Texas Wishes: The Complete Series

by Kristina Knight

  Simple. To the point. Like he’d told her he wanted a divorce: I met someone else, here’s a pile of money, I’ll take your friends. Okay, he hadn’t actually said those words, but the intent was there. She pushed the send button and tossed the phone back on the writing desk in her room. Vanessa waited a moment longer and then grabbed her camera and headed for the office in the barn. Might as well get started on that new life because the sooner the website was live, the sooner buyers would call, filling her days with something more to do than wonder where Mat might be.

  A few hours later Vanessa looked away from the computer screen, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. All except five bulls’ pedigree information had been added to their images and descriptions. It was like filling out a weird online dating form, Vanessa decided. Busted was sired by Rimrock, a purebred Angus from The Double Diamond in Lockhardt, Texas. He weighs in at 1025 pounds. Inoculations up to date. There were more details — scrotum sizing, semen performance tests that ensured the bull could, well, perform. She resisted the urge to write what Busted might be looking for in a female and chuckled. She needed to get out of this office and away from spreadsheets filled with semen schedules, paternity tests, and guesses as to how these animals would fare as studs for ranches across the Western US.

  Thank goodness they were only listing fifty of the sale bulls individually on the website; any more than that and she might actually lose her mind. In all more than two hundred fifty bulls would be sold at the auction, with another three hundred heifers.

  Vanessa clicked a few buttons, saving the flyer pages to the back end of the website before closing out. She would add the last bulls after a quick snack in the kitchen, and then make the updates live on the site. Faxes of the main sale flyer and a few bull flyers would begin in the morning, and then her life would get really hectic, putting the final touches on the ball and setting up preview appointments.

  On her way through the yard Vanessa noticed her flowers looked a little droopy and sprayed them down with the garden hose. She pulled a few straggling weeds from around the vegetables. Things she would never have noticed before this last visit to the ranch. Things that seemed to come naturally now that she had more to think about than herself. She waved at Kathleen, walking out of the therapy pool with a horse Vanessa didn’t recognize. Should her sister be in a tank of water in her condition? She didn’t seem worried so Vanessa shrugged off the question. Of all of them, Kathleen would know when to stop regular work activities and when to continue.

  The kitchen was empty. A pot of vegetable soup simmered on the stove, fresh bananas and oranges sat in a bowl on the counter. Vanessa grabbed a banana and a glass of milk and sat at the table.

  She needed to get those papers so she could have one last talk with Mat. Thank God, she didn’t use the family lawyer for her divorce. She didn’t want any chance that Mat’s identity would get back to Mitchum. Or anyone else on the ranch. She needed to reassure Mat she wouldn’t come after his dreams of owning the McIntyre place. Keeping his paternity secret was one way to do that. Using a lawyer not connected to the family should make him happy.

  Vanessa picked at a cuticle with her thumb and finished the banana. She rinsed the glass in the sink and stared out over the back yard. Mat’s reaction was what she expected so why did she feel so unsettled about it?

  The back door slammed and Kathleen came in, dripping a bit from her dip in the therapy pool.

  “Is it safe for you to be with the horses in the pool?” Vanessa needed a distraction and Kathleen’s pregnancy would have to do.

  Kathleen smiled. “Until I hit about six months and I’m bigger around than I am tall. The other trainer will take over then.”

  “Don’t you worry?” Vanessa did. Everything she ate, every walk she took, every drive on the four-wheeler she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Should she stay secluded in her bedroom, the way women did centuries before?

  “About most things, yeah. Not this baby, though. This baby has me completely at peace. Weird?” Kathleen poured a glass of green tea, dropped ice cubes in the top, and sipped. She sat at the table.

  Amazing and lovely and exactly what Vanessa expected. A spurt of jealousy tried to take hold and she pushed it back. She would not be jealous of Kathleen’s life, not again. “It’s actually exactly what I expected from you. And I swear I don’t mean that bitchy.”

