The Cowboy's Promise: Love Triangle Billionaire Romance (The Wentworth Cowboy Billionaire Series)

by Elizabeth Grey

  I waddled into the house, shouting, “Anyone around? Hello?” I set the flowers on the half-moon table and dried my hands on my jeans.

  Leah stuck her head out from the hallway. “Miss Wentworth?”

  “Oh, Leah, could you do me a favor? There’s a delivery driver outside. Could you give him a tip?” I patted my pockets. “I don’t have any cash. I don’t know if my dad has a stash somewhere?”

  “We have petty cash. I’ll go grab some.”

  I examined the flowers again, noting the intentional design of the golden flowers offset by a subtle black bow around the base to mimic the ranch colors. I carefully extracted the plastic stem holding the card, expecting to see that they’d been sent by Hailey or Sam. But when I turned the tiny piece of cardstock over, the message shot a spike of pain straight through my heart.

  I wish you the world. – W. B.

  I took the flowers to my bedroom before anyone else could see. I set them on top of the low bookshelf by the window to give them plenty of sun. But deep down, part of me wanted to throw them away or banish them to some unused corner of the house. I didn’t think I had the strength to watch them wither and die.

  Chapter 23

  I woke from a fitful sleep with a pounding headache. I’d just had the strangest nightmare of wandering the ranch at night, the cattle and the horses roaming unchecked across the land. Whenever I tried to chase one, it felt like I was sinking into the dirt, my motions sluggish and slow.

  There were people around, too, though I couldn’t hear their voices or see their faces. When I tried to speak, nothing came out. But they were there, eyes gleaming as they watched me struggle. I couldn’t shake that feeling of not being able to tell friend from foe.

  I sat up and checked my phone, ignoring the random emails and text messages. None of them was so dire that it couldn’t wait until I was more coherent. Most of my interactions these days were on behalf of the ranch or maintaining arm’s-distance friendships with the occasional funny story.

  Maybe my nightmare hadn’t been so far off from real life. There was so much posturing and maneuvering in this place. How could we ever truly know each other when we were always waiting to get stabbed in the back?

  The paranoia didn’t end with my family, either. The cowboys were perpetually vying for better assignments or to move up into one of the middle management positions. The difference was that they had a place to relax and be themselves. When they got home at night, whether they lived on the ranch or out in town with a family, they could take off the mask for a little while.

  I didn’t have that luxury. And the more I thought about it, I’d never have it again if I let Dad control my life with his constant threats to withdraw his support at the first sign of a misstep. I’d always be on display, this carefully designed cowgirl doll for him to parade around.

  Will had hit the nail on the head. This wasn’t about gaining control of the ranch or getting my father’s seal of approval. It was about respect. That was what Mom had wanted for me, not the wealth or the prestige of being in charge. I finally understood.

  And if I wanted Dad to respect me, I had to show him that I respected myself. Even if it completely backfired, I couldn’t let this linger between us any longer. I’d been so determined to win my father’s game that I didn’t recognize the victory in refusing to play at all.

  It was too early for him to be awake, and I didn’t want to risk his health by rousing him. Instead, I dressed in my raggedy old college sweatshirt and a pair of athletic shorts, then sat cross-legged on my bed with my laptop to work on an idea so ridiculous that Dad would probably throw me out.

  After about an hour, I tucked the computer under my arm and ventured out of my room. The new house was wholly unfamiliar to me, and I’d never had a reason to poke around the staff kitchen, but I figured out where Brian stored most of his supplies. Finding ingredients was another story. It took me almost five minutes to open the pantry after running my hands over what seemed to be a solid wall. It was only when I shoved it in frustration that I discovered it recessed on a track and slid away.

  “This is stupid,” I muttered to myself, though I didn’t stop as I arranged various items on the island and dug for mixing bowls. “Why are there so many kinds of flour?” Fumbling aside, it was actually fun to be cooking for myself again.

