Since he didn’t have access to some of the same computerized financial checks that his brother did, he called Dylan and asked him to check out Gil Frye’s finances. In the meantime, he decided to have a chat with both Homer and Karen to see how deeply their animosity toward Brianna ran. He intended to tell them he was just paying a little morale-boosting visit to the department. They could make of that whatever they liked.
Homer Collins was the epitome of a dedicated scientist from his flyaway white hair to his rumpled, careless attire. Jeb could recall the first time as a child that he had seen Homer in the lab and wondered if he was experimenting with something as exciting as Frankenstein. Both Homer and his father had chuckled at his vivid imagination.
He found Homer in the lab again, surrounded by test tubes and piles of computer printouts analyzing the data he’d assembled.
“Hey, Homer.”
The older man glanced up, looking a bit dazed behind his thick glasses. “Oh, Jeb, it’s you. Can I help you with something?”
“I just stopped by to see how things are going with Brianna out of the picture.”
“A sorry situation,” Homer said, sounding genuinely distraught. “I would never have thought her capable of selling out this company, not after your dad put such faith in her.”
“Are you so sure she did?”
Homer seemed startled by the question. “If she didn’t, who would have?”
“I was hoping you might have some ideas,” Jeb said.
“Haven’t given it much thought. I’ve been too busy trying to take up the slack since she left.”
“She’s only been gone a day,” Jeb pointed out mildly.
“It doesn’t take long for work to pile up, if everyone’s not pulling their weight,” he responded defensively.
Jeb patted his shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Thanks for pitching in. I just wanted you to know we’re all counting on you to stay on top of things until we can get this worked out and get Brianna back here.”
Homer regarded him with surprise. “She’ll be back?”
“If I have my way, she will be.”
“Yes, I had heard that the two of you…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “Well, never mind. You know what’s best, I’m sure.”
“Any idea where Karen Cole is?” Jeb asked, letting Homer’s unspoken innuendo about Jeb’s personal relationship with Brianna pass.
“Where she usually is, I imagine, in the field. She left this morning to do a follow-up report on one of the sites Brianna checked out.”
“Why? Was there some question about the results?”
“With what’s happened, everyone’s going to be second-guessing every move Brianna made,” Homer said. “We need to be ready for the questions.”
Jeb supposed he had a point, but it still grated on his nerves to hear someone so eager to accept the fact that Brianna really had been a spy. Of course, he’d been just as bad. Worse, in fact, since he’d known her well enough to know better.
As he wandered back to his own office, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Yes?”
“Jeb, it’s Dylan. I got that information on Frye, but I don’t think it’s going to help you.”
“Oh?”
“He’s a financial paragon. The man’s been depositing his checks like clockwork. No extra money going into his accounts. He doesn’t have credit cards. His mortgage payments are modest. His two big splurges were the beach house and boat you already know about. He made the down payments with money he had in savings.”
“What are you saying?”
“He looks clean.”
“Damn. I thought he was going to be our best shot.”
“Anything’s possible, but from where I sit, he’s not your man. Want me to run checks on the others in the department?”
“Not yet. I’ll get back to you.”
“Jeb?”
“What?”
“Could this be a game of smoke and mirrors that Dad’s been playing?”
Shocked by the suggestion, Jeb halted where he was. “Dad? Why the hell would he do something like that?”
“You’ve got me there, but I don’t like the way this is going. Be careful. You may be stirring up a hornet’s nest over nothing.”
“Dylan, those sites were stolen out from under Delacourt Oil. That’s not nothing.”
“You only have Dad’s word for that, right?”
“Yes,” he said, then corrected himself. “No, not exactly. Michael confirmed it. He was in on the negotiations for one site himself. And Brianna has never denied that we lost sites she’d been checking out.”
“Think about it, though. Dad hasn’t gone ballistic. Not even once. That is totally out of character.”
“True,” Jeb agreed.
“All he’s done is try to warn you away from getting involved, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Ask yourself why,” Dylan suggested.
“I’ve asked myself that a million times, but I don’t have an answer.”
“One comes to mind, but it’s so far-fetched even I have a hard time believing it.”
