“Why can’t you just admit I’m doing a bang-up job with the tack and feed and it’s high time you turned ownership of it over to me?” Lee charged. “You think I don’t know what you’re doin’ with Matt Boyle? He hasn’t been able to look me in the eye for the past month!”
His mouth twisted in disgust. “I always suspected you were an A-1 certified jerk, Will, but now I find myself clearing up all doubt.”
Will took that one on the chin without a flinch. “Let’s just say I’m through with pickin’ up the pieces of your life.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. I can’t be trusted to run my own, ’cause everyone knows Lee Proffitt is just like his daddy!”
“Well, you are! You just let people walk all over you, Lacey McCoy most of all!”
“So that’s what this is about.” Lee’s stance went rigid, his hands curling into fists, but he didn’t raise them. Instead he let fire with a different kind of salvo. “Well, I’d rather be a doormat ten times over than like you—because you’re nothin’ but a control freak who could probably never let go of your iron control long enough to find out what it is a woman really needs!”
Will moved not a muscle. Lee put up his dukes anyway, set to spring into action at the flick of an eyelash.
It had been eight years since brother had raised arms against brother. Will knew it was that long because he remembered exactly the circumstances of when and why Lee had, which were a few months after Will had hauled him back from El Paso. Lee had been moping around for weeks, and Will had had enough. The kid had come at him with both fists flying when Will told him he could finish the job he’d started in El Paso any number of ways, just let Will know how he wanted the Countess Laslo to be informed—telegram, phone, or maybe just let her see the photos in the newspapers, since every tabloid on earth would be clamoring for the story of the poor, dumb sot of a cowboy who ate his heart out for a woman.
Sure, he’d been and still was a jerk about the matter! If anyone would die for love it’d be Lee, and the obsession his brother had for Lacey had scared Will—enough so that when his own heartbreak had hit the fan, he’d remembered his fear for Lee and had held in his pain.
Held it in—and was still holding it in.
That’s where the brothers differed, for although Will had gone on with life without a pause, inside he’d cratered as deeply as any man ever brought to his knees by love. And now, looking at Lee, Will wasn’t sure his younger brother hadn’t come out the better for letting it all hang out and getting his heartbreak out of his system.
And maybe that’s what Lee was trying to do for him—that is, if Will would let him...let him do a lot of things.
“You’re right, Lee,” Will said abruptly.
Lee’s fists dropped like dead weights. “What?”
“You’re right. I haven’t been fair to you with the tack and feed. About a lot of things. And I apologize for that. I need to step back and give you full control of your business.” He squinted at the horizon, shimmering with heat, beyond which lay his ranch—his and Lee’s. “And...and I’d like you to take more of a hand in
runnin’ the Double R.”
Lee looked completely flummoxed. “You’d let me carry some of the responsibility for the ranch?”
Will shrugged. “Sure. I have worked hard to make that ranch into something, and the last thing I want is for it to go down the drain should something happen to me.”
Lee set a boot on the immaculate chrome bumper of his truck, a sure sign he was moved by Will’s offer. “I’d really like that, Will. I’ve always had an interest in ranching. Actually felt I might have a certain knack for it, given a chance. But there was always Big Brother who knew best.”
Will acknowledged his complicity in that perception with a nod. “Well, then, whenever you get Jimmy Ray trained up to be able to hold down the store for you, you’re welcome to start easin’ into some of the management on the Double R.”
A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “Who knows but you might discover you got a little of the Proffitt control freak in you yourself.”
“Oh, help me!” Lee said with a groan.
They laughed together, which brought a warmth to Will’s insides. But he knew they needed to settle a certain matter before they could become true partners.
“I gotta know one thing first, Lee.” He worked his mouth around the words for a minute, then decided to just come on out with them. “Are you still in love with Lacey McCoy?”
His brother cocked his head as if listening real hard, and Will added hastily, “I’m just askin’ because I need to know, business-wise, if you’re gonna go through another killer heartbreak when she drops you cold.”
“Boy, would somebody get this man a bran muffin?” Lee begged the sky above before dropping his gaze back to Will. “Just what makes you so all-fire certain Lacey’s gettin’ ready to throw me out like yesterday’s newspaper?”
Avoiding his brother’s eyes, Will dropped to his haunches and made a production out of tracing the Double R brand over and over in the dirt.
What made him think that? Will knew, and it was because he’d have to be stone cold dead not to pick up on the vibrations between Lacey—and himself.
He didn’t entirely know what they were about, especially given how she tended to bring out the worst in him. Or maybe the bigger question was, what exactly was it he brought out in her?
He’d sure done a lot of thinking about it in the past few weeks, and he had just about figured that part out: Lacey saw him as a threat, which was why she got all queenly on him and as verbose as a revival preacher.
Now, a threat to what in particular—that was still a poser. It was more than a matter of physical dominance or power; it seemed something a lot more elemental.