  Brian walked in just after dawn, each of us jolting at the sight of the other. I pressed a hand to my chest to still my panicked heart as I leaned against the counter. “You scared the daylights out of me,” I admonished.

  “I scared you?” He hung up his jacket on a hook in the corner and donned an apron. “This is my kitchen.” He peered at the empty pan on the stove. “What are you doing? You know that I still leave meals in the fridge for the family, right?”

  “I wanted to make breakfast myself this morning.” The idea sounded sillier out loud.

  He shrugged and pulled back a chair from the small table that the staff used on their breaks. “I’m not going to stop you from doing my job. I’ll just quietly judge you from afar.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  Other people might have been nervous about cooking in front of a world-class chef, but I didn’t care about Brian’s periodic heckling. He was one of the few people who’d always been kind to me just for the sake of it without expecting anything in return. “What do you think of my father?” I asked suddenly as I waited for my latest misshapen pancake to brown. I certainly couldn’t understand Dad; maybe someone else did.

  Brian chuckled. “I think your father signs my very generous paycheck.”

  “Don’t I technically also sign your paycheck now?”

  “Good point.” He folded his arms. “But I’m still not getting involved. Never have, never will. You know my rules.”

  “I’ll rephrase. Do you think it’s actually possible to change someone’s mind when they’re pretty convinced about something?”

  Brian joined me at the counter to start brewing coffee. “I think you can change someone’s mind if they want to change. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your breath.”

  His answer was, unfortunately, the exact same thing that I’d already been thinking. If Dad was too set in his ways to hear me out, then there was no forcing a reconciliation between us. I couldn’t make him respect me.

  But I’d already tried every other tactic without any success. When I was on my best behavior, doing whatever I could to please him, he just found something new to criticize. When I rebelled entirely, he used it as proof that I couldn’t be responsible. The only path forward was to reject his opinion entirely and follow my own heart. “I wish we could have a normal family,” I mused as I wedged the spatula underneath a stubborn pancake. “No drama.”

  “There’s drama in every family.”

  “Yeah, but not to this level. I remember listening to the stories my friends told in school. It didn’t sound anything like our family.” True, we also lived in a mansion and owned the ranch while they’d gone home to modest middle-class backgrounds. But some of it was also due to their parents’ personalities. The money didn’t absolve Dad.

  “I’ll make some sides,” Brian said as he watched me wrap up the last of the stack.

  None of us ate much at breakfast, so I figured that was Brian’s delicate way of changing the subject. “Sounds good.”

  Together, we carried the various plates and bottles of syrup upstairs just in time for breakfast. Like clockwork, Dad and Beth arrived at 8 o’clock, looking perplexed to see me early for once. Or maybe it was because I was basically wearing pajamas. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” Dad raised a brow. “You’re… What are you doing?”

  “I made breakfast.”

  Beth started to object about the healthiness of chocolate chip pancakes, which Brian took as his cue to abandon me. “It’s very thoughtful, but your father shouldn’t be eating junk.”

  Dad apparently disagreed since he’d already piled three pancakes on his plate. “It’s fine,”
he said. “I won’t die from one meal.”

  I took the same size helping and slathered the whole stack with syrup that Brian ordered from a mom-and-pop company in Vermont. As a kid, he used to make candy with it around the holidays and leave batches for us to sneak at night. Just the scent of it made me think of Christmas and Mom making brown sugar cookies glazed with syrup. “I should have asked Mom to write down that maple cookie recipe,” I whispered, more to myself than to Dad.

  He nodded. “They were good cookies.”

  While we ate, I kept rehearsing what I was going to say until the words were a jumbled mess in my mind. I prodded the pancakes with my fork. “To be honest, I didn’t do all this just to make you a nice breakfast.” I leaned back in my chair and locked eyes with Dad. “We haven’t been close since I left for college. You don’t really know anything about me.”

  Dad froze, a morsel of food halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean? I raised you.”

