Redstone, Incorporated: The Best Revenge Part 7

But how had he even heard about it? Had he somehow been tracking his father's actions? She supposed she couldn't blame him for that, although it made her even more curious about his life now.

"Thank you," she said as she flipped up the chock that held the door open during business hours. The familiar scent, sweet feed mixed with the fresh green of alfalfa hay, rolled out at her, a pleasant constant to this part of her morning.

He made a small, low sound that could have been "Mmm-hmm," but was more likely just a very male grunt of acknowledgment.

A sudden memory clicked into place. Adam, telling her he talked to her differently than anyone else. She'd thought at the time he meant "differently" in that he talked to her at all. But now she realized he must have meant he literally spoke differently. In complete sentences.

It made sense now, his manner of talking. He'd told her once that he wished he could just become invisible around his father, wished his father just wouldn't see him. It wasn't a huge leap from that to the idea that unheard was unseen.

The thought that this was a holdover from that time, that to this day he spoke this way as part of the legacy of agony his father had left him, made her heart ache, even as it warmed her that she had apparently been the exception, that he had been careful to talk normally to her. Perhaps only to her.

Anger filled her at the thought. And made her more determined than ever that the man with the polished exterior and the heart of a vicious predator would not succeed. And if he did, she told herself as she double-checked the hay bale count, she would shift her focus, dedicate herself to making his tenure as difficult as possible, raising questions at everything he did, fighting him every step of the way. "Fierce."

She blinked, looked at him, realized he'd been watching her face, which told her her thoughts must have been reflected there. "If that's what it takes," she said, not bothering to tamp down the intensity she'd been feeling.

"Will," he said. "It's started."

"What has?"

"His real campaign. Rumors. Suggestions. Hints."

Her brow furrowed. "What do you-You mean about me?"

He nodded. "Can't be proven. Or easily disproved. Nebulous. Ridiculous. But stick in people's heads."

"Like what?"

He seemed to hesitate, as if he didn't want to repeat whatever he'd heard. Which meant it was likely nasty. It seemed all expectations of civility went out the window when you were dealing with a monster like Alden.

"Not smart enough," he finally said, with obvious reluctance.

Her brows rose. "Really? Interesting, considering this town sent me off to college with a party, for having the highest GPA in our high school's history."

"Remind them," he said.

She sighed. "What else?"

"Weak," he said.

"I feel that way sometimes," she said with a shrug. "Doesn't everyone?" When he didn't answer, her mouth quirked. "Okay, doesn't everyone, present company excluded?"

She saw that twitch at the corners of his mouth, and barely managed to hold back a smile of her own.

"Next?" she asked instead.

"Unstable."

She nearly burst out laughing at that one. "Please. Who's spent more time in stables than me?" He didn't laugh at her awful pun. "Joke, St. John," she said.

"Serious," he countered.

"How can I take that seriously? Me, the most boring, un-neurotic person on the planet?"

"People will wonder. Question."

"But they know me," she said in protest.

"They knew...his first wife."

She might not have noticed a fraction of a second's delay in his answer, so slight was it, had she not known what she knew. His mother.

Memories flooded her. The adults in her life had been careful about talking around her, but like any child she'd heard and understood more than they'd thought.

It's such a pity, Al is such a wonderful man.

I always thought she just was a bit slow, but apparently it's much worse.

It's so honorable of him, to stay with her, take care of her. And with that boy of his always in trouble to worry about, too.

Did you hear? She actually killed herself.

Stupid.

Crazy.

Unstable.

She hadn't been aware of sitting down, yet she apparently had, on top of the shortest stack of feed sacks. So many of those whispered statements had been preceded by the words Everybody knows.... But had anyone really known? Or had those rumors been as unfounded as the ones about Adam?

"My G.o.d," she whispered. "He did it to her, didn't he? He destroyed her by innuendo and rumor. Just as he tried to do-"

She cut herself off before the words with you escaped.

She looked up at him, towering over her. He was staring down at her, an intensely focused expression on his usually unreadable face. His jaw was tight-she could see the tension beneath the scar. "You remember."

The words came out sounding compressed, as if he'd tried to hold them back but failed. She couldn't imagine him failing at much, so she picked her answering words carefully.

"Yes. I was young, but...yes. I remember the whispers, the way people talking about her always stopped when there were kids around, the way they looked at her the few times she ventured out."

"Prisoner."

The word jabbed at her painfully, and she lowered her gaze. "I see that now. Then, everyone thought it was her choice, and that it was safer that way since she was..."

Her voice trailed off, pain and regret making it impossible to go on. She'd only been a small child when Marlene Alden had committed suicide, yet now she still felt as if she should have done something.

Just as she felt she should have done something for the son she'd left behind.

"Crazy," he said, finally completing her unfinished sentence. She looked up at him then. The impa.s.sive expression was back, as if those moments of intensity, of emotion, had never happened.

"Yes," she said, seeing no point in denying what he obviously knew.

"Next step," he said.

She wasn't quite able to make that verbal leap. Was he talking about their next step, or Alden's? And then it hit her.

"You mean...his next step will be to try to convince people I'm crazy?"

"True to form."

