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Max turned back to him, thrusting his chin forward. “If I agree, are you going to call off your dogs?”
This time, Quint straightened himself away from the wheelchair to tower over the man. “No. Because I can’t trust you to keep your word, Max. But I will agree to sit on anything I find.”
“That’s no deal at all,” Max retorted.
“It’s the only one you’re going to get. Now it’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth the price you might have to pay just to try to get your hands on the Cee Bar—especially now that you know the Calders are going to fight back every way they can.”
“You are assuming I had anything more than a passing interest in acquiring the Cee Bar,” Max retorted with some of his former poise.
“Is that your answer?” Quint challenged. “Because this is a onetime offer. You take it or leave it right now.”
“I don’t know why I should agree with your ridiculous proposal when I had nothing to do with the trouble you’re having at the Cee Bar. But if agreeing will give you some peace of mind, I’ll do it,” Max declared with dismissive ease.
A smile quirked one corner of Quint’s mouth. “I always knew you were an intelligent man, Max. Just remember—I’m going to hold you to this.”
He flicked a glance at Boone and walked out of the office. For a moment both men stared at the door. Then Boone finally found his voice.
“He made you back down,” he murmured in a dazed and awed tone. “I never thought I’d see the day when someone could do that to you.”
Max whipped his chair around, a malevolence in his expression unlike anything Boone had ever seen. “And you never would have if it wasn’t for your big mouth! I swear to God you have screwed up for the last time.”
“Me? What are you talking about?” But Boone knew exactly what he meant. A kind of panic set in. “I never admitted anything to that Garner woman. She made it all up. You can’t blame me just because she managed to convince Echohawk with her lies.”
“You don’t even have the guts to own up to the truth, do you?”
“I tell you I didn’t say anything,” Boone protested vehemently. “Are you going to take Echohawk’s word over mine?”
“You’re damned right I am,” Max fired back. “Unlike you, Echohawk is no fool.
Regardless of what he might have suspected, he would never have set foot in this office today if you hadn’t confirmed his suspicions.”
“I tell you she lied to him!”
“And I say you are the only liar around here!” Max bellowed, his gaunt face mottling with rage. “From the time you were able to talk, it’s been one lie after another. I’ve never been able to trust a single thing you say. And I sure as hell have never been able to depend on you to do even the smallest thing right. If you had been anyone other than my son, I would have shown you the door a long time ago. That was my mistake. But it isn’t one I’ll make again.”
“It’s always my fault, isn’t it? One little thing goes wrong, and I get blamed for it,” Boone hurled bitterly, but he was addressing a moving target as the wheelchair zipped Max to the desk. Boone went after him and halted at its side, gripping the edges and leaning forward to vent his pent-up wrath. “Nothing I do ever pleases you! Not the great Max Rutledge.”
Deaf to his tirade, Max picked up the telephone and punched the speed number for the main house at the Slash R. The instant it was answered, he ordered curtly, “Pack Boone’s things at once. I want every single item of his gone before I arrive home tonight.” A question on the other end of the line caused Max to flick a glance at Boone. “No, he won’t be by to get them. Send them to the Adolphus for now. He can pick them up there,” Max stated and hung up.
“What the hell is this?” Boone demanded, a cold chill creeping in.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Max’s voice and stare were like iron. “I want you out of my house and my life. As far as I’m concerned, I no longer have a son.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Disbelief was first, then a fear that struck deep. “You can’t do that!”
“I can and I am,” Max stated. “A check will be deposited in your account on the first of every month, and that is the only contact we will have from now on. You have two seconds to get out of my sight before I call security and have you thrown out.”
For Boone, there was an unreality to the moment, a disbelief that this could truly be happening to him. As always, the right words wouldn’t come.
When he saw that big hand reach for the phone, he knew Max would carry out his threat and order security to escort him from the premises. Rather than suffer the ignominy of such treatment, Boone straightened up from the desk and walked stiffly from the office, bitter black thoughts whirling in his head.
He didn’t remember the elevator ride to the lobby, climbing into his truck, or driving out of the lot. The first thing to register was a beer sign in the window of a bar. The sight of it and his own dry-mouthed feeling had Boone pulling up in front of it and going inside.
The place had the sour reek of beer tinged with stale cigarette smoke, but Boone never noticed as he crossed to the empty stools at the counter and climbed onto one. In a numb kind of haze, he ordered a beer and drank down half of it, then sat there, hot with resentment.
His mind started playing that dreaded and all-too-familiar game of if-only. If only he hadn’t let Dallas trick him into admitting they had infected the cattle with anthrax. If only Echohawk hadn’t come along when he did. If only she hadn’t told Echohawk what he’d said.
His fingers curled into tight fists. If it wasn’t for that bitch, none of this would have happened; the certainty of it filled him.
