“The reasons I came to the Lazy W.”
“Rex, you don’t have to—”
“I’ve got nothing to hide, Tory. I couldn’t get work anywhere because of my first wife. She claimed that I…that I’d get angry with her, drink too much and…rough her up.” Rex closed his eyes and sadly shook his head. “Marianne swore that on several occasions I’d beat her; but it just wasn’t so. The only time I slapped her was after a particularly bad fight and, well, she had a butcher knife, said she was going to use it on me if I came near her. I took the knife away from her and slapped her. She filed charges against me.”
“Which were later dropped,” Trask added.
“You knew all about it?” Rex asked with a grimace.
Trask nodded and Tory felt sick inside that Rex had been forced to bare his soul.
“Even though I was aquitted, no one would give me work.”
“Except for Calvin Wilson.”
Rex’s chin jutted outward. “I’ve been here ever since.” He set down his cup and started toward the door. “I’ll be in the stables if you want me,” he said to Tory. “The buyer from Sisters still wants thirty head of cattle.”
Still slightly numb from the scene she had just witnessed, Tory found it difficult to concentrate on the work at hand. Her eyes offered Rex a silent apology. “What about horses?”
Rex frowned and shook his head. “He said he’ll wait to decide about the horses, though he looked at a couple of yearlings that he liked.” Forcing his hat onto his head, Rex walked out the back door. Tory didn’t have to question him any further. She knew that the sale of the horses wasn’t completed because of the Quarter Horse swindle her father was supposedly involved in five years ago. Even though it had happened long ago and her father was dead, people remembered, especially now that Trask was back. So the paranoia of the past had already started interfering with the future.
When she heard Trask move toward the door, she impaled him with her eyes. “That was uncalled for, senator,” she rebuked.
“What?”
“You didn’t have to humiliate Rex. Especially since you knew all the answers anyway. That’s called baiting, senator, and I don’t like it. It might work in Washington, D.C., but I won’t have it here, on the Lazy W, used against my employees.”
“I just wanted to see if he would tell the truth.”
Ho
t injustice colored Tory’s cheeks. “And did he pass the test?” she demanded.
“With flying colors.”
“Good. Then maybe you’ll quit harassing everyone who works on this ranch and concentrate on Linn Benton or whoever else might have a grudge against your brother.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said softly.
“You don’t mean to do a lot of things, but you do them anyway, despite anyone else’s feelings.”
“Not true, Victoria,” he countered, coming up to her and placing his hands over her shoulders, his blue eyes searching hers. His fingers gently massaged the tense muscles near the base of her neck, warming her skin. “I’m always concerned about you and what you feel.”
“You weren’t five years ago.”
A shadow of pain crossed his eyes. “I only told what I thought was the truth and you still can’t forgive me, can you?”
She closed her eyes against a sudden unwanted feeling that she would break down and cry. “It…it was very hard to sit by and know that Dad was dying…alone in some god-awful jail cell all because of what I told you.”
“It’s not your fault that you overheard Linn Benton discussing plans with your father.”
“But it’s my fault that you found out about it,” she whispered.
Trask frowned and took her into her arms, but the response he got was cold and distant. “You can’t keep blaming yourself.”
She let out a tired sigh. “I try not to.”
He hesitated a minute. “Are you okay?” She nodded mutely and took hold of her emotions to force the tears backward.