Brady could scarcely believe his ears. "J.D., I'm in no position to take on a wife at this moment. I'm not saying the day won't come, but—"
"Fallon, you're in no position not to." J.D.'s demeanor and expression had changed quicker than a snap. "Not if you want to continue an association with this ranch. This is my daughter's home and Lockett is her hometown. As well as mine. If you're going to...going to continue to enjoy her company and whatever the two of you have got going on, you're damn well going to marry her."
Fury crawled up Brady's spine, along with sympathy for Jude. "Since we're being frank, J.D., I'm gonna leave this conversation with this. I took on the job as general manager in good faith, intending to be a loyal administrator. My interest or disinterest in Jude had nothing to do with it."
They faced off for a few seconds, glaring. J.D. broke first and stalked toward his house.
Several minutes later, J.D.'s truck passed on the way to the front gate. Clary Harper walked out of the barn. "Where's the boss going? He upset about something?"
"Don't know exactly," Brady lied. "Listen, Clary, I'm gonna go to my house and get my horse trailer and haul Sal home. She's been here long enough."
"Whatever you want to do, Brady, but she's not any trouble. Fact is, I like having her around. Jude wants to breed her and Patch. I was hoping you'd consider doing that. We haven't had a baby paint around here in a long time."
Just then, Jude's truck came up the road and Brady wondered if she had met her dad as she came in. She parked in front of the garage and walked into the house without so much as a look toward the barns. "I might just go over and have a talk with Jude about that now," Brady said, and headed for the ranch house's back door.
Chapter 26
Brady knocked on the back door and asked for Jude. Lola Mendez let him in and told him she was in her office. He removed his hat as the housekeeper led him up the short hall and pointed to a doorway. He hadn’t seen much of her office, had yet been invited all the way into it. Peeking inside, he saw a bright, cheerful room in disarray—a couple of unpacked cardboard boxes, a framed picture on a chair, flat surfaces scattered with papers and documents. Jude was standing behind a desk, her long hair pulled back and clipped at her neck. A memory of her standing in his kitchen wearing his bathrobe sprang to his mind and he had to resist the urge to take her in his arms. "Hey," he said, and smiled.
She looked up, her brows rising. "Brady. I wasn't expecting you."
Fatigue showed on her face. No doubt she'd had a sleepless night. She had waged a battle that might appear simple to some, but to her, it was an outright rebellion.
"Stopped by to say good morning," he said, entering the room.
"Have you seen Daddy?" She had yet to smile.
"Just talked to him over at the round paddock."
"Was he...mean?"
He would never tell her that her father had tried to use her to strike a marriage bargain. "I'll just say we didn't part seeing eye to eye on much besides Sandy Dandy's colt. But he's okay."
She nodded, but tension emanated from her, almost as visible as summer heat waves.
He looked around the room, then cautiously glanced back in her direction. She had that taut fragile look, like she might break into pieces. He hated empty talk, but he said, "I like your new spot. It looks like you."
A weak smile passed over her full lips. "Well, I haven't put everything away. And I don't exactly have a real desk yet."
He nodded, noticing now that her desk was a table. A familiar-looking piece of paper on the corner caught his eye. He didn't mean to snoop, but the paper looked so familiar, he couldn't not look at it. It was a real estate purchase contract. It looked like the document that had been presented to him by the real estate broker from Lubbock. Just to be certain he wasn't seeing things, he laid his hat on the table and picked up the contract.
Jude looked across the table at him, bug-eyed, then grabbed for the contract. But he moved it to the side, away from her reach.
"You have no right to take something off my desk," she said sharply.
He looked more closely at the document. To verify what his eyes had already told him, he thumbed to the back page and saw Fred Whitmore's signature below the typed phrase "Buyer's name to be disclosed on acceptance."
"What is this?" he asked, looking up at her and schooling his voice not to sound harsh.
She stood still, her wide-eyed gaze glued to his, like a deer caught in headlights.
