by Kadie Scott
“Before you do, I have to talk to you about something.”
“It can wait.” He waved a dismissive hand.
“No, Dad. This can’t wait.” She’d already waited to confront him until they got here.
Weeks she’d waited, wondering what his new game was, dreading how she’d have to leave Will. Because she would have to, and doing so would break her heart.
“Fine. Get it said then.”
Typical. “I know you blocked Will from being invited to two rodeos.”
He crossed his arms, but didn’t deny it.
“What are you after?”
He glared at her for a long moment, but Rusty just tipped up her chin and stared back expectantly. Be damned if she broke first.
“I’m not convinced this marriage is real,” he said.
Rusty put her hands on her hips and silently reminded herself a fit on the floor wouldn’t solve this issue. “You were at the wedding, Dad. It’s real enough.”
He shook his head. “Something about that bugged me and I couldn’t put my finger on it until Doris mentioned how she thought you would’ve wanted more of your college friends at it.”
“You didn’t give me time for what I wanted,” she pointed out in what she thought was an admirably reasonable tone.
“Well, I didn’t mean for you to get married that weekend.” A familiar edge entered his voice, one which told her this was her fault in his eyes.
“I didn’t expect to meet Will,” she murmured quietly.
He gave her a narrow-eyed look, as though searching for the truth. Rusty waited, because this wasn’t over.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to have made some deal with him to marry you and you’ll end it when all is said and done.”
“That does sound like me.” Rusty knew better than to bluster or argue.
Her retort only earned her a glare. “I don’t need your sass, young lady.”
“That wasn’t sass, sir. I was agreeing with you.”
“This is serious business.”
“I agree.” Now she scowled. “When you affect my husband’s business, I take that very seriously. What I can’t understand is why?”
“Call it a demonstration.”
Dread sank into her stomach to mix with the anger and frustration already rolling around in there. “To prove what?”
He shrugged. “What’s at stake.”
Here it came. “What new scheme have you cooked up?”
“Babies.”
Rusty sucked in a sharp breath. “Excuse me?” she said faintly.
“I’ve amended things so that everything goes to any children you and Will—and only Will as the father—should have together. It’ll go into a trust in their names.”
Holy shit. She had not been expecting this at all. A demand that she leave Will and marry who her father designated maybe, except he seemed perfectly happy with Will in the role. Or wanting that partnership for the ranch set up with himself instead of her. But babies? Damn.
“And if we don’t have children?”
He smirked. “Then everything goes to my original choice.”
God, his smug smile. “Is there a time limit on this deal?”
Knowing her father, no way was he leaving this up to her timing, not that she was going to have children with Will. The thought of carrying his child made her glow, but he’d already done too much for her. He might want her, maybe even love her, but he didn’t deserve to be forced into such a huge life decisions. A fake marriage was more than enough. Rusty clenched her fists at her sides as pain from that thought tore through her. In the last few weeks she’d let herself wish for a real marriage with Will—one that included family and love and children. A fantasy she’d hardly let herself believe.
Besides, one thing life had taught her was that she wasn’t enough. Not by herself. She hadn’t been enough for her father. Ever. Not as an heir, or a partner in the business, or really as his child. She hadn’t been enough for those other men who only wanted what she gave them access to. What if Will decided she wasn’t enough either? That would shatter her. She might put up a brave, spunky face to the world, but inside she was still that little girl who only knew rejection.
“You have six months from when the will goes into effect,” her father said.
“Some couples take years to get pregnant. Have you thought of that?”
Her father shrugged. “Not Walkers. And, given how many siblings Will has, not the Hills either.”
“That doesn’t automatically make me a baby factory, Dad.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t been trying already. I mentioned this to Will at the wedding.”
The entire world came to a screeching halt. Rusty wasn’t sure if silence could roar or if the blood was pounding so hard through her veins that she could hear the rush.
“Will knows?” she choked out.
“Of course. I told him I expected news of my first grandbaby before the year was out.”
Oh, God. Will had known all along, and he’d… Bile rose up Rusty’s throat at the thought of what they’d been doing the last few weeks. The slide of suspicion oozed through her, something she couldn’t ignore. Those special moments now tainted by the knowledge that it had all been a sham.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to speak with my husband.” She bit that last word out.
Rusty stalked from the room. The only thing keeping her from collapsing in a puddle of misery unable to breathe or think was anger. She held onto that anger with both hands, because the alternative devastation was something she couldn’t face.
At the top of the staircase, she turned right. Her room was the last one at the end of the hall. Inside, she found Will unpacking his things from the large suitcase they’d shared for the trip up.
He spared her a quick smiling glance before returning to his task. “How’d it go?” he asked.
Rusty stood in the doorway, shaking. “He wants us to have babies.”
His hands stopped moving as he absorbed that. Then he straightened, eyebrows sky high. “Really?”
