Cutter Mountain Rendezvous (24 page)

Then there were bridges in need of repair. Number one was his agent, Tony Pirana. Tony could sweet talk a rattler into rolling on its back for a tummy scratch. After Colton had thumbed his nose at the Bullets for the last month with silence, the franchise owner would be the rattler in need of Tony’s expertise.

Once the hoopla over his return to the Bullets cooled down, he would give Bobby a call. Arrange to have Bessie hauled to Chicago. While he made his way back to the mound, Kate would get her inn up and running. Then once the season was over, he wanted to go back and see how it all turned out. See how he felt about Kate.

Chapter Twenty

“I don’t know what to do with her,” Kate’s mom said in a low voice. Both pairs of parental eyes snapped her direction as she entered their kitchen. Their faces were etched with concern.

“No need to worry about me. Things’ll work out. They always do. Right, Dad?”

“Right.”

“That lacked conviction.” She gave him a weak smile and poured herself a cup of coffee. Tinkerbelle curled her ankles with loud purring.

“I’m off today. Jeff and I are going fishing. Why don’t you come with us?”

“Fishing? I thought Jeff was in Knoxville.”

“He’s home this weekend. Come along. The fresh air will do you good.”

“Don’t think so. I’ve things to do today.”

If every limb in Kate’s body didn’t ache from inactivity and mental fatigue, she would have laughed out loud. Her parents’ shared look of anticipation that their daughter was “snapping out of it” was downright comical.

Once she would have smart-mouthed. Today, she felt simple gratitude for their loving support. She sipped her coffee. “I need to go to the property. See if I can salvage anything for Lindsay.”

“Oh.” Her mom set down the cup.

Carter cleared his throat. “Nothing’s left, Kate. I’ve been there every day over the past week looking around.”

“I understand that, Dad, but I need to look for myself. You’re looking at it from an investigative standpoint. I’ll be looking at it to grieve. And thank God Lindsay was safe in California.”

“Don’t go there.” The warning look her dad delivered did little to change her mind. “Lindsay would have been safe. You’re a good mother with good instincts. If you’ve guts enough to run into a burning house to save a cat, you’re a hero in my book.”

Kate blinked back a veil of tears as she held her dad’s intense blue gaze and tilted up her chin. “Heroine.”

Carter laughed. “I’ve always admired your spunk, Kate. It’s sent you headlong into a heap of trouble from time to time, but that’s not all bad. Trouble has a way of chinking off the rough edges and making you a man.”

“Woman.” She gave him a fake smile.

“A hell of a woman.” This small exchange gave Kate a much needed morale boost.

As expected, it took endless haranguing with her mother to convince her she needed to drive out to the carnage alone. What Kate didn’t expect to find was Bobby loading Bessie onto a flatbed truck.

It became the distraction she needed. The sight of her fireplace standing among blackened rubble made bile rush to her throat as she gulped back her emotions. The Bear Creek fire department had been on the scene, but more to make sure the fire stayed contained rather than extinguishing it for lack of pumping power from her well. Another issue her dad warned would need to be rectified before opening a bed-’n-breakfast in such a remote location.

Kate stopped the car. Like her dad said, the place was burned to the ground. Charred appliances and bathroom fixtures stood guard over less fortunate materials of wood and fabric. Most skeletal remains stood too burnt to consider any option other than leveling with a bulldozer. With the meeting in Knoxville only a few days away, maybe she should call Bennett Field and offer to sell him the property before he knew about the fire.

As she drove past what used to be her home, toward the barn, Bobby stopped loading Bessie. His nervous habit of shifting from one foot to another with alternate glances to the ground made her take a casual approach. “Hey, Bobby. What’s going on here?”

“I’m loading up this here truck for that ballplayer.”

“You mean Colton?”

He pulled off his cap. “Sorry about this...this...” He lowered his head.

“Tragedy?”

“It ain’t no tragedy if no one got kilt.” His eyes flicked her way.

