by Jodi Thomas
“Winifred,” he said, shoving the word through his teeth. “This is a private conversation.”
“Conversation?” she said on a biting laugh. “Hardly an appropriate one, considering.”
“Considering?” I managed.
Her gaze slid to me as though I were a bug on the floor.
“Considering,” she seethed, lowering her voice so that the many ears behind her wouldn’t hear, “my fiancé is behind a closed door, on his knee, with the likes of you.”
“How dare you,” Ben said, stepping toward her. “You know—”
“Fiancé.”
The word fell from my mouth as it shot through my brain and around the room like a shooting star, bouncing off every surface. The horror that had given way for two seconds as I came up for air was back, shoving me under.
He was—engaged?
“No,” Ben said, turning to me. “That’s a lie.”
“Is it?” Winifred said, holding up her left hand. A beautiful square diamond sparkled from her ring finger.
“I allowed you to keep that when I broke things off, Winifred,” he said, anger rolling over him now. “And you’re using it against me now?”
“I’m not using anything, Benjamin,” she said, holding up her chin defiantly. “Just because you throw a fit and leave, that doesn’t break our bond.”
“We have no bond.”
“Oh,” she said, lowering her hand to her belly, resting it against the fancy layered fabric of her dress. “But we do.”
God himself could have crashed the very roof down on top of us, and it wouldn’t have had the crushing blow that that one simple movement delivered.
My feet wouldn’t move. It felt as though they’d taken root in the floor, punishing me forever by forcing me to watch this scene. To watch Ben’s eyes follow her hand, to see the two of them look at each other, to lock the image in my mind of him making love to her the way he had to me. His desperate growling of my name as he spilled into me—being her name instead.
Making a baby. Making a family.
“That’s not possible,” he breathed.
“Really?” she said under her breath. “Are you unclear on the method?”
“That was months ago.”
“Three months ago, to be exact,” she whispered. “And you need to make this right. Quickly.”
“Excuse me,” I said, my feet suddenly finding wings. Blinded with mortified tears, I pushed past both of them, past the line of nosy gossips, in search of my father or the door, whichever came first.
“Josie,” I heard him say from behind me, but I couldn’t get away fast enough. From him, his voice, his pleading eyes, or his lying heart.
He’d deceived me, almost convinced me to forgive him, and then proposed to me while engaged to someone else. A pregnant someone else. His surprise didn’t matter. His deception did.
A scream from another room halted my anxious steps, and I turned to see the crowd, ever curious for more, move en masse toward the sound. Another shriek, and another, followed by two women in tears, and Theodore, the houseman, looking pale and distraught.
My dilemma slid to the side as worry moved to the forefront. My father was nowhere to be found, and fear sped my steps back through the hordes of hideous busybodies.
“He was just—” one woman was saying through her tears.
“—so still,” another one cried.
“—face was like a ghost.”
“It’s not working!”
I broke through the wall to gasp at the vision in front of me. Travis Mason, sprawled on the floor beside his favorite chair, a half empty tumbler of brandy on a table. My father, coat off, hair swinging free of his oiled-back style as he pumped his fists on Mr. Mason’s chest.
His face was red with exertion, his eyes wet as he looked up and spotted me.
Instantly, I moved forward and dropped to my knees, feeling for a pulse like my father had taught me. Ranch life requires you to know a little of everything, Josie. I shook my head, looking down at the lifeless face of my father’s best friend and pushing back the latest information I had on their little secret scheme.
It didn’t matter. Business was business, and the state of my heart was inconsequential. Irrelevant. My father had bigger problems than an irate daughter, especially when he didn’t know my role in the whole horrible thing.
He would never know.
There was no purpose to it.
There was movement to my right as the wall of people parted, letting through a wild-eyed Ben. Benjamin Mason. Travis’s nephew. His jaw tightened as he dropped to his knees next to my father, and his eyes went red with the burn of telltale tears.
“Uncle,” he choked out.
I pushed to my feet, unable to bear the mixture of anger and sadness warring within me, and backed straight into hands holding my arms. Turning, I stared straight into clear green eyes that held not one ounce of sympathy, Theodore, in contrast, hovering behind her like a confused bee, looked ready to collapse.
“Benjamin will be busy,” Winifred said stonily. “You may leave now.”
“Oh, my Jesus,” Theodore said, a hand over his face. “Benjamin gets everything. He’s the—he’s in charge. This is awful.”
Winifred raised a perfect brow, palming her abdomen at the same time, her gaze never leaving mine. “As I said.”
Chapter 6
1904
Josie
I clasped my fingers together so tightly they ached, but it was better to stem the tremble that began the moment Benjamin Mason locked eyes with me.
It had been a full five years since we simply stood across from each other and took it in. Yes, I’d seen him here and there, from a distance, but we didn’t talk, and one of us always turned away. I didn’t leave the ranch much; we had staff for those things. Or we did. So, most of the time, any sighting I had was while I was out riding the perimeter or checking on the herd. And most of the time, that sighting was of him and his little girl, either riding his horse, or in his family’s tiny private cemetery.
