Blue Clouds by Patricia Rice Read Free Book Online

California-bronzed, golden- haired head in her direction. Until now, he’d concentrated on Meg and his wife, who were apparently good country club buddies. His glance wasn’t particularly friendly, and Pippa gave him her best Pollyanna smile. She might not much like men right now, but she knew how to charm them. The man seemed to defrost slightly.
    â€œI don’t think you fully understand the relationship between the Wyatts and this town, Miss Cochran. Maxim Wyatt came here during the Depression, bought up every acre of land he could lay hands on, and successfully prevented any meaningful economic development for decades.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t use Taylor’s bank,” Meg whispered in explanation from behind her fingers.
    The banker continued. “After Maxim Wyatt bankrupted the remainder of the valley’s inhabitants, he used them as slave labor to build that monstrosity of a house out there. People had to put food in the mouths of their children somehow. They took whatever he offered. Wyatts have controlled this town ever since, kept us in poverty and repression simply by their ownership of every valuable piece of land in the county.”
    â€œWe could put in an industrial park where he tore down the printing plant,” Lisa, Taylor’s wife, added, “but Seth won’t sell the land. There’s good farm acreage out there, but he just rents it to sharecroppers. He has an absolute stranglehold on the economy. I think he enjoys holding an ax over our heads.”
    â€œA scythe,” Pippa muttered to herself, but the others were so engrossed in their topic that they didn’t hear.
    â€œHe’s dangerous,” Taylor said. “You really should reconsider your decision, Miss Cochran. They say he keeps his only son a prisoner, and his few employees are all slightly deranged. That black driver of his terrifies the shopkeepers. They only accept Mrs. Jones because she’s been around forever. She once broke a chair over a man’s head. Seth has had the grounds wired and runs the current so strong that some of the kids have received severe shocks. They kept the court session quiet, but his wife countersued in the divorce for abuse. I’ve friends down in Orange County, where they used to live. They say she’s a broken woman.”
    Pippa stirred her Coke with a straw. “Mrs. Jones?” she asked casually, wondering if he could possibly mean the stooped old lady she’d met yesterday.
    â€œThe housekeeper.” Impatiently, Taylor scraped his chair back from the table. “I have to get back to the office. It was good meeting you, Miss Cochran. I wish you well on your search for employment here, but I recommend that you don’t accept Wyatt’s offer.”
    Fat chance. As if she could turn down an offer of a thousand a week with free room and board. Pippa bit into her hamburger. The driver she’d seen looked like a nutcase, but he wasn’t black in any coloring book she knew. Maybe Seth Wyatt was the kind of man around whom legends grew. Admittedly, she found him physically terrifying, but in her present frame of mind, she didn’t like Taylor Morgan all that much either.
    â€œI understand Mr. Wyatt is an attractive man,” Lisa Morgan said conversationally after her husband’s departure. If Pippa was any judge of character at all, the light in the other woman’s eyes was almost predatory as she opened this topic. Wearing a chic fawn silk tunic top to complement her blond good looks, she dangled more gold jewelry than Pippa had seen in the Gold Nugget back home.
    â€œIf you like Grim Reapers, I suppose,” Pippa replied offhandedly. She was used to gossip. She was just uncomfortable discussing a man she’d barely met, a man who looked dangerous but defended his son with all the ferocity of a wild wolf.
    â€œPippa doesn’t notice men,” Meg offered in explanation for her friend’s reticence.