The Maverick Meets His Match

by Anne Carrole

  That used to be me. Trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

  Now Ty wore the clothes of a rancher and a cowboy, and few would be able to tell by looking at him if he was the owner or a hand. And in the community he now inhabited, it didn’t matter. What mattered was character, hard work, and grit, and Ty found he enjoyed that yardstick better than the size of his bank account.

  “So what have you come to me for, Ty?”

  Ty wished he knew. “Support, maybe.”

  “You have it.” Removing his glasses, Brian leaned forward. “But it’s not my support you want, is it?”

  Ty’s stomach soured. He slumped into the chair in front of Brian’s desk. “So how do I convince Mandy that it is the right thing to do?”

  “That is a much harder issue.”

  Ty rubbed his hand across his face. “We’re trying to have a baby, you know.”

  Brian’s eyebrows arched. “No, I didn’t know. Are you saying that you two are intending to stay married?”

  Ty heaved a breath. He wished he could say that. It was what he’d been hoping for, planning on, dreaming about. But this offer would raze that hope like a giant wrecking ball.

  “No. I’m just the sperm donor.” That wrecking ball slammed right into his heart.

  “Your child would be quite well-off once this deal goes through.”

  “I would have made sure of that, regardless.”

  Brian nodded. “You planning on resuming your work with the land development company?”

  “I left the partnership about a month before JM passed.”

  Brian, being the lawyer he was and undoubtedly used to hearing family-type secrets, held his face expressionless except for the arched eyebrows. “I wondered how you could just take a leave of absence like that. So what will you do? This deal will enrich you too, though not to the same degree as Mandy.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you planning on getting Mandy and Tuck’s agreement to develop the ranch now that the business will be sold?”

  “That had been the plan once. It’s not now.”

  “You know it’s unlikely she’ll ever speak to you again. Awkward, seeing you two will parent a child together. Congratulations, by the way. I assume she’s pregnant by now.”

  Ty shook his head. He hadn’t even been able to give her that. He’d take everything from her and leave her with nothing. “No congratulations. She’s not pregnant, at least not yet that I know.”

  Brian harrumphed “Once you tell her you are selling her company, I’m pretty sure that will end any trying. But you’re within a few weeks of the end anyway.”

  Why did it feel like someone had taken an egg beater to his brain? He wanted to do the right thing—if he could just figure out what the hell that was. If it was up to him, he’d choose Mandy over anything else. But that was being selfish. That was making the decision with his heart, not his head, the very thing he’d been critical of others doing. The very thing he’d always been so proud of not doing.

  “So what’s next for you?”

  “Start my own development firm, I guess.” What had once been his dream seemed more like a jail sentence now. A sentence of isolation and separation from the woman he’d grown to love. With all his heart.

  “No interest in the rodeo stock business, huh?” Brian grinned as if sure of his answer.

  “Actually, I’ve enjoyed it.” A lot. “I can see why JM loved it.” And why Mandy does.

  “Really? I’d never take you for a man who worked with livestock.”

  Yet for the majority of Ty’s life, he’d been a ranch kid, working alongside his father and brother, scratching out a living.

  Ty thought of Trace, of what his brother had been going through these past years. Working hard and getting nowhere but still persisting. Because he loved it. Ty had never understood that type of drive. Now he did.

  “Me either,” Ty confessed.

  “You want me there? When you tell Mandy?”

  Ty nodded. She might be more controlled if there were other people around, though he doubted it. Still, it couldn’t hurt. “Can you do it this afternoon? Tucker’s at the ranch now. I’m sure I can track down Sheila and Harold. I know where Mandy is. We can meet in the library at the ranch house at say…two o’clock?”

  Brian glanced at his calendar. “I’ll move some things around and see you there.”

  Ty unfurled from the chair. His muscles stiff, his heart sore like it had been pummeled in a boxing match. “I just hope she doesn’t shoot me.”

