Lucky got up and moved toward one of the windows. He rubbed a circle in the condensation and gazed out at the dripping eaves. Every so often a chip of sleet would land on the porch, then quickly dissolve. Hopefully the temperature would remain above freezing.
He turned back to face the room. "I'm not sure you're in any condition to hear this, Chase."
"Will I ever be?"
"No."
"Then give it to me straight."
Lucky returned to the desk and glumly dropped into the chair behind it. "We'll have to file for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy if a miracle doesn't happen. And I mean soon."
Chase's shoulders slumped forward. He looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, Chase. I just couldn't hold it together. The few projects we had going fell apart after you left."
"Hell, don't apologize. Even in my drunkest days, I kept abreast of the Texas economy.
I knew it was bad."
"Our former clients are worse off than we are. Most independent oilmen have already gone belly up. The others are dead in the water, waiting for the lending institutions to pick clean their carcasses.
"I've tried my damnedest to cultivate new clients, people from out of state who still have working capital.
No dice. Nobody's doing anything.
Zilch."
"So all our equipment that was replaced after the fire…"
"Has stood idle most of that time. We might as well have left the price tags on it. That's not the worst of it." Lucky sighed with dread.
"I couldn't keep the crew on a regular payroll
when they were just standing around doing nothing, so I had to let them go. Hated it like hell, Chase. I know Granddad and Dad were rolling over in their graves. You know how loyal they were to the men who worked for them. But I had no choice but to lay them off."
"It becomes a vicious cycle because that places them in a bind."
"Right. They've got families. Kids to clothe, mouths to feed. It made me feel like hell to give them notice."
"What about our personal finances?"
"We've had to cash in some of Dad's savings.
Mother and Devon are good money managers. A few months ago, I sold a colt. That helped. We can go another six months maybe before it becomes critical. Of course the longer Tyler Drilling is insolvent, the more vulnerable our personal situation becomes."
Chase drew a discouraged breath. When he made to leave his chair, Lucky said, "Wait.
There's more. You might as well hear all of it." He met his brother's eyes squarely, grimly.
"The bank is calling in our loan. George Young telephoned last week and said they couldn't settle for only the interest payments any longer. They need us to make a substantial reduction in the principal."
Lucky spread his hands wide over the desktop.
"The funds simply aren't there, Chase. I don't even have enough cash to make the interest payment."
"I don't suppose you'd consider tumbling
Susan."
Susan Young, the banker's spoiled daughter, had had designs on Lucky and had tried blackmailing him into marriage. Lucky, a natural con man, had outconned her. So Chase was teasing when he brought Susan's name into the conversation, but Lucky answered him seriously.
"If I thought it would make any headway with her old man, I'd be unbuttoning my jeans even as we speak." Then he laughed. "Like hell I would. Devon would kill me." He spread his arms wide, shrugged helplessly, and grinned like a Cheshire cat. "What can I say? The broad is crazy about me."
Chase wasn't fooled into thinking the love affair was one-sided. His brother had been a ladies' man from the time he discovered the difference between little girls and little boys.
His reputation as a stud had been well-founded.
However, when he met Devon Haines, she knocked him for a loop. He hadn't recovered from it yet.
"From what I hear and have seen for myself, the attraction is mutual."
Chagrined, Lucky ducked his head. "Yeah.
As bad as things have been, I'm happier than
I ever dreamed possible."
"Good," Chase said solemnly. "That's good."
Another silence fell between them. By an act of will Chase threw off his melancholia again and got down to business.
"One reason I came over this morning was
to see if there was any money in the till. I find myself indebted to a certain redhead."
"Devon? What for?"
"Another redhead. Marcie. She paid my hospital bill. God knows how I'll pay her back."
Lucky stood up and moved to a filing cabinet.
From the drawer he took out a savings account passbook. "This is yours," he said, handing it to Chase, who looked at it curiously.
"What is it?"
"Chase, I sold that house you had me buy after Tanya was killed."
Everything inside Chase went very still. He had forgotten all about that. He had insisted his brother buy the house Tanya had been viewing the afternoon of the accident. In retrospect he realized it had been a knee-jerk reaction to her untimely death. He hadn't given it another thought. He had never seen the house, never wanted to. He certainly never planned to live in it.
He flipped open the vinyl cover of the passbook.
There was only one entry—a deposit.
The amount was staggering to a man who had believed himself penniless. "Jesus, where did all this come from?"
"Tanya's life insurance policy."
Chase dropped the passbook as though it had burned his fingers. It landed on the desktop. He shot out of his chair and moved to the same position in front of the window where Lucky had stood earlier. The scenery hadn't improved. It was still a dreary day.
"I didn't know what to do with the insur
ance check when it finally worked its way through all the red tape and was delivered.
You were still around then, but you were drunk all the time and in no condition to discuss it or deal with it, so I endorsed it by forging your name, then used it to buy the house.
"About a year ago, Marcie came to see me.
She had a client who was interested in buying the property. She thought you might want to sell the house since you had never occupied it and evidently never intended to.
"You were unavailable, Chase, so I had to make the decision on my own. I decided to unload it while I could, make you a couple of grand, and bank the money until you needed or wanted it."
Lucky paused, but Chase said nothing. Finally
Lucky added uncertainly, "I hope I did the right thing."
Coming around, Chase rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, you did the right thing. I never wanted the house after Tanya died. The only reason I had you buy it was because she wanted it so damn bad."