"Brady—"
"What is this?" he asked again. "You tried to buy the 6-0?...In secret?" As this revelation sunk in, bitterness and distrust spread through him like black mud. "And I thought it was your granddad I had to worry about."
"Brady, I can—"
"Don't. Just don't."
He tossed the contract back onto her desk, picked up his hat and walked out, hanging on to the hat brim to keep from wrapping his hands around her neck and strangling her. He had trusted her, had taken risks for her. Had she been scheming behind his back from the start?
Setting his hat on, Brady strode across the barn lots. Women. A man couldn't trust a single damn one of them. It didn't matter if you were married, shacked up or just fucking—they were all the same. Jude was no different from Marvalee. And J.D. was no different from Marvalee's father. Hell, the Strayhorns were more dangerous than Marvalee's father. They had more money and influence than Marvin Lee Erickson.
He walked into the vet clinic, on into the office that had never really been his office, found a blank piece of paper and wrote out his resignation. He placed it on top of the desk in plain view, weighted it with a horseshoe and walked to his truck.
He had just moved on to Plan B. Not his plan of choice, but he could see now it was a helluva lot less complicated than Plan A.
Women, he thought again. On the day of his divorce two and a half years ago, he had vowed never to make another commitment to a female. He should have remembered that before he stepped into Jude's trap.
Jude clutched her elbows tightly as if letting go might make her fly apart. She made no attempt to chase after Brady. What could she say? How could she ever explain? She wilted to a wicker chair and stared outside at the barns. And that's where she was when her father barged through the back door. He had a piece of paper in his hand.
He saw her from the hallway and stamped into the room, looking around. He was obviously uncomfortable.
"This looks nice," he said, as if trying to sound normal. But his quick movements and strained voice told her he was anxious. "It'll be comfortable and pretty when you get organized. Penny Ann would be pleased you're using her room, punkin."
"Daddy, how many times do I have to ask you to please not call me that silly name. I hate it." She stood.
"I worried when you didn't come home last night."
She snorted. "I'm surprised you didn't have Jake out looking for me."
"We don't need the law to resolve our family issues, Jude."
"Right. And we don't want to have anything to do with Jake, anyway, do we?"
She started for the doorway. She didn't know where she was headed, but she had to get away from him.
"Jude, wait. We need to talk."
"No, Daddy, you need to talk. We...never talk. You talk and I listen. And more times than not, I've always done what you said. You need to know that has changed."
"Jude, listen—"
"See? This is exactly what I just said. I do not want to listen. Listening to you and Grandpa has caused me nothing but grief."
She turned to leave the room again.
"Jude," he said, his voice elevated and hard. "Come back in here and talk to me." She stopped and leveled a heated glare at him. "I have some things to tell you," he said more softly.
Nothing could have kept her from scowling and snapping, "What? What else do you have to say that I do not want to hear?"
He sat down on the serape-covered cushion of the wicker love seat and laid the paper he had in his hand on the tiny wicker c
offee table in front of the love seat.
Her eyes narrowed, moving from the paper to his eyes. "What is that?"
He peered up at her but hesitated a few seconds. "Brady's resignation."
Now she thought her insides really might just go ahead and fly apart. "He's quit? You asked him to resign?"
"No."
She huffed a bitter laugh. "Then why would he?"
"I want you to know something, Jude. I'm trying to salvage this whole thing, but it’s not easy." He slashed the air with his flattened hand. "I'm trying to make a deal with him. I've made him a fair offer."
Her brain felt as if a javelin had passed through it. Her brow tugged into a frown. "Offer? What are you talking about?"
He stood up and planted his hands on his belt. "I told him I couldn't have the two of you, uh..."
"Sleeping together, Daddy." She wanted to say fucking around, but she couldn't bring herself to say that to her father.
