She laid down her pen and folded her hands beneath her chin. “You’re mistaken. My company isn’t interested in acquiring the property that formerly belonged to the Parkers and now belongs to you.” She smiled sweetly.
Ivan laughed. “Aw, hell, she’s playing coy to lower the price.”
“Not at all, Mr. Patchett. I’m most sincere. I have absolutely no interest in buying that land. Now, if you’ll please excuse me—”
Neal shot to his feet. “You lying bitch! I know damn good and well you want that property. Ever since you got to town, you’ve been crawling all over it, measuring it, having it appraised. Don’t try and deny it. I’ve had you followed.”
“Yes, I thought you would,” she calmly stated. “In fact, I counted on it.”
Ivan’s lungs wheezed when he struggled to pull in oxygen. “God damn you.” He glared at her malevolently. His evil soul had an odor. He smelled foul. “You cheating little cunt. You conned—”
“Shut up!” Neal barked to his father. He covered the distance to Jade’s desk in two long strides, reached across it and manacled her biceps, hauling her to her feet. He spoke between clenched teeth. “You mean you never wanted the Parker place?”
“That’s right. I only wanted you to want it.”
“She played us like a couple of fools,” Ivan snarled. “We spent one million dollars on a pile of pig shit.”
She swung her head toward the older man and looked at him through smoldering blue eyes. “Small compensation for Gary’s life, wouldn’t you say?”
Neal pulled her from behind the desk and shook her hard. “You’ve ruined us.”
“Just like you ruined Gary and me.”
He backhanded her across the mouth. She cried out. The door was flung open so suddenly that it created a vacuum inside the building. Dillon’s stance and fierce expression belonged to the god of thunder, but he was lethally soft-spoken. “You’re going to regret that.”
He charged across the room, grabbed Neal by the neck, and slung him into the wall. Ivan struck Dillon across the backs of his knees with his cane. He yelled in pained surprise, spun around, and snatched the cane from Ivan. At first Jade was afraid he would use it to crack the old man’s skull. Instead, he stepped on one end of it and lifted the other, snapping it in two like a twig.
He tossed aside the two pieces and responded to Jade’s frantic shout as Neal lunged at him from behind. Neal had always relied on others to do his fighting for him. Dillon, on the other hand, had learned to street-fight in order to survive. He moved with precision and swiftness, catching Neal in the gut with his elbow, then slugging him in the face, crunching cartilage, splitting skin.
Neal reeled backward, crashed into the wall, then slid to the floor. Dillon stood over him, breathing heavily. “Get the hell out of here and take that miserable old son of a bitch with you. Or stay, and give me the honor and privilege of stamping the hell out of you.”
Neal tried to lick the blood off his chin, but it trickled from his swelling nose and dripped onto his shirt. Mustering what dignity he could, he struggled to stand up. After the blows Dillon had delivered, it wasn’t easy for him to lift and carry Ivan.
Jade followed them out the door, knowing that the moment she had waited fifteen years for had finally arrived. The Patchetts were defeated and humiliated.
Neal strapped Ivan into the passenger seat of his El Dorado. Jade was standing in front of the polished chrome grille when he came around the hood. She slapped the deed into his palm. “I hope you never have another day’s peace for as long as you live.”
He crumpled the deed in his fist. “You’re going to be sorry for this. Damned sorry.”
Painfully, he got behind the wheel. Jade shaded her eyes against the sun and watched them drive away. She didn’t even cough on the cloud of dust the squealing tires left in their wake.
Her knees folded and she plopped down where she was. At her sides, she dug her hands into the earth. “I did it. I did it.”
Dillon squatted beside her. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I feel wonderful.” She smiled at him. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat. There was a red band across his forehead where his hard hat had been. His sunglasses had left crescent impressions on his cheeks beneath his eyes, which radiated concern. “Thank you, Dillon.”
“I saw his car and got here as soon as I could.” He gently touched her lip. It was puffy but wasn’t bleeding. “Not quite soon enough.”
“It doesn’t even hurt.” She looked after the speeding car, the dissipating cloud of dust. “I did it,” she whispered again.
“What?”
She told him about the coup she had pulled off. “I was so afraid they wouldn’t fall for it, that they would guess my interest in the Parkers’ farm was a con.”
“What if they hadn’t taken the bait?”
“Mitch left me a legacy. I didn’t even know about it until his will was read. If this had backfired, I would have used it to buy the Parkers’ land myself.”