“Your father worked hard to make that ranch a success, as did his father before that and his father before that. He only loved one thing more. Your mother. That’s why he changed the name to the Triple A – after your mother. The proceeds from that ranch got you where you are today.”
Edgar sniffed. “I know all this. You don’t need to tell me.”
“Apparently, I do. That land is the legacy our families have to give these children … your grandchildren. Your family started that ranch about the same time mine started ours. It’s important to both of us to keep that. Maybe if you get lucky, one of these babies will want to be a lawyer.” Amy Rose would probably kill him for saying that, but who knew what the future held.
Edgar turned to stare off across the skyline. “She turned away.”
“She went another path like you did from your rancher father.”
Edgar turned back and glared at him. “Not the same.”
“Yes. It was.” Jess shifted in his seat. “You are a brilliant, successful lawyer. You should be able to roll with the change in plans and come up with something else to your advantage. It’s what you do and you’re good at it.”
Edgar pursed his lips. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d have your assistant call the insurance company and get this claim moving.” He slipped a piece of paper from his pocket with the phone number and claim number. “It’s not good for Amy Rose to be so worried about something when she’s got bigger things to deal with.”
Edgar took the slip of paper. “She’s all right?”
“A tad too much morning sickness, but everything looks good so far.”
“If she needs anything…”
Jess interrupted him. “I have everything covered.” He rose.
Edgar did too, obviously irritated at Jess for ending the conversation when that was usually his role as the premier lawyer.
Jess adjusted his suit jacket. “My phone number is on that paper, too. Let me know when you decide about the land, will you?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Jess offered his hand and held his breath. In the past, Edgar would have turned his back and walked off. To his surprise, he didn’t.
Edgar returned the handshake and even walked him to the door.
Jess paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Edgar, Amy Rose did everything you ever asked of her. She almost destroyed us to make you happy. I think she should get credit for that, if you’re keeping a ledger.”
Edgar didn’t answer him, so Jess left without looking back. The door to the inner sanctum clicked shut. Out by the elevator, he heaved a huge sigh. Well, it would either work or it wouldn’t. The decision was up to Edgar now.
He got on the elevator and glanced at his watch. Still time to meet with the architect to discuss drawing up plans for a new house on that property. Then he’d go home and tell Amy Rose what he’d done.
He probably should stop for flowers and triple fudge ice cream.
∞∞∞∞
Five days later, Kendra left the Low Down and drove home, ready for about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. Traffic was light, which was good because she was preoccupied as hell. She hadn’t heard from Shane. No phone calls. No text messages. No in person visits. Yet, she was surrounded by him.
Coming home a few days earlier to a clean house and Shane’s flowers and note had caused another crying jag. He’d taken special care of her baking pans, cleaning and putting them away how she liked them. His note was pinned to her refrigerator because she couldn’t bear to throw it away.
Yesterday, her lawn had been mowed. She didn’t need to call her NASA rocket scientist uncle to figure out who had done it.
Honestly, she didn’t know what to do. She’d expected him to come to see her and argue with her, try to convince her, to do something. After all, he’d said he wasn’t giving up. All this here, then disappear crap was making her crazy. She had no idea how she felt or what she expected him to do, but she couldn’t go on like this. She’d made two separate desserts wrong this morning and had to start over. There were three pink roses in the vase now, and they smelled like heaven with Shane. She still wasn’t sleeping.
Could she figure out how to forgive him for lying to her? Had he lied to her on purpose? Yes. But the why of it still eluded her. In her father’s case, he’d lied to keep from going to jail with no regard for who he lied to. But for Shane, there was no reason. The assumptions he made about how she’d feel had more to do with how he perceived what had happened to him.
She turned into her driveway and stopped.
On the front porch was a brown stone cowboy boot with pink flowers spilling from the top.
“That does it.” She backed back out and turned the opposite direction, a surge or irritation prodding her awake. Retracing her drive to the O’Hare Ranch wasn’t difficult. She turned into the long drive and saw a truck by the barn. Not Shane’s, though.
She didn’t give herself time to think. She drove right down to the barn and parked. The main barn doors were wide open. She gathered her nerve and got out of the car. At the doorway, she paused a moment to let her eyes adjust. Jess was brushing a sable brown horse who stared at her with big, soulful eyes. Her muscles froze.
“Kendra?”
She swallowed hard and forced herself to shove the inertia aside. She stepped into the dime interior of the barn, but kept her distance from the horse. “Where is he?”
“Shane?”
She clenched her teeth on a sarcastic answer. “Yes. Shane.”
“Uh, he’s out checking fences with my dad.”
“Fine.” She turned to leave.
“You want to wait? I can text him and have him come in.”
She stopped and turned back to Jess. “What I want….” Her voice wobbled and to her mortification she burst into tears.
Jess proved his worth. He stepped to her and pulled her into a loose hug. “Hey, there. It’s not that bad. May take Shane a bit to figure out how to fix things with you, but he will. He loves you.”
