Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

Immediately, I turned to Judge and called, “Darling, get out of that jungle. You’ve no idea what’s slithering in those weeds.”

“Baby, I got boots on.”

I glared at him.

He studied me, his lips tipped up, then that disappeared when he looked at his dad.

“What was that about?”

“Please don’t talk about this when you’re so far away. I can’t hear you,” I stated.

I could.

I just wanted Judge, and Rix, and Jamie out of that grass.

Because, honestly, anything could be in it.

All the men, being gentlemen (even Rix), shifted to the walk.

I met them and we huddled.

Jamie shared.

“Your grandfather is in trouble.”

“Financial?” Judge asked.

Jamie nodded.

“Serious?” Judge pressed.

“Maybe not,” Jamie allowed. Then continued, “If he had time. Which he doesn’t. And I didn’t want to crush him. Which I do.”

“Dad,” Judge said quietly.

Jamie shook his head. “No, son.”

“Dad,” Judge clipped.

“Were you in there just now?” Jamie asked in another voice I instantly adored, ominous and angry.

“He’s an old man,” Judge pointed out.

“The wells dried up under his tenure. If he was smart, he’d have gotten into wind or solar. He has the land for it. He wasn’t smart. No gambler is smart, Judge, and he’s the worst kind there is. One who doesn’t know when to fold.”

“Dad, your entire career is based on gambling.”

“My career is based on data and projections and calculated risks I, and my clients, understand. Those risks have levels, low, moderate and severe. You wade in severe. You embrace moderate. And you play the long game with low. That is not what your grandfather was doing. Cap that with paying ten million to every woman he bought after he wants to throw them away because he regards females as accessories that reflect on his manhood, rather than as the people they are. Women who needed thirty-thousand-dollar handbags and eighty-thousand-dollar earrings just to stomach sleeping with him. He’s pissed away that legacy he likes to brag that he’s giving you. He’s leveraged to his cowboy hat, Judge. His debtors are unhappy, and the point has come they’re willing to take anything they can get. He’s got no choice but to lose the only real asset he has left. The land. And he’s going to be losing it to me.”

“That’ll kill him,” Judge stated.

Jamie’s response was silent.

And eloquent.

He merely turned his gaze to the house behind us, then back to his son.

“Right, as much as I’m enjoying Bobby finally getting his back from JR in a Real Oil Barons scenario, this place is shit, and I need lunch,” Rix declared. “So we need to go get Dru and find somewhere that has a mountain of food. And booze. There’s nothin’ you want here, Judge, and since there isn’t, there’s no reason to be here. So let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“That wasn’t Bobby versus JR, that was Bobby versus Jock,” I educated Rix.

Rix turned to me. “Whatever.”

“Or not Bobby, Gary. He was the smart one who got the hell out of Texas and went to Knots Landing,” I carried on. “Though, that had its own troubles.”

“Who cares, Chloe?” I didn’t get to answer that he should get his soap opera metaphors correct before Rix asked another question. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m always a tad peckish,” I replied.

Rix looked to Judge. “It’s good she’s gorgeous, bud.”

Judge was staring at me.

He explained why by inquiring, “Have you been crying?”

“No,” I lied.

“You have to know your makeup is messed up.”

Damn!

I pulled my purse off my shoulder and dug in it for my compact.

“We’re definitely getting out of here,” Judge proclaimed. “We are definitely getting Dru. And we’re definitely getting drunk. I don’t care if it’s only eleven.”

I gave up on the compact because I was at one with that plan and I could fix my makeup in the car.

We started moving out, Judge commandeering my hand when he did.

I pulled on him to hold us back, and when the others were what I hoped was out of earshot, I asked, “Are you okay?”

“We’ll talk later.”

I stopped.

He stopped with me.

“I’m okay,” he answered. “Dad’s okay. I’ll tell you about it later. Yeah?”

I nodded.

He bent and touched his mouth to mine.

Then he guided me to the car and opened my door for me so I could climb inside.

I didn’t get right to fixing my makeup.

I looked at the house with its sprawling Texan vistas on all sides.

I’d seen only a portion of the inside, there was a great deal more that I didn’t discover, and I didn’t wish to.

But there was a great deal more.

Bedrooms. Perhaps a den. A home office.

Then there was that pool.

Jameson Oakley had bought that house for his ex-wife to raise their son in, with good furniture, plenty of room, a big kitchen to cook holiday and birthday meals in, a place for him to have pool parties with his friends out back.

He had then been blocked at every pass, and lied to, stepping back because he thought it was best for his son.