A snippet of dialogue came back to Will, something about love not being enough. Trust, Lacey had said, was the key in a relationship, so both parties could be vulnerable. That’s what he’d seen her be today with his brother. And maybe that was because Lee had been the same with her.
Suddenly, Will wanted her to be like that with him, to trust him so. The yearning engulfed him like the devil’s own fire.
Just as quickly, he summoned all of his will to screw the hatch down on such a longing. Because wanting her to trust him surely meant he would have to open up and trust her, too. Call him a control freak, but he wasn’t willing to let go. Not yet.
But Will was honest enough with himself to admit he wasn’t about to let go either of the memory of Lacey’s small hand in his, or the way her eyes had widened then flared at his touch.
Will looked up at his brother. “Look, Lee, I’m not sayin’ Lacey will give you another case of the lonely onlies, but you don’t exactly have a stellar track record in that department, you know.”
Lee’s returning gaze was both tolerant and exasperated. “Oh, all right. To answer your questions, no, I’m not gonna get my needle stuck again on some somebody-done-somebody-wrong song—at least not with Lacey. So you can quit being all up in arms with her for that and just admit to what you really are bent out of shape with her about.”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “’Cause I’m tellin’ you right now, Big Brother, if you want to know the Proffitt you need to worry about fallin’ in love with Lacey McCoy, I’m lookin’ at him.”
With that, he brushed past Will as he crossed to the driver’s side of his truck and got in. Will rose slowly to find Lee grinning at him through the windshield as he cranked the ignition and gunned the engine.
“You better get on in here unless you want to get run over,” he said out the window.
Now there’s an idea, Will thought. Might be the only way to save himself a whole lot of trouble. And heartache.
CHAPTER SIX
LACEY FELT LIKE A PRIZE HEIFER on display at the county fair.
> People had been filing past her for half an hour, some merely congenial, some mildly curious. But most were excruciatingly fawning. And all anxious beyond measure that they get the opportunity to have a brief “audience” with her.
Because when again would Abysmal’s Summer Fling—the gussied-up name her mother’s ladies’ group had come up with for what was basically an evening of good old Texas barbecue, awful-tasting punch and two-stepping—be graced with the presence of a bona fide ex-countess?
And the worst of it was, her mother had been standing at her side the entire time, her features positively glowing. Lacey hadn’t seen her so happy in years.
For tonight, at least, the glass slipper still fit, midnight was hours away, and her daughter was still America’s Cinderella.
Lacey supposed it was a small sacrifice, really, in the scheme of things. Not feeling much like socializing these days, either as the ex-countess or simple Lacey McCoy, she wouldn’t have come tonight except for her mother’s pleas.
She’d learned two days ago that her start-up financing hadn’t been approved, which was a somewhat disappointing blow. She’d pumped herself back up again by reminding herself she could always go out of town for financing. Except then she’d received word from city hall that her application for a business license had been denied.
The news still held the power to deflate whatever optimism she’d breathed into her hopes. But the cold hard fact which kept staring her in the face was that if she couldn’t get a business license, then she’d be violating zoning restrictions to set up her resource center.
And wouldn’t you know, Matt Boyle, the lending officer at the bank, and the mayor, Dale Willis, were both here and of a cheerful bearing.
She couldn’t help but take it personally.
It simply wasn’t fair! She’d asked them why she’d been turned down and both had been vague—and downright disapproving in a “don’t you worry your pretty head, little lady” way. And wasn’t that the way the story had gone since time immemorial? Cinderella didn’t take matters into her own hands but waited patiently for some big, strong Prince Charming to come along and save the day. Because heaven forbid she’d be capable of taking care of herself!
Well, she no longer had the time or patience or especially the desire to play that game again.
Lacey could only hope Jenna, standing on the other side of the hall with her friends, didn’t catch the byplay that was taking place this evening, with her being treated like a princess. She had spent too much time with the teenager establishing herself as plain old Lacey McCoy.
She felt a squeeze to her elbow.
“Matt Boyle is headin’ this way,” her mother whispered.
“So?”
“I want you to be nice to him.”
“Oh, I’ll be as nice as he’s been to me, I assure you,” Lacey said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Lacey, please. You know what it’s like to live in this town, and makin’ enemies of the people who have influence is not going to do anyone any good.”
Her mother was right. Lacey may have gotten turned down, but she still needed people like Matt on her side if she was going to make a go of her resource center. It didn’t make her feel any better about it, however.
“Hey there, Lacey.”
She swung around to find Matt Boyle close beside her, his hat, weekend-cowboy new, tipped back on his head and a cocky air about him which almost drowned out the pungent cologne he wore.
“Hello, Matt,” she said, trying not to begrudge him every degree of warmth in her voice.
There was an awkward silence Lacey felt no compunction to help fill before he finally piped up. “Fine social the ladies have put together here, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.”
Another interminable pause.
“You’re lookin’ especially fetching tonight,” Matt said.