  * * *

  Ty leaned against the doorjamb of what was to have been the baby’s room and stared at a barren crib set against the faded yellow walls. Here he was again, looking in at something that could never be his. He hadn’t been able to give her a baby or give himself a family. The crib was as empty as his life was about to become, made worse by the realization of how full it could have been. Like a tree being hollowed out by a swarm of termites, his life was being destroyed by events he could not control.

  When Mandy had agreed to extend their time together, he’d been certain he could make her happy. She’d be able to keep the company. He’d be able to give her a child. She already had claimed his heart and he hoped she’d see him as good enough to claim hers.

  Now, he would lose everything…and give her nothing. That crib and all it represented would be abandoned. Might never be filled…and certainly not by him.

  Empty crib, empty life, empty future.

  “No. No. No.” Mandy blasted out the one-syllable word like she was firing bullets.

  Ty could see the moisture collecting in her eyes, the horror on her face as she realized her dreams had died. And he had yielded the murder weapon.

  “Mandy, it’s a good offer.” But he knew the futility of those words.

  She rose from the overstuffed library chair and looked at her mother, Tucker, Harold, and Brian in turn, but not at Ty. “Don’t let him do this. Don’t let him destroy everything JM built. There must be some other way.”

  Her voice cracked. Her body visibly trembled with anger. Ty wished he could have spared her this. But that would have entailed breaking his promise to the old man—a man who had trusted him to make the hard decisions.

  When she finally turned her face toward him, it was blotched with red like someone had punched her. “All this time you made it seem like you were building Prescott into something with me. But you were just getting it fattened up so you could sell it. The AFBR…” She waved her arm. “The contract sweeteners, they were just to make it more attractive to a buyer. And you found him. The one you’ve been courting since day one—Stan Lassiter.” She practically growled out the name like a caged dog sighting the warden.

  “You’re a cold, calculating coward,” she seethed. “Afraid to give life a chance. I can hardly believe I wanted to have a child with you.”

  Tucker choked, Harold blew out a breath, and Sheila gasped, her expression torn between delight and sorrow at the realization it wouldn’t happen now.

  “How could you? After everything.” A sob escaped from Mandy and the chain her words had been wrapping around his heart tightened.

  She stalked across the oriental carpet toward the double French doors of the library. Reaching them, she yanked open the door. They weren’t done, but apparently Mandy was.

  She stopped, turned around. “You get your stuff and move out. Now,” she said, directing her comments at Ty.

  “If he does that, Mandy, the six-month deal is void,” Brian said.

  Though Ty knew this outcome was a possibility, he’d had a modicum of hope that Mandy would see reason once she heard the deal. But instead, this was it. The end.

  “It doesn’t matter now. He’s selling the damn place. Stan has the financing. I only agreed to this ludicrous arrangement to keep Prescott from being sold. If you tell me I can delay this deal a couple of weeks so I can turn it down, I’ll reconsider.”

  “Anything can happen.” Brian said. “But it’s un
likely.”

  “I hate you, Ty Martin,” she hissed. The doors slammed shut behind her.

  She had reached into the cavity holding his heart and pulled on that chain, ripping it from his body, leaving nothing but blood and guts.

  Chapter 22

  Mandy stared at the white plastic stick through watery eyes. Three other plastic sticks sat on the bathroom counter. They all said the same thing. She was pregnant. It should be the happiest moment of her life. It was certainly what she wanted. But the knowledge only deepened the pain of Ty’s betrayal.

  The man she’d now have to see for the rest of her life. At holidays. During summer vacations. On weekends. And at birthdays. The last thought lifted the corners of her mouth into a weak smile. Her child’s birthdays.

  Mandy sat on the lid of the toilet, trying to make sense of everything. Of the changes about to occur in her life. She would be a single mother. Raising the child on the ranch, in JM’s house. There would be no rodeos to gear up for. She wouldn’t have to be away from home on weekends, working from dawn to past midnight to set up and break down an event.