"I told him if that's what he, er, you, uh... both of you want, then you two should get married. I told him you'd been engaged to other men and it hasn't worked out. I told him I realize he's apparently the one you want."
Jude was stunned speechless. Her eyes bugged so hard, she thought they might pop out of their sockets.
"I told him you don't come without a dowry," her father went on. "I said I'd set him up with a small cattle herd. I figure that Wallace place will support a couple hundred head."
Jude’s arms went rigid. Her hands fisted." A bribe? You bribed someone to marry me? My God, Daddy. You didn't sink to that depth even with Webb and Jason. Are you out of your mind? Are you so self-absorbed here in this... this limestone fortress that you don't even know how a normal human being would react to that?" Her head throbbed. "Brady wouldn't consider something so outrageous."
Her father's brown eyes held hers. "He didn't turn it down, Jude. He resigned from the GM job, but I think he could be thinking about the offer."
Suddenly Jude couldn't breathe, couldn't find words, wondered how she even remained standing. She unclenched her fists and splayed her fingers. "This is insane. I feel like I'm living in a…in a friggin’ asylum." She started for the door again.
"Where're you going?"
"Upstairs. I'm worn-out."
"You go on. Get some rest now. It'll soon be dinnertime. I think we're the only ones here to eat. We can talk then, after you've settled down."
"I will not be settling down. And I will not be eating dinner."
She tramped upstairs on shaky knees. Brady's smile loomed in her mind all the way to her bedroom. She would never stand in the light of those sky blue eyes again. For the first time in her life, she had wanted something more desperately than she wanted to run the Circle C. And her father had destroyed it. But worse than that, she had helped. She thought of her great-grandmother, Penelope Ann. This could only be more of the Campbell Curse.
She hadn't been in her room more than fifteen minutes before she heard quick, heavy boot steps in the hall. She opened the door to see her father standing there with the real estate purchase contract in his hand. His face was a thundercloud. He shook the contract at her. "Jude, what are you doing?"
A week later, Jude's life at the Circle C had changed in ways she would have never thought possible. She had shredded the real estate contract. Her father again had the reins of the Circle C firmly in hand. On the surface, in an overstated display, the household appeared to be calm—but underneath the calm surface, the ambience was as brittle as dried sticks.
She no longer had drinks with her father at the cocktail hour, nor did she walk with Grandpa in the evenings. She didn't even eat dinner and supper with Daddy and Grandpa. She excused herself by saying she had to do work for the start of school. She rode Patch every day, exploring parts of the ranch she hadn't ridden to in months, if not years. She spent her evenings constructing her resume but had difficulty filling a whole page, even when she adjusted the margins.
Suzanne called her every day, trying to persuade her to go here or go there. She did go to town every day to eat at Maisie's. Sometimes Suzanne accompanied her. Jude listened as her best friend raved about Pat Garner’s attributes. But while she was glad for Suzanne's happiness with a new boyfriend, hearing about it only worsened Jude's mood.
In her mind, she saw herself going to Brady's house and explaining away her attempt to buy his land behind his back for a below-market price. She would park in front of the rickety old porch. He would hear her pickup engine and come outside. There, the fantasy ended because she knew that in reality, he would probably ask her to leave.
Brady was now headed in a different—and less desirable—direction. He had applied for a line of credit at an Abilene bank, using part of the 6-0 land as collateral. He was waiting for an appraiser to arrive and assess its value. Once he had the money, he figured he would start out with a hundred head of cows and two or three bulls. Bad time of year to be starting, but he had to make do.
Next week, Andy and Jarrett would be showing up to spend the week with him before the beginning of school. He was still negotiating with Marvalee on custody, but he believed that his ex-wife was tired of being a parent.
He was painting one of the bedrooms, getting it ready for the boys, when he heard the clatter of a diesel engine in his driveway. He walked outside just in time to see Jude's truck come to a stop. He had tied a bandana on his head to avoid paint spatter in his hair. He peeled it off and shoved his hand through his hair.
