Family Ties (Hidden Secrets) (10 page)

Chapter
Eight

Tobey

Within seconds of Mary storming out, everyone was staring at me.  I swallowed hard and knew the card to play to smooth this over. Or at least I hoped it would.

“
I have a suggestion.” I cleared my throat. “She wants to come to my ranch to work for a week.  Mary has told me that she wants to own her own ranch and asked if she could see what it would be like and if she could handle it.  I have no problem with it.  A ranch can never have too many hands as long as there is work, of course.  Anyway, why don’t I take her to my ranch tonight and start that week.  It will give you all ample opportunity to investigate this Kyle Hall and figure out what steps to take when she gets back.” 

Pausing
for a minute to allow any objections… and yes, I did expect them. I was surprised when nothing came. When enough time had passed I continued on, “There will need to be a good plan in place because Kyle will be good and pissed when she tells him she is not going to be available for a week.  If this plan is good for you guys, I would like to go after my girlfriend now.”  Receiving several nods from the table, I turned to Kayla and Jason, “Thank you for dinner.  You have a lovely place here and congratulations on your impending marriage.”  I then turned and looked at everyone else at the table.  “It was nice to meet you all and hope we can all meet again soon.  Maybe you all can come out to the ranch when the week is up?” 

             
I turned and walked out of the house to run after Mary.  My brain was telling me what I already felt; that there was more to this story with Kyle and I was hoping that I could get it out of her so maybe I could help her.  At the moment, the plan didn’t matter.  Honestly, I’m not sure it was going to matter again at this point. I was falling for Mary and falling for her hard.  It was becoming obvious that I wasn’t sure I could go through with it anymore.  Hurting people was not something I did.  I couldn’t hurt Mary now, not now that I realized my feelings for her were more than just a plan to get in and hurt her.  Part of me was pissed off at that.  I hated failure. Actually, I never failed.  My head was throbbing, but I knew that at this moment it was the right call to make.  I knew I was in deeper than I wanted to admit, but right now I just couldn’t go through with the plan. Not when she is already hurting like this. It was confusing at times.  This is why I never hurt anyone.  It just wasn’t in me to do it.

             
As I walked out to find Mary, I thought back to all the things that I have learned about her and her family in the time I have spent with them, which wasn’t long I know.  But I found nothing in her or her family that showed evil doing or anything.  They seemed like good honest people.  Kayla seemed truly damaged and rebuilding for what had been done to her.  He needed to figure out what that was.  Mary, oh Mary, she was amazing; warm, giving, full of life, loving.

             
My family had to be mistaken. They had to have gotten the names wrong or something.  It was not these people.  It couldn’t be, could it?

@~^~~     @~^~~     @~^~~

Elijah…

Once
Tobey left the room, I gave in to the thoughts running through my head and I turned to Jason.  I hoped like hell he would give me the answers I didn’t want to find, but just had a feeling were there.  Though a bigger part wanted him to prove me wrong.

“
Jason, can I talk to you a minute?  In private?”

“
Sure Eli, we can go to my office.”

The
two men walked down the hall into Jason’s office.  I thought very highly of Jason because he risked everything to save my sister and I would never forget that.  I owed Jason everything and of course he would not ever dream of collecting on it.  He did it because he loved her.  I respected that.

“
So what’s going on Eli?”

“
I need you to do me a couple of favors.  If it is too much I can try and find someone else but really I only trust you with this.”

“
Family always comes first man.  What do you need and I will do it?”

“
I, of course, want you to look into this Kyle Hall.  Find everything you can find on him that could help us figure out what we need to do and what kind of danger Mary may be in.”

“
Done.  I was already going to volunteer to do it anyway so not really a favor.  What else?”

“
I want you to check into this Tobey Young guy that Mary is dating.  I don’t know, something about him seems off to me.  She is going out to his ranch for a week and I want to make sure that we know where that is and what is going on”

“
I can do that as well.  Shouldn’t take long for either of them.  I will look up Tobey first since he is the immediate possible threat with her being out on his ranch.  Then I will dig into Kyle.”

“
I want you to keep this between us.  I mean, Kyle isn’t so much a quiet topic but Tobey is.  Come to me the minute you have anything on Tobey.”

“
Will do.  I understand completely where you are coming from.  I will get right on it once everyone is gone.”

“
Thanks.”

@~^~~    @~^~~    @~^~~

I hurried down the driveway and didn’t see any sign of Mary so far.  Stopping for a moment, I looked around.  The drive was surrounded by trees on both sides.  There was a storm coming in and has darkened the early evening light which made it hard to see much beyond the trees.  I was beginning to panic.  This was a new feeling for me; to care so much for a person that I panicked when they run off in a storm like this.   Just as I was getting ready to call her name is when I heard crying.  My chest tightened when I walked toward the noise and found her leaning against a tree with her knees to her chest.

             
Without even a thought to why I shouldn’t do it, I sat down and scooped her up into my arms and sat her on my lap.  Running my hands down her back, I cooed to her softly.  Whether I was ready to admit it or not, this woman was under my skin and damn close to being in my heart.  I knew the moment she looked up at me with teary eyes and wet cheeks and my heart broke for her that I was in love with her.  I wasn’t sure how she felt about me though.  She kissed me like there was no tomorrow, but was that chemistry or love to her?  She told everyone I was her boyfriend, but that was just because they got caught making out in his truck, right?

Dammit!
I need to get my shit together!

“
I’m sorry.  You didn’t come here for this.”  She wiped her face and stood up.  I stood next to her and wrapped her in my arms.

