24 Karat Ammunition. Joanna Wayne
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the invitation.” Lynnette Billings had been with the company for at least twenty years, working for his grandfather before she’d become Langston’s personal secretary. He’d hate to tackle the job of running Collingsworth Oil without her.
“That’s it for now,” Melvin said. “Will you be in this afternoon?”
“Probably not, but you can reach me by phone if something else comes up.”
“Anything I can do to help you with whatever it is you’re dealing with?”
“No, it’s under control.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but Langston had no intentions of bringing Melvin in on this. He never liked mixing business with his personal life.
Not that personal accurately described his relationship with Trish. She was more stranger than anything else at this point. She’d cried in his arms at the lake, but she’d retreated back into a shell of a silence since they’d been on the road.
“You seem to have a lot of responsibility with Collingsworth Oil,” Trish said, speaking for the first time in the past thirty miles.
“I’m a very hands-on president.”
“President of Collingsworth Oil? At your age? I’m impressed.”
“It helps when your family owns the company.”
“Is your grandfather still CEO?”
“He was until he had a stroke three weeks ago.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“No one seems to have a definitive answer on that. His body’s mending, but his mind seems to have shut down.”
“I hate to hear that. He was always so in tune with everything.”
“Right up to the time of the stroke.”
She shifted in her seat, turning so that she could look at him. He met her gaze for a second before turning back to the road. Her eyes were slightly swollen from her earlier tears, making her look incredibly vulnerable.
“Does your family know that you’re bringing me to the ranch?”
“I explained the situation to Matt.”
“And did he tell you that you were crazy to become involved in my problems?”
“It seems the word crazy might have been bandied about. But don’t worry about Matt. He likes to give advice, but he’d have done the same in my situation.”
His cell phone rang again. Celeste. Damn. He should have called her before now, but it had completely slipped his mind. He took the call. “Good morning, Celeste. I was just about to ring you.”
“I tried to get you, but your line was busy.”
“Taking care of business.”
“When are you coming home?”
“I’m headed that way as we speak.”
“Good. Shall I get dinner reservations for tonight or would you like to order in?”
“Best not to plan on me for dinner. I have to stop off at the ranch and I may be late getting into town.”
“You’re going to the ranch again?”
“Sorry. It can’t be helped.”
“Very well. I’ll make other plans. So was the abduction business a scam as I suspected?”
“Quite the contrary, but Trish is okay now. I’ll explain everything when I see you.”
“Whenever that might be. Don’t get so involved with playing hero to this woman that you forget the fund-raiser Mother is hosting for the governor on Saturday night. She’d be terribly disappointed if you weren’t there.”
“I wouldn’t want to miss the governor.” He said his goodbyes, and then glanced at Trish. She was staring straight ahead, the muscles in her face and neck showing the strain of the past few days. There was no way this had been a simple carjacking, but it wasn’t a scam, either—at least not on Trish’s part. The answers to all of this had to lie in that missing video.
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