Homestead

Chapter Twenty-six

Tess stepped out into a morning as dark as night. As she left the porch, the rain started, slanting sheets of needle-sharp pellets, ominously cold. She squinted into the murky haze. Not rain, hail.

“Oh Lord,” she muttered, dashing to her truck. A hailstorm could strip the shoots from the cornstalks, shear the hay off at the ground, and strip fledgling leaves from the soybean plants. A storm like this could take all the crops with it. Tearing down the drive, she bumped off the gravel surface and onto the dirt tractor path skirting the largest of her fields. Straight ahead, the square windows in the cow barn glowed like unblinking yellow eyes in a curtain of black. She pulled up as close to the door as she could and jumped out. Tomas was inside, seeing to the morning milking. The bulk of the herd was under cover, leaving only the heifers, who wouldn’t give milk until they’d calved, and the dry cows out in the pastures. She rotated the milk cows over her fourteen pastures every twelve hours, but the non-milkers were scattered in half a dozen different pastures.

“Is Jimmy here?” Tess called. “Looks like we’re going to get worse weather before this ends, and we need to bring the rest in.”

“He just went out,” Tomas said, adroitly removing the suction tubes from one cow and moving the milking machine to the next cow in line. He washed down the udders of the cow he’d just finished milking, swabbed the next one, and set up the suction lines.

“I’ll go help him,” Tess said. Tomas didn’t need her help—he could do the whole barn almost as fast as the two of them together.

“Why don’t you let me do it, Tess. No sense you getting soaked out there.”

“That’s all right. I need to check on the heifers anyhow.” Tess grabbed a rain slicker from a hook next to the door and a feed bucket from a nearby shelf. Right about now a little ugly weather suited her mood just fine. Maybe the icy rain would cool her off enough that she could think straight. “You take care of this. I’ll be back after I give Jimmy a hand.”

“All right, but watch for trees. After all this drought, the roots are going to be loose. More than a few will be coming down.”

“I will. Thanks.”

She ventured out into the storm, and the ferocity of it took her breath away. The wind howled, and bullets of hail the size of marbles pummeled her back and shoulders. She tied the slicker hood tightly under her chin and raced toward the pasture where the dry cows had been left to forage. As she came closer to the big metal pasture fence, she caught flashes of red and finally made out Jimmy, bending into the wind to keep his footing on the slick, muddy ground, coming from the other direction. What had been a dry gulch the day before was now a slippery slope.

“I’ll get the gate,” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth when she was close enough to be heard. “Let’s get them in the small barn.”

Looking white-faced and ghostly in the unnatural gloom, Jimmy shouted, “The storm’s got them all riled up. I’m afraid they’ll scatter if we let them out of here.”

“Chance we’ll have to take.” Tess released the chain on the gate. “Hopefully they’d rather be dry and safe than running around out here in this mess.”

Tess opened the gate, pulled it wide, and swung the feed bucket in a big arc, hoping to catch the attention of the closest cows. When they focused on the familiar object, she started leading them to the barn while Jimmy herded the wanderers back into line. The jostling animals, agitated and frightened, ambled past her in an uneasy clump. The barn meant food, water, and warmth, and fortunately, that was enough to keep them all moving steadily toward safety.

Inside the L extension off the main milking barn, two long rows of open stalls stretched the length of the building. Tess and Jimmy tied the cows up to the big rings mounted on the walls, forked straw for bedding, and shoveled feed into buckets. As they worked, the uneven drumbeat of hail on the roof continued.

“If the rain keeps up like this,” Tess said, “it’s going to be more damaging than the heat.”

“Sure hope not,” Jimmy said. “We’ve got enough trouble to worry about with the oil people. Don’t need more weather problems too.”

The vehemence in his tone was surprising, but probably he was echoing the sentiment of a lot of the locals. Before long, Clay and NorthAm would be getting blamed for everything that went awry in the whole county. She squelched her immediate desire to defend Clay.

“Hopefully this will let up soon,” Tess said. Be careful what you wish for. That seemed to be the message of the day, possibly for her whole life. She had wished for a love of her own, a romance to last a lifetime, and when she’d met Clay, she’d thought she had it. She’d spun visions of the future for the two of them that included everything she’d ever wanted—the farm, the challenge of going organic, a life of her making, all wrapped inside an envelope of love and passion. And now she was faced with the reality that her stepfather, a man she’d never deeply loved but had depended upon and trusted as a parent, had used that dream and her very real love for Clay to manipulate her life. And continued to betray her long afterward.

Tess cut the baling twine on the last bundle of straw and slid her utility knife back into the pocket of her jeans. She tossed handfuls of straw into the last stall, thinking about Ray and what he’d done.

