Page 43 of Old Money, Deadly Secrets

Then, Margaret stepped through the door.

Dog froze, his hand hovering over the door latch. The woman standing on that porch was not the one he had bundled into a private jet three months ago. She was wearing a faded flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of practical denim jeans. Her hair, once a masterpiece of high-society precision, was pulled into a messy ponytail with several chestnut strands escaping to frame her face.

But it was her hands that stopped his heart. She was wearing a pair of bright yellow rubber dish gloves, a streak of white foam on one forearm. She looked like a woman who had been elbow-deep in a scrub bucket, and she didn’t look bothered by it at all.

“Go on,” Jake nudged. “Show her you remember how to stand.”

Dog grabbed his cane, though he hated the sight of it, and pushed the door open. He swung his left leg out, the carbon foot meeting the gravel with a muted, metallic stamp. He centered his weight over the still healing crack in his hip, feeling the jarring vibration travel up his leg, took a breath of the thin mountain air, and stood up.

He didn’t use the cane. He forced his body to remain upright, his jaw set as he began the walk toward the porch. Every step required a conscious command from his brain to his hip. Every eye was on him. Flora’s gaze was soft with relief; Elena looked protective,as if she were shielding Margaret from the hurt he caused; Noor looked skeptical.

But Margaret. She just watched him. She didn’t rush down the steps to help him. She didn’t gasp at the way he favored his left side. She stood her ground, her yellow-gloved hands resting on the railing, her chin tilted up in a gesture of quiet, unshakeable strength.

He stopped at the foot of the steps, looking up at her. The words he had rehearsed for two months: the apologies, the explanations, the medical justifications, all died in his throat.

“Margaret,” he said, his voice sounding raw.

“Doctor,” she replied. Her voice was calm, melodic, and entirely professional. There was no trace of the Emery he had unearthed in Maine. “It’s good to see you’re mobile. Jake said the recovery was challenging.”

“I’ve had worse missions,” Dog said, the lie tasting like ash. He gestured vaguely toward her gloves. “I see I’m interrupting the house prep.”

“We’re getting the rooms ready for Nova and Blast,” Margaret said, stepping to the edge of the railing. She didn’t look moved by his presence so much as she looked busy. “The world didn’t stop turning while you were in Boston, Barkley.”

“Will told me,” Dog said, his voice dropping an octave. “He told me everything. That you were the one funding the clinic. That you’ve been on-site every day.”

Margaret’s jaw set in a line of quiet pride. “I’m building the facility this town needs, Barkley. And I’m doing it because it’s my job, not because I’m a liability you need to manage.”

The word liability stung, a direct echo of the cruelty he’d used to push her away in the hospital.

“Margaret, I wanted to protect you.”

“You wanted to protect your pride,” she interrupted, though there was no malice in her tone, only a weary truth. She pulled off one of the yellow gloves, revealing a hand that was red from hot water and missing the heavy diamond rings of her past. “But out here, Barkley, we don’t have time for vanity. We have work to do.”

“You’re staying in the first-floor guest master,” Flora called out, stepping forward to break the tension. She walked down the steps and gave Dog a stiff, quick hug. “No stairs. There are fresh linens, and Eloise is making a list of groceries for you to help with. Go inside and rest.”

“Thanks, Flora,” Dog muttered, leaning on his cane now that the initial surge of adrenaline was fading.

He looked back at Margaret, hoping for a sign, a flicker of the woman who had wept in his arms in the meadow. But she was already pulling the yellow glove back on.

“Dinner is at six, Barkley,” Margaret said over her shoulder as she turned toward the door. “Try to be on time. I have the contractor coming by at seven to discuss the plumbing in the trauma bays, and I’d like your input on the surgical layout. If you’re up for it.”

As she disappeared into the house, Dog stood on the drive, the wind whistling around his ears. He was back at the Farm. He was standing on his own. But as he watched the door close, he realized he hadn’t just lost a foot in that meadow.

He had lost his place as her protector. And looking at the woman who had just commanded the porch with a scrub brush in her hand, he realized he was going to have to prove he was worthy of being Emery again.

30 - MARGARET

The drive from Mountain View Farm into the town of Monterey was thick with a silence that felt heavier than the mountain mist clinging to the ridges. Dog sat in the passenger seat of the Farm’s heavy-duty truck, his jaw set and his eyes fixed on the winding road ahead. His cane was wedged between the seat and the door, a silent, silver-handled chaperone.

Margaret kept her hands steady on the wheel. She had spent two months imagining this moment, but now that he was actually here, the data points she had memorized felt secondary to the man himself.

“The grade of this road has been improved,” Dog noted, his voice sounding rusty as he felt the smooth transition of the tires over a particularly steep bend.

“The county re-graded and widened the entire access trail up to the Lodge last month,” Margaret replied. “Sheriff Brody may have mentioned to the town council that the Blue Ridge Rehabilitation and Recovery Center would be more accessible if the road didn’t wash out every time it rained. The locals wanted to make sure the path for your ‘brothers’ was clear.”

Dog let out a short, surprised huff. “Brody did that? For the mountain project?”

“The town knows what you’re building up there, Barkley. They’ve seen the trucks. They wanted to be part of it.”