“You could refuse to do it,” Brody pointed out to her, and he motioned for them to move out of the shade and into the sun where it’d be warmer. “Or pawn it off on somebody else. I’m sure there’s a Parkman with too much time on his or her hands.”
“I could,” Janessa agreed. She groaned and muttered some profanity. Profanity that she bit off when Rowan came to stand by Brody.
“Hello, Rowan,” she added in greeting, and then she turned back to Brody to continue. “I could try to give this to someone else, but there’s probably not anyone who wouldn’t think of Abe as the worst kind of chore. I don’t like to give someone a chore that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.”
Brody thought of the mucking and rock digging. He’d done both of those things too many times to count, but sometimes delegation was the way to go.
“You could go ahead and tell the Society that you probably won’t be here long enough to do the research. Which is true,” he tacked on to that.
She made a sound of agreement and glanced over her shoulder at the road. “My mother will be here any minute. After we’ve finally had that talk, I probably will be leaving.”
“Janessa told me about the baby when we were driving back,” Margo volunteered, the sadness in both her eyes and voice. She’d been crying again. “If Sophia leaves, our best bet will be to challenge Abe’s will. There might be something in the research that can help with that.”
That was a longshot. Brody believed that Sophia’s leaving was a given.
“I could do most of the research from Dallas,” Janessa said. “I would need a picture of his tombstone, that’s in the list of rules they gave me, but I could do that before I leave.”
“I could help you,” Rowan spoke up, causing all three of them to turn and look at him. Rowan shrugged. “I’m good at doing stuff like reports, and I’m only working part-time. I could help,” he repeated.
“Thank you,” Janessa said, and she even managed a smile. Hard to do, Brody knew, because there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to smile about.
Brody certainly didn’t offer any smiles or research help. And he wouldn’t. No way did he want to go digging through Abe’s past. He had more than enough to handle from the present crap Abe had doled out. Besides, research like that would only throw him together with Janessa. It was best to keep some distance between them.
Apparently, though, Janessa didn’t feel the same way because she moved closer, touched his arm and rubbed lightly. “This time, I will say goodbye before I leave.”
Hell. Brody had not needed to hear that, because for some asinine reason, it made him want to rub her arm right back. And, yeah, it made him want to kiss her. Then again, breathing seemed to spur the urge to do more kissing.
Their eyes were still locked when Brody heard the sound of a vehicle turning into the driveway. Still locked, too, when Rowan said his shift was about to start and he had to go. Janessa finally looked away when her mother called out to her.
“I’m ready for that talk,” Sophia said as she made her way toward them.
Brody turned to leave, but he wasn’t fast enough to give them the privacy he’d intended. That’s because after one quick breath, Janessa launched right into the confession.
“Mom, since I don’t know how to cushion the blow on this, I’ll just go ahead and tell you what I have to say. Kyle lied to you to get you to come here.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. “Kyle wouldn’t do that...” But she stopped, huffed and obviously rethought that. “What’s the lie?”
Janessa squared her shoulders. “I’m not adopting a baby.”
Sophia’s stare only lasted a few seconds before Brody saw that sink in. Her mouth tightened, and she huffed. Without so much as a word, the woman turned and headed back to her car.
* * *
JANESSA DIDN’T GO after her mother. She just stood there and watched her storm away, but, mercy, the sight of Sophia leaving caused her stomach to twist. She’d failed, and the proof of that failure would soon be driving away.
“I’m so sorry,” Margo murmured, and she headed toward her own vehicle.
Janessa watched them while she went over the mental list of what she needed to do. She’d have to meet with her lawyer, get the blasted photo of Abe’s tombstone for the Last Ride Society research she could finish in Dallas, and then she could—
Her mental list stopped when her mother did an about-face and came hurrying back toward her.
“Why the hell would Kyle do this?” Sophia demanded when she was still a good twenty feet away from Janessa.
“You want me to stay?” Brody asked Janessa.