Why? What had he really gained by keeping her and Clay apart? He got her to come home where she provided free labor, but she would have done that anyhow if he’d told her he couldn’t run the farm without her. She would have come home—she would have sacrificed her plans to go to college for however long it took to get the farm on solid footing, but he hadn’t said that. He hadn’t told her much of anything. So why—

Tess shivered in her rain-soaked shirt and pants. She was cold, but the chill that overtook her had nothing to do with the weather. What had Clay said? That everyone in the county would’ve heard that she had seduced Clay and her father had blackmailed Clay’s. No, that just couldn’t be true, could it? Ray wouldn’t have done that.

“Can you handle things, Jimmy?”

“Sure, Tess.” Jimmy straightened, his face eager. “Anything you need. Anytime.”

“Thanks for getting over here early today—you were a big help.” Tess hurried to the far corner of the barn where she usually had good luck getting a cell signal and pulled out Clay’s card—the one she’d picked up at the Grange and tucked into her wallet—and punched in Clay’s number. The call went right to voice mail. She disconnected the call without leaving a message. This wasn’t something she wanted to discuss on the phone.

“Is everything all right, Tess?” Jimmy said from a few feet away.

“What?” Tess jumped. He’d gotten close without her knowing it and that wasn’t like her. She shook her head and forced a smile. “Oh, yes. Everything’s fine.” She waved toward the open doors and the steady pounding of water that kicked up muddy mini-fountains all across the yard outside. “This damn storm. I’ll have to keep an eye on the creek—if we get much more of this, it’s going to flood.”

“I’ve got the ATV up here. I’ll take a look around in a couple of hours. Make sure none of the trees come down and back it up.”

“I don’t want you out in the storm,” Tess said. “If one of those trees comes down, I don’t want you getting caught under it.”

“I’ll be fine, Tess.” He blushed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “When do you figure those oil people will be done up on your hill?”

“Oh—soon, I think.” Tess smiled. “Well, thanks again. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure, Tess. If you need me to come back out for anything, just call me.”

“I’ll do that.” Tess dashed across the soggy yard toward the main barn, thinking of Clay’s card in her pocket and the questions she had to ask. No one could help her with what she really needed. She was going to have to do that herself.

Clay had waited for Tess to leave before clearing out, as promised. She’d stood at the window and watched as Tess’s truck tore down the drive and cut across the fields toward the big barn. She’d lost sight of her in the haze of hail and rain after a minute, and had no excuse to linger. She found her boots, pulled them on, and contemplated the tangle of sheets and pillows on the bed. She left it all as it was, deciding she didn’t want to erase her presence, even though Tess probably wanted to. Tess seemed ready to erase everything—past, present, and future. In some ways, she understood.

Now that she’d put the past into words for Tess, she was forced to look at them through the lens of time. Back then, she’d had only her own perspective, as Tess had had hers. They’d experienced the same events very differently, and that was mostly her fault. She supposed in some ways, Tess was right, she had taken the easiest course—she hadn’t defied her father, she hadn’t given Tess a choice, and in all the years that had followed, she hadn’t given Tess the satisfaction of knowing all the details. She didn’t deny her reasons—she hadn’t wanted Tess dragged into some public display by Ray or her father. And she hadn’t exaggerated what her father would have done if Ray threatened them. To him, the family name was synonymous with power, influence, and always coming out on top, and he would do anything to win. She hadn’t wanted Tess to be a casualty of that war, and she hadn’t wanted it for herself, either.

If she were Tess, she’d be angry and distrustful too. And the present situation only made things worse. If she’d come back into Tess’s life for no other reason than to tell her all of the truth about the past and admit what she hadn’t been willing to acknowledge to herself—that she’d never been happy a single day of her life after leaving the lake that summer—maybe they could have gone forward. Instead, she’d reappeared as a representative of NorthAm, a potential threat, if not an outright enemy. No wonder Tess couldn’t sort things out. She hadn’t been doing a very good job of that herself.

Clay walked downstairs, closed the front door carefully behind her, and strode through the driving rain to the SUV. She had come here to do a job, and as much as she hated to admit it, her father had been right. She’d let the personal cloud her professional judgment, and in the process, she’d damaged her nascent relationship with Tess and hadn’t been a particularly good representative of the company, either. That she could change, at least. And then maybe she’d have a chance to repair her relationship with Tess.

Driving one-handed down the empty country roads, she tried to raise Ella on her cell phone. The signals fluctuated on a good day, and she got nothing today. When she came to a crossroads, she hesitated before turning right and heading into Cambridge. Instead, she turned left. One good thing about dealing with farmers, they were always up early.

