Unexpected Love (White Oak-Mafia #2) (18 page)

Tess looked at Dan, but the man shook his head.

Steel sighed. “Well, if you change your mind later, rest assured we’ll only think the better of you. However, I must insist you take any advice Tess provides. Had I driven up this road, I would have killed us five times over.”

The first time Tess suggested he slow down, Dan ignored her.

“Dan, I’m serious. You follow her instructions or I’ll have you replaced…if we survive the drive to the cabin.”

He slowed and glared at Steel in the rearview mirror.

“You need to slow to twenty,” Tess advised.

He huffed, but he slowed to twenty and kept his eyes on the road.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because—”

They slammed into a pothole that almost caused Steel to drop the urn.

“Shit!” Dan cursed.

“Maybe you should slow down to ten,” Tess advised.

“Or let Tess drive,” Steel suggested again. “It only gets worse.”

Dan pulled to a halt. “Seriously?”

“Grams never asked anyone to fix the road because it kept the relatives away, at least until my father demanded they risk their lives to show up and try to guilt Grams into not selling her woods to Meg.”

He looked back at Steel. “You stay where you are. I’m going to let Tess drive.”

Steel nodded, shocked the guy was going to swallow his male pride and be smart. His impression of Dan improved immensely.

Once they switched, Tess started the SUV and sadly drove like a drunken sailor. “Just getting a feel of its turning capabilities,” she explained. “It’s very good.”

“Better than my stomach,” Steel added.

“Sorry, I’ll behave now,” Tess promised and ceased the heavy swings from side to side. As she came to what looked like a mild turn, she slowed to a crawl, then slammed on the brakes.

“What’s—shit!” Dan yelled.

“It’s washed out significantly since we came up last. Good thing I’m not in the Bug.” She stopped and got out.

“Stay inside,” Dan warned Steel and then followed her.

Steel was tempted to ignore him. He wasn’t a two-year-old child. Besides, he knew a great deal about getting over washed out roads.

He gently laid the urn on the floorboard and got out.

“Do you carry anything flat and hard in the back?” Tess asked Dan.

“No.” He then noticed Steel. “Get back in the car, or we’re returning to the safe house.”

“No!” Tess and Steel declared in unison.

Tess spoke to Dan. “The bear is gone, so worse case, we hike our way home. However, I’m pretty sure the three of us can carry enough fill to make this passable.”

“It’s a five-foot ravine!” Dan yelled.

“Two feet deep, three feet wide. And we don’t have to fill it all, just where the tires will cross,” Steel said. “So stop whining and let’s locate some fill.”

Tess smiled at Steel with adoration. Taking the lead, she slid down the steep decline on the side of the road. When Steel started to follow, she ordered him to halt midway. “We’ll pass them up.”

“Great idea,” Steel said. “Dan, you wait at the top and when you get a rock, put it…in a pile on the road.”

“Why don’t I just put it in the ravine?” Dan asked.

Steel sighed. “Honestly? Because I don’t think you’ve ever done this before, and it needs to be done right.”

“Okay,” he stated without further argument.

After they collected almost thirty rocks, slightly larger than cantaloupes, Tess declared it enough. While Dan watched, Steel and Tess built two bridges between the sides.

“Wouldn’t it make sense if we brought up more rocks?” Dan asked.

“If this was the only one we’d be doing, we could. But, I expect we’ll have a few more of these to build. Besides, the rocks will wash out again come the next storm.

Dan stared at the small bridges. “You do realize if you drive off, the car is stuck.”

“Yes, but I promise you I won’t.”

“Maybe I should drive…” Dan said.

“I vote no,” Steel replied. “All Tess has to do is drive straight. We built the rocks in perfect alignment with the tires. She’s the best person for this job. Let her do it.”

Dan sighed and then looked at her. “If something goes wrong, then I have to take the hit for wrecking this vehicle. Under no circumstances can anyone know you drove it. That is against regulations.”

Steel was even more impressed with Dan for letting her drive. He had a very good reason to refuse her, but instead he did what was right. “She’ll do fine,” Steel promised.

“You want me to stay out here and guide?” Steel whispered.

She sighed heavily. “No, because then I’d be sick to death worrying about Grams’ ashes.” She then pressed her hand to his chest. “What happened to your belief I could do this?”

He covered her hand. “Sorry, my desire to help got carried away. I’ll go secure Helen’s ashes.”

Once Tess started the car, they were over in less than two seconds and continuing up the hill. To her prediction, they came upon another washout area. This time, Dan quietly assisted, and they were back in the car and on their way in less than ten minutes.

The last washout required more rocks than they could find. So they ported two downed logs from the high side of the hill and used them to fill in the center of the bridge.

Steel held his breath as they moved quickly over, but then relaxed once they reached the other side still intact. When they finally arrived at the cabin, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Tess hurried over to the Rover and pulled from the roof two metal single-tire bridges, six feet long.

“This is what we really needed.” She then looked at her grams’ car and then at the SUV. “Dan, should we put these on your car since I’m guessing that’s what we’ll be traveling in from now on?”

“Absolutely.” Dan grinned. “Here I was thinking Dr. Castile was in grave danger up here, but before we barely fixed those ravines, this place was, without a doubt, the most inaccessible house in the country.”

“Well, it’s supposed to storm tonight, so all our hard work will get washed away,” Tess stated cheerfully and invited him inside.

She held her finger to her lips as they entered the cabin. Steel noticed Dan’s furrowed brow as he took in the small rustic room. He had to be thinking they’d fed him a line of shit about four large bedrooms.

Steel took the lead and led him through the kitchen closet and down the steps into the long hall. He opened the door to the living room and stepped back so he could watch Dan’s expression.

