After they walked the sheriff out, Heather paced before the hearth. “I don’t believe any of those people have a claim to her.”
“Then we’ll petition the court to give her to us,” Sterling said calmly.
His infuriating refusal to accept the possibility of losing Gracie was driving her mad. “We should have done that before. Why didn’t we do that from the beginning?”
“Because it wasn’t an issue. No one wanted her. We cared for her. We did the best we could, given the circumstances.”
“Are you going to fight for us?”
“I gave you my word, Heather. I’ll fight for you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“You’re scared. We’re both scared.”
Dillon stepped into the room, his face grim. “Otto wants to speak with us.”
“Not now,” Sterling said brusquely. “The sheriff just left.”
“I think you better hear him out.”
“Why?” Heather asked, bewildered by the rapidly changing events swirling around her.
“Because he claims to know something about Gracie,” Dillon said grimly. “Something important.”
Chapter Fifteen
Heather returned to the dining room, her face pale, her lips pinched. “Gracie is napping.”
Otto had joined them, and Sterling had already heard his claim while Heather was tending Gracie. He and Dillon exchanged an uneasy glance now.
“You’d best sit down,” Dillon said.
Otto slid the paper across the table. “The proof is right here.”
Heather took the chair beside Sterling. “What proof? What’s this all about?”
“I’ve got Gracie’s birth certificate right here,” Otto said. “It’s all legal.”
Heather accepted the paper. “Ruby Berg. I don’t understand. Who is Ruby?”
“My daughter.”
Sterling touched her shoulder. “Ruby passed away. Complications related to childbirth.”
Heather gaped. “Then Gracie is your granddaughter?”
“Yep.” Otto drummed his palms against the table. “Without her ma around, I’m her guardian. I’m the nearest living relative. She’s mine, all right. She’s mine and I have a say in who raises her. I have the only say.”
A cold fury crept over Sterling. “Why did you leave her with us? How did you benefit from lying about us?”
“Hear me out first,” Otto said jovially, as though he didn’t understand the somber mood in the room. “I want to buy the ranch for fair market value.”
“Wait a minute,” Dillon interjected. “What does the ranch have to do with Gracie?”
“Your pa promised me this land,” Otto said, and his jovial expression slipped. “I was here from the beginning. Your ma’s money might have given your pa a start, but he would have failed in the first five years if it weren’t for me. I taught him everything he ever knew. Your pa was nothing but a greenhorn from back East. He didn’t know one end of a cow from the other.”
Heather’s shoulders trembled beneath Sterling’s fingertips. “Being smarter than Pa doesn’t mean you have any claim on this land. He didn’t owe you anything beyond a fair wage for a day’s work.”
“Is that what you think, boy?” Otto’s face became mottled and red. “I’m more than some vagrant ranch hand. I built this house with my blood and sweat. I built this and watched your pa live like a king while I did all the work. I had it all figured out. See? Ruby was supposed to marry one of you two boys. I’d have gotten half the ranch fair and square. I wanted her to marry Dillon, since he was the oldest.”
At least one explanation fell into place.
“That’s why you told Dillon that I was sweet on Heather,” Sterling said.
“I figured a few years in the cavalry would do him good. I didn’t figure he’d come back lame.” Otto sneered. “Not that it matters. Ruby is gone. She never liked coming out here to visit her old pa. She was a city girl. Didn’t matter to me none what she wanted, except she run off.”
“If Ruby is Gracie’s ma, where is her pa?” Heather asked.
“Dead,” the foreman declared. “Got himself gut shot in a house of ill repute. Ruby was too much like her ma. That girl had a streak of rebellion. She didn’t want to live in Montana. She wanted adventure. Look where that got her—pregnant and unwed. The father of her child buried in a potter’s field. Some adventure. She should’a listened to her pa.”
Sterling’s thoughts reeled. He recalled the lanky girl from his childhood the few times she’d come to visit her pa. No wonder she’d been miserable in Montana. Given her pa’s plans for her future, no wonder she’d avoided them.
“Where has Gracie been all this time?” Sterling asked. “Who took care of her?”
“Your pa paid for her upkeep in Ohio. A private girls’ home there.”
Sterling snapped his fingers. “I never could account for that expense. Were the initials of the home HGH?”
“That’s the place,” Otto said. “I come home after Ruby’s funeral and cried on your pa’s shoulder. You think your old man was as tough as shoe leather, but he had a soft spot. Especially after that first stroke. He let me take care of everything. I even offered to let him take it out of my wages, but he declined. He paid for two years at that home.”
Dillon guffawed. “He didn’t even know, did he? Pa didn’t even know he was paying for Gracie. He was sick by then, and you took over the books.”
“He was lucid sometimes,” Otto said. “He could have figured me out. He didn’t.”
“After all he did for you, you betrayed him,” Heather said.
“I didn’t do anything. He offered to pay fair and square.”
“When he was too sick to know what he was saying!”
“I don’t let myself get mired in the details.” Otto grinned proudly. “He owed me.”