  Kathleen smiled. “What are you worried about? You’re standing at the window like you want to jump out and fly away from something. Please, Van, give the walls a break, just this once.”

  The truth was on Vanessa’s lips but she bit back the words. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone else about the baby. She didn’t need a lecture about single parenthood or questions about the father.

  “I’m selling the house.”

  Kathleen’s eyes widened. “The King William District? But you loved that house.”

  “I’ve been living in a hotel for the past few months, ever since Paul left.” She turned away from the window and shrugged. Kathleen’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t live there, not after the way things ended. In fact, I’m thinking about leaving San Antonio altogether. Maybe try Houston for a while. Maybe get out of Texas completely.”

  “But you can’t leave.”

  “There’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “Your family is here.”

  That was a big part of the problem, Vanessa admitted. She was becoming part of the family. She liked that. But what if these changes weren’t long term? What if, after the baby, she didn’t like ranch life? It would be easier to leave sooner rather than later, before she got more attached to everyone here.

  “It’s a family I barely know,” she whispered the words. She couldn’t look at Kathleen, but felt her withdrawal. Vanessa sat, imploring Kathleen to believe her. “I want to know you all, I do. I want to be a real part of the family, not just the girl who got dropped off as a teenager. The girl who didn’t fit in.”

  “Then stay, Van. Stay and figure out where you fit. Don’t run, not like Gillian did. Not like she taught you to do.” Kathleen’s hands closed over Vanessa’s, chilly from the water in the pool. “I can imagine the way Gillian always talked about us, but give us a chance to prove her wrong.”

  Vanessa swallowed, hard. “What if she is wrong about you all but still right about me? She knows me so well. She built me to be a society girl. To worry about labels and penthouses and vacations. You know that well enough. I’ve enjoyed playing in the gardens with Guillermo, and I’ve needed the distraction of the website revamp and the sale plans. But when all that is gone, where do I fit, Kath? I’m still the girl with the silver spoon who has no idea which side of the horse is the right side to mount.”

  “You’re more than Gillian could ever have imagined. You just have to believe it instead of running from it. And if you don’t believe me, take another look at those boots you made Dad buy when we were kids. City and country rolled into one.” Kathleen emptied her glass into the sink. “I need to get showered before I freeze to death. But, Van, those boots are you already. If you let them be.”

  Vanessa managed a wobbly smile. “I hope you’re right,” she said as Kathleen left.

  • • •

  Mat pulled the gator off to the side, watching the guys riding along the fence line looking for broken places. He should be riding with them instead of driving Mitchum around. The older man sat ramrod straight beside him, black boots polished, crease down the center of his Wranglers, pearl-buttoned Western shirt pressed, straw cowboy hat on his head.

  He looked like a movie image, just as he always did. Somehow the twenty-first century hadn’t caught him. Oh, he carried a smartphone and knew how to operate a computer, but he still preferred his hand-written journals and making deals with a handshake.

  And this was not his usual time to take a tour. Mat had a bad feeling this trip around the
grounds had nothing to do with broken barbed wire and everything to do with a prickly granddaughter.

  He pointed toward the hill where a few hands secured the makeshift paddock before the bulls arrived. “We’ll back the bulls up to that hill. They won’t stray, will have plenty of shade. After the buyers leave the viewings, it’s just a short haul across the pasture in with the rest of the herd.”

  Mitchum nodded. “Smart, boy. How many extra hands you think we’ll need for the week of the sale and for Van’s bull-viewing plans?”

  “We could hire one or two of the kids from town, if you’d like. A couple of kids from the rodeo team, maybe. Boys who can handle a rope and know how to herd.”

  The older man settled back against the seat, watching the land he’d grown up on. Eyes scanning the hillside, watching the hands work the new wire onto fence poles. What must it be like to look over land you’d always owned? A place you belonged.

  He held back a sigh. Mat might not own the McIntyre place yet but ever since Vanessa made her confession, it was all he could think about. Not owning it and hiding out there, away from the scrutiny. Owning it, building a life there that centered around a beautiful woman with long, straight hair and a temperamental personality. Children running around, climbing the trees, and learning to feed the baby animals.