  “You raised me as a child, but I’m not a child anymore.”

  “You’re my child. That doesn’t change just because you get older.”

  I set down my utensils and took a sip of coffee to cool my nerves. “It’s not a matter of age. It’s the fact that I’m different now than before. And you’ve never gotten to know the adult me. The real me.” Sure, he’d come to visit in Boston once or twice, but that wasn’t the same as taking the time to learn about my interests and priorities. He didn’t care about what made me tick, not like he did with Zane and Daniel.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His tone was sharp, the first warning that his patience was growing thin.

  “I made these pancakes for a reason. I ate them in New York every single Monday because it was the most stressful day of my week. I wanted to start out with something that made me happy.” I pinched the collar of my tattered sweatshirt with the old pizza sauce stains from late-night cram sessions at college. “This is my favorite article of clothing in the whole world, closely followed by these shorts. The ultimate study outfit.”

  My father closed his eyes and let out a soft groan. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “I’m saying that you make all of these judgments about me without even knowing who I am. These basic things. What I like to eat. My favorite clothes.” I lifted my laptop onto the table and clicked over to the slideshow I’d made. “Look at this.” I clicked through a series of family photos taken in the years before and after Mom’s death.

  “Yes, I know what my children and my late wife look like.”

  I held my hand underneath our faces for emphasis. “But where are you?” Nowhere. At some meeting or conference, too buried in his phone to come to my law school graduation or visit me in the hospital when my gallbladder decided to mutiny. “Everyone else was there to support me. Everyone else cheered me on. You didn’t because you had Zane and Daniel. You thought they’d be enough, right? Who cares about the third kid?”

  Dad tried to close the laptop but I pulled it back. Beth had the good sense to remain silent. “That’s enough,” Dad snarled. “I’m not going to be accused of poor parenting when you had everything you wanted.”

  “But what about what I needed?” I shouted, tears flowing from my eyes. I kept clicking, showing dozens of pictures that highlighted his absence. “You act like I’m not enough. You put me down. How can you criticize a stranger? Don’t you see?”

  He fell silent, fury etched across his features. I cut him off before he could interrupt. I would not be yelled over again. “Dad, I’m not saying this to hurt you, but haven’t you noticed that Daniel and Zane aren’t here? You expect them to be perfect, so they feel like they’re always falling short. You expect me to be a failure and I feel like I can never escape. We just want you to love us. We don’t need a… manager.”

  “We can talk about this later,” Dad said. “It’s too early for nonsense.”

  I slammed a fist on the table hard enough to rattle the glassware. “No, Dad. It’s not nonsense. That’s my whole point.” I hit a key on my laptop to put the slideshow back on. “You won’t be here for me and you won’t let me have anyone else. It’s like you want me to be miserable and alone just like Mom.”

  “Don’t rewrite history. Your mother had a wonderful life. I gave her everything.”

  “You gave her nothing!” I stabbed a finger in the direction of the library. “And if you look through those records, you’ll see how many times she saved this ranch and your reputation when you were hemorrhaging money. And all you could do was treat her like a stupid decoration, a silly woman only good for embroidery and getting pregnant. She never felt like you loved her.”

  Maybe Dad heard the kernel of truth in it or maybe he was waiting for Beth to defend him. Either way, he seemed thrown off by the accusation. “Well, she isn’t here to tell me that, and she never told me while she was alive. I can’t just take your word for it.”

  “She told you every single day. You just weren’t listening. You pushed her aside, and when she was dying, all that she could do was tell me that she wished you could have loved her.” Tears sprang from my eyes like a river bursting a dam. It was so sudden, a spike of my pain through my heart that sank into the very core of my being. I sobbed into my napkin, the noise hideous and horrible even to my own ears.

