The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11) - Page 91

Hank walked into the Caulden house without knocking and strode into the library, Amanda beside him. J. Harker sat at his desk, looking as if nothing had happened.

“Come to threaten me?” he asked, looking at a bloody Hank and a defiant Amanda. “So much for your campaign against violence. The governor’s sending the State Militia out. They’ll shoot your unionists on sight. You’ve lost, Montgomery, you’ve lost.”

“You don’t realize it, but you’re the loser. All you had to do was give the workers a decent pay raise—money you could well afford—and you could have prevented this. Now the world will hear about the Caulden Ranch.”

“Hear how your unionists killed the D.A. and the sheriff,” J. Harker said. “The country will tear your union apart. The D.A. was a loved man, with a wife and kids.”

“What this country will hear about is the inhuman conditions that caused them to riot. And I’m going to be the one to tell them. I’m going to describe in detail what went on here, what pushed these people over the brink.”

“And I’m going to help him,” Amanda said.

J. Harker snorted. “You can go to your room. I’ll get someone to replace Taylor.”

“Has he left you too?” Amanda said softly.

“Ran off with that two-bit Eiler bitch,” Harker muttered. “But he can be replaced.”

“Now you have what you wanted: you have this enormous ranch all to yourself. You have no wife with a past to embarrass you, no daughter to play childish pranks and make people think you’re less than perfect, no future son-in-law to intimidate. But you’ve lost something else too: you don’t know it yet, but you’ve lost control of this ranch. You’ve shown your greed to the world, and you may be willing to let people die so you can make money, but the world’s not going to let you. Your day is over, and Hank and I are going to help see that it’s finished.”

“Are you through now?” J. Harker said, his eyes angry. “Then you can get out. I don’t need any of you.” Even as he said it, he knew he was lying, but pride had ruled his life and he was too old to change now.

“Goodbye, Father,” Amanda said and turned to look at Hank. “Ready, darling?”

Hank nodded and they left the library, but he stopped her in the hall. “Amanda, if I wasn’t sure before that I loved you, I am now. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, then smiled. “And our son will be a king.”

“What?”

“When I went to the carnival with Taylor, a fortune-teller told me—”

“I am bleeding to death and you’re talking about that frigid—”

“I wasn’t talking about Taylor, I was talking about our son who will be—”

He kissed her. “Come on, let’s go to the Union Hall. I want to interview some people about what’s happened. The faster we get this down, the faster I can get it to the newspapers.”

“We’ll go after I’ve driven you to a doctor.”

“You are going to drive in town? With other cars on the road? With pedestrians in the street?”

“Please?” she asked softly, running her finger down his cheek.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

Tags: Jude Deveraux Montgomery/Taggert Historical
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