way he treated you. I've never abused a woman and I never will.”

When Sarah made no reply, Jimmy shoved to his feet and started toward the door.

He turned back when he got there. “Tell her I'm sorry. Will you at least do that?”

Her heart pinched. Even after Andrew, she was a sucker for an old-fashioned romance. “I'll tell her,” she said softly.

Jimmy nodded, pulled open the door, picked up his boots and stepped out on the rain-soaked porch to pull
them back on. He closed the door behind him, and Sarah sighed.

Everyone made mistakes. Some were smaller than others. Maybe Nan and Jimmy could get past this one. She would tell Nan what he had said and leave the decision up to her.

J
ackson sat in front of the old wood-burning stove in his study. Most of the house had been remodeled, but this room remained much as it had been when the ranch was built in the 1920s. He propped his boots up on the coffee table Jimmy had made for him one Christmas out of deer antlers. The antlers formed the legs beneath a thick slab of varnished tree trunk.

Jackson had a fire burning in the stove tonight. Though the days were growing warmer, up here in the mountains the nights were still cold—perfect weather, Jackson thought. If only the rain had lasted more than a couple of hours, the summer might be all right.

Thinking of the storm that had passed though the mountains so quickly brought memories of a grassy meadow and the beautiful woman he had made love to. The rain hadn't lasted long enough and neither had the lovemaking.

Jackson sighed, wishing Sarah were there with him, that he could pull her down on the thick bear rug in front of the iron stove, strip off her clothes, and—

The ringing of the doorbell put a stop to the train of his thoughts. It was past eight o'clock. Livvy had gone home and it was nearly dark outside. Walking out of the office, he made his way to the front door, flipped on the porch light, and opened the door.

His youngest sibling, Devlin, stood there grinning. “Hey, big brother, got an extra room for the night?”

Gabriel stood behind him. “Make that two.”

“I'll be damned.” Jackson shook hands with each of his brothers, pulling them into a quick bear hug, then stepping out of the way so the men could carry their duffel bags inside the house. “What in blazes brings the pair of you way up here?”

“I was in Phoenix on business,” Gabe said, tossing his duffel at the bottom of the stairs. “Dev said you were having a little trouble. He had some information he figured he would rather deliver in person, so I offered to give him a ride.”

“Pretty far out of the way for a side trip.”

Gabe shrugged a set of linebacker shoulders. All of them were about the same height, Jackson being tallest, but Gabe had the most muscular build—which had proved useful since he actually
was
a linebacker on the high school varsity football team. After that, four years in the Marines, just a grunt, he'd always said, but the service had given him the confidence he'd needed to start a successful career in real estate and construction.

Jackson fixed his attention on Devlin, the pretty boy of the family, though with their startling blue eyes, both
his brothers managed to charm more than their fair share of women. “So I guess you've got news.”

“Big news,
hermano.
The kind that could get your lady off the hook with Martin Kozak and his bad boys.”

Jackson liked the sound of that. “Why don't you two go upstairs and get yourselves settled in a couple of the spare bedrooms. I'll make us some coffee and meet you in the study.”

“I take it Sarah's still living in the cottage,” Dev said. He grinned. “I thought by now you'd have her moved in here.”

Jackson felt an unexpected pang at the notion. “Mostly, we're just friends,” he said, ignoring a memory of making love to her in the meadow.

Gabe slapped him on the back. “Yeah, right—mostly.”

“She's going to want to hear this,” Dev said.

“It's late and she's got her daughter to think of. We'll go over all of it again in the morning.” Besides, he wanted to hear the news first, find a way to soften the blow if one was coming.

The men pounded up the staircase, and Jackson went into the kitchen and began to make coffee. He was damned glad to see his brothers, the best friends he had in the world. Only the fact they thought it was necessary to fly all the way up to deliver the information in person made him uneasy.

Dev and Gabe arrived in the study, poured themselves a mug of coffee from the pot keeping warm on the stove, then sat down on the brown leather sofa and chairs around the fire. Jackson opened the heavy iron
door, tossed in a couple of logs, closed the door and joined them.

“All right, what have you found out?”

