The Texas Rancher's Return

by Allie Pleiter

  “You know that better than anyone. You’ve had to be strong to get by with all you’ve lost, too. Makes sense to me that you’d understand each other.” Gran leaned in and placed her thin hand on top of his, her pale skin and blue veins looking such a contrast to his large, tanned hand. “A woman of faith would be a good thing for you, Gunner. You need grounding. Strong ain’t the same thing as solid. A man with a little girl in his life needs to be solid.”

  That was the other thing. “Audie,” he said—sighed, really. “Then there’s Audie.”

  The teakettle whistled, and Gran rose to fill her teapot. “I like that girl. She’s something special, she is. I think Russet is as fine a name as we’ve ever given any calf, don’t you?”

  “Beats Rainbow Sparkle, that’s for sure.”

  Gran laughed. “Oh, Ellie told me about that. I’m glad she told me after the field trip or I would never have been able to keep a straight face.” She turned after placing the lid on the pot to steep. “You connect with that little girl. That’s something. It’s a big something, if you’re asking my opinion.” She returned to her seat. “Are you asking my opinion?”

  Gunner scratched his chin. “Yeah, I suppose I am.”

  Gran smiled. “Don’t you be eating dinner here tonight. That’s my opinion.”

  “I was letting her make the next move. I’m not sure she knows if she’s ready. Maybe I’m not even ready. Audie, DelTex, there’s a lot at stake here, Gran.”

  “I think she just showed you the next move. And, honey, no one’s ever ready. And there’s always a lot at stake. If it’s meant to be, you’ll find your way through the tricky parts. Maybe even be stronger for them—who knows? Your father once showed me a list of eleven reasons why he shouldn’t marry your mother. On paper, ranked, even.”

  While a ranked list of pros and cons sounded exactly like Dad, Gunner hadn’t heard this story about his father. “So what happened?”

  “I asked Gunner if there was a reason to marry her. He said he could only come up with one—that he loved her and he felt like a better man when he was with her.”

  Dad had always said that. Your mother made me a better man. Trouble was, Dad could wield that phrase like a sledgehammer—a better man. Straighten up, Gunner, be a better man. A better man wouldn’t have done that, Gunner. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him it was all the reason he needed. All the reasons not to marry someone are just problems to be solved if the one you marry makes you a better person. What you get, when you have someone like that, is a stronger pair to solve all those problems than either of you are alone. That’s what God had in mind. That’s the way it ought to be.”

  “Did Grandpa make you a better person?”

  The answer showed in her eyes long before she spoke the words. “By far.” She wiped a tear from her eyes and drew in a breath. “I expect that tea’s ready by now.”

  Gunner watched her as she poured herself a cup of hot tea and then poured a glass of iced tea for him without even asking if he wanted one. He smiled as he pulled out his phone and typed back a reply to Brooke’s invitation.

  I’d like that. I can be there by 6.

  He had a million things to do—and not much time if he was going to head in toward Austin and have dinner with Brooke—but he could carve out time for a cool drink with his grandmother.

  Gran had just set the drinks down at the table when the phone rang. She turned to lift the receiver off the wall, peering up close at the screen—Gran still found caller ID wondrous but a bit sneaky. “Oh!” she said, eyebrows raised in astonishment as she held the phone to her ear. “Well, Nolan, what a surprise to hear from you.”

  Gunner had to piece together the conversation from the half he heard. “We had a lovely time, yes.

  “Well, I suppose that’s true.

  “Oh, yes, I saw.” That remark earned a wink as she looked at Gunner. His dance with Brooke must really have raised a few eyebrows.

  Gran’s expression changed. “What’s a special entity? Don’t speak legalese to me, Nolan, talk plain.

  “You can’t be serious.

  “I thought they couldn’t do that kind of thing anymore.

  “Well, are you going to put a stop to it?

  “Of course I have a lawyer. You recommended Ashton Palmer to us, don’t you remember?”

  Gunner felt his pulse increase. Senator Nolan Rostam and Gran had butted heads a few times over the years, but they still remained good friends. He’d seen them laughing with each other at the gala. What he was hearing now sounded like the beginnings of a whopping argument.

  “I don’t agree. I don’t know how you could think I’d ever agree. Quite frankly, I think you’re showing a lot of nerve to even call if you’re not going to help us fight this.

  “Owe me? You don’t owe me this. You get no points from me for being the first to announce a war.

  “Yes, it’s a war, and as far as I’m concerned, this means you’re on their side. Goodbye, Senator Rostam.” She hung up the phone. “And good riddance, you treacherous old goat!” she yelled to the receiver.

  “Gran, what?”

  “That was Rostam.” Her hand was shaking.

  “I got that. What’d he say?”

  “He thought he owed us the courtesy of an advance warning. DelTex has somehow gone and pressured their government cronies to invoke eminent domain.” She grabbed the counter. “Gunner, they’re taking our land.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gunner’s hands were white-knuckle gripped on his steering wheel as he took the freeway exit for the outskirts of Austin where Brooke lived. It seemed DelTex had abandoned its plans to buy Gunner’s land and was now working behind the scenes to somehow pull government strings. Now the state was doing DelTex’s dirty work, initiating eminent domain. How they’d convinced the government that his creek represented “water access needed for the public good” was beyond him. He only knew it opened doors for the state to forcibly remove the land from private ownership. A process that spelled the beginning of the end.

