She frowned and sat up in her chair then turned and looked around. “What have you done with the place?” she asked. “It looks…new.” She looked around some more and realized there was no threadbare rug on the floor. There were no faded curtains in the windows. Those windows that had been so covered with desert dust you couldn’t see through them were now gleaming bright and so clear you could look through and see for miles in the distance.
“How the heck did you get this place to look so good? I’ve been scrubbing those windows for months.” She turned back to stare at Ryder. “You just removed decades worth of dust in days. How did you do it?”
Ryder gave a soft chuckle. “I gained a couple more muscles in the process.”
Blake nodded slowly. “I can see that.” And she really could. Maybe it was all in her head but it really did look like his shoulders had gotten broader and the muscles of his arms had grown harder since she’d left town.
“But enough about that.” Ryder sat forward in his chair, his dark eyes focused on her. “I thought you would come back upbeat after your trip to Dallas. Instead, you look like you’ve got more worries now than before you left. What gives?”
She paused, wondering how she could assuage his curiosity without giving away too much. Then she drew in a steadying breath and began. “It’s my ex business partner. The one who made me walk away from my business and leave Dallas. I got word that he’s been spreading vicious rumors about me. All lies.” The anger rising in her as the memory flooded back, she'd begun to clench her fists as she spoke and she had to make an effort to release the tension that was taking hold of her. “I rushed back to Dallas, thinking I could put a stop to it but he was smart. He made sure that everything he said about me were just insinuations. There was nothing concrete. Nothing I could use to nail him to the wall.”
“Insinuations about what? Something damaging to your reputation?”
“You got that right. The bastard made it seem like the reason I left town was because I’d dipped into company funds.” She expelled her breath in a frustrated rush. “I still can’t believe it. He made it look like I was guilty of the very thing he’d done. He was the one who embezzled money from the company.”
Eyes narrowed, Ryder stared at her and for a moment he said nothing, obviously shocked by what she’d just told him. “You were in partnership with this man?” he asked, his tone serious.
“Yes.”
“And he stole from the company yet you were the one who left town. Why?”
Blake didn’t look at Ryder. She dropped her gaze and stared at her clasped hands as they rested on the table. To hear him say it, it sounded so stupid. It was usually the guilty party who skipped town, not the innocent one. Any sane person would ask the very question that Ryder was asking.
And that was part of the problem. The fact that she’d suddenly left town had made it so easy for Jerome to fabricate stories. “I had my reasons,” she said, her voice low. How could she tell him how shocked and hurt she’d been when she found out how her husband-to-be had betrayed her trust? How could she share the fact that she’d been utterly devastated? She shook her head. “I trusted him,” she said simply, “with all my heart. When he turned around and stabbed me in the back I couldn’t deal with it. Maybe I should have stayed to fight it out with him but at the time I couldn’t. It was just…too much.”
That was as much as she was prepared to say. She’d probably said too much already. Ryder would just have to draw his own conclusions and if he thought she was a wimp then so be it.
But when he spoke again his voice was quiet, non-judgmental. “You had a partnership,” he said, “which means the business was yours just as much as it was his. You were prepared to walk away from that?”
She shook her head again but this time she raised her eyes to meet his. “I walked away because I needed time to deal with all that was happening. I would have gone back to deal with him, or at least to dissolve my side of the business, but I needed to be in a fantasy world for a while, one where the business, Jerome, none of that existed.” She tightened her lips then she sighed. “I went back to Dallas but I wasn’t ready.”
As if he understood what she was saying, Ryder nodded. “You do what you have to do in your own time. When you’re ready.” Then he reached out and placed his big hand over both of hers. “Just know that I’m here when you’re ready to deal with this. When it comes to attorneys I only work with the best.”
That brought a wan smile to her lips. She had no idea what business Ryder was in, to need the services of top-notch attorneys, but she was grateful for his show of interest in her problems. “When I’m ready to sue you’re the first person I’ll call.”
He smiled back. “You do that.” Then he withdrew his hand, leaving her feeling somehow bereft, and leaned back in his chair. She was surprised when the smile on his face was replaced by a serious look. “And speaking of the lawyers I work with, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Yes? What?” For some reason she felt a sudden twinge of apprehension.
“I’m going to be leaving soon. I have business I have to take care of, business that can’t wait any longer."
Blake drew in her breath and then she sat back, too, hoping he couldn’t see how much his words affected her. She’d been expecting this. She just hadn’t thought it would happen so soon. “When?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.
“Tomorrow.”
***
It was pretty early in the morning when Ryder heard Blake stirring. He heard a door close and then footsteps down the hallway and he could guess she was on her way down to start breakfast. He’d thought she would rest in, it being her first full day back, but he guessed he was wrong, which meant he’d better make a move, too. If Blake planned to open Beaumont’s for breakfast she would need his help.
A quick splash in the bathroom had him downstairs within fifteen minutes of Blake’s descent. She was sitting on one of the bar stools, her back to him. “Mornin’,” he said as he walked into the room. “Breakfast assistant at your service, boss.”
At the sound of his voice she swiveled around on the stool and gave him a smile, but it was a weak one. “Morning back to you. You’re ready for work? Aren’t you supposed to be leaving today?”