“You don’t know what you’re—”
Lana remembered something Beth had told her, way back when Mr. Rhoads had died. It felt like a lifetime ago. “Even at the nursing home, they knew. Your father talked about him to the nurses. You were his son. But Ricardo was his boy, his golden boy who returned.”
Martin turned to Beth, his eyes full of hurt and questions. She stared back at him with a steady gaze.
“It’s not your fault, Martin,” Lana said, pulling his attention toward her again. “He shouldn’t have abandoned you like that.” She reached out a hand to him. He wavered.
“You’re making something out of nothing,” he mumbled.
“Giving Ricardo your old baseball glove? Giving him the ranch? It wasn’t nothing, Martin. You deserved more.” Lana clasped his left hand in both of hers. He didn’t pull away.
She had him. She knew she did. “You deserved your father’s love. You deserved to know what he was planning. As a mother, I know what you were due.”
His hand went stiff between her fingers. She hauled him in with one last tug on the line.
“If your mother were here, she would have stood by you. She would have protected you. If only she hadn’t—”
A deafening smack cut off Lana’s speech.
Despite all her experience sparring with men, Lana had never been in a situation that had turned truly violent. There had been shouting. There had been smashed vases. Once, there was hot coffee poured into her favorite white patent-leather pumps. But Lana’s adversaries tended to draw the line at hitting women.
Which is why Lana was woefully unprepared when Martin’s open hand reached her cheekbone. There was a crack of stinging pressure. The room started to spin. She felt herself slide away from him, away from all of them, toward the cold dirt floor.
It was impossible to think clearly over the ocean of hurt, impossible to contemplate where precisely she’d gone wrong in her attempt to trap him. But she knew one glorious thing. Above the pain, riding the crest of the shock waves ricocheting through her body, was a feeling of triumph. Lana’s final thought was simple: she’d gotten it right.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Beth stared in horror at the pile of linen and high heels on the ground where her mother had been. Her medical training told her that Lana wasn’t likely to die from a single slap. But her eyes and her heart were shouting something different. Lana wasn’t moving. Wasn’t groaning. Her wig had shaken loose, lying next to her like a dead animal, exposing her wiry hair and tender scalp. Even in the darkness, the mark on her cheek blazed bright red.
Beth was too focused on Lana to have a clear view of what happened next. There was a burst of motion, and then, in the corner of her eye, she saw Jack launch herself at Martin, running headfirst toward his stomach like a bull. He stepped to the side, and Jack’s momentum pulled her past him. She tripped, pitching forward, then banged into the sidewall of the barn with a sickening thud.
“Martin!” Diana’s voice reverberated with anger, and a thin sliver of fear.
He brushed off his sleeve, clenched and opened his fist. “She can’t talk about Mom that way,” he spat. “She doesn’t know what we . . .”
Beth covered Lana’s body protectively, using her arms to try to block out his look of disgust. She wanted to go to Jack, who was now staggering to a crouch, holding her right knee, but Lana needed her more. Beth could see the adrenaline pumping in her daughter’s flushed face. Jack looked bruised. But not broken.
Lana was another story. She made no movement, no reaction to Beth’s warm hands or whispered words.
Martin turned to his sister. “Let’s go.”
Diana looked at her brother. “Lana needs medical attention,” she said. Her face looked hot, and her British accent had disappeared. “And you, you need . . .”
“What?” He scowled at her.
“You need to explain what the hell just happened.”
Beth turned her head at a rustle of movement from outside the barn. Was it possible Lana had been telling the truth, and the sheriffs were on their way? She peered out into the darkness, praying it was a human, not a raccoon or coyote. But there was no one. No more sounds. Nothing.
Martin grunted. “Why don’t you explain, huh?” He stepped up to his sister, towering over her. “Why you let that rat, that boy, back into our home. Why I found him lording it up at the dining room table that Friday morning, all pleased with himself, while I’m busting my ass to keep the ranch from falling apart and find a buyer so we don’t have to break our backs the way Dad did all those years. You know Ricardo told me he was happy to see me? He told me about his precious Verdadera Libertad. Big grin on his face, couldn’t wait to show me the drawings, all these small plots with priority for Mexicans and Filipinos and Natives and everyone who ever got their land stolen. He’s going on and on with this bleeding-heart bullshit, even suggested that he and I go to Bayshore Oaks to talk to Dad about it together. Please. I couldn’t wait to wipe the smile off that shit-eater’s face.”