Heather shook her head. “While Mr. Blackwell was paying for your granddaughter’s care, you were stealing from him. You were the one taking the money.”
Sterling tightened his grip on her shoulder. “All the entries were in Pa’s handwriting. How did you convince him to change the amounts?”
Heather pursed her lips. “That wasn’t your pa’s handwriting. Anyone who can forge the paperwork for a Return of Birth can copy someone’s handwriting. Right, Otto?”
“Figured me out, did you? I was always handy with a drawing. Your pa’s handwriting wasn’t that much different. I figure you two boys owed me and your pa.”
“How do you figure that?” Dillon growled.
“Neither of you wanted this land, not like I did. You’re not even cattlemen. Who puts sheep on a ranch? Your pa offered to buy Dillon out of the cavalry after a year, and he refused. Then Sterling left. You boys turned your back on your pa and your heritage. You don’t deserve this land.”
“And you do?” Sterling guffawed.
“He promised me. We even had a will drawn up naming me as the heir. I near fainted when the lawyer said you boys had inherited the land. He went and double-crossed me in the end.”
“Or maybe he found out you were stealing his money,” Heather said.
“Maybe. Even when he was sick he was smart as a whip, your pa. That money was my insurance. Good thing too since he went and double-crossed me.”
“You’ve sure got a funny way of looking at things,” Heather said. “What did Gracie have to do with any of this?”
Sterling was having trouble reconciling the man before him with the man he recalled from his childhood. Otto’s bitterness had been festering over time, growing and consuming the man. There was an almost mad glint in his small, dark eyes. Otto thought he’d outwitted them all, and he was basking in the glow of his own accomplishment.
“I didn’t fi
gure you boys would want the land,” Otto continued. “I figured you’d sell outright. But you didn’t. I had a way to kill two birds with one stone. I wouldn’t have to pay for Gracie’s care, and there’s nothing like a wife and child to distract a man.”
“What if we had refused to care for her?” Sterling asked.
“Then she’d be still be someone else’s problem now, wouldn’t she? While she was in that home back in Ohio, I was paying. Once she was an abandoned child, she wasn’t my responsibility.”
Heather gasped. Sterling curled his hands into fists. A kind of rage he’d never before experienced coursed through his veins. In that moment, he feared what he might do. Dillon, sensing his mood, placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret, little brother. He’s not worth your life.”
Otto chuckled. “I tried doing things the nice way. I wanted Ruby to marry one of you, but she went and got pregnant. I talked your pa into leaving me the land anyway, but he got sentimental on his deathbed. Now I’m giving you a choice. Sell me the land, or I send Gracie back to the girls’ home.”
“You’d do that to your own grandchild?” Heather pressed both hands against her chest. “She’s your own flesh and blood. She’s happy here. She’s happy, and you’d put her in the care of strangers for your chance at revenge? And money?”
“What am I supposed to do with a girl? Maybe if she was a boy, she’d be of some use to me.”
“No!” Heather exclaimed.
“Don’t listen to him.” Sterling urged her attention away from Otto. “He’s doing this on purpose. He’s making you angry. Don’t give him any power.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I won’t let him take her.”
“Neither will I,” Sterling said. He tucked Heather closer against his side and faced the man he’d once considered a father. “You want us to sell the land to you, and you’re going to pay us with money you stole from our pa?”
“I figure that some money has to change hands in order to keep everything on the up-and-up. Otherwise, folks might get suspicious. I don’t need the law sniffing around the place. This way, it will look like we’re all a bunch of friends giving each other a good deal.”
“I’m assuming that means you’re not paying fair market price for the land,” Dillon said.
“I’m not a fool. I can’t give you everything, now, can I?”
Sterling rapidly considered his options. “How do we know you won’t double-cross us?”
“I was more like a pa to you than your own.”
“Until now,” Dillon said with grim finality.
“I tried to make it easy on you, but you didn’t listen. I tried to talk you into selling, I tried to convince you this wasn’t the life for you.”
More events from the past few months fell into place. His string of bad fortune had been nothing of the sort.
More than once over the past months, Sterling had felt as though someone was sabotaging his efforts. He should have listened to his instincts. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve been damaging our efforts all this time.”
“You’re smarter than you look,” Otto said. “I left you with no money, I put mice in the house, I set the sheep free. Little things. Nothing evil. I just wanted to put the squeeze on you to leave. But you didn’t take the hint. If you stop and think about it, I’m helping you out. If you won’t think about your new little family, Sterling, think about your brother. What kind of life is this for a cripple?”
Dillon lunged, and Sterling held his brother back. “Let him finish.” He needed all the details in order to formulate a plan.
Otto patted the rounded bulge of his stomach. “I’ve got more honor than your pa. I won’t go back on my word. We’ll have the lawyers in town draw up the paperwork, and I won’t fight the courts when you petition for Gracie.” He stood and reached for his hat. “You folks think about it.”