"Hi," she said, looking up at him, her hands stuffed into the back pockets of her jeans. She had on those damn sunglasses that hid half her face, but she looked pretty and sexy. He stuffed the bandana into his hip pocket. "What's up?"
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Nothing much. I just dropped by."
He nodded.
"How're the horses?"
"Great."
"I'll bet they...miss me."
Her head turned and she looked out over the pasture where the horses grazed in the sun. His jaw clenched, but he stepped down off the porch. She removed the sunglasses and squinted up at him. "Brady, I—I came to say I'm sorry."
He didn't want to hear her apology. Hell. What he wanted was to have never gotten his personal life crossed up with the Circle C in the first place, but it was too late for that. "Don't worry about it. Sh—Stuff happens."
"Can I tell you how...or why I wanted to buy the land?"
He had already heard her story. That she wanted the land made no difference to him. By now, he had seen that coveting land was in the Strayhorn DNA. She was no different from the rest of that family. Her method was what had him bewildered. And the fact that she had broken the trust between them.
But after she had come to apologize, he wouldn't be so bad-mannered as not to let her talk. He crossed his arms over his chest. "You've got the floor."
"When I first made the offer, it was after Daddy had given you the general manager's job. I was just so angry. You know the whole story. I've wanted to do something on my own for a long time. Grandpa wanted your land, yada, yada, yada. Later, I realized me trying to buy it was a mistake. For what it's worth, I had already canceled the contract before you saw it."
It just wasn't enough. How could he forgive her? Given the same opportunity again, she would do exactly what she had done. He had seen nothing to convince him otherwise. "I appreciate your telling me."
She nodded. "Well, I guess that's that. I'm headed for town. Guess I'll go on."
"Yeah, I need to get back to my painting."
"What're you painting?"
"The back bedroom. My boy and my stepson are coming next week."
"Oh. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
He nodded and ducked his chin. "Yeah."
It was what he wanted all right, but he had also wanted more that he obviously couldn't have, at least not on his own terms.
The lesson to be learned was that a man shouldn't want—or expect—too much.
The next morning, Jude left t
he house early and went to town to eat breakfast and run errands. She returned to the ranch midmorning to see a Life Flight helicopter sitting in the parking lot, its rotor whapping. Her heart leaped against her rib cage. She slammed to a stop in front of the garage and dashed toward the chopper.
Doc Barrett met her and stopped her. "Is it Daddy?" she cried, trying to pull away from him.
"No, Jude, no," the vet said, gripping her shoulders and holding her back. "It's Jeff."
"Grandpa? Wh-what happened?"
"We don't know. Maybe a stroke. Maybe a heart attack."
Just then, her father's pickup came to a skidding stop beside her and the vet. "Jude. Get in."
They made the hundred fifteen-mile trip to the Lubbock hospital in under an hour. Neither of them spoke. Jude sat as rigid as a statue, her teeth clenched. At the hospital, they learned that Grandpa had passed away in the helicopter.
When the ER doctor told them, she couldn’t keep from breaking down. After she gained control of her emotions, she stood in the hallway watching her father pull his handkerchief from his back pocket, take off his glasses and wipe his eyes. Then he replaced his glasses, pulled his cell phone off his belt and began making phone calls. That was who her father was—the man who always did what needed doing, no matter what. She didn't know who he might be calling. Cable perhaps. Or other distant relatives.
When he finished, he spoke to the doctor again, then to a nurse at the nurses' station, after which Jude and he started back to Lockett.
The tension in the pickup cab was intense. Jude's chest carried so much weight, she could barely breathe. She wished she hadn't had the wicked thoughts she'd had about Grandpa the last few weeks, wished she had walked with him a few more times. She had, after all, loved him and he had loved her. She felt bereft and empty. She had to ask, "Did he know about my trying to buy the 6-0?"
"No. There was no reason to tell him that. If you had gone through with it, he would have known then."
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