  “You took Vanessa to the dance last week.”

  And here it came. Mat nodded, not even bothering with the explanation about a broken down car. He wouldn’t add an outright lie to his sins against the Witte family. First, he’d omitted his background. Second, he’d gotten Vanessa pregnant. Third, he’d avoided her like an alcoholic avoids the liquor aisle at the grocery store.

  “I figured when I hired you that you wouldn’t last long here. Not because you were new to Texas but because you’d never stuck with much beforehand.” Mitchum stared hard at Mat, as if he could see right through him to the bruised, ruined center. And found him lacking. “Matias Barnes, vice president of a major software developer. Son of an electro-engineering legend. On my ranch, using his uncle as his only reference.”

  Mat stiffened his shoulders and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel. “You only asked about ranching experience. My life in San Francisco wasn’t relevant. And Gui may not be rich but he’s the best man I’ve ever known. Present company included.”

  Mitchum snorted. “I admire your loyalty, kid. Omission, white lies. I’m not splitting hairs. And now you’re seeing my granddaughter.”

  He could make this go away. Stick with the friends story he’d assured Kathleen was the truth. He didn’t. “It was just a dance.”

  “Maybe for you. But Vanessa has never been one to date foolhardily, not even when she was a teenager. I’m too old, and so are you, for me to warn you off about Van. You’ll see her if you want or if she wants. I’ll just say that she’s not a girl I want to see wind up in a hospital ER while you party on your merry way.”

  So he knew all of it. Mat wasn’t sure why he wasn’t surprised. Damn, he’d never felt like a bug about to be pinned to a science project board before now. “Since Vanessa pretty much blew me off a couple days ago, you don’t have anything to worry about from my end.” Lie number four. Vanessa didn’t blow him off. He went on the attack and didn’t bother to clean up the mess he’d made.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Mitchum chuckled. “My granddaughters, all three of them, have a way of surprising everyone when they least expect it. I’m not asking for your intentions toward Van, but I will tell you that if you try to break her like Paul did, I’ll break you. Much worse than the tabloids broke your party-boy image over that accident a few years ago.”

  “Is this your way of asking me to leave my job here and try life elsewhere?”

  “Nope. I like your work ethic, and you’re smart about livestock. I have no idea how you learned that in Silicon Valley.”

  “Summers with Gui in New Mexico or Arizona, wherever he had a job, before you hired him here. And I spent a lot of time with the horses during physical therapy after the accident.”

  “Guillermo always was a smart man when it came to livestock.” Mitchum paused. “From what I’ve seen, those tabloids had everything about you wrong. Don’t prove me wrong, Mat. Now why don’t we check on that fence?”

  Mat gaped at Mitchum for a few minutes, wondering where the other boot would fall. That couldn’t be it. The old man couldn’t really be saying he wanted Mat to stay. Could he?

  • • •

  It only took another day for Vanessa to realize her pre-sale viewing plan was going to be trouble. As the office phone rang for the third time in as many minutes — and not more than a half-hour since the first faxes hit the lines — Vanessa fought the urge to exit the barn through a back door and hide out in her way-too-pink bedroom. She would not fail at this, not when it was her idea.

  Pamela, a lady from town who came out every year to answer phone calls about the after-party, smiled over her coffee mug. Vanessa wanted to imagine hatred glinting in the woman’s eyes. Or condescending acceptance. Instead she saw what seem like camaraderie.

  “It will be like this for the next few weeks.” She shook her head. “You’ve always given me the information and gone back to San Antonio or stayed in the main house, so you wouldn’t know. Maybe worse since we haven’t had pre-sale viewings before. Everybody loves bulls. But it’s just a ringing phone. Want me to take this one?”