It was tempting to have him there for moral support, but Janessa shook her head. No need for anyone else to have to experience the wrath of Sophia. Though she’d need to let Kyle know that the wrath would soon no doubt be heading his way. He’d lose his golden boy, ideal-husband-for-Janessa status for sure.
Brody moved away, heading for the barn, just as Sophia planted herself in front of Janessa. “Well, why?” her mother snarled.
Janessa dragged in a long breath that she was certain she would need. “Because Kyle thought he was helping. And it wasn’t a total lie. I am fostering a newborn until her adoptive mother can take her.”
Sophia’s huff required plenty of breath, too. “Like you did before.”
“Like I did before,” Janessa verified. “The birth mother’s one of the teenagers at Bright Hope, and she’s due shortly after Christmas. I figured if by some miracle I was still here, then Kyle could bring the baby to me.”
Huffing again, Sophia started pacing. “You know I would have never come if I’d known the truth.”
“Yes, and that’s why I tried to tell you. You didn’t exactly give me a lot of opportunities for discussion.”
Sophia didn’t acknowledge that was true, but she did stop pacing when the side door of the house opened. Velma Sue came out, and while she wouldn’t have won any speed records for making her way toward them, she was carrying two large cups.
“Irish Coffee, heavy on the whiskey,” Velma Sue said to Sophia as she handed her the cup. “I remembered it was your favorite. Got your favorite, too,” she added to Janessa, and she gave her the second one.
It was hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows, and yes, it was a favorite of hers when she’d been a teenager. At the moment, though, she could have used a shot of the whiskey.
“Thank you,” Sophia muttered, taking a big gulp. Since it was there, Janessa drank some of hers, too.
“As far as I know, Abe never stepped foot in the kitchen,” Velma Sue explained, speaking to Sophia, “so maybe you can sit in there instead of being out here in the cold. I figure it’d be easier to swallow if you were in a room that Abe hadn’t frequented.”
“Thank you,” her mother repeated, sounding a little calmer now. “But I won’t be staying long. I won’t be finishing this, either, since I’d rather not get a DUI on my way back to Dallas.”
“So, you’re leaving, then,” Velma Sue said. Not a question, and there wasn’t a drop of anger, or surprise, in her expression.
“Yes,” Sophia verified.
Velma Sue shifted her attention to Janessa. “And you?”
“After I get a few things done around here, I’ll go, too.”
“I hope one of those few things you’ve got to get done will be going through the stuff in the supply room next to Abe’s office,” the woman added. “The stuff he left for you.”
Janessa recalled Velma Sue already mentioning that. “What did he leave for me?” Then she stopped. “Are you positive there was nothing recent, like another letter?”
“No letter that I know of, recent or otherwise. These are wrapped presents. Twelve for Christmas and another twelve for your birthdays. Don’t know why he didn’t just send them to you, but he said you’d get them when he got custody of you and you moved to C
olts Creek for good.”
Janessa wasn’t sure if that was touching or sick. She rethought it and decided it was mostly sick. Gifts with strings attached. Live with him and she’d get goodies. Don’t live here and she’d get nothing.
“I started to bring them up that summer you were here, but Abe told me to keep quiet about them,” Velma Sue went on. “I figured that meant he’d tossed them, but then I found them the day he died.”
Janessa had to wonder why Abe had brought them down from the attic. And when. Maybe he’d done it because he knew he was dying.
“Abe stopped at twelve because that’s when Janessa told the judge she wanted to live with me,” Sophia muttered. Then she drank more and cursed. “The SOB. Did you know he had visitation rights?” she asked Velma Sue but didn’t wait for the woman to respond. “He got two weekends a month as part of the initial custody settlement, and Abe never once used those rights.”
“All or nothing,” Velma Sue commented. “I’ll leave out the bad words he used, and he used plenty, but I recall him grumbling that out more than a time or two. He said he wasn’t going to visit his only blood kin while she was under your roof.”