That, I understood. I’d done that with my own father all my life, visiting my mother via a gravestone. It was the times he was alone that reminded me who he was. What he was. A liar I’d almost trusted with everything. Most of those times, he wasn’t visiting his uncle, because I knew where that grave was located. He was kneeling in front of his late wife.
That told me all I needed to know.
Winifred Mason, from the three excruciating minutes I’d shared air with her, had been an abominable, horrid, witch of a woman, and if he loved someone like that, then they’d deserved each other. That poor little girl—I knew what it was like to grow up without a mother, but I had to believe she might have dodged a bullet with that one.
And I was probably going to hell for that.
Now, looking into the face of a man I once thought I knew, I tried not to be affected by him. He was so much the same, and yet different. With no hat to cover his dark blond waves, they were combed neatly back in a gentlemen’s style. His face was shaved clean of the stubble I remembered, and his eyes—well, nothing could change that. Except that something had.
There was a sadness there. A hollowness.
I guessed losing his wife had taken a toll.
I held up my head and breathed in a steadying breath. No time for walking memory lane or analyzing the present. I had to somehow get through this interminable party, find a suitor, sell my soul, and maintain some semblance of dignity before I went home and hid in the stable to come undone in private, with my horse, Daisy, and a bottle of my father’s whiskey.
That’s what I’d done the last time. I’d run on foot from that house, running with no mind to the biting, wet cold on my skin and the bushes and rocks tearing at my gown. I got a tongue-lashing from my father later on the indecency and embarrassment of leaving in such a way, but I couldn’t take anymore. Ben suddenly being a stranger, lying to me, then proposing, his fiancée showing up pregnant, his uncle dying in my father
’s arms, and Winifred’s icy hatred . . .
All within the same half hour. It was too much.
I turned away from the flash of his eyes now as I called him by his surname. Let that burn a bit. I wouldn’t leave here like a distraught girl this time, but if I had to be here suffering, he could go with a little stab.
No one appeared to notice the pause in his greeting as he continued, or else they were too polite to gawk at the tension between us. And that wasn’t likely in this crowd. The rumors of that fateful night’s melodrama had not escaped me. I had very much stayed to myself and the ranch in the past five years, purposely avoiding public gatherings and prolonged events like this one that loosened mouths and reminded people of old gossip.
Now, to be back here, in the same place where my life had so publicly disintegrated in front of everyone—it was all I could do not to shake my head at my own ridiculous predicament.
As he finished and the guests began to move and murmur among themselves about the new “modern dining,” I drew an easier breath. I could do this. I could be social, and civil, and nice.
“Miss Bancroft.”
Then again, this evening’s torture might never end.
Falling into step beside me was Benjamin Mason himself. So much for avoiding the gossip. I swallowed hard and kept my fingers intertwined, determined to ignore the foreign yet familiar pull of his body so close to my side. I had no business remembering that.
“I’m sure you have other guests to bother, Mr. Mason,” I managed, realizing that that crossed “nice” off my agenda.
“Possibly, but I’ve already achieved that,” he said nonchalantly, facing forward as we walked slowly. “They’ve had their dose of me.”
The rumble of his voice resonated to my very toes, sending goose bumps down my spine.
Stop that.
“How fortunate.”
He blew out an impatient breath, but I was saved by the approach of our long-time accountant, Mr. Green. I never cared hugely for the man, finding him a bit smug most of my life, but I smiled in his direction as if he were my closest friend.
“Josie,” he said, taking my hand in his and patting it. “Good to see you, my dear. May I help you with your plate?”
I blinked, taken aback. “My plate?”
Mr. Green chuckled, his bald head gleaming in the soft, flickering lantern light that glowed from every few feet. Benjamin had spared no expense for fuel.
“Our host has quite the progressive plan tonight,” he said, glancing up at Benjamin. “Kind of a walk and carry.”
“Progressive?” I said, not daring to look up to my left, where I could feel the gaze bearing down. “Is that what they’re calling moving cattle through the chutes to graze now? I think we’ve been doing that for some time.”
Mr. Green laughed heartily. “She has a point, Benjamin.”
“I’m fairly sure I can handle the inconvenience,” I said, taking the older man’s arm. “But I’ll be glad for the company.”
With that, the presence to my left stepped away, and I cursed my disappointment. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I have to fight the urge to turn in that direction and see where he went?
“I have another reason to want a few minutes of your time,” Mr. Green said, his voice lowered as we continued our slow progression toward the dining room.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly, thankful for the distraction. “Oh?”
“I know you’re aware of the year-end tax deadline,” he said.
My gratefulness dissipated, replaced with the despair that had become much more commonplace. Yes. I was aware. As I let my gaze sweep the room and take inventory of the obvious businessmen talking in clusters, I felt so painfully aware.
“Yes. I’m working on some ideas,” I said.
