A Billionaire's Redemption

chapter 14

Willa opened her eyes and disorientation slammed into her. Where was she? In a moment, recollection came. Gabe’s bed. And last night...

A smile curved her lips. She stretched luxuriously under the soft cotton sheet, feeling better than she had in years. That man sure knew how to make her feel like a woman. An attractive, sexy, relaxed one.

She got out of bed and availed herself of his super-high-tech bathroom. It was kind of fun to watch the news on the plasma screen in the shower, and the full body dryer was amazing. Dozens of jets blew warm air at her, and in a matter of seconds, she was entirely dry. No shivering, dripping race to towel herself off this morning, no sirree.

Her clothes were nowhere to be seen in Gabe’s bedroom. If she was certain he would be alone in his living room and not using that video teleconferencing phone he’d shown her the last time she was here, she wouldn’t mind prancing out into the condo naked. But as it was, she raided his walk-in closet and found a T-shirt and gym shorts in the built-in drawers that opened silently at a touch. Too cool.

She padded, barefoot, out into the condo. It was silent and still. “Gabe?” she called out.

Nothing. Huh.

Computer?” she tried experimentally. “Where is Gabe?”

The British sexpot intoned on cue, “Mr. Dawson is not in this residence.”

Not here? “Computer, when did he leave?”

Mr. Dawson left the residence at 12:10 a.m. this morning.”

That was right after he’d tucked her into bed so sweetly last night! The sunlight streaming in through the huge windows dimmed a little. He’d left her?

And then it dawned on her. He must have been looking out for her reputation. He’d known she had bodyguards waiting downstairs. He’d left so they wouldn’t think the two of them had done...well, what the two of them had, in fact, done. What a gentleman. The sun regained its brilliance. She dressed and cooked herself breakfast with the help of the computer, who ably told her the location of everything she needed in the kitchen to fry up some eggs, make toast and brew a small pot of coffee.

She ate slowly in hopes of Gabe rejoining her, but he didn’t, and like it or not, she had work to do today. A quick text to her bodyguards got an immediate response that they would be out front in ten minutes. She washed up after herself in the kitchen, donned her pumps and headed out.

She exited the elevator in the building’s lobby, and winced mentally. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think Paula Craddock was stalking her. Worse, the woman had spotted her coming off the elevator. Backing into the conveyance would look cowardly and earn the reporter’s ire. Willa sighed and stepped forward, pasting on a smile.

Good morning, Miss Craddock, What brings you to this neck of the woods this morning?”

You, of course. Did you and Gabe Dawson spend the night together?”

Willa was abjectly grateful to Gabe that she could look the reporter steadily in the eye and answer honestly, “Of course not! He was kind enough to let me spend the night at his condo because of how late it was when I finished my business in Dallas. But he wasn’t here.” She added hastily when the reporter opened her mouth to pounce on that, “And I have no idea where he did spend the night, Miss Craddock. You would have to ask him that.”

She expected he’d driven to his little house in Vengeance, but she wasn’t about to help out the journalist.

Paula recovered quickly. “Do you have any statement regarding your shocking endorsement of your father’s opponent?”

Is it shocking? I wasn’t aware of that,” Willa replied mildly.

You abandoned your own party and your family’s long tradition of supporting the same party. People are calling it a posthumous slap in your father’s face.”

Willa smiled sweetly around her clenched teeth. “My father left his office to me to do with as I see fit. He trusted my judgment. Of course, if he were alive, I would have given him my full support. But in my father’s absence I made a rational, serious, thoughtful choice of who to endorse based on all the available information. Isn’t that what a United States senator is supposed to do?”

Paula mumbled something about supposing that was true. Thankfully, as the woman held out her microphone once more, Willa spotted the big black SUV and her driver pulling up at the curb.

I’m sorry, Paula. There’s my ride. I’m afraid I have to go. It’s been lovely chatting with you.”

About as lovely as a bad case of jungle rot. Willa smiled warmly at the second bodyguard who jumped out of the SUV and came inside to escort her to the vehicle.

She muttered under her breath to him, “Your timing is exquisite.”

We aim to please, ma’am.”

The SUV whisked her back to Vengeance and the guards deposited her in her father’s office in the mansion. Today she planned to tackle Merris Oil. She had no intention of involving herself directly in the business, but she’d inherited her father’s seat on the board of directors, and given Gabe’s dire predictions regarding the company’s future, she felt a driving need to educate herself as quickly and thoroughly as possible on the oil business.