  I let out over three decades of resentment and anger and the slow rot of not being enough. Dad had never dreamed of giving me this ranch; I was just a convenient placeholder until I had a male child or one of Zane’s sons took over. He would pass down his poisonous ideas, not only about what women could do, but also about the Blythes. “And you won’t let me be loved, either. You just hate Will for his blood, even though he can’t stand his father. He agrees with you that Jacob Blythe is horrible and you still can’t give him a chance.”

  At least Will and his siblings were more accepting of me or actively rebelling against their father like Bella had done. They weren’t just hovering in the ego and the toxicity of their father waiting for some hint of affection. What was I doing from our end to finish the war between our households? Nothing. Because I was a coward.

  “You know what?” I stood and set my laptop on the side table. “I watched Mom spend her whole life trying to make you love her. I’m not going to make the same mistake. So, Dad, I appreciate the vote of confidence in you signing me over the ranch. But it was a choice of last resort.”

  When he attempted to speak, I simply raised my voice. If I didn’t get it out now, I wasn’t ever going to. “You don’t care about me or my happiness. You never wanted to know me. You don’t love me. I’m not worthy. But you know who does care about me? Will Blythe. I love him. And I want you to be a part of my life and maybe even escort me down the aisle someday, but either way, I’ll be walking towards Will. I’ll crawl if I have to. For Will. And if you don’t like that, then I guess I’m not a Wentworth anymore.”

  I kissed his cheek as he sat there stunned and silent.

  And I walked out the front door.

  Chapter 24

  I borrowed my father’s SUV and drove out to Will’s trailer. When I pulled up, I was concerned to see that the door had been left open. I approached cautiously, wishing I’d thought to grab the tire iron out of the back in case it was a burglar. I’d always known there was some crime in the area, but the incident with Crystal had certainly left me skittish. “Hello?”

  Bella’s head appeared. “Sky? What are you doing here?” She looked towards the far end of the trailer where Will’s bedroom was. “Did Will know you were coming over?”

  I was a bit taken aback by the barrage of questions. “Um, no, I didn’t call. I just know it’s his day off. I was hoping we could talk.”

  “Like, talk?” She gave me a pointed stare that suggested she knew about how I’d left things with Will.

  “I guess?” I shrugged, jamming my hands into the back pockets of my jeans to keep from fidgeting too much under her scrutiny.

  Bella stepped down to ground level, clo
sing the door quietly behind her. “I know that it’s none of my business, but I can’t just pretend that everything is fine. You’ve been stringing my brother along for years. How many times are you going to break his heart?”

  As much as I wanted to object to Bella scolding me, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. She’d had the courage that I lacked at her age. She was willing to break ties with her father and turn her back on the wealth of her name. I admired her. “You’re completely right, Bella. I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

  “You just both make me want to scream with the way you act towards each other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our families are horrible, and you let them spoil everything. Still. Even now.” She scanned the land around us. “Maybe one day all of us Blythes and Wentworths will get over ourselves, but I’m willing to bet it’s not today.”

  I didn’t quite understand what she meant by that, but I couldn’t ask for clarification. She was already walking off towards the pole barn, her hand reaching up to slap the rear window. “Will! Sky is here!”

  I chuckled at the resulting sound of him banging around, probably trying to get his boots on if I knew him at all. He appeared a moment later, his hair still wet from a shower. He blinked at me for a moment like I might be a mirage. “Sky? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. And no.” This awkwardness between us was both familiar and foreign. I yearned to just leap into his arms and taste his lips, to show him rather than tell him how sorry I was for the pain I’d caused.

  Will stayed a few steps back, arms folded. Closed. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

  “I’m sorry for running away.” Any words that came to mind felt too cheap for the time I’d wasted. If I’d have even one speck of courage when we were younger, I would have stood up to my father. I would have seen that the ranch wasn’t worth a loveless life. It wasn’t worth this agony at the thought of losing Will. “I’m sorry for all of it.” My voice hitched in my throat. I blinked away the burning in my eyes, determined not to cry. “You must hate me.”