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“The pilot said it would only be a little longer,” the young male answered. “Can I get you anything else before we take off?”
She waved away the question with a shake of her head and looked out the window before turning her gaze on her son. CJ had been lifted from his wheelchair into a seat on the private plane she’d hired. His mood appeared worse than her own.
It was its own kind of hell to see him like this. She’d been so sure that the doctors she was paying an enormous amount of money to would repair the damage to her son. She refused to believe he wouldn’t walk again.
Charlotte felt the plane begin to move, finally. She looked out the window, preparing herself for returning to the Powder River Basin. In her absence, her sons Brand and Ryder had seen to the ranch along with ranch manager, Boyle Wilson. She groaned inwardly at the thought of Boyle, who’d been employed as far back as she could remember.
She never questioned his loyalty to her since he’d made little secret of the fact that he was interested in dating her. Like that was ever going to happen. Still she didn’t doubt the man would kill for her, if asked. He also hated the McKennas, especially Holden, as much or more than she did. But over the years, she also knew that he’d been collecting secrets about her and her family like gold nuggets, storing them away until one day he might want to cash them in. It was why she would never fully trust Boyle.
Charlotte valued loyalty above all else, but seldom got it, she thought as the plane taxied out onto the airstrip for takeoff. She wielded control with an iron fist, using both her money and her power to get what she wanted. Most everyone knew better than to cross her. Those who didn’t quickly learned what happened if they did cross her, she thought bitterly as the plane’s engines began to rev.
She closed her eyes as the craft sped down the runway and lifted off. In the months she’d been gone, a lot had happened. But she assured herself that she would be home soon to take care of things as she always had—on her own terms.
THETALKATthe Dirty Business meeting that evening was all about the two men the gas company had brought in to guard their equipment, Frankie and Norman Lees, so Oakley hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. She’d already researched both men, hearing stories about how they’d handled things in Wyoming before CH4 gas company had moved into the Powder River Basin.
She had no doubt that they were dangerous. If anything, CH4 hiring thugs had the Dirty Business group even more divided on how to go forward. As it was, most of the group had always been opposed to vandalizing the gas rigs.
Oakley tuned out the old arguments until she heard her name mentioned.
“It’s not stopping drilling,” rancher Ralph Jones said again tonight. “I think talking to your neighbors, making sure they know what’s at stake, is still the best approach, especially when it comes to your mother, Oakley.”
One of the men in the crowd spoke up. “I know for a fact that your brother CJ ordered more drilling on the Stafford Ranch.”
“It will be over my dead body,” Oakley assured him. There was a splattering of applause.
“I don’t think that’s funny,” Ralph said, getting the meeting back under control. “These men they brought in, they’re dangerous. I heard from down in Wyoming what they did when they caught anyone even near the equipment—let alone anyone trying to stop the drilling. You could very well end up dead.”
Oakley felt her phone notify her of a text. She stepped outside the meeting room. It was from her mother. It was the news she’d been waiting for. Charlotte and CJ were in-flight back to Powder Crossing and the ranch. She was demanding to see her. She felt her heart rise to her throat. A summons from her mother was never a good thing.
“You all right?” Pickett asked as he came out of the meeting and walked down the empty hallway to where she stood. The meeting was about to break up. Several lawyers and activists had been talking at length about what they’d done in Wyoming to try to stop the drilling.
All she could think about was whether or not her mother would be at the ranch before they returned from Miles City.
But as Pickett approached, long-legged and rangy, her thoughts strayed from her mother’s return and even further from methane gas drilling. A lock of his sun-streaked hair flopped down onto his forehead, drawing her gaze to the light in his eyes. He had dark blue eyes so different from Duffy’s pale ones. He was harder to read than Duffy, too. The easygoing ranch hand often joked around, but when he was serious, there was an intensity that often made her heart beat a little faster.
Like now, she felt very aware of him standing so close to her. It was as if he radiated a kind of heat. Or was it electricity?
Right now his eyes were dark, his brows knitted in concern. For a man who was seldom serious, he couldn’t have been more appealing than at this moment.
Her body reacted, tingling with anticipation, but anticipation for what? She turned to him, closing a little more of the distance between them, aware of the quiet, the privacy, the almost intimacy, in the empty hallway.
She felt her heart kick up a beat as her gaze took in the cowboy she never saw alone. Duffy was always either with them or close by. Pickett’s worn Western shirt stretched across his broad, muscled shoulders. He’d rolled up the sleeves, exposing strong forearms, still tanned from the summer and working outdoors.
Tucked into his jeans, the shirt made her aware of his slim waist. He wore a pair of recently washed newer jeans. Like his shirt, the fabric looked soft as it gently hugged his lanky, long legs.
“Oakley?” He looked even more concerned.
She found her voice, part of her shocked by the range of emotions making her body feel light and at the same time her breasts feel heavy. “My mother’s headed home,” she said.
“CJ?” he asked as he leaned against the wall, casually studying her, and yet the look in his eyes warmed her to her boots. Her toes curled a little.
“He’s coming with her. I can’t see her leaving his side. Clearly, she had no plans to return home without him.”
He nodded. “You haven’t seen him since...” He didn’t need to finish, but she suspected he’d hesitated because he hadn’t wanted to remind her of the shooting. Or the fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she saw her brother from before she was shot.
What it did remind her of was the night she’d awakened to find the ranch hand beside her hospital bed. Pickett had been holding her hand, filling her with both warmth and a sense of safety. She’d had the feeling that it hadn’t been the first time he’d sat in that chair holding her hand, his head down as if in prayer. How many times had he come to her room like this in the night when her mother wasn’t around to stop him?
She’d never asked him. She hadn’t let on that she knew—even after she regained consciousness. Instead, she’d closed her eyes and squeezed his hand when she’d found him in her room. When she’d awakened again, he’d been gone. He’d never mentioned it, either. It had been their secret.