  Maybe things happened for a reason.

  She could take care of the baby. Take care of herself. And when the baby was a little older, she could start another rodeo company.

  But she could have raised the baby and still run Prescott. Especially if Ty had been by her side. If he had stayed. Been a husband to her.

  Only he’d had no intention of doing so even though he’d asked to extend their marriage. She’d been a fool to think there was any hope to do otherwise. To think he enjoyed running Prescott with her. Wanted to be married to her. Raise a family. A fool to think he had any real feelings for her. Like love.

  She had forgotten this was Ty Martin—businessman extraordinaire. All business. No pleasure. Well, that wasn’t totally true. There had been pleasure. At night, in his arms.

  How could a man make such intense love to her and not feel anything?

  And here she’d allowed hope to blossom when he’d said he wanted to stay with her longer. Wanted to stay at Prescott.

  And all the while he’d been scheming behind her back. Charging after the almighty dollar like it was his salvation.

  Grandfather, is this truly who you wanted me to marry?

  It was so unlike JM to be such a poor judge of character.

  I wish you had been right.

  She rose from the seat. Happy as she was with the result of the pregnancy test, her heart felt like it had been dropped into a rock tumbler.

  Squaring her shoulders, Mandy walked out into the bedroom. Its emptiness struck her. No cowboy boots by the bed. No comb on the dresser. Half the closet bare.

  He was gone.

  From her bed, but not from her life.

  * * *

  Ty looked out on the horses munching grass in the corral as Slim walked by without saying a word to him. Kyle seemed to go out of his way to circle around the other side of the pasture to avoid him. The cowhands were loading the trailers for the next rodeo, and they were making it clear that Ty was persona non grata.

  Ty hadn’t felt this kind of loneliness since he was a kid.

  By the tenets of the will, he was still in charge. But no one spoke to him. No one looked to him for direction or guidance.

  He watched Mandy, clipboard in hand, wave each cowboy with a bronc toward this or that trailer. Watched the men mount up and trot their horses over to bull pens, ready to load the animals when Harold gave the word.

  They all had heard the rumor that Prescott had a buyer. And they all hated him for it.

  No one could hate him more than he hated himself. Even if selling was the right thing, the rational thing. Doing the right thing wasn’t always easy. A truth he’d learned courtesy of the land development company.

  And it sure didn’t get you friends. Or the woman you loved.

  Ty didn’t hear Harold until the old cowboy had pressed a boot to the fence rail.

  “How you holding up?” Harold said in his typical blunt fashion.

  “I didn’t come here to win any popularity contest.” The words sounded churlish, even to him.

  “They say it’s lonely at the top,” Harold offered. The crusty cowboy was dressed for work with his Prescott T-shirt and jeans and the black Stetson that rarely left his head. “I wouldn’t know though. Never wanted to find out. I prefer working with the men.”

  “Never thought you cared much about being around people, Harold. You always seemed to go your own way.”

  A rare smile curled Harold’s mouth. “I don’t care about being around just anyone, that’s true. But this here stock company is my family—literally and figuratively. They understand me, let me be. But most of all they care about me. And I care about them. Every one of them.”

  “I care. And getting the best deal is how I showed it. Stan will be taking on every wrangler that chooses to move to Colorado.”

  Harold nodded. “Working for Stan will never be the same as working for JM, or anyone associated with Prescott.”

  “Stan pays same wages we do.” Ty had checked into that.

  “Ranch hands don’t do it for the pay. They do it for the way of life and to feel valued. By those you do it for. See Kyle over there?”