"I understand. Anyway," Lucky said, shifting moods, "you've got a little nest egg you didn't know you had."
"We'll use it to pay off our loan."
"Thanks, Chase, but it won't make a dent.
It'll cover the interest, but we've got to take care of the principal too. This time, they're getting nasty."
It was too much to deal with all at once. He felt like someone who had suffered a debili tating injury and had to learn to function all over again—walk, talk, cope.
"Let me see what I can do," Chase told his brother. "Maybe if I talk to George, assure him that I'm back and ready to get busy again, we can stave them off another few months."
"Good luck, but don't get your hopes up."
Chase took the keys to one of the company pickups. It hadn't been driven in months and was reluctant to start. The cold weather didn't help any. Finally, however, he got the engine to cooperate.
As he drove away from Tyler Drilling Company headquarters, he couldn't help but wonder if it would be there much longer. As the elder son, could he live with himself if it failed?
From all appearances she was a kook. She had a pixie haircut that cupped her small head, eyeglasses that covered a large portion of her face, and earrings the size of saucers clipped to her earlobes. The name plate on her desk read esme.
"I'm sorry, but Ms. Johns has left for the day," she told Chase. "Can I help you?"
"I need to see Marcie."
He supposed he could leave the check with
Marcie's secretary, but he wanted the satisfaction of handing it to her in person. She had been so snippy about it last night, he wanted to place it in her greedy little hands and finish their business with each other. He was uncomfortable feeling indebted to her.
He was in a querulous mood. His ribs were aching because he hadn't taken any of the prescribed pain medication that day. His interview with George Young had been as unpleasant as Lucky had predicted.
Not only was the banker trying to protect himself from the bank examiners, but Chase suspected him of holding a grudge against the Tylers because
Lucky hadn't fallen head over heels in love with his devious daughter.
George had obviously taken Lucky's rejection of Susan as a personal affront. Or, Chase thought uncharitably, maybe he was simply disappointed that Lucky hadn't taken her off his hands. The girl was bad news, and for the time being, George was still stuck with her.
Chase was stuck with a check he wanted badly to get rid of. Finding that Marcie wasn't at her real estate office didn't improve his disposition. "Where does she live?"
"Can your business wait until tomorrow?"
Esme asked. "Were you wanting to see Ms.
Johns about listing your house or were you interested in seeing one? The weather isn't—"
"This isn't about a house. My business with
Ms. Johns is personal."
The secretary's eyes were magnified even larger behind her lenses. "Oh, really?"
"Really. What's her address?"
She eyed him up and down. He obviously
passed muster because she reached for a sheet of tasteful, gray stationery with Marcie's letterhead engraved across the top and wrote down an address. "The road is probably muddy," Esme said as she handed him the piece of paper.
"It doesn't matter." The company pickup had navigated creek beds, rocky inclines, thick forests, and cow pastures to reach drilling sites. No terrain was too rough for it.
He glanced at the address, but didn't recognize it, which was unusual since he'd grown up in Milton Point and had spent his youth cruising its streets. "Where is this?"
Esme gave him rudimentary directions and he set out. His windshield wipers had to work double time to keep the rain and sleet clear.
There were patches of ice on the bridges, and after skidding a couple of times, he cursed Marcie for living in the boondocks. His family lived outside the city limits, too, but at least he was familiar with that road.
When he reached the turnoff, he almost missed it. The gravel road was narrow and marked only with a crude, hand-lettered sign.
"Woodbine Lane," he muttered.
The name was appropriate, because honeysuckle vines grew thickly along the ditches on either side of the road. They were burdened with a glaze of ice now, but in the spring and summer when they bloomed, they would perfume the air.
The road was a cul-de-sac. There were no other houses on it. At the end of it stood an unpainted frame structure nestled in a forest of pine and various hardwoods. The entry was level with the ground, but the house sat on a bluff that dropped away drastically. The back of the house was suspended above the ground, supported on metal beams.
He pulled the pickup to a halt and got out.
His boots crunched over the icy spots on the path as he carefully picked his way toward the front door.
Slipping and falling on ice wouldn't do his cracked ribs any good.
The northwesterly wind was frigid; he flipped up the collar of his lambskin coat. When he reached the front door, he took off one glove and depressed the button of the doorbell. He heard it chime inside.
In a moment Marcie pulled open the door.
She seemed surprised to see him. "Chase?"
"I thought the kook might have called you."
"How did you know about the kook?"
"Pardon?"
Shaking her head in confusion, she stepped aside and motioned him in. "It's gotten worse."
She commented on the weather as she closed the door against the gusts of cold wind. "How did you know where I live? Come in by the fire. Would you like some tea?"
She led him into one of the most breathtaking rooms he'd ever seen. He hadn't known there was anything like its contemporary design in Milton Point. The ceiling was two stories high. One wall had a fireplace, in which a fire was burning brightly. Another wall, the one suspended above ground, was solid glass,
from the hardwood floor to the ceiling twenty or more feet above it.
An island bar separated the large living area from the kitchen. It was utilitarian; it was also designed for casual dining. A gallery encircled the second story on three sides with what he guessed were bedrooms opening off it.
"There's another room behind the fireplace wall," Marcie explained, obviously noticing his interest. "I use it as an office, although it could be a guest room. There are two bedrooms and two baths upstairs."
"You sound like a realtor."
She smiled. "Habit, I guess."
"Have you lived here long?"