She eased out of Jess’s arms. “I am so sorry.” She dug for a tissue in her jeans pocket. How telling was it that one was there for her to use?
Jess eyes filled with sympathy and a bit of something she thought was anger. “I can beat him up for you.”
“What?”
Jess patted her shoulder. “That’s how I usually solve my problems with him. I could be your champion.”
Kendra giggled softly. “No, I think I better pass on that.”
“Darn.” Jess walked to the worktable, picked up his phone and sent a text.
Kendra pointed at the white bandage on his hand. “What happened?”
“Caught some old fencing this morning and cut my hand open.” He walked back to her. “That is why Shane is here and not at your house. He’s helping fix a section that is down. Cattle are taking an unauthorized walk through the neighbor’s land.”
“Oh.” Now she really did feel silly.
Jess’s phone went off and he glanced at the readout. “Shane was already on his way back. Be here in five.”
Kendra took a tattered breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m still so mad at him.”
“He screwed up. Sometimes you have to work through those screw ups to find your way again. Doesn’t mean you can’t be mad at the same time.”
“You and Amy Rose take lessons in giving advice?”
His brows rose. “Amy Rose?”
“Yeah, she and I had lunch a few days ago. She told me I needed to analyze the intent behind the lie. That she didn’t think Shane meant to hurt me.” She took a step closer to the horse, determined to get past the final part of the phobia from her accident.
“Well, I think that’s true enough. All this business with his last rodeo ride.” Jess hesitated.
She rushed to reassure him. “He told me about the rodeo clown.”
Jess shook his head. “He told you his
version. Amy Rose did a bunch of research and made some phone calls about the mess and confronted him the other night. The actual truth from the rodeo association’s accident report was wrong place, wrong time, complete accident. Not Shane’s fault.”
“Did he accept that?”
“Not so you’d notice.” Jess patted the horses flank. “This lady is Diamond Blue. Amy Rose calls her Daisy. Would you like to come closer and met her?”
Kendra was quiet for a minute and shook her head. “Not today. Soon. But not today. I had an accident in high school.”
“Shane told me about that awhile back. Horse. Car.”
She nodded. “Yeah, my best friend died. Police said freak accident. Took me a long time to sort it all out.”
“So you understand where he’s coming from?”
“Mostly.”
“So that means you could also understand why he’d lie about it?”
Kendra drew in a noisy breath. “Not so much.”
“Never noted lying as one of Shane’s character flaws. He’s stubborn, hard-headed and tends to think he’s right all the time, but lying. Never would have predicted this.”
“Doesn’t change it.”
“Nope. But they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
She snorted. “Wow, you have a way with words. I’m going to paste that on my bathroom mirror. Ever feel like you are up to bat, two strikes and everything is riding on your next swing?”
Jess started laughing and couldn’t stop. “Daily. Hourly. Every minute. Every breath. I just found out I’m going to be the father of triplets. A little over a month ago, Amy Rose was in Dallas at her parents’. Three years of a relationship was in a total mess from an ugly argument and I was dying because I thought I’d lost her. I’ve been in love with her since high school. I’ve been where you’re standing.”
“So what would you tell me to do?”
“Swing. If I bet on Shane, which I would, it’ll be a home run.”
∞∞∞ ∞∞∞
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Shane drove his truck across the field to get to the dirt road that would take him back to the barn.
“You want to slow down a tad. The potholes out here are murder.” His father gripped the hand rest.
“I’m afraid she’ll leave.”
“Trust your brother. He’ll keep her there. Now slow down before you kill us both. Don’t know how I’d explain that to your mother.”
Shane took his foot off the gas, but everything in him rebelled. “What if she won’t listen to me?”
“She’s at the barn, isn’t she? She came to you.”
He turned the truck onto the road and sped up. His father sighed, but Shane didn’t slow down. “Where do I start?”
His dad snorted. “Where every man who’s in the doghouse with a woman has to start. I’m sorry.”
“I already said that.”
“Say it again and again and probably again. You figure out this Bill Fudd problem in your head?”
“My head understands what y’all are saying, but my gut is telling me different.”
“Doesn’t matter. You did the right thing by the man. Now do the right thing with Kendra. Don’t pretend to be squared away. Don’t pretend anything. You aren’t perfect, Shane. Nobody is. Your girl doesn’t expect you to be perfect. She wants you to be honest and loving and there for her. Be who you are. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Finding the way with a woman is a lot of work.”
“But, it’s worth it, right Dad?”
“I’d walk on hot coals for your mother and every morning I wake up with her hand in mine, I’m happy. So yes.”
He pulled up to the pasture exit and his dad got out and opened the metal gate. He drove through onto the public road and waited for his dad to get back in the truck. Two more minutes and he was turning down the front driveway. Kendra’s car was parked next to Jess’s truck.
A bit of tension released. She hadn’t left and she’d come to him. Not the way he’d planned it, but he’d take it. Now he had to focus on saying the right things.
He jerked the truck to a halt and ignored his father’s swear words. He flew out of the truck to the barn door.
