The Return of Adams Cade by James BJ

Author:James, BJ [James, BJ]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2012-07-31T05:00:00+00:00

Six

“Adams?”

“Hey, buddy.” Waving a hand before Adams’ blank study, Jackson joined in Lincoln’s prodding. “Where did you go?”

Adams looked up from a sheaf of papers to find all three of his brothers watching him curiously.

“You were a thousand miles away all of a sudden,” Jefferson explained.

“Sorry.” Shifting in his chair, he drew himself completely from the daydream that ambushed him at every turn. Yet, even as he forced his attention to the brothers’ family conference, he knew the vision of Eden wrapped only in candlelight and the haunting fragrance of seduction would never be far from his thoughts. Never as long as he lived.

“I’m sorry, my thoughts drifted, though not for a thousand miles.” Frowning in his effort to concentrate and feeling a little unsettled, he scrubbed at the furrows between his brows. “What were you saying, Lincoln?”

“What I was saying before your return from limbo is that it’s hard to understand how Gus lost so much so quickly.” Lincoln, the quietly pragmatic and most reasonable of the Cades, grimaced in worry. “Especially so much so quickly.”

“Hell, Linc,” Jackson shot back. “What was quick about it? Belle Reve has barely been solvent since the war. So how much could there be to lose?”

With a temperament as fiery as his dark-auburn hair, Jackson could always be counted on to speak bluntly. And, Adams knew, the war he spoke of was the war, the Civil War. The war between the Union and the Confederacy. “Given the scope of the plantation’s holdings and the finances required to keep it solvent, what he lost would normally not be that much. Because he was sly about it, it didn’t happen as quickly at it seems.”

“What does that mean, exactly, Adams?” Jefferson asked. “Spell it out for us.”

Addressing Jefferson, Adams condensed what he’d discovered in his investigation of the plantation’s financial record to one single important fact. “Gus has been operating on what would be a shoestring for Belle Reve for more years than I expected. Since each of us left home, literally or figuratively, to seek our own lives, pinpoints the beginning.”

“You mean, since the last of the slaves embraced emancipation, don’t you?” Jackson quipped with a wry grin.

“Assuming by that, you mean when each of us was no longer here to do the work?” Adams paused as he remembered the circumstances of his leaving. Circumstances the opposite of emancipation. Then, refusing to brood over what couldn’t be changed, he agreed. “Yes. The troubles stem from that time.

“But the worsening of conditions was gradual. So gradual someone as astute as Gus could hide it. Then, as it became apparent Belle Reve couldn’t be self-sufficient, when the balance between income and expenses shifted drastically, Gus went looking for new money.”

“In the stock market,” Jefferson supplied. Raking his hand through his shaggy blond hair, he turned his dark-blue gaze to the window and the land that stretched to the horizon. Cade land, for as far as the eye could see. Valuable land, which could be sold for a fortune.

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