Part 12 (1/2)

He was tired. Frank was already stressed, and her being here was making him start to come apart. Frank was starting to accept the truth about Colette. He'd always known it, but he'd always felt responsible, even protective of her in some strange way. But looking at her now, he knew that if it weren't for her, he wouldn't be in this mess. If she hadn't agreed to meet those men at the river-if she hadn't shot first-he would still have his life. It wasn't much, but it was his, and he'd be where he should've been, back home in Cotton, driving his squad car, protecting and serving, and- ”Don't look at me like that,” she warned, shaking her head. ”Don't you dare f.u.c.kin' look at me like this is my fault!”

”I didn't shoot Reggie, Colette,” he blurted out. He shouldn't have said it. Frank realized it as soon as he saw the look in her eyes, but it was too late. And it was the truth. ”You f.u.c.ked up, baby. All you had to do was wait it out. You needed to sit tight and let it pa.s.s. It would've pa.s.sed, Colette.”

Out of nowhere, Colette's hand landed flush against the side of his face. Frank grabbed hold of her arm, and the other hand almost landed on the other side of his face, but he grabbed her by the wrist and stopped it.

”You're coming loose, Colette, and you're bringing us down,” he snarled.

”And you left me!” she spat. ”You left me behind to take the heat for murder, Frank! You think that s.h.i.+t was just going to pa.s.s? But you weren't there, so you have no idea what I've been going through! You don't have to walk through the doors of that precinct every day, wondering what they're whispering about. Reading things into the way they look at you that couldn't possibly be right. But you don't know if it's true or not. Maybe they know what we did. Maybe they're just waiting for us ... me to slip up and make a mistake, or waiting for the lieutenant to call me into his office because they know it was my gun who killed a man. You ran away like a b.i.t.c.h! Tucked your tail and took off first chance you got, expecting me to stay behind, man up, and take the fall? Is that what your plan was, Frank?”

She'd insulted the h.e.l.l out of him. ”You know that's not true! How could I set you up if all you'd have to do is tell them that I was there too?”

”It'd be my word against yours,” she said, gritting her teeth.

”Ballistics came back with two separate bullets from two separate guns. Of course they'd come looking for me!”

”That doesn't mean they'd find you, Frank,” she said coldly. ”That brother of yours give you money yet?” She jerked away from him.

Is that what this was about? Is this why she was here? ”I don't have any money.”

She looked like she didn't believe him.

He stood up. ”If I had money, why the f.u.c.k would I still be in Paris, Texas?”

His argument fell on deaf ears. ”I read about him, Jordan Gatewood. That f.u.c.ker's got more money than the state of Texas.” She walked over to him and stood close enough to kiss him. ”Did you tell him who you were? If it's even true, I mean. Did you tell him?”

He thought about lying. But why? She already didn't trust him, and maybe she had good reason not to. The longer the two of them talked, the more he was starting to see things about himself that he didn't find too cool. ”I told him who I was,” he admitted. ”And I told him that I wouldn't tell the press if he did what he needed for me to keep my mouth shut.”

She seemed surprised that he'd told her that, but Colette still didn't look like she had any faith in him. ”What did he say?”

This was the part he didn't want to talk about.

”He told you to go f.u.c.k yourself,” she said dismally. ”Didn't he?”

Frank dropped his gaze from her. ”Pretty much.”

”So that's it,” she said, turning and crossing the room. ”We've got nothing.” Her voice cracked. ”He could've given us enough to leave the country, Frank. h.e.l.l, he could've given us enough to fly to the moon, baby, but you punked out with him the same way you punked out on me.”

Frank was getting sick and tired of people thinking he was a punk. ”Not that it's any of your d.a.m.n business, Colette, but I put my s.h.i.+t on the table for the man, and he chose to turn his nose up at it. I didn't go there and get in his face just to walk away with nothing.”

She chuckled. ”What the h.e.l.l are you planning on doing, Frank? Go back to him and ask, pretty please give me some money, rich brother of mine. I swear I won't tell anybody. Pinky swear,” she said, wiggling her little finger. ”Why don't you let me ask him,” she dared him. ”Unlike you, Frank, I already know I've got nothing to lose. You're too much of a p.u.s.s.y to admit it to yourself. Let me ask big man for the money. Or rather, let me tell him to pay up or we tell them reporters the truth about who he is really is. I'll get it out of him. Watch me.”

Colette was a liability. She was a trick with a great gift for b.l.o.w.j.o.bs, but not much else. He had every intention of calling Jordan's bluff, or of at least making him think he would. Jordan had been paying Joel for years for his silence. Even if it did end up being Frank's word against Jordan's, Frank could make a h.e.l.l of a lot of noise, enough to make Gatewood nervous. He had read that Jordan was in the middle of trying to take over another rival company. The last thing he needed right now was a scandal, and Frank could create enough of one to throw him off his game. But he was done with Colette. He'd decided that right here and now. Even if he did manage to get money from Gatewood, he didn't need to be dragging a meth head behind him, shooting off her d.a.m.n mouth.

”I'll get the money, Colette,” he said calmly.

”Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes.

”And I'll give you half, but when I do, we go our separate ways.”

She stared at him. ”You just telling me that to get me to leave?”

From the look on her face and the tone in her voice, Colette was pretty content with the thought of separating.

”We're too much trouble together, and we'd be far too easy to find. I'll get the money. You do whatever you want with yours, and we'll never have to lay eyes on each other again, but you've got to go back to Cotton, and you've got to be smart. If you lose your cool again the way you did with Reggie, then they will catch up with us, and we'll both go to prison.”

She swallowed and s.h.i.+fted nervously from one foot to the other. ”How long?” she asked, clearing her throat.

How the h.e.l.l should he know? Frank had to give her something, though. If he gave her this to look forward to, to hope for, Colette could maintain, and he needed her to maintain.

”Two weeks?” he finally said.

She looked at him long and hard. Frank could almost hear the wheels spinning in her head. ”Don't f.u.c.k with me, Frank,” she threatened. ”I swear, if you get that money and take off without giving me mine...”

”Two weeks, Colette,” he said again, with more conviction this time. Of course he had no idea what would happen in two weeks. But it was something, and Colette needed something. Frank just needed more time. ”Give me two weeks. If I don't have the money, then ... I don't know, baby. You and me will just have to do what we have to do.”

She laughed. ”Oh, that's rich, Frank. And what is it that you and me are going to have to do? Go to prison for murder?”

He stared unemotionally at her. ”That's one option.”

It's Tempting to Pack Up Your Throne Jordan arrived back at the office just in time for his two o'clock meeting with June and several others who'd come together to discuss the Anton buyout. He had made a fool of himself with Lonnie. But Jordan hadn't been thinking clearly. Even now she had this way about her that left him flapping around like a fish out of water, pus.h.i.+ng him to limits beyond his natural boundaries. She brought out the worst in him. Lonnie, just her presence, brought out the animal in him. When things had been good between them, his feet didn't touch the ground. He was hungry for the woman. Jordan craved her beyond what was natural or moral. It was the reason behind why he'd lost it on her the way he did, two years ago. The line between loving Lonnie Adebayo and hating her had always been as thin as thread.

”Older investors are jumping the Anton s.h.i.+p like crazy,” June explained to the group. ”But there are just as many signing on as there are leaving. The new investors are younger, more aggressive players, all as anxious for this takeover to happen as we are.”

”Anton is still refusing to file bankruptcy?” someone else asked.

”Robert Jorgensen is a stubborn, old b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” June stated, in reference to the CEO. ”He's a dinosaur when it comes to his business model, which is why it's failing, and has been for the last decade. He'll let the business crumble and fall apart into rubble before he'll take a Chapter 11. And that's good. Good for us. Stock prices at Anton right now are dirt cheap. Once the merger's complete”-June leaned back and looked like she had been born to make this merger happen-”that'll change overnight. A lot of people stand to make a fortune off this deal.” She smiled and her gaze landed on Jordan. ”And so do we. Isn't that right, Jordan?”

June had come into the business days after Jordan and his team had begun proceedings for buying out Anton.

”Mind if I sit in on a few meetings?” she'd asked him eagerly. ”This is fascinating stuff, big brother. I could learn a lot.”

In Jordan's mind, June was supposed to do just that, sit back, listen, watch, and learn. So, when the h.e.l.l had she decided to take the lead on the whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing? June had no idea who she was up against. She saw numbers. She saw investors and stock dividends. She saw an outdated business model. But Jordan saw something else entirely.

”Robert Jorgensen may be a dinosaur,” he began calmly, ”but he's no fool. And the worst thing you can do is to underestimate the man.” His gaze fell on every pair of eyes in that room staring back at him and hanging on every word. ”That old-a.s.s business model you all are looking down your noses at netted Anton profits higher than any other U.S. oil company for longer than some of you have been alive.”

June suddenly looked agitated and amused. ”He's been losing money.”

”He's made so much more than he's lost, June,” Jordan shot back coolly. Jordan leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, and laced his fingers together. ”Do not make the mistake of taking Jorgensen for granted. The fact that he hasn't filed bankruptcy tells me that he must know something we don't.”

”It only proves that he's an old fool,” June retorted.

June thought she knew so d.a.m.n much. Her tunnel vision was amazing, and the longer he worked with his sister, the more he realized how much she depended on her textbook knowledge of the business world, and how little she understood about the ugly makeup of corporate America.

”Of these new investors, who's bought up the most Anton stock in the last month?” he asked her. Of course she'd know. June was as efficient as she was intelligent.

She scrolled through pages on her laptop. ”Probably a woman named Jennifer Mason.”

Jordan smiled. ”Jennifer Mason is Jorgensen's great-granddaughter,” he informed them all. ”She's a junior at Texas State, studying nursing, and I can almost guarantee that if you were to ask her about these stock options she's just spent so much money on, she wouldn't know anything about it.”

June looked stunned and confused. Everyone else sitting around that table looked unimpressed because they were used to Jordan knowing these kinds of things and stealing the air out from under their sails.