Ride the Thunder by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online Page B

out hope that he’d receive any assistance from his cousin. Maybe he could talk to his banker again. Maybe if he sold all his stock cows and the sheep . . . but what would he do for income the following year? He was trapped between a rock and a hard place.
    “Why did you need the twenty thousand, Brig?” Max’s voice was quiet and respectful, as if he were aware the wrong tone would rile a sleeping wolf.
    “I need the cash. My balance sheet looks a helluvalot better than yours, but it so happens that I’m land and cattle poor,” he admitted. “I’ve been in some fights before. And I haven’t counted myself out of this one yet.” Turning from the window, he started for the doors. There wasn’t any more reason to stay.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Back to my hotel so I can check out and catch the first plane back to Idaho.” Brig didn’t look back. He still didn’t trust himself to keep his hands off his cousin. His grip started to wring the neck of the doorknob.
    “Wait,” Max said. “Maybe we could work a deal where both of us could get some money.”
    “In the first place, Max, I wouldn’t like the smell of any deal you’d make. And in the second place, I don’t work with anyone who forces me to look over my shoulder for fear of getting knifed in the back.” He yanked the door open.
    Max hurried to catch up with him as Brig strode out of the outer office into the corridor. “It’s almost noon. Let’s have lunch. It won’t hurt you to hear me out,” he argued.
    “You’ll be wasting your time.”
    “It’s my time.”
    “And mine,” Brig countered. “You can tell me your little scheme during the cab ride to my hotel.”
    Max didn’t like the terms, but he was smart enough not to press for more. There’d never been any love lost between them. From the time Brig had moved in with their grandfather, Max had resented him, almost hated him. Brig had always been the favorite grandson, the hand-picked heir to the Sanger throne, even though Max was the elder. It would have all gone to Brig, if he’d met the conditions of his grandfather’s will. Max had taken over by default. Now he was in deep trouble, but there might be a way out with Brig’s help. And it almost gagged him to admit it.
    Outside the building, Brig walked to the corner to hail a cab. “You’ll never get one at this hour,” Max informed him with the smugness of a New Yorker.Brig paid no attention to him as he emitted a piercing whistle through his teeth. A cab switched lanes amidst a blare of horns and squealing brakes to stop at the curb in front of them.
    Brig opened the rear door for him. “That was always your problem, Max. Nobody ever jumped when you whistled.” Pure hatred smoldered in the fiery look Max sent him before climbing into the cab. Brig folded his long frame and slid into the seat beside him. “The Hilton,” He leaned forward to tell the cabbie, then settled back in the seat. “You’d better start talking, Max. You don’t have much time.”
    “You came to me for twenty thousand, you arrogant bastard!” Max fumed through clenched teeth. “If you think I’m going to crawl on my knees and kiss your ass so I can have a few minutes of your precious time to tell you how you can get it, you’re wrong.”
    “Am I? You were always very good at doing it with the old man,” he baited, amused by the impotence of his cousin’s anger, because Brig knew it was all hot air. “Do you want to talk or trade insults?” He smiled as he watched Max struggle to collect himself.
    “It’s simple,” he began in a stiff voice. “I have someone who might be interested in buying the company. I’ve been trying to sell him my stock, but it wouldn’t give his management firm control unless they had your proxy. According to the will, you can’t sell your stock to anyone except a family member unless it’s a total buy-out of the company or a merger. I think I can talk them into a buy-out.”
    “The poor sucker