“That’s Abe,” Sophia declared, and with a heaping of sarcasm, she lifted her mug in a toast Then she aimed that mug at the ground since she no doubt figured Abe hadn’t gone the heavenly route.
On the surface, there hadn’t been heavenly acts for Abe, but Janessa figured there had to be more. There was good in all people. Most anyway. And she didn’t want to believe Abe was the exception.
“Well, drive safe, and stay in touch,” Velma Sue told Sophia as she headed back to the house.
Janessa didn’t question the fact that her mother would be leaving. She stood there downing more of her hot chocolate and then cursing when it burned her tongue. Sophia muttered some profanity as well and sank down on the ground, putting her back against the tree.
“It’s such a cliché for a woman my age, but I really had my heart set on a grandbaby,” Sophia said, closing her eyes a moment.
“I know you did, and I’m sorry.” Janessa sat down beside her. It wasn’t freezing, but the ground wasn’t exactly warm.
Sophia pressed the warm mug to her cheek and sighed. “A big part of that was because I thought a baby would bring Kyle and you back together.”
Janessa had to shake her head. “Kyle is seeing someone else. And even if he wasn’t, I don’t love him.”
The sad part was maybe she never had. There were times when Janessa wondered if she’d just gotten caught up in fixing him and she’d mistaken that for love. There’d been some fire, of course, some sexual attraction, but it seemed lukewarm compared to what she’d felt for Brody. Then again, maybe first love wasn’t a good benchmark for future fires and such.
“I remember the first time Abe brought me here,” her mother murmured. “A lifetime ago.”
That got Janessa’s mind off her benchmark musings, and she turned toward Sophia. Janessa couldn’t ever remember her mother bringing up Abe. She kept that to herself, though, for fear if she said anything, it would cause Sophia to stop.
“Talk about a fish out of water,” her mother continued a moment later. “I went from cotillion balls to the smell of horse shit.” She sipped more of her coffee. “Old money in Dallas isn’t the same as old money in Last Ride.”
No, Janessa supposed it wasn’t, though, in their own ways, both Abe and her mother liked to display their wealth. Big lavishly decorated houses, nice cars, expensive clothes. It was ironic that their combined genes had produced a daughter who wasn’t interested in any of that. For her, it was all about what the money could do, not what it could buy for show.
“You must have been lonely here,” Janessa prompted when Sophia’s pause continued.
“I was,” Sophia admitted. “Lonely. Stupid. And too blind to see the red flags that were right in front of me before I jumped into the lonely and the stupid.”
Janessa frowned. “What red flags?”
“That my husband was in love with another woman.” Sophia opened her eyes, turned her head and met Janessa’s gaze. “With Brody’s mother to be specific. And no, that’s not the reason I’m so opposed to you being with Brody.”
There was a whole lot of information in those couple of sentences. So, Sophia had known that Abe was on the rebound when he’d married her, and it’d likely been the reason for the divorce.
“Then why are you opposed to me being with him?” Janessa asked.
“Oh, let me count the ways. Because you could end up here at Colts Creek and start another fish-out-of-water sob story. And because you wouldn’t be getting involved with him for the right reason. He’s hurting right now, and you want to help with that since you’re Miss Fix-it. But when he comes to terms with the fact that Abe was a dick, the fixing will be done. By then, you’ll be sucked into caring about him. You’ll come home brokenhearted again and doodle his name.”
Janessa wanted to argue with any and all points her mother had just made—including the Miss Fix-it title that Sophia had dubbed her with years ago. But she couldn’t. Heck, she couldn’t even insist that anything she had with Brody would be just another holiday fling. So she just kept her mouth shut and stewed.
The stewing was short-lived, though, because of the car that came up the driveway toward the house. Thinking that it might be Riggs, Janessa got to her feet. But it wasn’t Riggs’s truck. The dark blue Ford Focus stopped, and when the passenger’s side door opened, Janessa was stunned at the dark-haired teenager who stepped out.
Teagan.
What the heck was she doing here? Cursing because her toe had started to throb again, Janessa hurried toward her.