“Try me.”
“No,” Dylan said slowly. “I think I’ll let you work it out for yourself.”
“Dylan,” Jeb protested, but he was wasting his breath. His big brother had just hung up on him, and if he wasn’t very much mistaken, Dylan had been chuckling. Jeb couldn’t see a blasted thing to laugh about.
“I gots to go to therapy, Mama,” Emma said eventually, dismissing her.
“Okay, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Brianna said even as Emma whooshed past in her wheelchair. Brianna sighed. She ought to be grateful that her daughter was so eager to keep up with her treatment, but she couldn’t help feeling just a little hurt by the abrupt departure.
“Put the time to good use,” she muttered as she left the building, waving at the daytime nursing supervisor who’d just returned from a week-long vacation. Gretchen wouldn’t be on until evening. Brianna missed chatting with her. Maybe Gretchen would have some insights into Emma’s odd behavior, though the last time they’d talked, she had been as tight-lipped as the child. There were definitely secrets being kept around the rehab center, and Emma was at the center of them. Unfortunately, Brianna had bigger mysteries to unravel.
Dismissing it as a problem she couldn’t solve, she tried to focus on her so-called investigation. If she knew Jeb, he had headed straight back to Delacourt Oil to question all the people Roy had mentioned at lunch.
Sitting behind the wheel of her car, she considered her options.
“Why am I pussyfooting around with this?” she demanded aloud.
The person who could tell her precisely what had happened with this last deal was Jordan Adams. He’d bought the land. Why not ask him how he’d found out about it? The worst he could do would be to lie or evade her questions. In the best-case scenario, he could put the whole thing to rest with an honest reply.
Because she dealt with charter companies all the time to book flights to some of the out-of-the-way sites she needed to explore, she called a pilot she knew and made arrangements with him to fly her to Los Piños immediately. Whatever the cost, if she could prove her innocence on this trip, it would be worth the battering to her savings.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, when he came to the door with a napkin in his hand and a puzzled frown on his face. “I would have called, but I was afraid you wouldn’t see me.”
“Why on earth wouldn’t I see you?” Jordan said, his manner surprisingly friendly. “Come on in and join us. Dinner’s just getting started. It’s a little crazy because the grandkids are here, but if you don’t mind chaos, there’s plenty of food.”
The thought of intruding, along with her own dark mood, kept her from accepting. She shook her head. “No, really, I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll just wait out here, if you don’t mind. Join me whenever you’ve finished.”
Jordan studied her face intently, then nodded. “Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He returned almost at once, carrying two glasses of lemonade. “It’s a warm night. I thought you might want something to drink,” he said, offering one glass to her.
“Thank you.”
He settled into the rocker next to hers, rocked for a moment, giving the evening’s peacefulness a chance to soak in. “Okay, Brianna,” he said eventually. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about the deal you made for the Harrison Ranch mineral rights.”
He nodded slowly. “I thought that might be it. What can I tell you?”
“Did that deal just fall into your lap?”
He chuckled. “Is that your polite way of asking if someone leaked the information about Delacourt Oil’s findings to me?”
“Pretty much,” she said candidly.
“No, at least not in the sense you mean. I’d really rather not get into this with you, though.”
“I’m sure I can understand why,” she said bitterly.
“I doubt that,” he said in a wry tone she couldn’t quite interpret.
She decided to play on his well-known sense of decency and honor. “Look, my professional reputation is on the line over this. I know that I’m not the one who told you. And I’m not out to have somebody prosecuted. I just want to be able to go to Bryce Delacourt and offer him something to prove that I had nothing to do with leaking inside information. I need to clear my name.”
Jordan, the epitome of a gentleman, swore. “It’s come to that, has it?”
Brianna nodded miserably. “I’ve already quit my job. Jeb’s investigating me. I need answers.”
“I could use a few myself,” he said fervently. “Don’t worry, Brianna. If you need work, you have a job with me. I know your reputation and your credentials. I would have offered when you left Max Coleman, but Bryce beat me to it. So that’s one worry off your shoulders. In the meantime, I’ll give you an affidavit that swears you had nothing to do with the information I was given.”