“
I told them that you were going to come and stay at my ranch for a week to see if you liked the ranch life.  You don’t have to work this week.  We can do that some other time.  You can use it as a vacation.”

“
You really want me at your ranch?  Even after I just brought you into a butt load of problems?”

“
I have no problem with you coming to my ranch.  Do you want to come?” I asked nervously.

“
Yes, I would love that.”

“
Good, then let’s go to your place and get your stuff then head out.”

“
I don’t have anything with me really.  But I do need to grab some things from my parents’ house.  Then take care of my rental car… That is if Kyle hasn’t had it towed again.” She sighs.

“
Again?  He has towed your car before?”    She simply tried to wave me off the topic but I wasn’t having it.  “No you said again.  When?”

“
If I’m not back when he thinks I should be or I leave because my family needs me…It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“
It
is
a big deal, Mary.  He needs to be stopped.”

I
held her in my arms for a few more minutes before thunder sounded overhead causing us both to jump.  We hurried to my truck and got in before the rain started.

We
were in my truck headed for her parents when I turned on the radio. Mary absentmindedly started to sing along..  I watched her as she sang.  She sang beautifully, but it was when I focused on her eyes that I noticed a tear slip down her cheek.  Without thinking I reached across and wiped the tear away.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
Nothing really.  My sister sang this song to me, Jason and Nate while we were all on a stakeout and I can just remember the pain behind her voice as she sang this song...I might add she sings it a lot better than I do.”  She laughed softly. 

We
pulled up into her parents’ drive. Without saying a word she hurried out of the truck and ran inside. Stepping out of the truck I waited for her to come out of the house. She came running out with a few bags.  I grabbed them from her and kissed her head before putting them in the back seat of my truck and we both climbed back in.  Trying hard to give her some peace and quiet, we drove to my ranch. My curiosity started to get the better of me and I couldn’t wait any longer. 

“
What happened to your sister?  I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.  I just see how deeply it affects all of you.”

“
You really don’t know?   It was all over the news and papers for a while.”

“
I don’t get much time for TV or newspaper, sadly.  Please tell me.”

“
She was raped and tormented for sixteen years.  From when she was twelve until he got caught, but not before he had others brought in on it. He was paid to break her and break my family.  I hope the money was good because he sits in jail now.  We didn’t see my sister much while all of it was going on until he about killed her dog so he could rape her again.  It was then that she finally told us what was going on.”

“
Oh my god!  What kind of sick pervert would do something like that?”

“
His name was Alex Greene.  He wanted my brother Carson to throw his fight so he could make a substantial amount of money.  Carson wouldn’t do it.  We weren’t raised like that.  We were raised with morals.  Anyway, his payback to my brother was going into my sister’s room while my brothers were downstairs having a party and raping her.  Then he kept going afterward because he was being paid to break the Williams clan by some ex friends of my parents. 

Anyway,
Kayla finally knew that she would never be able to get out from under him on her own.  Well, my youngest sisters graduated and she ended up meeting a detective at their party.  He showed up at her work the next day with breakfast.  They were eating when she got a phone call.   It was Alex, told her that if she didn’t get him out of her office he’d make her watch him kill Jason and then he’d slowly torture and kill her.  After all that, she decided it was time to come clean to the family and get our help.  She kept it from us all those years.  Tried to fight this guy on her own.  Carson tried to take matters into his own hands and did remarkably well until he sent in his goon squad on him and they had knives.  Hospitalized him.  The twisted part too was that he sent photos of every time he raped my sister to the police station; over the sixteen years he signed each photo ‘She’s one of your own. Catch me if you can A.G.’.  I am so glad that he is finally behind bars where he belongs.  Suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder from a showdown when they finally found him.  Jason wanted to kill him, but Kayla wouldn’t let him.  She wanted justice, not revenge.  She got it.  Now my sister is slowly pulling her life back together.  Jason helps her a lot.  That’s her story.  Please don’t treat her any different.  She hates the looks she gets from people who pity her.”

             
I was floored!  This was a lot of information for me to take in.  Wow! What can I possibly say to that?  It was horrific for someone to have to go through it once, let alone for sixteen years.  At twelve years old?  What man would look at a twelve year old and think sex? 

“
I do not pity her, but it does infuriate me.  No one should have to go through something like that.”

“
The press tried to make my sister out to be some kind of bad person.  The defense attorney even accused her of not reporting it sooner because she was involved with him.  Then the papers tried to say that she made the whole story up to get Jason in bed because as it turns out he’s rich.  Kayla didn’t even know it.  No one around him knew it.  Apparently he inherited money and invested it and he is set now.” She giggled, “I had him invest some of my money so I can be set when I decide to retire to my ranch.”

             
When the conversation died down, I was left to my thoughts.  I couldn’t believe that I walked into a meet and greet expecting to find an evil lying woman and instead I found an amazing loving talented woman.  I looked over at her and watched as she fell asleep, her head hung to the side and she was breathing slow and even breaths.  The truck hit a bump and she slumped over and her head rested on my shoulder.  God, I was falling for this woman; I couldn’t though.  I needed to figure out what was really going on with this vendetta that my family has against her and her family.  I just needed to look into it a little more.  To get all the answers I knew I couldn’t turn to my family to ask them.  There could be a chance that my family was lying about what happened then they would not appreciate my questioning them on it; nor would they tell me the truth.  No, if I was going to find the answers I would have to find them myself.  After all, the things that my family is claiming she did to them would be documented so I should be able to find it pretty easy.  In the meantime, I was going to have to try my hardest not to let her find out anything.