Against the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

speak to Sarah.
    As soon as Weber left, Jackson led the small group back to the cottage to begin cleaning up.
    â€œLooks like you’ll need a new sofa and chairs,” he said to Sarah. “Some new curtains, too. Soon as you get time, we’ll go into town and get whatever you need.”
    She gazed up at him in surprise. “You’re going to replace everything?”
    â€œYou didn’t think I would? What happened wasn’t your fault.”
    Sarah glanced away. “Thank you.”
    When she looked back at him, there was something in her face… It had never occurred to him that Sarah’s presence might have anything to do with the vandalism. Watching her now, he wondered.
    Jackson made a mental note to call his brother,Devlin, have him do some digging. Dev owned a chain of security companies in the Southwest, including one in L.A. Mostly he managed them from his house in Scottsdale, close to the Phoenix branch. These days, his employees did most of the legwork, but Dev was still one of the best investigators in the business.
    Jackson would ask Dev to sniff around, find out what he could about the young widow and her daughter.
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    Dev wasn’t home. His brother was off somewhere with one of his lady friends, or so Devlin’s Phoenix office manager said. Jackson wasn’t surprised. A few years back, his youngest brother had suffered a bad breakup with the girl he planned to marry and since then, had become a dedicated bachelor.
    â€œCan I take a message?” the manager asked.
    â€œTell him Jackson called. Tell him I need to talk to him.” Jackson hung up the phone. He’d get a return call sooner or later, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Dev liked to live big and he usually did just that.
    Instead of waiting anxiously to hear from him, Jackson spent the morning in the basement, working out on the weights, punching the heavy bag, then spending some time on the speed bag. He liked the physical exercise that had come to be a habit, liked to keep in shape. When he finished, he showered and pulled on his jeans and headed down to his foreman Jimmy Threebears’s house, part of the original ranch compound, three bedrooms with a wraparound, screened-in front porch.
    The residence, which sat on a knoll across from the barn, had been remodeled a number of times, and Jackson had done a bit more modernizing of the old wooden structure when he bought the ranch four years ago. Ashe approached, he saw Jimmy’s boys playing ball out in front.
    â€œWhere’s your dad?” Jackson asked.
    â€œHe’s up on the ridgeline, sir.” Sam, the twelve-year-old, shoved a hand through his gleaming black shoulder-length hair. He was a good-looking kid—both of them were. They got good grades and were very good athletes. Jimmy had a right to be proud of them.
    â€œDad says those loggers are filling the stream up with mud again. He went up to take another look.”
    Jackson’s jaw tightened. He had actually thought he’d had problems when he’d worked in Houston. After high school, he had used his boxing scholarship to earn a degree in geology then landed a job with the small, newly formed Wildcat Oil. He had taken part of his salary in stock—the smartest move he ever made.
    When the company expanded, then went public, he made enough money to retire from the oil business and live in comfort, buy the old Simmons ranch and become a cattleman—which had been his lifelong dream.
    One thing he’d learned—a rancher faced just as many problems as an oil company and made a whole lot less money.
    And now the damned logging companies were making things worse. They were cutting down trees in the national forest that bordered the ranch and causing him all kinds of trouble.
    He shook his head. He still couldn’t believe the taxpayers paid to build roads so the bastards could cut down trees. They were taking out those big seven-hundred-year-old