He was trying to be a team player. He was trying not to be cold.
He was trying to be a real man.
And ending up as Santa Claus.
The thought came out of nowhere and stunned him still. Santa Claus. God, it was true, When Maggie or C.J. or Lydia had problems, they called one another, not Brandon. They listened to one another, told one another about the petty concerns and little hopes that comprised everyday life. Brandon was the one on the fringe, the one they could never reach, the one who would arrive later with an exotic present or hopeful chunk of cash before he took off again.
He gave his family everything but himself.
Not even Julia had gotten all of him. And he knew, he understood deep down, that was how he’d failed her. He’d married her and then made her feel lonely.
He walked quietly to his cabin. He went to bed fully dressed without turning on the light, then lay there wide-awake, staring at the ceiling.
He kept seeing his wife, smiling at him in her pink waitress uniform the day they met.
“I’m trying to do better,” he insisted. “I am.”
He rolled onto his side, but his face remained grim and his blue eyes were stark.
* * *
Brandon woke up to the sound of a truck door slamming and an engine starting. He heard Randy’s excited chatter; then the truck backed up and headed down the driveway. Victoria and Randy must be going into town.
To buy alfalfa and lumber and grain. So Victoria could take care of her ranch and he could try not to make an ass out of himself again. If he offered to hammer in a few boards, would he be crossing the line?
He could have some money wired to a lawyer in her name. Say it was a freak inheritance. Or maybe lottery winnings or income tax withholdings that had been too high.
Let it go, Ferringer. Give her more credit and give her more respect.
He dragged himself out of bed and headed for the shower, his mood no better by morning than it had been at night. Half an hour later, he gulped down instant coffee and stirred more hot water into packets of instant oatmeal.
All right, Ferringer, time to focus.
He sat on the edge of the bed, turned on his cellular phone and dialed the Jacobses’ number. Directory assistance hadn’t had a listing for Ashley Jacobs, but it had had a Mr. John Jacobs. Perhaps a father or husband?
The phone rang once, twice, three times. They weren’t in. No one was home. Should he leave a message—
“Hello?’’ A man answered, his voice deep but quivering, eroded by the years. According to the bronze plate beneath Ashley’s picture, she was born in 1939, making her nearly sixty. This man sounded even older. Perhaps he was her father or an uncle.
“Hello?” the man rasped again.
“Ah, yes. I’m calling for Ashley Jacobs.” Brandon was gripping the phone too tightly, his stomach fluttering as if he was a schoolboy asking a girl out on his first date.
The other end of the phone was quiet, too quiet. His nervousness increased.
“Of all the sick, cruel hoaxes!” The man suddenly exploded. “Why don’t you kids get a job and leave decent folks alone!”
The phone was slammed down. Brandon sat back, stunned, his ears still burning.
What the hell was that all about? What had he done?
The cell phone remained silent. He finally turned it off. What to do now? He had only one option. He got into his rental car and drove to Bud Irving’s place.
* * *
“Hello.”
Victoria looked up from her hammering in the stables and discovered Brandon Ferringer staring at her. He had his hands thrust deeply into the front pockets of his jeans and wore his red Patagonia vest over a black turtleneck. He looked remote and he looked handsome.
She scowled and returned to the fresh two-by-four she was pounding into the charred gap.
Ferringer shifted from side to side, no longer so sure. She let him suffer. She was still angry with him, but also slightly ashamed. She resented that even more. Okay, so maybe she’d flown off the handle. Maybe she’d overreacted to his offer of help. It had been four in the morning, her evening had gone from wild passion to burning barns, and frankly, she didn’t switch gears that easily.
And she was unbearably self-conscious now. Dammit, she’d been ready to rip this man’s shirt from his body, and he knew it. Her lips on his lips. Her hands gripping his cheeks. Please, please, please.
Her face turned bright red. She focused on the burned-out feed area and told her memory to shut up. She could have amnesia if she wanted to.
Ferringer finally hunkered down. Man couldn’t take a hint.
“I know a chap,” he said. “Not much of a diplomat but he can pound a board. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll give his thumb a smack or two.”
“I’m fine.”
“He’s just trying to assist. He did go a little overboard last night. He doesn’t really like making an ass out of himself. Fortunately for him, you would never let him get away with such a thing. Victoria . . .”
“Oh, fine, fine, fine. See those boards? See that gaping black hole? The boards go there.”
“Wonderful.”
She gritted her teeth. She really did feel like a heel. She could be independent if she wanted to. Independence and pride were about all she had left. And if she’d learned anything from Ronald, it was the importance of taking care of herself. Men could just take, take, take, and a foolish woman could give, give, give.
She heard the distant shout of Randy playing with the foals in the pasture. She went back to hammering.
“How are you?” Ferringer asked. He’d selected a two-by-four and was measuring it for the slot next to hers.
“Fine.”
“Throat burn? Any dizziness?”
“Just tired, Ferringer. Cavorting around until four in the morning isn’t my style.”
He nodded stiffly, her curtness registering but his stubbornness equal to hers. “And Doc?”
“Doc is fine! We’re all fine! Soon we’ll break into song.”
