Susan Mallery - Straight From The Hip

“Don’t I wish,” Izzy lied with a smile.

The old guy laughed. “Good point. If you were one of them, you wouldn’t be looking for a job with me.” He glanced at her letter of reference. “Me and Rita go back a long way. She’s a fine woman. I guess if she says you’re okay, I can trust you. You’ll be responsible for a dozen horses and their gear. Get ’em up and ready in the morning. Get ’em saddled when they have a rider or a lesson. Saturday mornings are the worst. All the rich kids come in. Can you deal with that?”

Izzy nodded. “When can I start?”

“Tomorrow. Now you’re going to college?”

“In January.”

“We’ll work around your hours. College kids with bills to pay make motivated workers.” He held out his hand. “You got yourself a job, little lady.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Izzy walked back to her car. She’d already collected the paperwork she needed to start at community college and now she had a job. If she could just figure out a way to heal her broken heart, it would be a really good day.

NICK LOOKED UP from his computer to find Garth standing in his office. Garth looked tired and drawn, which should have made Nick feel better but didn’t. Regrets weren’t going to help anyone.

“What?” he asked, not really caring. Izzy thought she was the one who had been played, but she was wrong. He’d never wanted to hurt her or tried to get her. Garth, on the other hand, had played him like an old string guitar.

“I haven’t told the rest of the board about you resigning,” Garth said, moving to the chair on the other side of the desk and sitting down. “I wanted to see if you’d changed your mind.”

“No.”

“Nick. We’re friends. We’re more than that, we’re practically brothers. She’s just a girl. You can get a dozen more just like her.”

Nick thought about Izzy’s sense of humor, her fearlessness, the way she challenged him, how she cared about the kids and teased Aaron and made every part of life brighter just by being alive. He thought about how she listened, how she trusted and the way she stood her ground and did what she believed was right.

“No. I can’t. Izzy’s unique.”

“All cats are gray in the dark.”

“Izzy’s not a cat and we’re not going to talk about her.”

Garth stared at him. “You’re going to end our decades of friendship because she’s pissed?”

Nick had thought a lot about everything that had happened. He’d tried to see everyone’s point of view to figure out where it had all gone wrong.

“I never got it before,” he said slowly. “When we were in South America, I was so sure I was right about the drilling. You had other reports telling you it couldn’t be done the way I said and when you believed me instead of them, I was determined to prove your faith in me. But I was wrong and three people paid with their lives.”

“We got the oil.”

“Sure. At a price.”

“There’s always a price.”

Nick nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’ve been to hell and back because I was responsible for their deaths.”

“You didn’t pull the trigger. It was an accident. A mistake.”

“My mistake.”

Garth shook his head. “You spent years trying to get someone to punish you, buddy. I don’t know why. You’re doing a fine job all on your own.”

“I’m trying. But you’re not. You don’t care. You weren’t interested in making amends.”

“Francisco and his brothers held us prisoner for months, torturing us every damn day.”

Garth was angry now. Nick could see it in the tension around his mouth and the way he sat in his chair.

“He got his pound of flesh and then some,” Garth continued. “Given the chance, he would have killed us. You made a mistake, Nick. One damn mistake. You’re not God, you didn’t know. You screwed up. And, hey, you’re sorry. So get the fuck over it.”

Interesting. It was almost the same thing Aaron had said, but for very different reasons.

“Are you really so much of a bastard that you don’t care? Or is it too inconvenient to deal with the past?” Nick said.

“What’s to deal with? You went to the governments of both countries. No one wanted to do anything. You spent months trying to find Francisco and his family and you couldn’t. You’ve funded a couple of orphanages, you’re working with kids here. What else do you want?”

“From you? A little remorse. Some regret. Something other than business as usual.”

Garth’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what I think or feel. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe not, but I do know we were once like brothers. We nearly died together. And a week ago you sold me down the river. You knew Izzy was important to me. You knew I wasn’t happy to be lying to her. And you knew I’d keep your secret for as long as I could. You used that information, you used me, then you screwed me. You were leaving messages, telling me you wanted to talk to me and then you told her everything.”

Most people didn’t have the balls to assess his character, Garth thought. Nick had never had a problem speaking his mind.

He’d never thought it would come to this-that a woman would come between him and Nick. Worse. A Titan. One of his sisters.

“You’re letting them win,” he said.

“I was never in a fight with them,” Nick told him. “Izzy didn’t deserve any of this.”

“She had the surgery. That wouldn’t have happened without her being here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

Nick shrugged. “She would have gotten there eventually.”

“After wasting how many years?”

“Don’t try to make this better than it is. You weren’t doing her a favor.” Nick stared at him. “You’ve lost it. I don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you’ve gone too far. This isn’t a battle to win-it’s a vendetta. You want to hurt someone, hurt the man who’s responsible. Take on Jed Titan. But whatever you have going on with your sisters is wrong. What kind of a man bullies a woman? Are you that frightened of them?”

Garth held on to his temper. He’d come here to reason with his friend. Apparently Nick wasn’t willing to listen.

“You won’t come back to the board?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. I’ve sold most of my shares in your company.”

“Just like that?”

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Nick told him. “You’re right-you’ve been my family for years. But I can’t be a part of what you’re doing. You’re going to have to figure the rest of it out alone.”