She cocked her head. “I thought you already knew.”
Now those brows lowered in a frown. “Knew? How would I know that?”
He was going to lie to her face? “He said he told you at the wedding.”
Something in her tone must’ve alerted him, because Will put his hands on his hips and gave her face a closer look. “What’s going through your head right now?”
She pinched her lips closed, reluctant to voice her thoughts and have them confirmed. “Dad says he told you about wanting babies at the wedding.”
“Yeah? Some offhand comment I didn’t take seriously. So?”
“It’s part of his will. The ranch goes to our children, the first of which we have to have within six months of Dad…”
“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand round the back of his neck. “How could he—” Will broke off and jerked his gaze up to hers.
He stared at her for a long moment, seeming to assess her expression, the way she was holding herself so stiffly. “You think I knew?” he asked in a voice so quiet she had to strain to hear him.
“You just said you knew,” she pointed out.
Talking was getting difficult as her throat constricted around the words and the tears threatening.
“You think I made a move on you to get you pregnant?” He’d gone even quieter now and she didn’t like it.
Still, she tipped up her chin, refusing to back down, her hurt and anger and fear still too close to the surface to let her. He knew. He knew. She couldn’t get around that fact.
“You think I’d do something like that?”
Not until ten minutes ago. She never would’ve suspected, at least not since she’d got to know him and his family, but that was what made his move so brilliant. She hadn’t suspected.
“Wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“Dammit, Rusty.” He looked out the window, his jaw working.
She waited—for
him to deny it, for him to explain, for him to argue her out of the belief. Because if it wasn’t true, that was what he’d do. He cared for her, or so she’d recently started to believe. If that was real, he’d fight for her.
After what felt like a year of silence, he turned back to the suitcase. Only now, instead of unpacking, he started putting his stuff back in it and pulling out her things.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Leaving you.” He wouldn’t look at her.
Proof that she was right? Rusty sucked in a sharp breath as pain scissored through her. “I see. Got caught and now you’re giving up?”
That got him to look up, and she flinched at the anger in his eyes. She realized she’d never seen Will angry, truly angry… until now.
“You’ve made it impossible for me no matter what. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I fell in love with you and you just kicked that in my teeth.”
Rusty’s only recourse was denial. “Convenient to claim love now.”
A savage look crossed his features and she’d crossed some line she hadn’t realized existed.
“Send my things to me later.”
With that he abandoned the suitcase, stalked past her, out of the door and out of her life.
Rusty shut her eyes tight, frozen by confusion, and fear, and pure pain. He hated her. She’d done that. She’d pushed him over some edge.
The sound of his truck starting up had her running to the window to see him flying down the dirt road that led off the ranch.
Chapter Fourteen
Will drove without much thought as to the where, angrier than he ever remembered being. Luckily, this far out, the road was a fairly simple straight shot for a while, allowing him to just go. Deliberately, he held onto his anger, because it was the only thing between him and what he suspected would be gut-wrenching misery because he’d lost her.
Hell, he’d never had her.
But until this moment, he’d allowed himself to hope. Especially the last few weeks. She’d opened up to him—not just giving her body, but he hadn’t caught a single look of suspicion or wariness in her big brown eyes, and she’d seemed to settle more in with his family.
He’d been wrong.
Because no way could someone who’d learned to trust him ever think he’d do what she suspected.
Will slammed a hand into the steering wheel.
Rusty’d actually thought he’d try to get her pregnant to get his hands on Rising Star? After everything he’d tried to show her, be to her, the betrayal went soul-deep. And damn her father for breaking her spirit in such a way she’d ever have to wonder those kinds of thoughts.
I’m done.
Will clenched his jaw so tightly, pain radiated up his skull. The problem was, if he let himself continue, she’d only smash his heart. He loved her. He suspected he’d loved her since the day he met her, though that still seemed ridiculous. No matter when it started, he loved Rusty Walker Hill with every ounce of himself.
But he couldn’t fix her, and trying would break him.
Will drove without purpose for hours, finding himself back at the airport in Cheyenne. But he didn’t want to go home. Not yet. Not without her.
Will pulled into the parking garage and turned on his cell phone which he’d shut off. He refused to allow himself to acknowledge the disappointment that dropped into his stomach as zero messages from Rusty showed.
He searched for a number and dialed. When a female voice answered, he took a deep breath. “Do you have any rooms available?”
*
Rusty lay on her bed, staring out the window through which she’d watched the best man she ever knew walk out of her life.
Walk? Hell, he’d skidded out of her life, dirt flying from under his tires.
A soft rap at her door had her up. She sat and wiped an arm across her cheeks. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room, then opened the door. Given the tentative knock, she’d expected Doris. Instead she found her father standing there.
He straightened as she opened the door, then paused, searching her face with an intent gaze.
