Chapter 7
Nick stormed into the house, yelling. "Jarrod! Jarrod!"
They were used to Nick's yelling and were expecting it this time, too, but only Heath was in the foyer hearing it. He had been heading for the library but turned right around when he heard Nick's voice. "What's the problem, Nick? What are you hollering about?" Heath asked.
"Where's Jarrod?" Nick asked.
Heath could tell he was boiling over. He expected Nick to come home mad after talking to Carol, but not this mad. "He's in the library. What's wrong?"
"Something I'm gonna get straightened out," Nick said. "Jarrod! Get out here!"
"Did you talk to Carol?" Heath asked.
"Yeah, I talked to Carol, and I talked to Harry, too, and I got an earful but not enough. Just some 'go talk to Jarrod.' Jarrod!"
Jarrod finally came in from the library. "I hear you, Nick. What do you want?"
"Outside!" Nick said and stormed toward the front door.
Jarrod looked at Heath, and Heath recognized that "caught" look. Nick had found out something in town, something that told him that Jarrod had something to do with Carol, something Nick didn't know about. Heath stood there for a moment, wondering if he should go out after them.
"No, stay here," Victoria's voice came as if she knew what he was thinking. She and Audra were coming into the foyer from the kitchen. "Whatever it is, they'll have to iron it out themselves."
"Is this some kind of regular occurrence?" Heath asked.
"No, but it does happen a few times a year," Victoria said.
"I think it's about Carol Keenan," Heath said.
"I'm sure it is," Victoria said. "We'll find out all about it before too long."
Heath sighed and let it go – but he sure was curious about where this was going to go after Nick and Jarrod had "discussed" things outside.
XXXXXX
Nick marched to the corral, and Jarrod followed him. Nick marched in circles then, angry circles like a bull trying to decide whether to charge. Jarrod took a spot next to the fence, feeling pretty certain at some point he was going to need it to lean on. Jarrod didn't say anything. He just waited for Nick to stop pacing and start talking.
Nick finally stopped and glared at him. "I talked to Carol, and then I talked to Harry, and what I figured out was that Carol leaving six years ago had something to do with you. I don't know how, but somehow it was your doing, and I want to know what it was. What did you do to make her leave me?"
"I didn't really make her leave you, Nick," Jarrod said after thinking for a moment.
"Don't lie to me, Jarrod!" Nick yelled.
"I didn't make her leave you in the sense that she stopped loving you," Jarrod clarified. "She never loved you, Nick."
Nick hauled off and hit him.
Jarrod was grateful for the fence rails behind him. He wiped blood from his mouth, but he did not fall down. "You want truth? I'll give you truth," Jarrod said. "She never loved you. For Carol, it was always money. Everything she ever did was for money and when she pretended to love you it was to get you to marry her so she could have money."
Nick began to raise his fist again.
Before Nick could hit him again, Jarrod said, "So I gave her the money. I gave her a thousand dollars to leave and get out of your life for good, and she took it and she left."
Nick swung harder this time than the first time, catching Jarrod just above the left eye. Jarrod went down like a sack of grain falling off a wagon, and for a few moments he sat there in the dirt. He had no intentions of hitting back.
Jarrod eventually dragged himself up off the ground, wiping the blood off his split lip with the back of his hand. Nick loomed in front of him, ready to hit him again, but Jarrod said, "Nick, if she loved you and wanted to marry you, why would she have taken the money and left?"
Nick stopped.
"If she'd stayed, she'd have had a part of everything, but she'd have had to fight for it," Jarrod went on. "Her choice was between fighting to marry you or taking an easy thousand dollars from me to leave. She took the thousand dollars."
Nick's arms fell to his sides, and he stood staring at his older brother. Jarrod fell against the fence, needing the support, still wiping blood and now feeling some swelling starting up at his eye.
Jarrod said, "Father had just died. You were 22 years old and in charge of one of the largest ranches in central California. You were struggling with it all, and so was I."
That caught Nick's attention.
"I wasn't sure of my place after Father's death either," Jarrod went on. "I only knew I was the oldest and I had to carry some of the load of taking care of the family so Mother didn't have to. Carol was playing you like a violin, Nick. I had to do something. I told her I'd fight her tooth and nail if she tried to stay with you, or I'd give her a thousand dollars to leave. She took the quick and easy money."
Nick turned and walked away, back into the house, leaving his older brother there to bleed. Nick was confused, even more than he was angry now. Some of what Jarrod had said made sense. And it shook Nick that she took the thousand dollars rather than stay and fight for him. It was beginning to dawn on him that the money meant more to her than he did, but he didn't want it to dawn. Because all he was worth to her was a thousand dollars.
Nick went straight to the library when he got into the house, not even looking at his mother or sister or brother in the living room. They looked at each other, and then Victoria looked at Heath with that plea in her eyes. Heath knew what she wanted right away. Go talk to Nick.
Heath went to the library and found Nick into the whiskey there. He wasn't sure whether to expect a screaming argument out of him or not, but what he got was a man nursing a glass of whiskey, looking vacant, looking like he was trying to think and he didn't like what he was thinking about.
"Where's Jarrod?" Heath asked.
"Outside," Nick said.
"Did you hit him?" Heath asked.
"Twice," Nick said.
"Did it help?"
Nick hesitated before he said, "I don't know."
"Did he tell you what happened between him and Carol when she was here last?"
Nick swallowed some more whiskey. "Yeah."
"What'd he say?"
"He gave her money," Nick said, angry. "He offered her a thousand dollars to just leave, and she took it and left. Not a word to me from her, not a word to me from him. Just a little private arrangement between the two of them and she was gone."
Heath sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I thought it might be something like that."
Nick turned on him. "Why?! Why would you think that?!"
Heath had to raise his voice now, too. "Heck, Nick, when I first came here and announced myself, he offered me money to leave too, remember? But I didn't take it. I didn't take it because I'd already made up my mind that I wanted to be part of this empire and I was ready to be part of this family to do it."
"What's your point?"
"Carol took the money and left. She wasn't ready to be part of this family. She wanted your money, but she wasn't ready to make the commitment to you."
Nick knew that. Deep inside, where it hurt the most, it was the truth that was dawning on him even if he didn't want it to. But – "How did Jarrod know that and I didn't?"
"Because you were stupid in love and he wasn't! And didn't you tell me he was in army intelligence during the war? And he was assistant district attorney? Get a brain, Nick! By the time Carol Keenan got here, he'd already spent a big chunk of his life with spies and crooks and killers and con artists. He learned to spot somebody who wasn't being straight long before Carol, and you never did. You didn't have the same life he had."
Dear God, it made sense. Nick understood all at once. Jarrod really had been looking out for him. Jarrod had read Carol right when he himself had read her all wrong. Jarrod had paid her off and kept it to himself all these years, all of it to protect him. "Oh, geez," he moaned and put the glass down on the refreshment table with a thunk.
Once inside the house, Jarrod saw Heath disappearing toward the library, and he figured that was where Nick went. His mother and sister were standing in the foyer, looking shocked. When they saw the state of his face, they grabbed him and steered him toward the settee in the parlor.
"I'm all right," Jarrod said, sitting down.
"I'll get some ice," Audra said and hurried to the kitchen.
"What happened?" Victoria asked.
"I told him the truth," Jarrod said. "He didn't take it well."