Garth stood, then left. Fine. If Nick wanted to be led around by the nose, that was his problem. Garth didn’t need him. He didn’t need anyone.

But as he walked to his car, he had the sense of being totally alone. He had few friends, no one he really cared about. There was Kathy, but she was more like a child than an adult. His staff, who might respect him but little else. If he ceased to exist this very moment, who would mourn him? Worse, who would know?

He got in his car, then looked back at the house. Damn feelings. He had to get out of here and fast. Whatever had gotten Nick seemed to be contagious. Emotions. A conscience. He had no time for either.

There was nothing wrong with being alone. It meant he could move faster. Easier. He was close to winning. Soon he would have it all. Then he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about Nick or anybody else. Then he would have won.

NICK HAD SPENT nearly two weeks being ignored by his staff, walking the hallways of the house at night and examining his life. It had taken him that long to figure out what was important and what he needed to do. He had a feeling if Izzy knew, she would inform him that the average woman would have realized the truth in about an hour.

He paused by the front window in the living room and watched an SUV drive up to the porch. It parked and two women climbed out.

Lexi and Skye didn’t look anything like their sister, but seeing them reminded him of Izzy. There was both pleasure and pain at the thought of her. Pleasure because he’d finally come to see she was everything to him. Pain because he might have lost her forever.

He met the women at the front door.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

“We’re not here for you,” Lexi said briskly as she pushed past him and walked into the living room. “We’re here because you made it clear we were having this conversation one way or another and we didn’t want Izzy seeing you in Titanville.”

He motioned for them to sit down.

They sat together on the sofa. Skye eyed him with a mixture of contempt and dislike.

“We’re not interested in helping you,” Skye said bluntly. “Just last week, Jed paid a visit to Izzy to try to convince her to date one of his business partners. Izzy slapped him in the face and threw him out. If she was willing to do that to her own father, imagine how little trouble I would have taking you on.”

Nick held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “No one is questioning your motivation or ability.”

“Good. Now, what do you want?”

“If he says Izzy,” Lexi told her sister. “Shoot him or I will.”

Unfortunately that is what he’d been planning to say. He needed a new plan.

“How much do you know about my past?” he asked instead.

Skye and Lexi glanced at each other. Skye motioned for Lexi to talk.

“Foster kid, very smart, goes to college at fifteen. You’re a total geek, you don’t fit in, Garth saves you, becomes your friend. Flash forward seven or eight years, you’re working for him. Another eight years, you screw our sister.” Lexi gave him a cold smile. “Did I miss any highlights?”

“No.”

Izzy had told them about him, but hadn’t mentioned his guilty secret. He knew in his gut it was because she knew it was the part of him that shamed him the most. Even in her pain and heartbreak, she’d protected him.

“What Izzy didn’t tell you is about my time in South America.”

He spoke quickly, giving them a brief synopsis of what had happened there. He didn’t spare himself the blame, taking full responsibility for what had gone wrong.

When he was done, the sisters again exchanged another look-this one he couldn’t read.

“You paid for what you did,” Skye said. “And maybe you suffered. That doesn’t excuse what you did to Izzy. Garth is trying to destroy our entire family. You don’t seem to get that. He nearly killed Izzy.”

Risking their wrath, he said, “Garth has admitted to all his actions, except the explosion. He claims he had nothing to do with it.”

“And you believe him?” Lexi asked, sounding outraged.

“Yeah, I do. I don’t agree with what he’s doing to you and your sister. If he had a problem with Jed, fine. Jed ignored his own son when he begged for Kathy’s life. Jed deserves whatever happens to him. But you two and Izzy are innocent. Garth was wrong. His vengeance is misplaced. He’s used us all.”

His best friend. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around that truth. His own family had betrayed him.

“I’ve severed my financial and personal ties with Garth,” he continued. “I’ve resigned from his board, sold my shares in his company. He’s out of my life.”

“Too little, too late,” Lexi snapped. “You knew Garth was behind bringing Izzy here and you didn’t say anything.”

“The way he told it, he wanted Izzy helped out of concern. He said you wouldn’t accept his help. I believed him because I didn’t have any reason not to.”

“But when you found out what he was doing,” Skye said. “You could have said something.”

“I know.” He drew in a breath. “It was too late, then. If I’d told Izzy the truth, she would have left and not had the surgery. At first that’s what I wanted-her to see again. She’s so full of life. So tough and sweet and honest. She leads with her heart. She’s fearless. I’ve never known anyone like her. She needed more than half a life.”

“The surgery could have left her blind,” Lexi said, studying him.

“She needed to know.” He shrugged. “If things had gone badly, she would have been all right. She would have found a way. That’s what she does. I couldn’t tell her about Garth because she had to have the surgery.”

“And after?” Skye asked.

“I didn’t want to lose her. If she knew, she would be gone. I…I liked having her around.”

For the third time, the sisters shared a look. He’d given up trying to figure out what they were thinking.

“Why should we believe you?” Lexi asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t prove it. I could show you my letter of resignation from Garth’s board, but so what? He could reinstate me in a second. He was my friend and I trusted him. That’s my mistake and I have to live with it. I trusted a man I’d known for years, who had saved me and been like family. I don’t know where everything went wrong for him, but it did.”