by Jill Gregory
Francesca snorted. “No, senorita. What would Senor Reese think if I didn’t feed his daughter proper meals? You will have the flapjacks and eggs and toast just like the rest of them, but tomorrow you must come earlier and eat with Senor Wade.” She grimaced then, and added reluctantly, between clenched teeth, “If it pleases the senorita.”
“I probably won’t be here tomorrow.” Caitlin sat down upon the bench that faced the long trestle table and helped herself to one of the oranges in a ceramic bowl in the center of the table. “I’m leaving after I meet with Mr. McCain today. Do you know when he’s expected?”
The woman merely shrugged and shook her head. Caitlin didn’t try to engage her in any further conversation. Obviously Francesca resented her presence here, and didn’t want her to stay on at Cloud Ranch any more than she cared to remain here. Well, that was fine with her. Now all she had to do was find a way to sell her share of the ranch—then she could leave.
By the time she’d finished a plateful of scrambled eggs, slices of bacon, thick bread served with rich fresh butter and strawberry preserves, and coffee sweetened with sugar, she felt fortified and ready to do battle. And even better, she had a plan.
She hurried to the window as a horse and buggy came into view, trotting up the long drive.
“Mr. McCain,” she called to the tall beanpole of a man in a well-cut black suit as she let herself out the front door and crossed the porch toward him.
“Yes, Miss Summers.” The buggy halted and he touched the brim of his hat. He wore gold spectacles that sat upon a razor-thin nose. “I apologize for not being able to meet with you yesterday. I trust this isn’t an inconvenient time.”
She assured him it was a perfect time and eagerly ushered him into the parlor she’d glimpsed the day before. Part of her hoped Wade Barclay would be off somewhere and she wouldn’t have to suffer his presence at this meeting, but these faint hopes died when he appeared in the doorway just as she invited Mr. McCain to be seated upon the horsehair sofa.
“Morning, Abner.” The foreman spoke easily. “Miss Summers.”
The attorney came forward to shake Wade’s hand, but Caitlin only proffered a cool nod. Then she excused herself to retrieve the copy of the will from her room, brushing past Wade as if he didn’t exist.
When she returned, Wade noticed a determined gleam in her eyes. She swept past him and flashed the attorney a dazzling smile.
“We have a great deal to discuss,” she announced. She slipped gracefully down upon the flowered wing chair opposite the sofa where the lawyer had taken a seat, prettily arranged the moss-green skirt she wore with a soft, lace-trimmed white silk blouse, and bestowed upon the bespectacled lawyer a sweetly helpless smile. “I’m afraid I have a problem with my father’s will, Mr. McCain—it is not at all suitable.” She leaned forward slightly, her breasts straining against the white shirt. “But I’m sure you will find a way to help me.”
“You already know about the contents?” He looked surprised.
“I told her.” Wade spoke from the mantel, ignoring the icy glance Caitlin shot at him. “Gave her my copy to read last night. Reckon by now she knows what it says as well as you do, Abner. Probably got it memorized. She just doesn’t like it much.”
“I see. Well—”
“Surely a man of your experience can help me,” Caitlin said quickly, that lovely smile snapping back into place. “I know you have a kind heart and you’ll take pity on my circumstances. Of course I wish to claim my inheritance— the inheritance my father wanted me to have—but I simply cannot stay in Wyoming for a year.”
Wade Barclay leaned against the mantel, arms folded across his chest, watching her. He’d seen women work their charms on a man before, but none as smoothly and sweetly as this one. McCain would no doubt be eating from her dainty little fingertips before they’d gotten through the first paragraph, but that wouldn’t help her one damn bit.
The will was ironclad. Except . . .
He tensed suddenly, and hoped to God the lawyer kept his wits about him.
Abner McCain removed his own copy of the will from a leather folder, pushed his spectacles higher up his nose, and blushed a delicate pink as he regarded the beautiful daughter of his deceased client. “I’ll try to assist you in any way I can, Miss Summers.”
“I knew you would,” she breathed, and her eyes positively glowed at him.
His blush deepened. “Shall we begin? It is customary to read the contents of the will aloud.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Wade heard the tinge of impatience in her voice, but the next moment she had iced it over with more sweetness. Enough to choke an ox.
“I know what the will says, Mr. McCain. Mr. Barclay explained it to me and I read it carefully myself. But now I need to know what you can do to change it.”
He looked shocked. “Change it? That’s impossible. I can’t change a man’s will. I’ve been entrusted to carry out your father’s wishes . . .”
“But what about my wishes?” Caitlin allowed her voice to quiver. “Please, Mr. McCain, my future is in your hands. I can’t stay here for a year—it’s impossible. Anyone can see I don’t belong here. And Mr. Barclay certainly doesn’t want me here.”
