Cynthia Reese - Not on Her Own

“Forget it. Just forget it.” Her hope turned into a leaden lump of disappointment in her stomach. She turned for the door.

He added, his voice heavy with incredulity, “Let me get this straight. You want a pole barn? And you want me to help you?”

“Well, you needn’t be so snippy about it. You were the one who mentioned the pole barn. You sounded nice the other day, before you got all bent out of shape about my grandfather—” She choked off the words, not able to repeat his accusation. Her grandfather a thief. Right. That was about as true as the fraud charges they’d railroaded him with in this federal indictment.

“Yeah, before I got all bent out of shape about your grandfather being a crook. I take it you don’t know him that well.”

She bristled. “I know him better than you do. He is my grandfather, after all.”

Brandon’s lips curled in disdain. “Well, you must see him in a whole different way than I do, then. Maybe with both eyes closed.”

She gasped. “I don’t have to listen to this!” Penelope headed for the door. She tried to turn the knob, but a tanned hand with long fingers wrapped over hers. She jumped at the contact and looked back over her shoulder.

“Hold it!” Brandon was so close, she could have kissed him. If he wasn’t such a jerk.

I don’t have time for this, not with a man who thinks my grandfather—I’ve got a financial disaster raining down on me…

Before she could protest, Brandon stepped back. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to go stomping off into the house. Not before I had a chance to, well, show you something.”

“Who says I’m interested?”

“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. It’s out here, behind where you’ve put your house.”

Penelope narrowed her eyes and assessed him.

What the heck. What could it hurt? “Let me get my cell phone,” she said. If he turned out to be as big a nut as she suspected, at least she could fire off a 911 call.

Phone in hand, she returned to the porch. “Okay. I’m ready for show-and-tell.”

He struck out down the porch and led the way to the back of the house. She had to double-time it to keep up with his long strides over the uneven field. Brandon didn’t speak, though, not until he reached a fence splitting her acreage from the neatly harrowed field next to it. The contrast, her untended land adjacent to the cultivated field, couldn’t have been more stark.

“This is it? You wanted to show me a fence? It’s the land line. Are you going to argue that it’s not accurate? Because, let me assure you, I had a new survey done to confirm it,” Penelope said.

Brandon put his hands on his hips. “It’s in the wrong place, all right. It shouldn’t be there at all.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. Not more about this land business. Grandpa Murphy said people were out to get him, and this guy was proof of that.

“I bought this land at a public auction. The bank loaned me money on it. I can prove the title is clear.”

“Well, let me tell you a little about this land.” Brandon couldn’t seem to get his next words out. Penelope saw raw pain in his eyes.

It caught her short. She didn’t turn and walk off as she’d intended to. Instead, she waited to see what he would finally say.

“My uncle farmed this land. This was the first acreage he ever owned.” Brandon swept an arm over the expanse of the field. He pointed out Penelope’s house. “Where your house is now, that’s where he first plowed, the day he bought the land. You ought to hear him tell the story. He didn’t even have a tractor to plow with, so he borrowed—”

He didn’t finish, but looked embarrassed. “Anyway, like I said, this land has been Uncle Jake’s since he was just out of school. And then a couple of years ago—” Now Brandon clenched his jaw, along with his fists.

“He needed the money, so he took what Grandpa Murphy offered him,” Penelope supplied. “Look, I’m sorry—”

Brandon exploded. “He needed the money because Murphy defrauded a bunch of landowners in this county. His brother-in-law—I guess that’s your family, too, huh?”

“Uh, no. Grandpa Murphy divorced my grandmother years ago and he remarried. Why am I explaining this to you? My grandfather is not a crook—”

“Tell that to the federal investigators itching to indict him.” Before she could protest, he said, “Murphy and the tax commissioner, who just happened to be his wife’s brother, handpicked a few of the old farmers who tended to pay with cash. It was common knowledge in this county. When the tax commissioner suddenly turned up with a tax notice in his hand, my Uncle Jake couldn’t produce a paid receipt. That’s when Murphy jumped in with his oh-so-convenient ‘help.’ It nearly killed Uncle Jake to lose this land. But what choice did he have?”

“Forgive me if I find it hard to believe your version of events.” Penelope gazed around the open land and saw how carefully it had been tended on the other side of the new fence. She thought about how proud she’d been of her purchase. How hard it must have been for the person who had lost it.

Sympathy softened her voice as she said, “Listen, I know this must be difficult for you. I think it’s admirable that you’re trying to look out for your uncle.”

“This fence…I plowed a tractor over this land many a day. I never dreamed…” Brandon shook his head. “My uncle’s not in the best of health. He’s old, and he lost half of his farm to Murphy. Before then, he and I were partners. He still farms—well, I do most of the heavy work—but it’s just really small-time. See, this summer Murphy planted dodder vine in Uncle Jake’s cotton, and he didn’t have crop insurance.”

Penelope folded her arms across her chest. “Grandpa Murphy’s told me all about the way the federal government is saying that he’s some sort of criminal mastermind, all because some noxious weed got brought in by a drifter from Texas.”

Brandon’s chuckle was bitter. “Yeah, right. I’m sure the way Murphy tells it, he didn’t have a thing to do with either coercing JT Griggs into bringing dodder vine here or swindling Uncle Jake. But let me tell you something—Richard Murphy’s no sweet old grandfather. He’s always working the angles.”

Brandon’s tone was so scornful that Penelope ignored his yammering about people she didn’t know and concentrated instead on the situation at hand. “Okay, so let’s use logic on this. Why on earth would my grandfather go to all that trouble? Land’s land, right? Why would he risk going to jail to get this particular tract?”

Brandon lifted his shoulders. “I gave up trying to figure out Murphy a long time ago. But my idea is that pond over there.”

“The pond?” Penelope squinted. She shaded her eyes and took in the large pond that stretched back from the land’s dip toward the creek and an old abandoned rail spur. “What good would that do him?”

“Irrigation. That’s a natural pond, and there’s a stream that ends up in a small creek. It’s what my uncle used to irrigate this section of his farm. Your grandfather used it for a water supply for his migrant workers and to deprive my uncle of a way to water his crops.”

“So that’s what this is about?” Penelope compressed her lips and kicked at the dirt. “You want the water? Fine, run irrigation from it. I’m not using it. But a piece of advice—next time you want to sweet-talk someone into letting you access her water, don’t accuse her grandfather of being a crook.”

“It’s not just the water. I want the land. The land is ours, well, Uncle Jake’s. I want it back for him. I tried to buy this land for him at auction, and you ran the cost up. I should have known Murphy had something to do with it. You certainly don’t need thirty acres of prime farmland.”