“That would be something to see.”
She turned toward him, her tongue poised to give him a clear dressing down solely because she was on edge, and dammit, he was destroying her peace of mind. But she took one look at his face and stopped cold.
He looked like hell. His jaw was clenched so tightly his cheeks were hollow. His lips were thinned to the point of bloodlessness. He moved with short, deliberate motions, as if every muscle in his body was stretched to breaking point, and his eyes, his deep blue eyes, held a dark, feral gleam.
“Ferringer?” she whispered.
“Do you know who Ashley Jacobs is?” he asked shortly, selected one nail, lined it up and hammered it in.
“Yes. I mean no.” She shrugged, genuinely confused. “I’ve heard stories, that’s all.”
“What stories?”
“There’s not much to tell. It’s been forty years since she disappeared, and that was well before my time—”
“Disappeared?” His raised arm stilled above the second nail. He gazed at her darkly, and she nearly shivered.
“It was a long, long time ago, Brandon. I don’t know much. Every year John and Yvonne still hold the vigil for her in August, and every year they swear this will be the year Ashley will come back. Of course, she never has.”
Brandon’s lips twisted. He looked like he might be laughing, but no sound came out.
“She disappeared,” he whispered. “She disappeared, she disappeared. And then Al Simmons disappeared in 1970, and Max disappeared in 1972. So all that’s left is crazy Bud Irving. And he just shot at me.”
His shoulders shook. She finally figured out that he was in shock.
“Ferringer,” she said quietly, “maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”
* * *
>
“We don’t know much about my father. My grandmum—the one in Tillamook—has a glass bookcase with his life laid out like a banquet. There’s a picture of four-year-old Max sitting on my grandpa’s lap—Samuel died nine months later when his bomber went down over Germany. Then we have a photo of Max in his football uniform. I gather the Tillamook Cheesemakers had quite a team in 1955. Max was the captain and got to keep the game ball from the state championship.
“He was a handsome fellow, the class president and class valedictorian. Definitely, he was a hit with the ladies. Lydia has a whole row of pictures of Maximillian with the Tillamook Dairy Princess, the Homecoming Queen, the Prom Queen, Miss Cheesemaker 1955. When he graduated with Bud Irving and Al Simmons in 1955, he was voted most likely to succeed.”
“Uh-huh.” They were in her kitchen, Ferringer sitting at her table, his body rigid and tense. She poured two glasses of iced tea and pushed one into his hand. His fingers felt frozen. “Want something hot instead?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll heat up some stew.” She bustled at the stove, giving her shaking hands something to do. Ashley Jacobs, Bud Irving and his father? Bud had shot at Brandon? She felt like she was suddenly in the Twilight Zone. “Keep talking, Ferringer.” She scooped the stew into a saucepan.
“We don’t know what happened after high school. I gather from records that Max formed a partnership with Bud and Al—they were going to be importers and exporters. But everything changed. My father changed. Suddenly he was jetting here and there and my grandmother never knew what it was about. ‘Business,’ he’d say and wink. My mum was the only child of a long-standing English family, quite wealthy when she met Max in 1959. She thought he was a self-made man, a successful American entrepreneur, but it turned out he was just an entrepreneur. As soon as they were married, he started borrowing against the estate. I remember him traveling quite a lot, always on business. There were women, too. Lots of women. He met Vivian, a struggling actress, in California and fathered C.J. Max was still married to my mother at the time. Even when Caroline finally demanded a divorce, he didn’t marry Vivian. She didn’t have money.”
“Standards,” Victoria muttered from the stove.
Ferringer’s lips curved. “Quite, and he was just getting started. A year later he met Stephanie in Portland. She was a sculptor, the passionate artist type, quite beautiful. More important, she came from a rich family. They married in weeks and my sister, Maggie, was born. I remember getting the postcard. C.J. didn’t even get that. Of course, Max kept his marriage and new daughter secret from Vivian for a while. She always thought she was the true love of his life, even as she lay dying.
“Max was still traveling all the time. He called it business and no one really understood what the business was. He had more women, I suppose. Stephanie kept pace with more men. I gather from Maggie that the marriage was quite bitter and passionate and the divorce was expensive.”
“Lovely.” Victoria stirred the stew vigorously. She was getting a vivid image of abandoned women and confused children. What kind of man fathered kids in three different ports, then left them to fend for themselves? She wanted to hurt Maximillian Ferringer. And then she wanted to hold Brandon close and tell him she was so sorry she got angry last night. Now she understood.
“Vivian died in L.A.,” Brandon said. “She passed away in a dingy, rent-controlled studio apartment with eleven-year-old C.J. promising her Max was on his way. It was a lie. Our father was always the person leaving, not arriving. ‘Time to deal,’ he’d say. ‘Time to deal.’
“After Vivian’s death, though, he had no choice. He took C.J. in, and suddenly C.J. was jetting all around the globe, as well. Max always traveled with a suitcase full of cash, but C.J. never saw him buy or sell anything. And Max never talked about work or his business partners. One morning they’d arrive and a week or two later, Max would announce that the deal was done, and suddenly they’d be on a plane.”