  No, he wouldn’t lose the whole ranch yet—only the creek and however much land around it DelTex had convinced the state to take—but it wouldn’t stop there. Gunner knew of far too many instances where what started as one sliver of land became the whole property soon enough. Budget-starved municipalities welcomed tax-generating developments like Ramble Acres and their promise to transform struggling ranch lands into fancy growth and prosperity. Ranchers could fight eminent domain, but they hardly ever won. And the fair compensation the state would offer for the land they took would be anything but fair.

  He thought about texting Brooke to say he wasn’t coming. Or phoning her. Or simply never speaking to her again. Truth was, he wanted the satisfaction of seeing her face when he told her Senator Rostam had given them warning. He wanted to make her admit to his face that she’d set him up just as he suspected. His only regret, as he pulled into the driveway of Brooke’s charming little house, was that he wasn’t sure he could control his temper sufficiently in Audie’s presence. She didn’t deserve to hear what her mother had done to him. To his land. To the future of the baby bison she’d just named.

  The whole business boiled in his gut as he rang Brooke’s doorbell. When she pulled the door open, looking a bit upset, he felt it like a punch to his gut. She knew. She’d known all along. How could he have been suckered in by a pretty face again?

  “Hi.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Is Audie here?” They’d have it out on her front lawn if it kept Audie from hearing the accusations bursting to get out of his head right now.

  “A friend invited her out for barbecue at the last minute. I’m glad because—”

  “Because I have a lot to say to you right now that I don’t want her to hear.”

  “Y
ou do?” She looked surprised. Wow, she was good. A real community-relations professional.

  “Can I come in? Since Audie’s not home, I really don’t want to do this on your doorstep.”

  She pulled the door open. “Do what? What’s going on? What do you know?”

  It struck him as odd that despite all his anger, he noticed the warm and cozy atmosphere of her house. Audie’s toys—pink sparkly things and a scattered collection of dolls and stuffed animals—were all over the little house. He felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop as he stood in her living room, as if one slip would allow his temper to explode and break something.

  Brooke stared at him. “Gunner, what’s wrong?”

  He had no patience for pretense. “How long have you known about DelTex’s plans to get the state to declare eminent domain on my land?”

  “Eminent domain?” She sat down, looking suitably confused. “The county has invoked eminent domain on your land?”

  Getting a fact wrong was a slick touch—she was good. “The state. Your buddy Nolan Rostam had the decency—if you can call it that—to call Gran and warn her what was coming. Really? Couldn’t you scrape up enough decency to warn me? I thought we were going for honesty now.”

  Brooke ran her hand through her hair. “The option,” she said, more to herself than to him. “That’s the option.”

  “So you admit you knew? Do me the courtesy of dropping the act, would you? I think you owe me that much.”

  “Markham called me into his office this morning. He gave me some song and dance about how pleased he was that we’d ‘gotten cozy’ and practically threatened me with my job if I didn’t convince you to cooperate. Well, you or Adele—I don’t think he cared how I did it.”

  Gunner had always thought Markham a snake, but the guy had found a way to sink even lower in his opinion. “So it’s been all about getting me to sell, all along? All that talk of finding a compromise? How could you stand there and put up such an act? How could you use Audie?”

  “No! That’s not how it is.”

  “Really? Well, then, how is it?” He was sickly curious how she’d couch her deception, what carefully crafted explanation she’d foist on him now.

  “I admit, Markham was pleased we were getting close. I told you we talked about trying to open a conversation with you and Adele. I did want to avoid a standoff—I told you that, too.”

  “Oh, yes, you were all big eyes and charm and ‘I love Blue Thorn.’” He’d bought it, too. Before the phone call, he’d made his mind up to kiss her tonight, to take things to the next level. Perhaps God really was watching out for him that he found out the truth before he’d done anything so stupid.

  “I told Markham this morning that it couldn’t be done,” she said. “That you would never sell, that there wasn’t an offer they could ever make that would change your mind.” She started pacing again, the way she had in the parlor at the gala. Gunner hated how his mind cast back to the way he’d fallen for her in that room, drawn in by the vulnerability—or the pretense of vulnerability—she’d shown him. This would be so much easier if he felt hate, but all he felt was hurt. Burning, wounded hurt.

  “He said something about options. That DelTex had options if you wouldn’t sell. I asked him what they were, but he wouldn’t tell me. I thought they were other properties, or something they could do to the development site. I never thought they’d go as far convincing the state to invoke eminent domain.”

  “You expect me to believe you never considered just how far DelTex would go to get what they wanted? Don’t you have any idea who you work for?”

  “Markham’s never been that way with me. Sure, he’s no softie—he’s always been demanding—but he’s never threatened me with my job before. He scared me this morning. I asked you here because I wanted to let you know I was worried about what he might do.”