Her father’s correspondence pertaining to Merris Oil was a mess. Without an efficient congressional staff to keep him marginally organized, his records were a disaster. Willa spent much of the afternoon simply sorting paperwork into piles. Clearly, John Merris had never heard of a thing called a filing system.

She spent close to an hour on the phone with some vice president at Merris Oil trying to get him to tell her whether Merris Oil was or wasn’t oil fracking, and never did get a straight answer from the guy. He seemed to think that, based on her gender, she was incapable of comprehending the possible variations on the process, nor could her delicate sensibilities handle hearing about the pros and cons of doing it as a company. She was thoroughly frustrated when she gave up, hung up and took a break to eat.

She grabbed a quick bite of supper in the kitchen with Louise. Apparently, Minnie was out to dinner with friends. Willa was delighted to see her mother rejoining the human race. For a while there, she’d been really worried about her mother’s ability to recover from the shock of John Merris’s murder.

She went back to work, plowing through various Merris Oil reports and making frequent visits to the internet to read about different oil-drilling techniques. She had just dived into the daunting pile of financial reports when she heard a lot of female voices in the front hall.

Seizing on any excuse to avoid the profit-and-loss statements, she stepped out into the foyer, folder in hand, to say hello to her mother and thank whoever’d managed to peel Minnie out of her bed.

Willa recognized all of the dozen women, who were of an age with her mother, and longtime friends of the Merris family. “Hi, Mom. Ladies. Did you have a nice dinner?”

Minnie turned to her, and Willa’s smile froze. Her mother’s eyes were bloodshot and Minnie wove a little as she completed the turn.

There she is,” Minnie said acidly. “My loving, sweet, loyal daughter. You just couldn’t wait to stick a knife in your father’s back, could you, you ungrateful little bitch?”

Oh, no. Minnie was on the warpath again. She steeled herself not to overreact and said evenly, “Father’s dead and buried, Mom.”

At the rate you’re going, you’ll be burying me before long, too, young lady. You’d just love that, wouldn’t you? And then you can have all of this for yourself.”

She knew her mother was drowning in a cocktail of booze and medications, knew Minnie didn’t know what she was saying and wouldn’t remember it tomorrow. But a little voice in the back of Willa’s head whispered that maybe this was really how her mother did feel about her. Had the liquor and drugs brought out long-hidden truths about Minnie’s real feelings?

Lord knew Willa had suppressed a whole lot of anger and resentment of her own toward her father over the years. But she’d always thought of Minnie as her silent ally in the suffering and self-effacement. Had Minnie seen her as the enemy all along?

Why, look,” Minnie said with saccharine viciousness. “She’s already perusing Merris Oil’s financials. Calculating how much you can take your father’s company for while you’re bankrupting me?”

Willa was vaguely aware of all the women but one staring fixedly at various paintings and floor tiles as they tried not to witness this family’s dirty laundry.

But Roseanne Ward was paying avid attention to the exchange. She piped up now. “I told you she’d come after you, too, Minnie. She turned on my James and now she’s doing the same to you. You’ve been harboring a viper to your breast, you poor thing.”

Willa stared at the woman in sudden comprehension. So, Roseanne was the source of the poison in Minnie’s fuddled mind.

And the woman wasn’t done spewing venom, yet. “Why, she’s driven my poor boy nearly to distraction. He can’t sleep or eat, he’s having terrible headaches and anxiety attacks. And there she stands, as cool as a cucumber, not giving so much as a never mind about the suffering she’s causing him. Not to mention the grief and pain she’s causing her own mother.”

Let me guess,” Willa said pleasantly. “Tonight’s little outing was your idea.”

Roseanne’s back went rigid. “Indeed, it was. You’re far too busy running around like some cheap whore with your father’s enemies to pay any attention to your poor grieving mother. Some daughter you are.”

The barb hurt. Particularly because Willa had to admit there might be a little truth to it. She’d been so overwhelmed since her father’s death that she probably hadn’t been spending enough time with Minnie. But after days and days of sitting beside her mother’s bed while the woman slept off her tranquilizers and antidepressants, there hadn’t seemed to be much point. And then the avalanche of details involved in planning a funeral, dealing with her father’s will, answering the hundreds of sympathy notes...and then Gabe...

She turned to Minnie. “Roseanne’s absolutely right. I haven’t been spending enough time with you. I’m so sorry. Tomorrow—”

No more lies!” Minnie screeched. “Get out of my house! This is my house. Not yours!”