“Of course he does. He wants to honor Mr. Summers’s wishes as much as I do.” He shot Wade a startled glance and was rewarded with a snort.
“She’s staying, as far as I’m concerned,” Wade said curtly. “But that doesn’t mean I want her here.”
“Well, if you don’t want her here, you know, that could solve . . .”
“Abner!” Wade cut him off abruptly. He pushed away from the mantel and fixed a steely blue gaze on the lawyer, who gave a sudden gulp. “I do want her here,” he said slowly, deliberately.
Caitlin stared at him. Liar, she thought contemptuously. Then she turned back to the lawyer who looked more than a little flustered. He was shifting his gaze from her to Wade, swallowing hard past his Adam’s apple, and shuffling the papers in his hands.
“Well, then,” he said quickly. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Summers, believe me I am, but that’s all there is to say about the matter.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “To keep your inheritance, you must stay on the ranch for a year, and after that amount of time has elapsed, you may sell your share to any or all of the Barclay brothers—or to any other party to whom the Barclays all give approval. Really,” he tried to sound encouraging, “that isn’t so bad. Is it?”
Caitlin felt her throat tightening. She felt more and more trapped. She glanced down once more at the papers in her hand as the lawyer’s voice droned on.
“And I need your initials, Miss Summers, upon each page, to show that you have been informed of all the contents and understand what is contained herein.” The lawyer dug into the pocket of his black suitcoat and with a wide smile produced an elegant silver pen. Which he promptly dropped, and snatched up again, flushing beet-red. “Here, why not sit comfortably at the writing desk and we’ll make everything official.”
Caitlin would rather have eaten a toad than signed the papers. She wasn’t ready to admit defeat, but she had little choice but to seat herself at the writing desk, take up the pen, and glance down at the spot where her initials were required.
“Here,” the attorney said kindly, removing the first page and pointing to the margin of the second. “There are only four pages—your father’s will was not as complicated as some others I have seen,” he said with pride, but Caitlin was no longer listening.
She had frozen, the pen in midair.
“Four pages? My copy of the will only contained three pages.”
There was a moment of horrible silence and then she heard a choking sound from McCain. Then came a muttered oath from Wade Barclay.
“Now you’ve done it,” the foreman growled and Caitlin felt a surge of excitement.
Quickly she peered at each page the lawyer had set before her. The first three were identical to the copy she had read—the fourth was one she had never
seen before.
Her heart leapt when she saw that it was titled Addendum.
Chapter 5
She read the text swiftly as her heart pounded with renewed hope. When she finished she pushed back the chair and rose, whirling to confront Wade Barclay.
“How dare you keep this from me!” Rushing forward she waved it beneath his nose.
“It was none of your business.” Wade frowned. “It was meant for me.”
“None of my business? It says that you—you—Mr. Wade Barclay—may at your discretion cancel the clause that requires me to stay here for a year. If you deem it necessary and appropriate, you can override that clause and allow me to sell you my shares at any time!”
“So?” His jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter a damn, princess. Because your father only put that in as a contingency—for an emergency situation he couldn’t foresee, an escape clause. He didn’t plan for me to use it. He wanted you here on this ranch, he intended for you to make it your home for a year, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“No! You can release me from that and I demand that you do so!”
“Miss Summers,” Abner McCain interjected, placing a tentative hand upon her arm. He flinched as she shook him off, her eyes flashing at him.
“Don’t you ‘Miss Summers’ me! I asked you if there was any way at all around the will and you told me there wasn’t—you lied to me!”
He paled. “It wasn’t a lie, precisely. That clause was private, meant only for Mr. Barclay—”
“Well, now that I know about it, you can just go ahead and start drawing up some purchase papers.” Caitlin’s mind was racing. She would be able to leave today after all. “I need to know what is a fair market price for my forty percent of the ranch—that is, if I can trust you to tell me that!”
Looking stung, the lawyer took a step backward, then began to speak again, trying to reassure her as to his honesty and integrity, but Wade interrupted him.
“McCain, you can go now.”
“Go? B-but I haven’t finished. This is all quite unsettled . . .”
“The hell it is. It’s settled. She stays. For a year. Just the way Reese wanted it—though I damn well don’t know why he did.”
“He wanted to torment me!” she cried, pain and anger throbbing through her. “That’s the only possible reason he could have inserted such a monstrous stipulation—”
“No, no, Miss Summers.” McCain looked shocked. “Your father was most concerned about you—he truly wished you to make a home here at Cloud Ranch and learn to love it as he did. I know, because he told me so as I drew up the will.”