Dev didn't hesitate. “Kozak's running two or three different scams all at once. On some jobs, he's using fewer supports than the project calls for, spacing the rebar a little farther apart than is legal. In projects the size of the ones he builds, it saves him millions.”

“What about the inspector?”

“I'll get to him in a minute.” Dev took a sip of his coffee. “Kozak's also got an interesting deal going with the labor he's hiring. The state requires the contractor to pay the prevailing wage. Kozak's bringing in Mexican illegals by the truckload, willing to work for substandard wages. I figure he's cooking the books so the state doesn't know. There may be more—I just haven't run across it yet.”

“How's Kozak getting away with all this?”

“That's where his old buddy, Vernon Rimmer, comes in.”

“Who's Rimmer?” Gabe asked, clearly aware of most of what Dev had been working on. Gabe owned a construction company in Dallas. Lately, he'd been doing redevelopment projects.

“Rimmer's a state highway inspector,” Dev answered. “It took a little doing to find them, since they were buried pretty deep, but Rimmer's got several offshore bank accounts in the Caymans. He's on Kozak's payroll and getting paid off big-time.”

“So even after paying Rimmer,” Jackson said, “Kozak is still ahead of the game.”

“Way ahead,” Dev agreed. “And this has been going on for years. My guess is, Andrew Hollister found out
about it sometime back. Maybe he had an informant. Clearly he kept a record of what was going on.”

“So what happened to make him decide it was time to cash in?” Gabe asked.

“The IRS, I'm betting,” Jackson said. “Hollister must have figured he could either get enough blackmail money from Kozak to pay his back taxes, or make a deal with the Feds not to prosecute in exchange for the information on the disk.”

Jackson explained about the two federal agents showing up at Sarah's door, threatening her with prosecution if she didn't help them find out who her husband was blackmailing.

“Not good,” said Gabe, rubbing a hand over his square jaw.

“Maybe that's how the Feds knew Hollister had the kind of information they would want,” Dev said. “He was in touch with them before he got whacked.”

It made sense.

“Maybe Kozak whacked him,” Gabe suggested.

“Or hired someone to do it,” Dev added.

Jackson took a slug of his coffee. “The guy had enough enemies it could have been just about anyone.”

“So what's the next step?” Gabe asked.

Jackson sat back in his chair. “Good question. Since the FBI is now in the game, the whole thing's a lot more complicated. In the morning we'll fill Sarah in, then put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”

Dev nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He yawned, rubbed the shadow of black along his jaw. “I was out pretty late last night—not that I'm complaining.”

“Missy or Babs?” Gabe asked.

“Maria.” He shook his hand as if he had burned it. “That lady is hot!”

Jackson inwardly sighed. Since Devlin's breakup with longtime girlfriend Amy Matlock two years ago, he was a confirmed bachelor. He went through women like a scythe through wheat. Jackson wondered whether it was really helping his brother forget the woman he had loved or if he was fooling himself.

“It's been a long day,” Jackson said, rising from his deep leather chair. “I want you both to know I appreciate your help in this.”

“Not a problem, bro.” Dev shoved to his feet.

“I needed a vacation anyway,” said Gabe, which was probably true though he would be hard-pressed to actually take one. He rose from the sofa to join his brothers. “Good night, y'all,” he drawled with the slight Texas accent he had slowly been acquiring since his move to Dallas ten years ago.

“I've got a little more to do down here,” Jackson said. “I'll see you both in the morning.”

The men left the study and Jackson sat down in front of the stove, watching the low-burning flames through the open iron door. Propping his boots on the coffee table, he leaned back on the sofa.

Dev had found the information they needed. Now the question was, what to do with it? The things Kozak was doing weren't just illegal, they were dangerous. If one of those overpasses collapsed because of shoddy construction…

He didn't even want to go there.

Making any sort of deal with Kozak was no longer
an option. The trick was to figure how to get the Feds off Sarah's back, stop Kozak—and keep all of them in one piece.

 

Sarah sat in the living room of the cottage the following morning. Across from her sat three of the best-looking men she had ever seen. Jackson, the rugged Raines brother, sat next to Gabe, who was the brawniest of the trio. Both had the same dark brown hair, though Gabe's shone with traces of red in the light coming in through the window. His square jaw led to a strong chin with the same cleft all three Raines brothers had inherited.