The outburst brought Louise hurrying out of the kitchen in alarm. A pair of the bodyguards peered over the housekeeper’s shoulder, also alarmed.

Willa stared at her mother in dismay. Minnie was kicking her out? Really?

Go!” Minnie screamed.

Everyone froze. The other ladies, Louise and the two bodyguards stared back and forth between Minnie and Willa in appalled shock.

It took every ounce of the training John Merris had pounded into her never to show weakness and never to give in to emotion to say calmly, If that’s what you want, Mother. Of course I’ll return to my own home. Right away.”

She walked across the foyer, her back feeling like an icicle, rigid, heavy and on the verge of shattering. She vaguely heard the bodyguards politely shoving through the crowd of buzzing women behind her. Without stopping to wait for them, she made her way to her little car parked at the edge of the driveway, grateful that it wasn’t blocked in by the big Cadillacs her mother’s posse had been driving.

Willa started the car, her fingers so numb they didn’t even feel the keys, and headed down the driveway. There was some sort of commotion behind her—shouting and lots of movement. The bodyguards were waving their arms frantically in her direction, but she ignored them. The tears were starting to come now, and she really didn’t need a couple of guys hovering over her while she cried them out. It looked like the guards’ SUVs were blocked in by the line of Cadillacs. All the better. She needed to be alone. To lick her wounds and try to figure out what she’d done to make her mother hate her so much.

In that moment, she felt more alone than she had in her entire life. Apparently, when John Merris was shot, she’d lost not only her father, but also her mother. A sob escaped her. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks now and she dashed at them trying to see the road.

Darkness had fallen, and lightning flickered faintly on the horizon. She judged that it would be a few hours before the storms came, and frankly, she didn’t want to go home right now. Her bodyguards would head there first in search of her. Lover’s Point was the peak of a giant bluff west of town that kids parked on and made out in their cars. It looked over the western part of the county, and she’d always found it a peaceful place. She guided her car up the winding tar and gravel road. Trees closed in around her car and then started to give way to limestone outcroppings jutting up out of the rolling hills.

Of course, she’d never been up here in a car with a boy in high school. She hadn’t ever been one of the cool girls who got invited to have awkward sex in the backs of cars. And fear of her father had kept the mean boys from trying to get into her pants for the sake of winning some stupid bet.

In retrospect, she probably hadn’t been missing out on nearly as much as she’d thought she had in high school. Gabe had been well worth the wait.... Gabe. She desperately needed to hear his voice all of a sudden. To be reassured that her mother loved her and wasn’t in her right mind at the moment. She just needed to know that someone, anyone, gave a damn about her.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed his number. It rang a half-dozen times and then kicked over to his voice mail.

A pair of headlights came up behind her on the twisty road, moving fast. That had better not be her bodyguards. She really wanted to be alone. Gabe’s recorded voice urged her to leave a message, and the ubiquitous beep sounded.

Hey, Gabe. It’s me. Thanks for last night. It turned out to be a good thing that you left the apartment when you did. Our favorite reporter was waiting in the lobby for me this morning. I swear, that woman has it in for me.”

The headlights pulled closer and Willa noticed in relief that the vehicle was not a big, black, sleek SUV, but rather a white van. Probably some kids heading up to the point to have sex in their shaggin’ wagon.

At any rate,” she continued, “my mom was on a tear tonight and threw me out of her house. I think Roseanne Ward is the one putting ideas in Mom’s head that I’m trying to steal her money and ruin her. Call me. I miss you.”

She put the phone down on the seat beside her and concentrated on the progressively narrower and more treacherous road. Near the summit now, it switched back hard next to a massive drop-off. A wide valley stretched away into the distance hundreds of feet below her. It was Willa’s least favorite part of the drive. She clutched the wheel tightly and slowed cautiously as she approached the turn.

A tremendous impact made her scream aloud as the van behind her slammed into her. Willa fought her fishtailing car back under control, tires squealing as she hit the brakes. Another bone-jarring impact shoved her car partially off the pavement. She stood on her brake pedal for all she was worth, locking up the tires completely. But the van revved behind her, using its superior weight and horsepower to shove her closer to that ominous expanse of blackness.

What the heck was wrong with that driver? Willa shouted at him to stop regardless of the fact that the driver couldn’t hear her.

Her remaining tires hit the gravel shoulder and she abruptly lost all traction. Her little car lurched forward and the hood pitched down and out of sight. Her seat tilted forward violently as the car went over the edge.

Willa only had time to scream, “Nooooooo!”