“That might be true. And I know folks like to say that when bad things happen. But you know what, Bobby. It sure feels like a tragedy to me.”

He stepped forward to give her the first hug she could remember since childhood. They parted quickly, and she saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down while he resettled his cap. “Who’s driving the flatbed to Chicago?”

“Me.” Bobby gave her that look of his when he thinks she’s been dense and should have figured it out. She knew they were back on less shaky ground.

“How will you get home?”

“Colton’s flying me back. Ma will pick me up in Knoxville. He’s gonna send me tickets to a game near here once he’s back on the pitcher’s mound.”

“That remains to be seen,” Kate said in a low tone.

“He’ll come back. That last pitching session ’bout burnt a hole in my hand. Though he’s famous for the knuckleball not the fastball—”

“I know. Listen. I’m actually glad you’re out here. Would you mind hanging around while I look over the place?”

“You know I’d do anything for you. I’ll be right here if you need anything. Anything at all. Right here.” He pointed to the ground. “Right here. I ain’t movin’ an inch.”

“I get it.” Kate smiled and landed a playful fist into his upper arm. “How about you load up Bessie first, okay?”

“You bet. Right here. I’ll be right here guardin’ your back.” He marked a line across the grass with the toe of his grimy work boots.

“You’d better. Dad says the fire was arson. They haven’t caught who did it yet.”

“They will.”

“Thanks, Bobby. Thanks for watching my back. You’re a good friend.”

“I’m right here. Ain’t movin’.”

“Enough,” she laughed.

Kate spent an hour walking over the ashes of her dreams. Only two rockers went unscathed. Her rescuer’s doing? She sat in one to study the burnt shapes and items she’d pulled from the rubble. Books with burnt covers and ruined photo albums sat on the ground at her feet.

She blinked back the tears to stare at the open space that was once her home. The springs and frame from the rollaway that made up Colton’s bed caught her eye. Brushing aside the tears, she turned pages of the cookbook where she had stuck Colton’s notes and check. The fire managed to char the edges and had finally given up for lack of air. She removed the scraps of paper with care. Like precious pieces of dainty porcelain, she placed them in a small box brought from her parents’ house. She sighed and stared at the pile. Junk.

All is lost.

“Kate,” Bobby hollered from the post where he stood so quiet she had forgotten he was still around. “You okay?”

“Yes. I think I’m done here. You can go now.”

“Not leaving till you do.”

Kate acknowledged that with a wave.

When she found herself taking burnt mementos out of the box and throwing it back into the rubble, she knew it was time to leave. It was time to move on and call her dad’s lawyer to meet Bennett Field in Knoxville.

Insurance would pay off the construction loan, and she would get a job.

Once things were squared away with Bennett Field, she would fly out to California to pick up Lindsay in person and accompany her home instead of with Trey as arranged. She would be straightforward in telling her daughter about the fire that left them bunkmates at her parents. The temporary condition would be harder on her than Lindsay.

“Hey, Bobby.” She reached into the box and pulled out three pieces of paper. “Give these to Colton when you see him.”

Bobby took the tattered notes and stuck them in his shirt pocket. “What do I tell him?”

“Tell him all is lost.”

There was an even deeper sense of loss to think Colton’s two notes and half ripped check survived the fire, when not one photograph remained. As Kate drove back to her parents’ house, she pulled to the side of the road to answer a persistent caller to her cell phone. The number was out-of-state and unfamiliar. Colton? Her heart hammered in her chest.

“Hello.”

“Is this Kate Crockett?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad you finally answered. I didn’t want to leave a voice mail. This is Sasha Silberstine. I’m the lawyer Colton hired to look into the activities of Bennett Field. I understand you prefer your own lawyer, but I’d like you to rethink that decision.” The dead zone in Kate’s brain made her mouth drop open. “Hello. Are you there?”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Could you repeat what you just said?”