“You think he was doing something illegal, don’t you?”
“C.J.’s one hundred percent convinced. Maggie is eighty percent of the way there. The rest of her secretly imagines him as James Bond. Maggie’s a romantic.”
“And you?” Victoria raised a brow. “I’m sorry, Brandon, but Max doesn’t exactly sound like an upstanding citizen.”
“But he was once,” Brandon insisted. “Dammit, you can see it in the cabinet photos, Victoria. He was on the right track once. He had Boy Scout badges; he had honors. He was bright; he was talented. America had won the war, the economy was booming and young, talented men could do anything. I don’t understand. Why the obsession with money? Lydia always got by. Why the travel, the secrets? He was once so all-American, and then . . .”
“People change, Brandon. Sometimes they change for the worse.”
“I know.” He shook his head, his face furrowed and frustrated. Then he shrugged and said quietly, “In 1972, Max’s plane went down in Indonesia. His body was never found, and a year later, he was declared legally dead. He was simply gone. How do they say it? Without a trace.”
The kitchen grew hushed. Victoria filled two bowls with stew, set them on the table and took a seat.
“Thank you,” Brandon said absently. He didn’t pick up the fork.
“I’m sorry I got so angry last night,” she said abruptly.
“You were right. I was trying to take control of things, throw money at them. I have a tendency to do that.”
“It’s not so bad to want to help people.” She offered a smile as a peace treaty. “I have a tendency to bristle like a porcupine, myself. I’m good at it, too.”
He finally smiled. “I like that about you, Victoria. I like your pride. Last night . . .” The memories and emotions rose up between them. Dancing together. His hand on her back, her body pressed against his. The drive home, feeling the heat, the anticipation, the longing. The sharp, spiking moment of thinking the time was finally at hand. His lips on hers. Running toward his cabin . . .
“Last night,” she agreed weakly.
“I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you, Victoria.”
“I know. Maybe we should forget about last night for a moment. There’s a lot of other stuff on the table. Brandon, you said Bud Irving shot at you. I’m a little concerned about that.”
“I’m a tad concerned about it myself.” He finally picked up his fork and stabbed his stew. “I just wanted to talk. Victoria, for most of his life, my father carried a locket containing Ashley Jacobs’s portrait. Beaverville’s Ashley Jacobs.”
“Huh?”
“Precisely. Max’s business partners were Al Simmons, who disappeared in 1970, and Bud Irving, who’s bonkers in Beaverville. And Max is connected to Ashley Jacobs. Four people, joined by Max, and three of them have disappeared. Just disappeared.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be asking too many questions, Brandon. People disappearing is not a good thing.”
“Evidently. When I tried to ask my questions in Bud Irving’s speaker box at his security gate, he opened fire and shot my bloody car.”
“That’s it! Let’s call my dad. He can haul Bud’s crazy butt into jail once and for all. Someone should’ve locked him up years ago.”
“I don’t want him locked up. I want him to speak to me.
“Ferringer, the guy is paranoid. He’s nuts, bats in the belfry, lights on and nobody home—”
“I don’t know.” Brandon’s blue gaze was finally clear. “Think for a minute, Victoria. Four people, all connected through my father. Three are gone and presumed dead. The last is living in a fortress surrounded by barbed wire, feral dogs and security cameras. Maybe Bud isn’t as paranoid as everyone thinks. Maybe Bud understands how much there is to fear.”
Victoria’s jaw worked, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. Sitting at her kitchen table, she suddenly felt a chill. “There must be someone else,” she said,
and chewed her bottom lip.
“I need to learn about Ashley Jacobs and what happened when she disappeared. Who can tell us about Ashley Jacobs?”
“I know,” Victoria said promptly. “Tom Reynolds.”
Chapter 9
“Don’t tell him about my father. I don’t want him to know about Max.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s Tom. I’ve known him most of my life.” Victoria was striding across Main Street in total disregard for traffic, her face intent and her hands fisted for battle. Luckily, drivers in Beaverville were accustomed to Vic’s style and swerved quickly.
Brandon caught her arm as she reached the door of the general store.
“Remember,” he said seriously.
She rolled her eyes. “Scout’s honor. Come on, Ferringer, let’s get to the bottom of this!”
They found Tom at his soda fountain, washing down the Formica counter with his apron around his waist. His leathered face crinkled in a wide smile, and he gave her a hug.
“Vic. How’re you doing?”
She assured him she was dandy while Brandon politely shook Tom’s hand, still feeling wary.
“Two chocolate sodas?” Tom asked.
“Okay!” Victoria waved Brandon to the red vinyl barstools. They had already decided she would take the lead in questioning to avoid rousing Tom’s suspicions.
“How’s business?” she asked conversationally.
“Same old, same old. I hear you had a little mishap at your stables last night.”
“Alfalfa spontaneously combusted. Ferringer got most of it out before any damage was done.”
“That’s good to hear. That good old Oregon damp makes life a bitch, doesn’t it?”
“And how,” Victoria agreed.
Tom served the sodas. He was looking at Victoria, but Brandon could tell Tom’s attention was really on him.