Dan’s mouth fell open, then he frowned at the wall of glass. He immediately went to it and knocked his knuckles against it.

“It’s bulletproof,” Tess stated. “Grams bought one more panel than needed and tested it before they installed the windows.”

“I was just about to declare this place impossible.”

“It’s also slightly tilted down and tinted, so you can’t see in, only out. From the outside, when you look at the hill, it just looks like trees all the way up.”

“I’m impressed. Your grandmother was a security conscious gal.”

“She knew evil firsthand. Mafia wives breed early. Grams was fourteen when she was married to the monster. My mother was fourteen when she married my father. Fortunately for me, there are laws now to prevent older men from marrying children or I would have been married off to some Chicago Don at the age of thirteen. When I turned sixteen, Father tried to force me into a marriage, but I warned him I knew my legal rights and I would refuse to marry, thus insulting the man he wished to curry favors with.”

“That took a lot of courage,” Dan said with admiration. Too much admiration in Steel’s view.

“So he told me to get out of his house and try living on the street and see if I preferred that to marriage. It took me two days, but I walked all the way here. Grams took me in at once. I pretty much ignored my father until I needed to go to college. The bank wouldn’t give me a loan by myself, so I had to ask him to co-sign my loan. I thought it was going to be a lesson in humility as he laughed in my face, but, to my shock, he agreed.”

She sighed and shook her head. “He was only letting me run up debt so when he pulled out the rug, it would hurt more. Early this year, he refused to sign until I helped my family members drive up here so they could bully my grams into not selling her land. I’m sure next year it would have come with something worse, like becoming engaged to some thug in Chicago. And then the fourth year he’d refuse to sign, leaving me with about two hundred thousand dollars of debt and no way to pay it.”

“Why didn’t Helen co-sign?” Steel asked.

“She thought it a waste of money to pay a college to teach me stuff she’d taught me for free.” Tess caressed the urn in her hands. “Only when she understood that I couldn’t manage these woods until I got my master’s degree did she concede it an evil necessity.”

“Okay if I look around?” Dan asked, evidently having lost all interest in her life of woe.

“Yeah, let me give you a quick tour. Then you can snoop about to your heart’s content. However, be warned, my father has the upstairs bugged. My uncle must have done it when they came to visit.”

“So the upstairs is not used?”

“When Grams first came to Iowa, it was her real home. My mother would visit her when I was little. I know my mother believed she lived in the tiny cabin because I remember her telling Father he should give Grams enough money to make a better home. Father said he’d offered to buy the land from her for a hundred thousand, but she’d just called him a thief.”

“She sold it to the lottery winner for a hundred-fifty million, right?”

“Actually, Grams had to up it to a hundred-eighty million to cover a debt Uncle Jeffrey had devised to force the sale of the land. But even then it was a steal. It’s worth about two to four billion in lumber.”

Dan choked. “Seriously?”

“White oak doesn’t rot and can be cut into beautiful wide beams. It’s a premium wood that lasts forever. My father intended to cut down two hundred thousand acres of trees just so he could return to Chicago in style. Only Grams outsmarted him. He thought he just needed to wait for her to die, but she was always twelve steps ahead.”

Tess opened the first door in the side hall. “This is Steel’s room.”

His eyebrows rose as he eyed the large room. She continued down hall and opened a door. “This is my room.”

He glanced inside. “Any reason why your room is smaller?”

“Well, Steel’s room was one of the two guest rooms.” She opened another door. “This is…was Grams’ room.” She closed it quickly and led him to the final door in the hall. “This will be the first room I have made into dorms.”

“How many beds are you putting in here?”

“Eight. I think they’ll fit.”

He smiled. “Yes, and without anyone having to climb over someone else to reach a top bunk.”

Tess then showed him the storage rooms.

“Impressive,” he said. He stopped when they returned to the kitchen. “How are you going to handle feeding all these guys?”

“I hadn’t really given that a thought.”

“Word of advice. Don’t make it your job.”

Steel approached. “We’ll try rotating the responsibilities. I’ve found most guys can cook at least one decent meal.”

Dan chuckled. “Well, you’ve pegged me. I can do a mean grilled steak, but everything else is mostly assembly.”

“What if someone can’t cook at all?” Tess asked.

Dan shrugged. “We could make them grocery shop.”

Tess shook her head. “We have a boy who shops and delivers, and he’s great at picking good fruits, vegetables, and nice cuts of fish. I’m not inclined to give him up to someone who knows nothing about edible foods.”

“Good point.” Dan said. “Then deadbeats can clean up after dinner.”

“That’ll teach them.” Tess grinned at Dan for such a clever solution. She then placed Grams on the stone mantel over the fireplace and retrieved her laptop. A few moments later, she had the plan pulled up.

“Crap!” She grabbed her phone and called Sara. “You didn’t show this to Tom did you?”

“No, but he’s getting pushy.”

“Well, you saved him from a heart attack. It’s doubled everything. I’ll fix this and send you a new version as fast as possible.”

Steel came over. “Anything I can do?”

She grimaced. “Would you mind doing a round of the woods? Make sure everything is okay?”

“In other words, leave you alone.”

“No, the woods have been unattended for almost twenty hours. I’m worried about them.”

He caressed her hair. “I’ll check on the woods and my sites.” He then glanced at Dan. “You coming?”

“Absolutely,” he stated and then frowned at Tess. “You’ll be okay alone here, right?”

She thought it an odd and rather demeaning question. “Yep. I’m pretty self-sufficient.”

Dan’s hand settled on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean it that way. You are without a doubt the most self-sufficient woman I’ve ever met.”

As Steel and Dan left, she recalled Steel giving her a similar compliment, but he had stopped before saying ‘woman’, deciding she was one of the most rational persons he’d ever met, no gender included. She liked that a great deal better.