He named an offer that was less than a third of what the ranch and house were worth, leaving the three of them in stunned silence.
“Take the money.” Dillon broke the silence first. “I say we take the money. Let him have it.”
“No!” Heather declared. “I won’t let the two of you lose everything because of me. If it weren’t for me and Gracie, you’d fight. Otto couldn’t blackmail you. We’ll petition the court.”
“Are you willing to take that risk?” Sterling asked. “There’s no guarantee. He’s the child’s grandfather. He’s adept at lying. He fooled the two of us for twenty years.”
“I can’t do the work anyway,” Dillon said. “I’m taking the deal. I’ll sell him my half.”
“This is crazy.” Heather crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s not offering a deal. He’s stealing the land from you two. He’s giving you back a portion of the money he’s already stolen. How can you agree to something like that?”
“He’s relentless and unfeeling,” Sterling said. “By his own admission, he’s been after this land for twenty years. He’d sacrifice his own granddaughter. We can’t fight that kind of evil. I don’t want to go to bed each night and wonder if he’s going to burn down the house with you and Gracie inside. What kind of life is that?”
“What will we do?” She couldn’t help but feel as though she was partially responsible for the current chain of events. She hadn’t petitioned the courts for Gracie’s guardianship because she hadn’t wanted to delve into Gracie’s past. If she hadn’t been living in fear, they might not be a position where they were vulnerable to Otto’s blackmail. “Where will we go?”
“I’ll start over someplace else,” Sterling said. “It’s settled.”
She didn’t mind starting over. That part was fine. But having the land ripped from them by a common criminal was the thing that rankled. “It’s not settled.” Panicked, Heather stood. “I won’t let you lose everything.”
Dillon balanced on his good leg with one hand on the table. “You know my decision. I’ll let the two of you work out the details.”
He reached for his crutches and limped from the room. She waited until she caught the sound of the door closing before turning on Sterling. He had to listen to reason. If she had to bend the truth, then so be it.
“This is my fault,” Heather said. “I tricked you into this marriage. I was selfish. You can’t lose everything because I was selfish.”
“I’m a grown man, Heather. I knew what I was doing.”
“But...”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was being selfish? I didn’t exactly argue when Otto proposed we marry. I could have done a lot of different things, but I didn’t. I was well aware of the choice I made, and I made the decision with the consequences in mind.”
“And these are the consequences.”
“I have you and I have Gracie. Those are the consequences. That’s a future I can celebrate.”
A future where he was stripped of his family heritage. She’d thought only of herself, and not how her choices might alter his future.
“Maybe we can appeal to the sheriff,” she pleaded. “This must be extortion or something. How can we let him get away with this? How can you give up?”
“I’m not giving up, I’m making a choice. We have no hold on that child. It’s his word against ours. He’s not above bribery. Near as I can tell, he’s not above most things. The only way we can ensure Gracie’s safety is to make the deal. Otto has not proven himself an honorable man. I’ll get what we need in writing, and then we’ll start over someplace else. Dillon agrees with me.”
“Dillon isn’t in a good place. He shouldn’t be making any decisions right now.”
“Dillon knows what he’s doing. Neither of us ever expected to inherit this land, Heather. Whatever we get from Otto is more than we ever anticipated.”
Groping for a last-ditch
argument, she declared, “I married you for your money.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Yes. I did,” she said resolutely. “I was after your fortune, just like the rumors in town said.”
“Rumors that Otto started,” Sterling muttered. “I can’t believe I lost a perfectly good cook over that man.”
“Woodley was a cook. Not a perfectly good cook.”
He cracked a reluctant grin. “Agreed. I should have asked the other men. Except I trusted the man I’ve known for twenty years. The man I thought I knew, anyway.”
“You’re not listening.” She stomped her foot in an excellent imitation of Gracie. “I wanted the money and I trapped you into marriage. I wanted a rich man. I’ll leave you if you’re a poor man.”
She had to pull him from this torpor. There had to be a way of saving the ranch. Letting Otto win meant everyone else lost.
Instead of being outraged by this declaration, Sterling appeared bored. “You wouldn’t even buy a set of cheap blue plates. I know you didn’t marry me for my money.”
She sat down. Hard. “I’m your wife. Don’t I have a say?”
“Are you willing to bet Gracie’s life on a judge in Butte?”
“No. I’m not.” He’d called her bluff.
“I didn’t think so.”
Being this close to him flustered her. His gaze dropped to her lips, and her stomach filled with butterflies. His lips brushed against hers, the pressure tentative, and she turned into his embrace. His sigh was deep and his smile winsome as he bent his head to hers, his kiss soft and gentle against her mouth. They clung to each other for a long moment, each seeking solace from the problems facing them.
Sterling broke the contact first. “We’re going to be fine, Heather. I promise.”
“I know.”
She trusted him. He’d never let her down.
“There’s something else,” Sterling said. “I want to give Dillon our half of the money.”
“All right.”
“All right?” He leaned back and gazed down at her. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“I’m assuming you have your reasons.”
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