She was astounded by the job offer and the offer of an affidavit. “Thank you. A sworn statement ought to help.”
“It’s yours, but you’re not going to need it,” he assured her. “Not with Bryce.”
Something in his voice set off alarms. “Because?”
“I knew I should have stayed the heck out of this,” he murmured to himself, then met her gaze evenly. “Because Bryce gave me that information himself.”
As his words sank in, Brianna began to shake, the reaction part fury, part relief. “Do you know why he would do that?”
“Actually, I think I do, but you’ll have to ask him.”
“Oh, believe me, I intend to.”
“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Fletcher said with a touch of apparent indignation at his failure to be more forthcoming. “He shouldn’t be gone more than a day or two. If he checks in, shall I have him call you?”
“No,” Brianna said. This meeting needed to be face-to-face. She owed him that much in return for all he’d done for her. “But I would appreciate it if you would contact me the minute he returns.”
“Absolutely. I’ll add your name to the list of people waiting to speak to him.”
“Put it at the top,” Brianna said insistently. “This is urgent.”
“Funny,” Mrs. Fletcher said, sounding anything but amused. “Jeb said the same thing. Is there something going on I should know about?”
Brianna almost smiled at the increased level of exasperation in the woman’s voice. She prided herself on knowing absolutely everything going on at Delacourt Oil. She had been with Bryce since he started the company more than thirty years earlier and she clearly didn’t like being left in the dark.
“I’m not sure yet,” Brianna told her candidly.
“Does this have something to do with the reason you just up and quit out of the blue? I can tell you that Mr. Delacourt was furious about that. He told Jeb exactly how he felt. Not that I was eavesdropping,” she said hurriedly. “But when Mr. Delacourt gets angry, you can hear him in the next county.”
“I’m sure you can,” Brianna said wryly. “And yes, this is related. I’m just not sure how yet.”
“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I hope you’ll change your mind and come back. Mr. Delacourt has a lot of faith in you. Ever since Trish refused to become involved in the company and went off to marry that rancher, he’s been down in the dumps. I think he actually thought of you as a substitute for his daughter.”
Funny way to treat a daughter, Brianna thought, but then Mrs. Fletcher didn’t know the whole story about how Bryce had apparently set Brianna up to take the fall for something he’d done.
“That’s nice of you to say. I’ve always been fond of him, too,” Brianna said. But that could change, she thought. Right now she was seriously considering murdering the man, if he was guilty of what Jordan Adams had suggested.
When she got to her place, she found Jeb once again waiting on the doorstep. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the man’s persistence. However, there was no earthly reason for him to see her ambivalence.
“This is getting to be a habit,” she said. “A bad one.”
Jeb ignored the gibe. “Where have you been? Those errands must have really piled up.”
She frowned at his sarcasm. “Where I go and what I do are none of your concern.”
“Now, darlin’, you know that’s not entirely true. Even if I weren’t crazy about you, there’s the little matter of corporate espionage to be considered.”
“Oh, get off it. I’m not guilty and you know it. That’s just an excuse to hang around here and drive me crazy.”
He regarded her with evident curiosity. “Do I?”
“Do you what?”
“Drive you crazy?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I was thinking of crazy in a good way,” he said, regarding her with a crooked grin.
She bit back a chuckle. “And I wasn’t,” she retorted.
“I guess I’ll have to work on my technique.”
“You might want to start by not making unsubstantiated accusations.”
“I’ve apologized for that.” He held up a bag. “And I’ve brought dinner. Chinese. All your favorites.”
“You don’t know my favorites.”
“Sure, I do. Mrs. Hanover told me what she orders for you when you’re staying late at the office. Carly advised me that crow would be better, but I couldn’t find it on the menu.”
“Mrs. Hanover has a big mouth. She probably ought to be fired.”
“In order to fire her, you’d have to come back to work.” He regarded her hopefully. “Are you considering that?”
“Nope. Not until this mess is cleared up, anyway.” Suddenly overwhelmed by how complicated her life had become, she blinked back tears, turned away and focused her attention on finding her key.