Fighting off the urge to bat her eyelashes and coo a simpering, “Why, you unmerciful flatterer! You’re just tryin’ to break my li’l ol’ heart!”, Lacey instead answered, “Thank you.”
Matt apparently found nothing lacking in the enthusiasm of her response, for he then said with the same good ol’ boy bravado, “You know, I’ve been thinkin’ we oughta hook up together.”
“You mean date?” she asked, even though she’d seen this one coming from a mile away.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I heard it around town you’ve been seein’ Lee Proffitt again, but I thought, why not throw my hat into the ring, too, especially when I’ve got just as much to offer you.”
Lacey had an urge to ream her ear out with her little finger. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, I am a vice president at the bank,” he said expansively. “You can’t get much more security than that, and there’s no guarantee Lee’ll make a go of that tack and feed in the long run, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” Lacey said as frostily as any royal who ever graced a throne. Unless... A suspicion snapped on in her head like a neon light. “This whole come-on wouldn’t have anything to do with me getting turned down for financing, would it? You know, thickening the plot so you can enter stage left and untie Nell from the railroad tracks. Would it?”
Matt’s mouth fell open. “It wasn’t like that,” he protested. “I mean, even given the collateral of your parents’ house, you couldn’t show a definite income from the center. The bank isn’t in the business of funding gambles of that size.”
“But my parents have been law-abiding, upstanding citizens of Abysmal for thirty years! Did you seriously doubt they—or I—couldn’t make good on the loan?”
Matt’s round face turned as red as a tomato, and the perspiration sprang out on his forehead. Well, she was a little steamed herself. “It was a judgment call—”
“And who was the judge?”
He at least had the grace to look ashamed. “Really, Lacey, I don’t normally pull strings—”
“But you couldn’t resist this time, and why should you? I’m pretty much fair game at this point, not to mention in dire need of being saved from myself. Because it seems everyone in this town knows what’s best for me but me!”
That terrible chain around her throat wrenched tighter, like that on a rack, and nearly overwhelmed her. She wished for her father’s sturdy presence right then, desperately, or even Lee’s. No—how she could make such wishes when she was fighting at this very moment to keep from being rescued?
But rescuing wasn’t what she wanted! She just needed someone right now to be on her side. And was there no one in the world who could be here for her? No one at all?
* * *
NOW THERE WAS A STORM brewing if he’d ever seen one.
Will watched the little scene unfold on the other side of the assembly hall. Matt Boyle had hitched up his britches a good ten times, which meant he was getting up the gumption to approach the lady focused in his amorous sights.
Will didn’t need a script to know what was going on. Matt was so obvious about his intent that both Lacey and her mother would have had to have been blindfolded not to see him coming. And from the look on Lacey’s face, this guy not only didn’t have a chance, he was in for one big-time spurning.
Will grinned.
Then Lacey’s mother leaned toward her to say something, her face the picture of patience, as if she were explaining simple arithmetic to a kindergartner. Lacey murmured something back, short and sweet, which made Rachel McCoy huff another comment of some kind. Lacey got an obstinate look on her face but obviously took her mother’s warning to heart, for she said no more.
That’s when Matt made his move. He bobbed out a greeting, which Lacey barely acknowledged. He made another attempt. Again, no luck.
He looked like an ungainly bumblebee buzzing around an exquisite rosebud, without a clue
how to get inside.
“No mystery Boyle’s staking out his claim ’fore anyone else does, ain’t it?” Dumas Findley said beside him.
“He’s sure enough givin’ it the old high school try.”
“Best entertainment to be had till the band gets a-goin’,” Dumas remarked. “Say, ain’t that your brother just got here?”
Will turned in the direction of Dumas’ nod. Lee was indeed making his way into the hall, greeting a few buddies with slaps on their backs, shaking the hand of a few more, tipping his hat to the ladies. “Yup.”
“Well, now, correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t he been keepin’ company with Lacey?”
“They’re friends, that’s all,” Will answered tersely.
He turned his attention back to Lacey and Matt. Something must have happened when he looked away, because Lacey’s face had gone slack, and her eyes had glazed over in shock.
She said something to Matt, who actually raised his hands, the universal language for backing off, but she came at him anyway. The volume of her voice rose, but Will still couldn’t understand what she was saying. It was enough to turn a few heads in their direction, though. Murmurs of curiosity carried like a wave over the heads of the throng.
Will saw the instant his brother marked the situation with Lacey. He started shouldering his way through the crowd.
“Hoo boy, this is gonna be good!” Dumas rubbed his hands together. “I ain’t seen a good fight since I left the rodeo. My money’s on Lee, that’s for sure. Boyle may’ve been one tough linebacker, but he’s soft as a cupcake nowadays.”
But Will barely heard Dumas, for next he saw Lacey slump, as if a yoke with two fifty-pound sandbags on either end had been placed across her shoulders. It was like looking at pure-D discouragement, without the additives.
He’d seen her distant, he’d seen her raring mad, he’d seen her wary as a cat. But he’d never seen her defeated.
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