She sighed. "You know, if he can convince enough people in this town of that, then I'm not sure I want to be their mayor."

"Stop him," he said.

"I won't play the game his way," she said warningly as she stood up and dusted off her hands. "I won't be part of bringing that kind of dirty politics to Cedar."

"I'll play it."

"I don't know if-"

She broke off suddenly as Maui rounded the corner of the barn, apparently released today from moral-support duty for her mother. The dog came to a halt, staring at the man beside her. She opened her mouth to tell him it was all right, usually a requirement before the big dog would accept any stranger too close to her. But before she could begin the introductions, the golden plume of a tail began to wag. An almost joyous bark escaped. And amazingly, the dog loped the last few feet between them and skidded to a halt at St. John's feet. Then he plopped down in a perfect sit and looked expectantly upward, tongue lolling happily.

The man stared down at the dog. Jessa never looked at Maui, her gaze was fastened on St. John's face. Maui waited. St. John stared. Jessa watched, intently, even though she wasn't even sure what she was looking for.

Until she saw it.

He smiled.

It was the barest, faintest curving of his mouth, and it lasted only a moment, but as he looked at the dog who was the grandson of the dog he'd once called the best kind of friend in the world, he smiled. And in that instant she glimpsed the boy he'd been.

He'd been her secret heartache, the cause of so many hours of anguish, for reasons that were far too adult. But her heart leaped at the sight just the same; there was still a trace of the boy he'd been, there was still some bit of the softer emotions left in him.

And when he reached out to lay a hand on Maui's n.o.ble head, she nearly cried.

"It's like he knows you," she whispered. "He's usually more cautious of strange men around me."

"Good," St. John said, sounding gruff enough that she knew he was just ignoring her first words, not that he hadn't heard them. But the dog's reaction had her wondering about things like genetic memory.

Then the dog was on his feet, eyes alight and tail up alertly as he stared toward the street. They turned as one to look, and saw a dark-haired boy peering almost furtively around the corner of the barn, watching the dog avidly.

Jessa's breath caught when she recognized the child. "It's okay, you can come pet him," she said softly, just loud enough for the boy to hear.

For a moment a smile flashed across the boy's face, much as it had across St. John's moments ago, and he took a tentative step forward.

"Tyler, get back here! This instant!"

The woman's shout from up the street made the boy's head snap around, and Maui barked sharply. But the boy didn't move, and looked back longingly at the dog.

"Don't make me tell your father!"

The boy went very still. Every muscle in his wiry body seemed to go tense. "He's not my father."

The words were muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for them to hear, and certainly not enough for the woman hustling toward them to hear.

The boy glanced in the direction the angry words had come from, then, for the first time, looked at them.

"I hope you beat him," he said to Jessa.

Then he turned and ran.

Jessa stared after him, her emotions a roiling tangle of old and new. She risked a glance at St. John. Realized by his murderous expression that he knew exactly who the boy was. And knew that he had heard the fear beneath the boy's words, a fear that had been echoed in the voice of the woman calling for him.

"I won't just beat him," St. John said, startling her with the fully formed sentence and almost frightening her with the savageness in his voice.

She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when she realized she'd been about to call him by his birth name. Because it was the boy Albert Alden had brutalized who was speaking now, she knew. And when he added four words, she knew he meant them as ferociously as if the abuse he'd endured had occurred yesterday.

"I will destroy him."

Chapter 10.

St. John saw the knot of a half-dozen people gathered in front of the drugstore a few doors down from Hill's. Taller than most of them, Albert Alden stood out. He was shaking hands, smiling widely, nodding, clapping the men on the shoulder, patting the women's hands.

He realized with a jolt that he had taken several steps toward the group. He stopped. Then, recklessly, he began to walk toward them again, his gaze fastened on the target. A couple of the people broke off and left, then a third waved a cheerful goodbye as he came to a halt barely six feet away. Out of reach, but still as close as he'd come since he'd gotten here.

He watched the polished, practiced moves, the facade of down-to-earth genuineness, all the while fighting the memories that face stirred in him. That face, looming over him, haunting him, until he'd learned about the walls and built a solid, impenetrable cell in his mind for this man and all he stood for.

At least, he'd thought it impenetrable. Until he'd come back here.

Albert Alden looked up sharply, as if, like any predator, he'd sensed a threat. His gaze locked on St. John. He studied him for a moment and then, probably because he knew St. John wasn't a resident of Cedar and therefore of no use to him, went back to his glad-handing of potential voters.

St. John turned away, satisfied. He'd been-unaware-holding his breath as he looked his father straight in the eye for the first time. He released that breath now, knowing there hadn't been the faintest flicker of recognition in the shrewd, a.s.sessing gaze.

But there would be. Someday. Soon. He would allow himself that before this was over.

He'd earned it.

"And most of this town thinks he's so d.a.m.ned n.o.ble, adopting Tyler." Jessa tossed her pen down on the desk in a movement that seemed as disgusted as her tone. "When I think of what that boy must be going through..."

Her voice trailed away. St. John halted his pacing of her small office, wanting more than anything not to talk about this, but knowing it was going to happen anyway.

"Hasn't started yet."