  Harold motioned toward the shorter young cowboy who had avoided Ty. “He’s grown up around rodeo. His father was a bull rider. His mother a barrel racer. Getting a college degree in equine studies with the help of a scholarship from us. The same scholarship that helped you. Works here so he can learn about breeding broncs and bulls. I can ask him to do anything. Muck out stalls, wash down the horses. He loves what he does. He knows I not only appreciate it, I value when he takes extra care with my brood mares, when he checks the fencing to make sure the bull I’m breeding is secure. He’s a quiet sort, but he’s humming just about all the time. I doubt he’ll be humming around Stan if he decides to go.”

  “I’m sure Stan will value him too, Harold. Or he’ll find another outfit that will.” Ty refused to feel bad for making the Prescott family a bunch of money.

  “Maybe. But Davis over there has been working here since high school. First summers and then full time after he graduated. JM knew his father, his mother, knew his sisters, attended his father’s wedding. It’s a family here. An extended family. You were once part of it. Even after you got your fancy education. JM made you part of Prescott.”

  “He also gave me the duty of securing the family’s future.”

  “And the only way you’ve seen fit to do that is to break up the community JM built by selling the damn thing, is that right? And breaking that girl’s heart in the process.”

  “She’ll start another stock company. She’ll have the money to do it.” And she’d do it without him.

  “It’s not losing the company that will break Mandy’s heart, Ty. Because you’re right. She probably will start another company. But it won’t give her what JM wanted for her, for the family. I knew my uncle just about as well as anybody could know another. He wanted to secure his family’s future, all right, but it wasn’t by selling the company. And the fact you haven’t figured that out yet, well, I guess I underestimated you.”

  Ty met Harold’s gaze. And realized what a fool he’d been.

  * * *

  Mandy was bone weary as she hung her hat on the peg inside the ranch house’s side door. It was past midnight. The last rodeo of the regular season was over. The last rodeo maybe forever. The thought made her insides ache.

  It had been all over the fairgrounds. Every committee person had come up to ask why she was selling the company. And she didn’t have an answer. She’d have told them to see Ty, but he hadn’t come. And she was glad he hadn’t.

  Tears clouded her sight. She wondered if she was so emotional because of the baby. The thought made her smile, bittersweet as it was. Of course she was thrilled, beyond rational measure, at the thought of being pregnant. She hadn’t told anyone yet, not even her mother. Not until it was confirmed. She
carried her secret close to her heart, though right now it was so hard to focus on what should be the happiest moment of her life.

  She was losing Prescott. And it was more than a business. She was losing the place where she belonged and the families who had touched her life since she was a little girl. Fathers, sons, mothers, sisters. She knew them all, and they knew her.

  As she walked into the white and granite kitchen, lighted only by the nightlight Mrs. Jenkins had undoubtedly left on for her, she felt empty, abandoned, betrayed. Ty should be sharing this moment with her. They should be planning for the NRF. For next season. Instead, her horses and bulls would be going to the NRF under the name of another contractor. And she would not.

  How could she go as a mere spectator when she’d always been an integral part of the fabric of the ten-day event? She had never missed an NRF. Not even after her father had passed away and it was especially difficult. The Prescott community, the rodeo community, had gotten her through it. People had come together and held a special dinner in her father’s honor. The stories they had told… She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of it.

  She spied the blinking light on the answering machine and, hoping it wasn’t another call from Ty she’d have to delete, hit the button. She was surprised when she heard Trace’s deep voice asking her to call him tomorrow because he wanted to talk to her about a housekeeper for Delanie. Last Ty had said, Delanie was settling into preschool and, aside from asking after her mother, seemed to be accepting Trace as her father. The psychologist thought that Delanie had trust issues but nothing more, and that had been a small blessing. Of course Mandy would call tomorrow. Even though Ty was a double-dealing hypocrite, she would do everything she could for his niece.

  She walked down the hall and past her bedroom, right to the baby’s room. She flicked on the overhead fixture, and the crib and dresser Ty had bought were bathed in light. The toy airplane still sat on the dresser. Nothing had been disturbed since he’d put it together, and yet everything in her life had been disturbed. She leaned against the wall.