Kendra was standing by Diamond Blue and petting her nose, with Jess hovering close by.
His heart tightened, hope trying to get in. “Kendra?”
She turned and glared at him. “I am so mad at you. You’re making me crazy.” She dropped her hand and walked toward him. “What are you doing?”
Jess undid the horse’s tether. “I think I’m going to put this girl in the pasture and go have lunch with my wife.”
Shane didn’t acknowledge Jess’s comment. He was too busy checking Kendra from head to toe. She wore an old pair of jeans with torn knees, a threadbare gray Houston Texans shirt and her ratty running shoes. Her hair was in a tight pony-tail. She had black circles under her eyes and they were spitting fire at him. God, he loved her!
He walked to her and was gratified that she didn’t move away. “I thought I was helping out, taking a few things off your to do list, and reminding you that I’m here.”
She crossed her arms and lowered her voice, hissing at him through her teeth. “Anything wrong with calling me up and saying Kendra, let’s talk?”
He took her hand, noted the trembling and struggled with the words. “What am I going to say that’s going to make this better, honey? What do you need to hear? I’m sorry.”
She shook off his touch and walked to her car.
His heart nose-dived.
She stopped and leaned against the trunk. “What I don’t understand, Shane, is how you couldn’t trust me? Oh, I get maybe not at first, but by the time we slept together and I told you about my father? What was to be gained by waiting?”
Shane watched his father go in the backdoor of the house, followed by Jess. He shifted his gaze back to the deep confusion in her green eyes and refused to fall into the despair that was pooling in his chest. “I wasn’t waiting. There didn’t seem to be any good time to tell you and any details were eventually going to lead to my past and God, that’s a quagmire.”
“Only if you make it one. Jess told me about the accident report. It wasn’t your fault.”
“First, I haven’t made peace with the fact that I knew there was something off with that horse, knew it and ignored it. Whether anyone would have listened to me or whether it would have changed anything, I don’t know. I didn’t try, Kennie. Besides that, I didn’t know all that when our relationship started.”
“All right. I guess I can see that.”
“Come with me. Please.” He put out his hand and hoped harder than he ever had.
She finally reached for his fingers, lacing hers through his. “Where are we going?”
He led her to the gate and ushered her through. “Across this pasture. I want to show you something. Watch your step.” She tightened her grip.
“I feel like I don’t know you.” Her hand swept the scene in front of her. “This is a whole part of you that you hid. That makes me wonder what else there is that you aren’t telling me. I don’t do well with surprises anymore.”
“What can I say that you’ll believe? I think the only thing that’s going to cure the trust issue is spending more time together so you can see there is nothing else.” He stopped and turned her to him. “I’m sorry. God, don’t you know if I could take it back and do things the right way, I would?”
“I thought we were building something, Shane. Can you understand that? It’s like you plowed through all those building blocks and they are kindling on the ground.”
He couldn’t stand the pain in her eyes or knowing he was the one who’d put the look there. He gazed off across the pasture. “I know. I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I thought out and did on purpose. It built on itself and I didn’t know how to get back out of it without hurting you like I did. The more I waited, the more in love with you I was…”
“No, Shane, that’s not―”
He turned her to him, hating the tears in her eyes. “Yes, Kendra. That’s what this is about. I love you and I know what you’re going to say, have already said. People who love each other don’t lie. I agree. Don’t you think I know how wrong I was?”
“Wrong or not, it’s done. It should be over. I shouldn’t be here.” She stopped and studied the land.
His hope fell into the pit of regrets stacked up in the raw twisting gnaw of his gut. “I missed you.”
She bit her lip and started across the field.
He took a ragged breath and followed a few steps behind until they came to a sprawling oak tree. The leaves were drooping from lack of water and clung with their last tendrils of might. The long hot summer continued to hammer on all the vegetation.
Kendra had a dab of perspiration at her temples from the hot mid-morning sun and he wished he’d thought to bring water.
“What did you want to show me?”
“Over there. See them?” She followed his point to the three stallions mulling around the water trough. “The gold one with the star on his forehead?”
She raised her hand to shield her eyes. “Yeah, I see him.”
“His name is Goldie. He has a more pretentious name than that, but he was Bill’s horse. After Bill got hurt, his sister couldn’t take care of Goldie anymore and the horse wouldn’t let anyone else near him. He and Bill grew up together.”
“So you took him?”
“Yeah. Gonna make friends with that horse one of these days. Like I’m going to make friends again with you.”
“Friends have talk to each other, trust each other with good and bad.”
“Friends forgive too, Kendra. I need you to give me a chance to earn that forgiveness.”
“How?”
“I was going to see Bill on Sunday. It’s his birthday. I thought I’d take Goldie with me and see if we can give the two a chance to see each other.”
Kendra peered at him, a teasing smile spreading across her face. “I suppose you want a cake, too.”
“Well that would be a bonus, but I was hoping you’d go with me.”
She sputtered in surprise. “Why?”
Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars Page 42