Yucton’s words stopped him in his tracks halfway to the cell. He hadn’t told a soul about the promise he’d made to Abbott. “How do you know about that?”
“Who do you think he entrusted to make sure you kept up your end of things if she got it in her head to come back here?”
The truth of things settled around him. “Is that what you’re doing back here?”
Yucton said nothing.
“You could end up hanging for your efforts.”
The glint of determination hardened Yucton’s expression making the bones of his face stand out even more. “We all gotta die sometime. And who knows, maybe your pappy will come to my defense, the way he did Abbott’s.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath.” His father wasn’t known for doing favors. The fact he had stood up in court and argued against a sentence of hanging for Abbott Connolly had been completely out of character for the man, especially when he’d spent the better part of his life trying to ruin Abbott. To this day, Hunter could not find a satisfactory reason to justify the behavior. Lord only knew his father was not inclined to give him one.
“You ever find that strange?” Yucton asked, as if reading Hunter’s mind. “Your pappy hated Abbott with every breath he took. Odd, then, that the one chance he had to get rid of him, he didn’t take.”
“Maybe he had a change of heart.”
Yucton arched one eyebrow upward, his expression echoing Hunter’s own thoughts. His father didn’t have a heart. The only true feeling he’d ever shown was toward Vivienne Connolly. He called it love, but Hunter had seen love, and that wasn’t it. Vivienne had been his father’s obsession. Vernon had wanted what he couldn’t have, and not having it had turned him into a bitter and hateful man. Going out of his way to save Abbott’s neck from the hangman’s noose had never added up.
“Maybe he did it for Vivienne.”
Yucton shrugged. “You believe that?”
Hunter let out a long slow breath. He wished he did, but truth be told the idea fit about as well as a pair of boots two sizes too small. Vivienne had died a week before Abbott’s sentencing and somehow the idea of Vernon waxing sentimental over her passing and letting his emotions change his mind on what happened to Abbott...well, sentimental and emotions weren’t exactly words Hunter associated with his father.
“What precisely is it Abbott thought Meredith needed protection from? Does this have anything to do with the Syndicate you mentioned?”
Yucton pulled his hat off his head and worked the brim in his hands, turning it slowly as if mulling over Hunter’s question. In the end, whatever he decided didn’t include imparting any more information than what Hunter already had. Which amounted to diddly-squat.
“You just make sure that little lady has you for a shadow.”
“That’s it? You don’t think it would help me out if I knew exactly what it was I’m supposed to be watching out for?” Yucton said nothing. “Hell, I’m the last person she wants dogging her every step.”
Yucton smirked. “Maybe you oughta try changin’ her mind on that.”
Hunter sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms over his chest. The man was obviously a few birds short of a full nest if he believed that could happen. “You think you know so much, yet you don’t even know who’s bankrolling your defense.”
Yucton leaned back on his bed. “I have a good idea.”
“Enlighten me.”
Yucton placed the hat he’d been turning in his hands over his face. “Been to see your father lately?”
The ground shifted beneath Hunter as the conversation swerved in a direction he hadn’t been prepared for. “What does my father have to do with anything?”
Yucton lifted his hat. “You really that clueless, boy? Or are you just pretendin’ because maybe you got something to do with it and you jus’ don’t want no one to know?”
“Know about what?” The old man had an irritating habit of talking in riddles.
“You think on it a bit,” Yucton said. His sharp eyes probed and stared and willed Hunter to pay attention, to read between the lines. But Hunter didn’t like the story he found there. He didn’t like it one bit.
Chapter Six
Meredith walked from the hotel to the livery at the far end of the street. It wasn’t a long walk, but she took her time, perusing the storefronts, some faded, others newly painted. Many of the businesses she recognized, having been there since she was small, but sprinkled throughout were newer businesses. It was nice to see the growth in the town, its prosperity. She took it as a good omen that her business, once established, would do well. It had to.