  Come have dinner at my house so I can lay out my boss’s evil plan in person? Not likely. “No point in worrying, sweetheart, it’s already been done. It has to have been in the works for a while. You and I both know eminent domain is a no-win option for the ranch. I was sunk from the start, and you knew it all along, didn’t you?”

  “No.” Her voice caught on the word, a stab he felt under his ribs. “I always believed there was a solution. At least I did, until today.”

  “There always was a solution. Markham just used it.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I always believed there was a compromise. I even thought—” she turned from him, softening her voice as she picked up the stuffed bison Gran had given Audie from where it sat on the couch “—that maybe God had placed me in this spot so that I could make that compromise happen.”

  If God thought the solution to this mess was Brooke Calder, then Gunner had a word or two to say to the Almighty about His choice of tactics. “You really thought there was an ending to all this where everybody wins?” He didn’t know whether to admire her optimism or chide her foolishness. Or even believe a word coming out of her mouth. “You’ve got another think coming, that’s for sure.”

  He hardened himself against the tears he saw welling in her eyes. “I never wanted this to happen. You have to believe that. I never thought DelTex would find a way to just take your land.”

  “I’m glad you see this for what it is—DelTex taking my land. Oh, the state will do the taking and they’ll pretend to ‘compensate’ me with some ridiculous amount that doesn’t even come close to what that land is worth—even if you could put a price on what’s been in my family for three generations—but it won’t ever be anything but robbery to me.” He sat back on one hip, determined to get his say in fully before he walked out that door and never came back. “And a few years from now some other part of the Blue Thorn will become ‘necessary for the public good’ and they’ll convince the state to steal that, too. Pretty soon there won’t be enough land to sustain the herd, and by the time Audie’s in high school Blue Thorn Ranch will be just another subdivision.” He looked Brooke square in the eye. “That’s who you work for. That’s what’s coming. You’d better fire up your way with words to find some way to explain it to Audie that lets you sleep at night, ’cause I don’t think I could.”

  He started walking toward the door, pretty sure he couldn’t stand to be here much longer, when she caught his elbow. “I haven’t lied to you,” she said, and he turned to watch a tear spill over her brimming eyes and slide down her cheek. “I meant everything I said at the gala. All of that is true.”

  Gunner stared down at her grip on his arm until Brooke’s face reddened and she pulled her hand away. “Tell me the truth, Brooke. When you called that second time, was it really for Audie or to cozy up to my family on behalf of DelTex? The truth, if you’d be so kind. I think I’m entitled to that much.”

  Two more tears slid down her face, and her breath shuddered as she exhaled. He gave her this much; she looked him straight in the eye when she whispered, “Both.”

  “That’s it right there, Brooke,” Gunner said as he turned toward the door. “You can’t have both.”

  * * *

  Brooke felt the slam of the door as if a brick wall had fallen on her. She stared after the closed door for a long moment before curling into a ball on the couch with the stuffed bison in her lap and giving in to tears. If God was kind, she’d cry herself out before Audie came home. Then she’d take a hundred deep breaths and find some way to explain to her daughter why they probably wouldn’t be visiting little Russet anytime soon. Or ever again.

  How could she walk into work tomorrow morning, knowing that DelTex had orchestrated eminent domain, and probably had been planning that as a last resort all along? Could she work for a company that consumed private land like an afterthought, as if taking away a rancher’s land was acceptable collateral damage in the name of upscale development?

  She’d deceived herself.
She’d ignored little warning signs; she’d believed and even written passages about the worthwhile trade-offs of development. She’d allowed herself to think of the Blue Thorn problem—as Markham liked to refer to it—as just a disagreement over a slice of land and a small creek. Only, Gunner was right; it wouldn’t stay that way. She’d seen the long-range plans—DelTex had visions of three more large communities in the area. Once they had succeeded in securing eminent domain with the Bucktons, they wouldn’t save it as a last resort the next time. Bigger developments needed more drainage—the problem of water rights would feed on itself, growing larger and needing more resources.

  She couldn’t bring herself to believe Blue Thorn Ranch was doomed. It couldn’t be inevitable that Blue Thorn and its bison must eventually give way to condominium communities. She didn’t want to think of herself as part of a system that destroyed what she’d seen on that sunny afternoon beside the creek with Gunner.

  She didn’t want to believe she was the cause of the searing hurt she’d just seen in Gunner’s eyes. It wasn’t just “we lost this battle” she saw in his eyes; it was “you did this to me.” I never meant it to come to this. I thought there was some other way. How can I make him believe that?

  With a hollow shudder, Brooke realized she couldn’t. Her heart knew better, but the facts would never line up any other way than how Gunner saw them. She’d walked onto Blue Thorn land as a woman ready to turn a coincidence into a professional accomplishment, and ended up as a woman captivated by a man and his steadfast purpose.

  There is no solution. There never was. I couldn’t convince Gunner to sell because he shouldn’t ever sell. Only, now he’ll have no choice. She buried her face in the toy bison’s fur, the particular scent painful and condemning against her cheeks. I’ve lost my heart and now I might lose my job. The delicate balance of progress she’d built up over the past year would come crumbling down tomorrow—had started already. Brooke pictured herself going to Oklahoma, her tail between her legs, having to start all over a third time. It felt more than she could bear.