The house was eerily quiet when Tess returned to change into something dry. Clay’s SUV was gone, and she ignored the unexpected ache Clay’s absence carved within her. She put the kettle on to boil, went upstairs, and stripped down in the bathroom. Walking naked to the bureau in the adjacent bedroom, she caught sight of the bed in the mirror. The image of Clay shimmered into crystal clarity. For the first time in her life, the memory of the younger Clay didn’t eclipse the present. She had a new memory now, one of a powerful, beautiful, devastating woman. She turned to the rumpled bed, and the memory didn’t fade. The outline of Clay’s body stretched out above her, beside her, beneath her, was as sharp as the desire curling in her depths. The scent and taste of her were as potent as they had been when they were deep inside each other. Her skin vibrated with the sensation of Clay’s hands moving over her. She ached for the cool, silky splendor of Clay’s mouth on her flesh.

Clay Sutter was no memory. She was a living presence stamped on her every cell.

“Great,” Tess muttered. “Just great.”

She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and went downstairs to finish making the tea. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she made a call. If she knew Leslie, she’d be up by now.

“Hello?” Leslie said.

“Les, it’s Tess. Sorry to bother you so early, but I need to talk to you about the situation with NorthAm.”

“That’s all right, I was going to call you too. I’ve been going over the papers and I’ve come across a few things that seem odd.” Leslie murmured something Tess couldn’t hear, probably to Dev, then came back clearly. “Tell me why you called first.”

“Clay tells me that her father’s planning to send his legal team up to close the remaining contracts. I wanted you to know right away.”

“Did Clay say when?”

“Soon.”

“I wish I had better news,” Leslie said, “but I don’t think you’re going to have much wiggle room in these negotiations, Tess. Ray signed some fairly binding agreements. Even though you are now his heir, these kinds of things are difficult to reverse. We can certainly try, and I’m willing to do it, but you need to know going in it could be pricey, and there’s no guarantee.”

Tess squeezed the bridge of her nose. “That’s my quandary. I’m not even sure how I feel about the drilling. NorthAm is still surveying and testing and we’re supposed to get more information soon. Either way, though, I’d like to have the choice once all the information is available.”

“I totally understand and I agree with you. We’ll do the best we can. Ray never talked to you about this?”

“Ray didn’t talk to me about a lot of things,” Tess said.

“What’s going on?”

Tess gave her the bare bones of the story Clay had told her that morning, and as she did, she saw the two of them again, young, innocent, untested, and caught in a moment out of time that was destined to vanish. “I can’t believe Ray did that—or I guess I don’t want to believe he did that, but Ray was always the kind of person who felt the end justified the means. I guess he did that time too.”

“I didn’t know him,” Leslie said, “and I certainly have no desire to defend him. Using you that way was unconscionable, and to go on keeping you in the dark all this time just as bad. That must’ve been really hard for you, and Clay too.”

Tess closed her eyes. She hadn’t been the only one hurt. “Yes.”

“There’s something really strange about these contracts too,” Leslie said. “Some of the riders are relatively recent, but the original agreement isn’t. Ray signed these rights over years ago, well before NorthAm moved into your area in full force.”

“How long ago?”

“As far back as that summer, Tess.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Tess said.

“It might, if Ray didn’t think he was actually giving anything up but was forcing NorthAm into buying something they might never use.”

“I’m not following.”

“Considering what you just told me, this deal could be a well-camouflaged payoff,” Leslie said quietly. “If Ray demanded money from Clay’s father but could show that NorthAm had actually paid him for something, legally he’d be in the clear.”

Clay’s words came back in force, and Tess had the answer she was looking for. “You mean Ray might’ve blackmailed Clay’s father but made it all look like a transaction?”

“It’s possible. I’ve done a little research, and the price NorthAm paid Ray was triple what drilling rights in the Northeast were going for at the time.”

“How could this have happened,” Tess whispered.

“Money changes hands all the time under the guise of legitimate business deals for a lot of reasons. For greed, for power, for influence, and sometimes just to preserve the status quo. It’s ugly, and when you’re caught in the middle like you and Clay were, it’s immoral. Unfortunately, it’s not illegal.”

“Then why do I feel so dirty?”

“You shouldn’t. You were a victim. Both of you were.”

Tess straightened in her chair. “I know you’re right, but I refuse to be anyone’s victim. I might have been then, but I won’t be now.”

“I’m glad. And I’m here, no matter what you decide to do.”

“Thanks, Les. I appreciate it.”

Tess said good-bye and cradled her cup of cooling tea. She sipped it, trying to digest everything she’d heard that morning. Unraveling the past was an impossible task, and maybe an unnecessary one. What mattered now was what she was going to do. And the first step was dealing with the woman she’d slept with the night before, the woman in her life now, whose touch wouldn’t stop haunting her. She’d meant what she said to Leslie. She wouldn’t be a victim ever again, not even of her own pride.