Dev was leaner than the other two, but with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, she could see muscular forearms, hinting at a solid body that matched those of his brothers. He had nearly black hair, incredible eyes the same brilliant blue as Gabe's and thick black lashes that a cover model would kill for.

“So that's about it,” Jackson said, summing up the information Devlin had discovered, drawing her mind back to the information he had been delivering, information she would rather not have known, the kind of illegal activities that made her stomach burn. “Now we need to decide our next move.”

Sarah sighed. “Well, we can't let Marty Kozak continue to build bridges that might fall down. I think we should call the FBI, set up a meeting with agents Brooker and Davis.”

“I think we're all in agreement on that,” Dev said.

“I'll get hold of my attorney,” Jackson added. “We need someone there who knows the ropes when we talk
to those guys, someone we can count on to see you get a fair deal.”

Her stomach tightened. “I can't afford to hire—”

“I can,” Jackson said as he had before.

Sarah came to her feet. “I can't take money from you, Jackson. I don't want to be in your debt and that's exactly where that would put me.”

Gabe was staring at her with a trace of pity. “You think he'll want something in return, don't you?”

“My brother's trying to help you, Sarah,” Devlin said gently. “You won't be the first person he's done that for—Gabe and I can both personally vouch for that. You won't be the last.”

“And he isn't going to require any kind of repayment,” Gabe finished.

She stood there feeling humiliated and embarrassed. Jackson had never asked her for anything. He had been a friend from the start, one she needed very badly. He wasn't like Andrew or any other man she had ever known.

“I'm sorry.” She sank back down in her chair. “I'm not used to people helping me.” She looked at Jackson and blinked to hold back tears. “Thank you,” she added.

Jackson looked away from her, hiding the emotions she had read in his face—concern, relief that she had agreed, and something more she couldn't name.

“Where were we?” he said, clearly wishing to turn the conversation back to their plans.

“Thomas Carson, your attorney,” Gabe reminded him. “You were going to set up a meeting with the Feds and ask Carson to be there.”

“Right.”

“Not in Wind Canyon,” Dev warned. “We don't want Kozak or his goons getting wind of this.”

“Carson's office is in Cheyenne. We'll ask for a meeting there tomorrow.”

“That'll work,” Dev said. “They'll be eager to know what you've got.”

“I'll fly you down,” offered Gabe.

Sarah took a deep breath, trying to pull her thoughts together, feeling a surge of gratitude for the help the brothers were giving her.

She looked over at Jackson, who had turned to speak to Gabe, and found herself studying his profile: the straight nose and hard jaw; the dark hair, a little too long, that brushed the collar of his Western shirt. A sweep of desire stirred deep in her stomach—which was ridiculous, considering they weren't alone and they were discussing a deadly serious situation.

Sarah returned her thinking to the problem at hand, listened as the men worked out the details. She would have to take time off work—again. But she didn't really have set hours and she could always work at home a few nights to make up the time. She was surprised when they asked her opinion and actually seemed to listen to what she had to say, including her in the planning as Andrew never would have done.

“All we need to do now is to set up that meeting,” Dev said.

“I'll take care of it,” said Jackson, rising from his place on the sofa, and Sarah had no doubt that he would.

 

As soon as the men left the cottage, Sarah grabbed her briefcase and headed into town. Holly was staying
with Livvy. Earlier, the little girl had met Dev and Gabe, who both had an easy way with children and really seemed taken with the little girl.

Holly had been instantly charmed by Jackson's two handsome brothers, and disappointed she had to leave while the adults had their meeting. She did so only with the promise that the men would come down to the corral and watch her ride Midnight, which they all agreed to do.

Sarah smiled as she sat at the desk in her office reviewing the article she was currently writing. She had gotten an appointment with Susan Springer to discuss her son Teddy's arrest for joyriding in his parent's car, promising to keep Teddy's name out of the article. She explained that she wanted to write about the problems parents had today communicating with their teenage children and how important it was to keep those lines of communication open.