A/N I really should have title this Tears of Angels.

Chapter Fourteen

Victoria, who had once been standing outside the study door listening to Jarrod and Nick, now stood in the kitchen in front of a seated Heath, doing her best to get a promise out of him that he'd stay away from the Hamilton brothers. She might have been going the rounds with Nick as well, but he'd been pulled out of the house by McColl before she really had the chance.

"What you're askin' us to promise, Nick and I can't." Heath stood his ground as he sat back in the chair feeling rather frustrated. He'd already had went the rounds with Jarrod and he sure didn't want just as long as conversation with his stepmother. "We can't read Paul and Tyrell's minds. We don't know what their every move will be."

"I know that!" Victoria threw up her hands out of frustration. "I don't expect you too! I just asked you to avoid being around them if you could."

Heath gave her a slight grin, "Not until now you didn't," When she gave him a quizzical look, Heath pointed out that this was the first time she'd used the words 'if you could'. He then grew serious, "I'm not going to run the other way every time I see them; neither will Nick." He held up his hand as she began to protest. "If it will help give you a peace of mind, I will promise not to start up any sort of conversation between us. And before you ask," Heath gave her one of his rare huge grins, "don't ask me to extract the same promise from Nick. You can do that one yourself." There was no way Heath was going to do that; if he did, Nick would probably do the opposite, just to be ornery. And Victoria was right; nothing but trouble would come if they had anything to do with those particular cousins of Maggie's. Sometimes Heath wished one could pick their relatives. If he asked his wife or Nick, Heath was sure they would say the exact same thing.

"It would help out immensely." Victoria replied as she walked over to the door that led from the kitchen to the yard outside. She could see Nick talking to, and arguing with McColl. Well, maybe he wasn't arguing, only it sure looked like it. For the umpteenth time she wondered if Iris would have been able to succeed in getting Nick to stop and think before he spoke. From what those around her had told her later, Victoria knew that the young woman had been working on it.

Heath inwardly sighed after standing up and walking over to where Victoria stood. He too could see his hot tempered brother going the rounds with their foreman. Though, he had to chuckle ever so slightly when Nick threw his hands up in the air, said something and walked away, while McColl remained where he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Maybe you can have McColl talk to Nick." Heath looked at his mother after McColl too had walked away. "He's the one man outside the family that seems to be able to get through to Nick when no one else can." Not that he thought McColl would totally succeed, he didn't. However, he figured there was a chance that McColl would still be able to get more common sense through to Nick than anyone else could.

"I just might do that." Victoria said as she turned around and started to leave the kitchen. "But Heath, you could still talk to him too." It wasn't an order, and she made sure it didn't come across that way. Still, there was a tone that told him how serious she was. "Maggie and I will be back in a couple of hours." Maggie had promised to go to town with her after Audra had been invited to Denver by some of her cousins who lived there.

Heath said nothing as she left the room. He then grabbed a few apples and headed outside. Nick wouldn't appreciate it if he started slacking on the job.

~oOo~

The wind blew through the house shared by Paul and Tyrell Hamilton. It was a natural consequence of having both the front door wide open and the back door in the same position. Paul was sitting on an old tree stump that that had been moved to the back porch years before by his father. Tyrell was storming through the house, complaining about the injustice that their great grandfather had done when he failed to give the two of them land they believed they deserved.

Paul tuned his brother out as he debated whether or not to have their attorney appeal the decision or whether or not to settle for a bit of revenge. He might not have been thinking about the latter only, truth be told, there had always been a bit of bad blood between him and the Barkleys, or more specifically between him and Nick. The two would go the rounds at various times only later, when Heath joined the family and became Nick's solid right hand man per say, Paul found himself on the losing end more and more. The last straw had been when he got involved with Iris' brother's scams and Nick become involved with Iris. Now, in between Nick and Heath, he and Tyrell had lost any chance of ever getting even one small acre of the land that once belonged to Adam Hamilton.

"Hey!" Tyrell thumped Paul on the head as he stepped out onto the back porch. "Open your ears!" He'd been talking to Paul, throwing one idea after another out, only to realize his brother wasn't listening. Tyrell didn't exactly appreciate it.

"Sorry," Paul came out of his thoughts and turned to his brother. He wasn't a bit shocked, as Tyrell started talking and told him what he wanted to do, though Paul couldn't believe the man wanted to wait 'for awhile'. Since when did his brother wait for anything? He continued to think along those lines until his brother explained what he was thinking. Afterwards, Paul couldn't pack fast enough.