He darted a sideways glance my way. “Well, you’ll need to work faster,” he said, nodding toward those same clusters. “The bank has stated an extended holiday this year, closing next week between Christmas and New Year’s. Meaning—”
“No,” I breathed, knowing exactly what that meant. “They can’t. The holiday is—”
“I know,” he said, patting my hand again. “But they can choose to give their employees additional days off, and they are.”
I felt my scalp begin to sweat. It was already mostly impossible. Now it was swimming in the land of bleak and hopeless.
“So, I have less than—” My chest ached as my heart clenched inside it. “I have only days left.”
“Four,” he said. “You have until Christmas Eve.”
He clamped his hand down on mine as if that would calm me somehow. As if that would fix the horror that once more rained down on that horrible date.
My mother’s death.
Ben’s betrayal.
Now, I would lose everything my father created on that day as well.
My burning eyes moved over the room. I couldn’t afford to be proud anymore. I had to save my home. The jobs of my last few employees.
“I don’t like what you’re having to do, Josie,” he said as we approached the table and he handed me a plate. “It doesn’t set well with me.”
I scoffed. “Me either, but what choice do I have?”
“Have you considered asking your grandparents?” he asked. “They have the means.”
“To save the thing that took their daughter from them and tainted me?” I responded with a sad chuckle. “They’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. Especially since Daddy died.”
“Even for you?” he asked.
I met his gaze. “If they knew how shaky things were, they’d work even harder to get me there.”
Mr. Green rubbed at his jaw as he averted his eyes and appeared to be fascinated with the food spread.
“There is one other option,” he said.
“What?” I asked, stopping short and gripping the plate as he placed some kind of meat pastry on it. There was hope? “Tell me.”
At this point, I’d do anything, and not having to hand over my life and inheritance to some stranger to bail me out sounded divine.
“Merge with the Mason Ranch,” he said under his breath.
The slight flutter my heart had felt for half a second died a horrible death.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Or an option,” I continued. “How dare you even—”
“Josie, just listen.”
I set down the etched-glass plate with a loud clank, bringing faces already bewildered by the new dinner plan staring my way with curiosity.
“No.”
“Josie—”
His voice was a distant, tinny sound as I pushed against the human cattle flow to exit the dining room.
“Excuse me,” I said repeatedly as people did their best to let me through. Blindly, I sought the front doors, instinctively wanting out of this house. Wanting away from everything this place represented.
Everything negative from the past five years began . . . here.
Learning about the thefts and the missing food supplies. Mr. Mason’s death, followed by the horrible storm that destroyed the island of Galveston the next year. It damaged our stables and cut off our supply connection for months on end. Finally, my father’s subsequent decline in spirit and health, his death, and then the illness that wiped out two thirds of our herd and sent what was left of our buyers and breeders running for more reliable cattle sources.
All of it started right there, under that roof, in the beautiful, wooden beamed entryway of the Mason Ranch. And that didn’t even include my own personal loss. Finding out that my Ben was Benjamin Mason, that he’d betrayed me with a pack of lies, was engaged to another, and expecting a child.
It was like the portal to hell, and all I wanted was out, but my feet halted at the doors. I shut my eyes tight against the burn that wanted to win, that wanted to make me give up and retreat to a dark corner. I didn’t have that luxury now.
Taking a
deep breath and turning slowly, I swiped under my eyes and watched the last remnants of the crowd wander through the dining room door, some of them still whispering among themselves as they glanced over their shoulders. I’d reminded them. Glorious.
Let them talk. I didn’t care. I had bigger problems.
The library door stood ajar ahead, and a burst of painful laughter escaped my throat before I clapped a hand over my mouth. The irony was almost crazy. But before I knew what I was doing, I found myself inside, raising my eyes overhead. No mistletoe now.
I closed my eyes as I leaned against a shelf and breathed in the quiet. The last time I was in that room, my world turned upside down. I could still see him down on one knee, his head bowed, begging me to—
“Who are you?”
I sucked in a very ungraceful breath, knocking two books from their place as my right hand flailed sideways. They clattered to the ground, and my gaze landed on two little bare feet near where one of them lay open on the wood floor.
A little girl with silky blond hair, a long nightdress, and her father’s golden-hazel eyes peered up at me from the corner as she sat cross-legged, a book on her lap.
“Oh my God, you startled me,” I said, blowing out a slow breath.
“You aren’t supposed to take God’s name in vain,” she said, holding one finger in her place on the page.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be sneaking up on people at a grown-up party either,” I said.
“I didn’t sneak,” she said. “I was reading. You came in here.”
I bit back a smile. “So I did. What’s your name?”
“Abigail Winifred Mason,” she rattled off automatically. “Winifred was my mommy’s name. What’s yours?”
Of course she would have a version of her mother’s name to carry around with her. I understood that burden.
“Josephine Elizabeth Bancroft,” I said. “And Elizabeth was my mother’s name, too.”
“Is she dead?”
This girl was direct.
“She is.”
“Do you remember her?” she asked, her eyes clear.
I shook my head. “She died when I was born, just like yours did.”