“What happened?” Janessa demanded. “Are you hurt?”
Teagan shook her head and rested her hands on her pregnant belly. “I got scared so I got a friend to drive me here.”
“Scared?” Janessa repeated. “Why?”
The girl blinked back tears. “Because I thought Riggs would come to Bright Hope and try to start some trouble. I don’t want him to hurt me or the baby.”
Crap, Janessa didn’t want that, and she didn’t want Teagan to be afraid of that happening, either. “I spoke to Kyle, and he said they were making sure the house was locked up.”
Teagan nodded, and when she glanced to the right behind Janessa, she realized that Sophia was walking up to them. “But I still have to go out to appointments and to work. Riggs could see me and start something.”
Yes. It caused her stomach to clench, but that was the truth. Even if Teagan were with one of the other residents, that didn’t mean Riggs wouldn’t use force to “convince” Teagan into coming back to him.
“With my mom’s help, Kyle filed for a temporary restraining order against Riggs,” Janessa assured her. “And I’ll see if he can go with you to your appointments.”
That didn’t ease the fear on Teagan’s face, and it sure as heck didn’t stop the tears. She clutched onto Janessa, putting her arms around her.
“I don’t want to go back to Dallas,” Teagan muttered through those sobs. “Please, Janessa. Let me stay here with you.”
CHAPTER NINE
BRODY STOOD IN the iron archway of Parkmans’ Cemetery and looked out at the tombstones that were lined up like dominos. He’d thought that once he arrived he would figure out why the hell he was here.
He hadn’t.
There were still a lot of things he hadn’t figured out.
A crisp evening wind whipped at him. Both a blessing and a curse. The wind kept the bugs and biting insects away, but it was a reminder that winter was right around the corner. Ditto for the holidays. Normally, that was a quieter time at Colts Creek, but he doubted there’d be much quiet in the next few weeks, especially if the ranch closed down in anticipation of a new owner.
The black granite of Abe’s tombstone didn’t
exactly blend with the night because the moonlight washed over it, spotlighting it as if it were some kind of beacon. Brody could almost see a big-assed cartoon arrow flashing over it and saying, Come Right Over for Another Kick in the Balls.
He didn’t go in closer for that kick. It wasn’t necessary because he felt it every time he thought of Abe. Not because of Abe’s will and the chaos that had caused. But because of Abe himself.
According to the letter that Abe had sent Janessa, he’d known he was dying, and Brody couldn’t think of a single reason for Abe to withhold that from him. Abe had trusted him with millions of dollars of payroll and assets, confided in him the ins and outs of too many business deals to count, but he hadn’t shared the most important info of his life.
Or rather his death.
That was the cut that would take the longest to heal, and it pissed him off all the way to the bone. Maybe it was some kind of sick karma, but his life had been littered with people who hadn’t bothered to tell him goodbye. His father, Janessa, his sister, Layla, and now Abe.
He cursed himself. He was a grown man. What the hell did it matter that the goodbyes hadn’t been said? They would have still been goodbyes. Well, except for Layla. If she’d come to him and told him, then he might have been able to do something to stop her from dying.
Brody cursed again when there was a slash of headlights from a vehicle turning into the parking lot. He’d waited until dark to come because he hadn’t wanted anyone around while he did whatever the hell he was doing. Some would call it grieving. Others, a pity party. Brody figured it was more of a search for answers he just wasn’t going to get. Ever.
He turned, ready to head back to his truck, when he spotted Janessa. Who else? If he’d had a list of people he hadn’t wanted to run into tonight, she would have been at the top. Every nerve in him felt scraped raw, and if anyone would be able to see right through how he was really feeling, it was Janessa.
Using the flashlight on her phone, she hobbled her way to him and panned that flashlight over his face. Brody got a good look at her face, too, thanks to the moonlight. That blond hair was like another beacon, gobbling up the milky rays and making her look like some kind of fairy. Not a waifish one, though. Not with all those curves that were accented in her jeans and thick sweater.
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