“Is it dinnertime?” she asked.
That could be the only reason for his bothering to disturb her.
“Will’s gone,” he said.
Rusty crossed her arms. “Are you asking or telling me?”
His craggy face pulled into a frown. “Both. I saw him leave.”
“Yes. I… ended it.”
That got his attention. Her father narrowed his eyes. “Ended it?”
“Yes. You were right, of course. Our marriage was one of convenience to get around your unreasonable need to control my life. I hope you’re happy, because now Rising Star will go to the man you selected and no longer be part of the Walker family.”
Rusty went to close her door, but her father put out a hand stopping her.
Again, he searched her face for a long time. At least she assumed he did. She refused to look at him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry,” he said.
She shrugged, still refusing to look up.
“Not even when Midnight threw you and you broke your arm.”
She gritted her teeth. A walk down memory lane was not what she was in the mood for right now.
“Not even when your brother died.” This he said softly.
She pulled her gaze up. “Oh, I cried. But Reed made me promise once, when I was young, that I’d never cry in front of you.”
For the first time ever, she had the satisfaction of seeing her father flinch. But she was too heartbroken to care. She went to shut the door again, but again he stopped her.
“I know I made mistakes as your father.”
Shock held her immobile.
“I had no idea how to raise a girl without your mother. Then your brother died, and I was…” He shook his head. “Not that it’s an excuse.”
She didn’t say anything. What could she say?
“Then my body went against me with this damn cancer, and all I could see was that you were alone. That I was leaving you without anyone to care for you or help you.”
“The staff and hands are all well trained, Dad. I’d have plenty of help.”
He scowled, finally looking more like her father. “Shut up and listen for a minute, girl.”
Rusty crossed her arms, and stared back at him, muscles so tense she was on the edge of shaking.
Garrett Walker ran a hand through white hair that she could now see had thinned significantly since the last time she saw him. “I know what it’s like to spend your life surrounded by other people, and still be completely alone. After your mother died…” He shook his head. “She left a hole in my life that no one and nothing, not even this ranch, could fill.”
Except I was here. If he would’ve let her in. But damned if she’d say that.
“I made my own bed, especially with my children,” he said, almost as though he’d read her mind. “And I have to deal with that. But I figured I could go to my grave easier if I thought I’d taken care of you.”
“By taking away my home?” she snapped.
“This ranch is no place to find love. You have to find it out in the world. You’re a Walker—stubborn to the end—my goal was to either make you finally go looking, or send you off into the world after I was gone, where you could find someone on your own time. Either way, you wouldn’t end up like your old man.” He ended the last on a gruff note.
“And the babies?”
His lips went flat. “A dumbass idea to make sure I’d done the right thing with you and Will,” he muttered. “No way would you have babies if you didn’t love him.”
Oh. Much of the anger went out of her. Still, why was he bothering to tell her now?
He let out a long breath. “I can see that you love Will. Or you wouldn’t be crying.”
Rusty shook her head. “I just told you our marriage was a sham.”
“Then why the tears?” he asked.
“Obviously I’m upset
about losing Rising Star. I love this place.”
He snorted. “Of course you do. You’re my daughter. But those tears aren’t for the ranch, and don’t lie to me.”
Now here was the man she knew. “So what if I do,” she snapped. “He’s gone now.”
Then she sucked in a sharp breath. I love Will.
But of course she did. Some part of her had always known that, or she would never have said yes when he proposed. Not even to keep Rising Star. She closed her eyes as anguish welled up inside her. Now she’d lost him forever with her horrible suspicions and accusations. Of course Will hadn’t played her. He was not that kind of man.
“So what are you going to do about his leaving?”
She snapped her eyes open at her father’s question. “What?”
“No child of mine ever quit anything,” he snapped. “Are you going to quit now? Just because it’s hard?”
She blinked. “What about the ranch?”
He waved a hand. “Don’t you worry about the ranch. It’s yours no matter what. You just go get him back.” Then he paused. “If… if that’s what would make you happy.”
Rusty stared at her father, seeing him a little more clearly for perhaps the first time in her life. He wasn’t a monster, no matter how controlling an ass he could be. Had he only been trying to make sure he left her cared for?
Suspicion still roiled inside her. Too many years with his manipulative machinations didn’t make that go away after one conversation, but she didn’t voice her doubts. She’d rather believe the better of him in these last weeks and months of his life. Maybe even make amends for her own stubborn part to play. He was her father after all, and her only remaining living relative.
“I don’t even know where Will went,” she mumbled.
A sneaky grin snuck across his face. “I can help with that. Come on.”
He led her back downstairs to his office where he punched something up on the computer. “Will took the truck I had Dave pick you up in.”
“So?”
“I put a GPS tracking device in all the ranch vehicles, so I can check that people are doing their work.”