****

Bender, Bender and Lawson law offices were modest. Shelves of thick legal books and binders lined the walls in the small library. At its center sat a large rectangular table—a thick, rich mahogany with solid square legs. Lemon wax wafted. The table was rubbed to a soft sheen but didn’t hide its hard use over the years.

On the table lay the 1845 Tennessee land warrant in question. Andrew Jackson’s distinct signature caught Kate’s eye on the document browned with the passage of time. Plastic safeguarded it from human touch. It was in remarkable condition. Kate would have thought it a forgery had not an authentication certificate lay next to it. She mused the impressive piece of paper would bring Bennett Field far more financial gain than he could ever hope to recover by claiming her land.

To her left, Sasha Silberstine’s slim legs were crossed. One swung while they awaited Bennett Field’s attorney to join them. Bennett and his assistant, Andrea Roesch, stared at them from across the table. Sasha huffed out a complaint. “You’d think a small law office would be able to start a meeting on time. Something doesn’t feel right here.”

Sasha pushed back from her seat and walked the short length to the end of the table. “I hate sitting when there’s nothing happening. How about you, Miss Roesch?”

Miss Roesch cleared her throat. “I don’t mind. I’m sure Mr. Lawson will be along shortly.”

Kate’s gaze snapped to Andrea Roesch. Her low, pleasant voice didn’t match the high-pitched woman who originally called and claimed to be Bennett’s assistant.

When Sasha flicked a long, manicured nail at the document on the table and sniffed with contempt, every eye in the room shifted to the well-endowed gal lawyer. In a tight red sweater and mini skirt, her long, bleached blond hair hung stick straight down her back. Her keen blue eyes didn’t miss a beat or the attention she gathered around her like a comfortable shawl.

“You can’t possibly expect Miss Crockett to simply turn the land over because you own a hundred-sixty-eight year old scrap of history. That land warrant’s better suited for the Smithsonian than a legal fight. It won’t stand up in court and you know it. That’s why we’re in this room today, isn’t it?”

Miss Roesch straightened her spine. “We’ll not comment until Mr. Lawson joins us,” she said with that low-metered voice unlike the caller. Kate wondered why she sounded so different.

“Hmfff.” Sasha paced with narrowed eyes square on Bennett Field while Kate considered sliding beneath the table. What was she thinking to allow Colton’s ex-lover to handle her affairs? Curiosity had overtaken her senses wanting to see what type of woman Colton preferred when Sasha convinced her that Bennett Field was calling her bluff the day she phoned.

While Sasha walked to a water pitcher and poured a glass, Kate assessed Bennett Field in the uncomfortable silence. He was a mousy man with an aversion to sunlight. Thin strands of dull brown hair covered his small dome. Pale eyes peered through thick black-rimmed glasses.

Sasha returned with the glass and set it on the table. She strolled to the end of the table to place her hands palm down and lean toward Bennett Field. His nose twitched as her heavy perfume settled over the table like San Francisco smog. Her eyes blazed his direction. “How do we know
you
didn’t set fire to Miss Crockett’s property to cause her further duress?”

“Address me when you speak, Ms. Silberstine.” Oliver Lawson’s deep baritone cracked like a whip. His burly appearance belied his profession. “Going forward, any outlandish accusations you care to make against my client are to be made directly to me in the privacy of my office.”

Kate felt relief for his breaking the spell Sasha seemed to weave around them as she snapped to attention. “Then by all means, Mr. Lawson, please do speak. We’re all ears and you’re late.”

Not even the padded walls of law books could absorb the new energy bouncing off the two lawyers. It set Kate on edge.

While Sasha eased into the chair next to her, Oliver Lawson whispered into his client’s ear. Kate let her gaze dart from face to face. No one fit their roles in the room except Andrea Roesch. Aside from a voice makeover, she personified a possessive personal secretary with her short, well-groomed hair, lifeless gray pinstriped suit and pinched expression. If looks could kill, Sasha Silberstine would be leaving the meeting in a body bag.