  “I’ve got it.” Vanessa answered the phone with a smile pasted on her face. She looked longingly out the window at the heated pool near the back patio. It was only about seventy degrees outside, but a warm swim sounded heavenly about now. The caller asked about bulls numbering thirty-five and twelve on her list. Vanessa reeled off their information — she’d never once imagined she would be this familiar with livestock — and marked the calendar for the following afternoon when the buyer asked for an open date.

  Wouldn’t Gillian scream with laughter if she could see Vanessa now? Buried in phone calls, answering questions about bull semen of all things and scheduling appointments like a professional receptionist.

  Funnily enough, Vanessa never thought she would enjoy this even a little bit. When the idea came to her it was another way to pass the time before the sale, to bury her fears about single-parenthood for a few weeks. But the actual work of scheduling, working up a new website design, and planning the post-sale bash was better even than digging around in the dirt with Guillermo.

  As she hung up with one caller, Pamela answered another, her silver-peppered hair falling forward to hide her face. The sleeves of the other woman’s Eiffel Tower tee were scrunched to her elbows and her tennis-shoed foot tapped as she gave the pertinent information. She wore Levis that were loose around the hips, reminding Vanessa that she needed to place an order for maternity jeans soon. This morning her jeans refused to snap so she’d grabbed a long-torsoed camisole to wear under her hoodie.

  Vanessa entered the viewing date in the computer calendar so Pamela would see it and pushed back in her chair, watching the black dots of cows on the horizon and wondering if Mat was out there this morning. She would email a copy of the calendar to him later on, so he could prepare.

  She could walk it to the other barn or even his house. Could deliver the papers from her lawyer at the same time. She sighed. If she knew where he was. She couldn’t very well ask Grandfather about his schedule, and she wasn’t about to go looking for him and have the hands think she was falling in love with the man.

  She wasn’t. They had business to talk about. Personal business, but business.

  He came around the corner of one barn, tall on the back of a silver-grey horse and Vanessa sat her chin on her palm, watching. He looked so much like part of the scenery here. Like he belonged. If, as Kathleen suggested, Vanessa belonged here, too, how would that work? Mat could be an absentee father from a distance, but from the s
ame ranch? She wouldn’t do that to him. He deserved better.

  He turned the horse, hands sure on the reins. The horse responded instantly, just as she responded to him. What was it about the man that made her want to fall in line as one of his admirers?

  “If I were twenty years younger … ” Pamela’s voice brought her back to the present. She fanned a hand over her face, like she needed to cool off. “Mat Barnes has had female hearts pumping like oil derricks since he blew into town.”

  “I wasn’t. It’s just the scenery.” Vanessa choked on the words.

  “Sure. I always get that thin line of sweat at my hairline, too, when I look at trees and shrubbery.” She penciled another visitor onto the wall calendar along with the numbers of two more bulls. “Uh-oh. Vanessa, we’ve got a problem.”

  Bigger than obsessing over Mat Barnes? Give her the problem, Vanessa decided. She looked at the calendar and her stomach dropped. Mat had been clear. No more than six bulls to a viewing. There were now ten scheduled for the next afternoon. Damn, damn, damndamndamn.

  “I’m so sorry, I should have checked the number of bulls, not just the dates.” Pamela stood frozen beside the desk, wringing her hands together. “I’ll call the buyer back — ”

  “No, you won’t. We’ll check the pens first, see if ten bulls can be accommodated. Everything will be fine.” It has to be, she repeated to herself. “Wait here. Keep scheduling for future dates. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Keys to one of the trucks hung on the wall. Vanessa grabbed the ring and headed outside. She stopped cold once in the truck. Three pedals on the floor and a long shifter. She had no idea how to drive a stick shift. Okay, couldn’t be that difficult.

  Vanessa turned the key in the ignition but the engine only clicked. She tried again. Click, click, click. Obviously something more than turning a key had to happen. Maybe the third pedal? She pushed it down, turned the key and the engine roared to life. She could do this. She’d seen movies with people driving stick shifts. They hit the gas, pulled hard on the shifter and drove. Easy peasy.