Whisper In The Dark (The McKinnon Legends-- The American Men Book One) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the signs of Kyle’s troubles.
    “Katherine, I know it is very hard right now for you, but you do not have to go this alone.” Robert was not just offering to be polite.
    “Kyle and this ranch were all I had left,” she said pitifully leaning her forehead against his chest clutching the front of his crisp white oxford shirt.
    Robert knew that statement was truer than she actually knew. He knew he eventually would have to break the bad news, but now was not the time. She was exhausted, grieving, and had suffered enough bad news for one day. Nevertheless, she had to be told soon, and it needed to come from him.
     

Chapter 4
    How did he tell her? Robert thought. There was just no easy way.
    Kyle was bankrupt, and instead of coming to him for assistance, Kyle had gone to Dallas Langston, an unscrupulous son-of-a-bitch, who until nine o’clock that evening held the note to all the Brandenburg lands -- lock, stock, and barrel. Robert had a meeting with Dallas earlier. That meeting was where he was coming from when he drove past the farm and saw the lights still burning. He called the meeting, settling Kyle’s debt much to Langston’s surprise and displeasure. He had no desire to have Kate and George at Dallas Langston’s mercy, so he and his lawyer had paid the outstanding note before Langston could set the legal wheels in motion to call the debt. Dallas had been furious, but could not legally decline the payment given the conditions of the note. In turn, Dallas could not retain the land and was unhappy in the extreme.
    He had paid the debt within forty-eight hours of Kyle’s death. It had just been luck that he called the meeting tonight, not waiting until Monday. It was a sneaky move on Langston’s part to insert a clause in the note stating the debt had to be paid within forty-eight hours of the death of the primary debtor or the land was considered payment in full. To his way of thinking that clause made Dallas Langston and his son Brice prime suspects in Kyle’s death. Convincing the sheriff and district attorney was going to be another matter. There was motive, to be sure, but opportunity might be trickier to prove.
    Dallas had flown in from his hunting lodge in Colorado for the meeting. He was still in his camouflage hunting gear having flown straight in, and Brice was at present in San Francisco as far as Dallas knew. It would be easy enough to prove or disprove either man’s alibi. He was not naive enough to think Dallas or Brice would be stupid enough to do the deed himself; however, both were capable of contracting it without a backward glance, a fact for which he had absolutely no doubt.
    If dealing with Dallas this evening wasn’t bad enough, he really hated to be the one responsible for breaking more bad news to her. He was not sure how she was going to take the news that her ancestral home would now be his unless she could come up with a way to repay him. He would not push for payment and would be very willing to work something out with her. However, even at that, he felt the ranch was lost to her unless she had a magic trick up her sleeve, and realistically, he did not see it happening, especially, given her current state of financial affairs. Though what he paid Langston to clear the note was pennies on the dollar and a fraction of the market value of what this land was worth, it still was a large sum. Not just anyone had three million dollars lying around. On such short notice and a weekend to boot, even he had to borrow funds from the McKinnon Trust. Getting the family banker in London out of bed in the middle of the night for the wire transfer had not been pleasant, but the McKinnon money and continued good will was incentive enough for the transfer to happen. His bank in Dallas was not open and the stock market was also closed, but come Monday he could cover that debt to the trust. All it would take would be a call to his broker. This would sting, but by no stretch damage him financially. After