Page 64 of Confessions

Thomas cracked his knuckles as Hayden leaned back in the recliner. “What is it you really want?” Hayden asked, eyeing his uncle so intensely that Thomas, always cool, felt the need to squirm in his chair.

“For the time being, until I can come up with more cash, I want you to stay at the helm of Monroe Sawmill.”

“And keep buying timber from Fitzpatrick Logging?”

“Of course. We have contracts—”

“You have a lot of things, Thomas. You and Dad.” Hayden reached into a drawer and yanked out a stack of yellowed documents that had been forwarded to him, upon request, by Bradworth in San Francisco. He tossed them on the coffee table. “An interest in a soccer team that never got off the ground, a racehorse that couldn’t win and oil leases for dry wells, to name just a few. Diversification—isn’t that what you called it?”

Thomas tented his hands and nodded slightly, managing to hide his annoyance. “We’ve had our share of bad investments.”

“More than your share, I’d say. In fact, it’s my bet that the sawmill and the logging company are the only legitimate, profitable businesses that you’re involved with.”

“I’m just suggesting that you don’t look a gift hor

se in the mouth.”

Hayden’s smile was cold. “Gift horse? I think the mills are more of an albatross than anything else.”

Thomas’s eyes snapped. “You always were too stubborn for your own good. Your father only wanted what was best for you.”

“My father didn’t give a damn for me, and you know it!” Hayden exploded. “I was just another one of his ‘things.’”

Thomas pushed back his chair. “Just don’t do anything foolish.”

“You’ll be one of the first to know it if I do,” Hayden replied. “At the board meeting.”

“What if I come up with an offer before then?”

Hayden’s nostril’s flared slightly. “Bring it to me. Then we’ll talk.”

Thomas left, and Hayden searched the den for a bottle of Scotch or bourbon. He needed a drink. Grabbing a dusty bottle, he poured himself a stiff shot, then, with a growl, dumped the liquor down the bar sink and stared through the window into the coming night. His uncle worried him. The man was slick, oily. For the first time, Hayden wondered about selling out to him and giving him a complete monopoly in town—the owner of the only two industries.

Thomas would have more power than ever over people like Nadine.

He felt a pull on his gut and wondered what Nadine was doing.

Hell, why was it he couldn’t stop thinking of her? Whatever his mood—happy, sad, frustrated, elated, worried—he wanted to share it with her. Ever since landing back in this two-bit town and seeing her bending over his bathtub, scrubbing as if her life depended upon it, he’d been fascinated with her.

Leo whined to go outside, and absently Hayden patted the old dog’s head. “I know,” he said, as he snagged his jacket off the hall tree near the front door. Within minutes he and the dog were driving around the curving road that followed the shoreline of the lake. The night was brisk, stars winked high above the canopy of spruce and redwood branches, but Hayden didn’t notice. His concentration was focused on the twin beams of light thrown by his headlights and the single thought that soon he’d be with Nadine again.

* * *

“OKAY, OKAY, WE’LL put up the tree—but just the lights tonight. It’s already late,” Nadine told her boys. Upset over what she’d learned at the counter of the drugstore, she’d started home, passed the Boy Scout sales lot for Christmas trees and, on impulse, stopped and bought a small tree that she’d lashed to the roof of her car.

She was now holding it up for inspection on the back porch. Hershel growled at the tree, but the boys were delighted. “It’s great, Mom,” John told her, “but you could’ve gotten a bigger one. It’s a little on the puny side.”

“Yeah, like Charlie Brown’s,” Bobby chimed in, remembering a rerun of a Christmas special they’d seen.

“It’s not that bad. With a little trimming, a few lights, and tons of ornaments, it’ll be the best tree we’ve ever had,” she insisted. “You’ll see. Come on, Bobby, you help me get it inside, and John, look on the top shelf in the garage for the stand.”

They wrestled the tree into the dusty stand, though the poor little pine listed to one side.

“It looks like it might fall down,” Bobby said.

Nadine, still bent over the stand, shook her head. Pine needles fell into her hair and she had to speak around a protruding branch. “It’ll be fine, once it’s decorated.”

“I don’t know,” John said, holding up his hand parallel to the wall and closing one eye to measure just how badly the tree leaned. “It could tip over.”