“Brianna?”
“What?”
“I really am sorry for my part in all of this.”
Once again, he sounded genuinely contrite, but that didn’t make the mess go away. It didn’t clear her name. She gazed down at him. “Speaking of which, what did you do today to stir things up?”
He held up the bag. “Can I come in and share this with you? We can talk about it.”
Chinese and Jeb’s company? How could she turn either of them down, when her refrigerator was empty and her spirits were low? Otherwise she was likely to spend the long evening indulging in a heavy bout of self-pity that would serve no useful purpose whatsoever. If he spent the evening doing little more than aggravating her, having him around would be worthwhile.
“You might as well,” she said grudgingly.
He grinned and followed her inside. “I would have preferred a little more enthusiasm, but I’m grateful for whatever I can get.”
Brianna dished up the lukewarm sweet-and-sour chicken and the spicier Kung Po chicken, then popped them into the microwave. “What would you like to drink?”
“Soda, beer, iced tea—whatever you have is fine,” Jeb told her, moving efficiently to set the table.
Brianna couldn’t help noticing that after only a few visits, he was as familiar with her cupboards as she was. For some reason, she found it annoying that he was so blasted comfortable in her home. She had allowed that. She had invited him into her home, into her life—into her bed, dammit—and he had turned right around and betrayed her.
She moved directly into his path, blocking his movements. With knives and forks in one hand and napkins in the other, he stared down at her. “What?”
“How could you do it?” she asked plaintively. “How could you turn on me?”
“I never turned on you,” he protested.
“It sure as hell felt that way.”
“I hardly knew you when this began. I was protecting my family.”
“Not then,” she said. “Later. After…”
“After we’d slept together?” he asked, his gaze locked with hers. Heat shimmered in the air as the memories of that night in London came flooding back. “After we’d started to fall in love?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “After that.”
“It was still about family.” He shrugged ruefully. “At least, I thought it was. I told myself I had a duty.”
Something in his tone alerted her that something had changed. “And now? Has something happened to change that?”
His gaze locked with hers. “You know it has.”
“Has it really, Jeb? When it comes right down to making a choice, who will you choose?”
“Not who,” he told her. “What. I’ll choose the truth, whatever it is.”
“No matter who gets hurt?” she asked, thinking of his father and his apparent involvement.
“Brianna—”
She cut him off. “Someone is going to get hurt, Jeb. It’s too late to stop it now. This whole ridiculous thing has spun out of control, and all because you wanted to prove something to your father.” Or because his father had some crazy scheme up his sleeve, she amended to herself.
Jeb winced at the accusation. He dropped the silverware and napkins onto the table, started to say something and then stopped. Instead, he reached out and touched her cheek with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
“Not you,” he said softly. “You’re not going to get hurt, Brianna. I’ll see to it.”
“I’ve already been hurt,” she reminded him. “And there’s more to come. You, your family. It really is spiraling out of our control.”
He regarded her with obvious confusion. “I don’t understand. Do you know something?”
She thought of what Jordan Adams had revealed earlier about Bryce’s involvement. Should she share that with Jeb now? Warn him? No. She wouldn’t do to him what he had done to her. She wouldn’t act on unsubstantiated rumors or pass along half-truths. Not that she believed for a second that Jordan Adams had lied to her. She just didn’t know
all
of the facts. She wouldn’t until she had talked to Bryce. It was a courtesy she wished someone had extended to her at the outset.
“Not yet,” she said finally. “But I’m getting close, Jeb.”
To her surprise, he said, “So am I.”
“Will you tell me?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. Brianna sighed. Once again, they were at a stalemate. The lack of trust hovered in the air, an unwanted guest standing squarely between two people who’d had such high hopes for the future only a few short days ago. Given time, love could be the most powerful emotion on earth. In its earliest moments, however, it was as fragile as a spring blossom in a late blizzard.
In the end, she thought that was what she might never forgive Jeb for. He had restored her faith in men, only to snatch it away within days. He had proved once and for all that the only person she could really count on was herself. It was a desperately lonely way to live. She already knew that. But it was safe, and sometimes safe was the best a woman could do.