Caitlin knew perfectly well that her father had not been the least bit concerned about her. His actions during his lifetime proved that. “It’s a bit late for me to start feeling at home here.” Caitlin’s voice shook. All those years when she yearned to visit her father, to come to Cloud Ranch, and he ignored her—then, at the end of his days, he invited her, and designed his will so that she would be forced to come live here—when he was gone.
But he hadn’t forced her. Not really, not completely. Thank God, there was the escape clause.
Fighting to keep her voice steady, she whirled back to Wade Barclay.
“You know this will never work. You know my living here is going to be an impossible situation for both of us. Why don’t you invoke the emergency clause right now and save us both a great deal of trouble?”
“Not on your life, sweetheart.”
“But . . .”
Diamond-blue eyes nailed hers. “I respected Reese when he was alive, and I’ll damn well continue to respect his wishes now that he’s . . . gone.” He seemed incapable of saying the word dead. His jaw tightened. “Personally, I don’t give a damn what you do—you can stay or leave— as you wish. But if you want either the monthly stipend, or the money your share of the ranch will bring a year from now, you’ll stay put. Those are your only options.”
Oh, no, they’re not. Caitlin went very still as an idea, a lovely, wonderful idea, flashed into her brain. No, Mr. Wade Barclay, she thought triumphantly, those aren’t my only options. Not by a long shot. She suddenly had a whole different option, a new plan that was guaranteed to work—but she wasn’t about to tell Wade Barclay about it.
He’d find out soon enough.
She turned away from him to address the attorney. This time her tone was brisk, polite, nothing more. “Thank you for your time and for explaining everything to me so thoroughly, Mr. McCain. That will be all—for now.”
He looked crestfallen but there was nothing more to say. Caitlin saw him out, then noticed that Wade had retreated into the study. She followed him there and watched from beneath her lashes as he opened a leather ledger book.
“What is that?”
“The ranch accounts,” he answered coolly, without glancing up at her.
“Hmmm.” She came forward with the smooth feline grace of a cat. “I’d like to look them over when you’re finished,” she said evenly.
He did look at her then, his brows shooting up. The damned girl looked so beautiful and innocent. But he wasn’t fooled. She was up to something. “And what do you know about ledger books, Miss Summers?”
“It so happens that I attended one of Philadelphia’s finest schools for young women,” she informed him airily. “I acquired a splendid education there and I was particularly adept at arithmetic.” Caitlin came right up to the desk, placed her palm smack in the center of the ledger book, and leaned toward him. “I think that as part owner of this ranch I should learn every aspect of the cattle business. I’ve decided to begin with the finances. Then, of course, I’ll want to question all the men who work here.”
“Question all the men?” His startled expression nearly made her grin. “Why?”
“Perhaps we’ve hired more than we need. Perhaps we can cut back and save money on our payroll. Or perhaps some are not pulling their weight.” She shrugged daintily. “Who knows what I’ll discover? There’s always room for improvement, that’s my motto.”
“Like hell it is.”
“Mr. Barclay, you doubt my word?”
He shut the ledger book with a snap and sprang from the chair, moving with surprising swiftness and grace for such a large man. “It won’t work,” he said, looming over her.
“What won’t work?” In spite of herself, she had to resist the urge to back away from him. He was entirely too big, too imposing.
“Whatever you’re up to.”
This time the smile she bestowed upon him was pure sugar. “You have no idea what I’m up to,” she murmured. But he saw the glimmer of resolve in those entrancing green eyes just before she twirled away toward the door, and it filled him with an impending sense of disaster.
As he watched her go, he found himself unable to resist staring at the seductive yet elegant swing of her hips.
Damn, she was up to something. Something he wasn’t going to like. But what?
Pacing around the desk, he picked up the account books again, then tossed them back down. Restlessly he prowled to the window and stared out at the valley he knew as well as his own name.
The land, endless and magnificent, somehow soothed him, filling him with a renewed sense of peace. This ranch, this place he loved, with its sagebrush and sunsets and distant pine-crested mountains, had meant everything to Reese and it meant everything to Wade. His brother Nick was born with wanderlust in his blood and had never been able to settle down, and his brother Clint found his own path as a lawman in a town that needed him. Cloud Ranch would always be a home to them, but not in the same way it was to Wade. For Wade no place on earth was as beautiful, wild, and meaningful as this huge, open Wyoming Territory and every living thing that flourished on Cloud Ranch.
Now his beloved valley had been invaded by a spoiled woman, too shallow even to appreciate what she’d been handed. Someone who only wanted to sell her parcel and leave.
Why’d you want her here so badly, Reese? he mused silently as h
e watched an antelope leap across the stream and disappear through the cottonwoods. Her mother didn’t want to be here and broke your heart, and this daughter is just as bad. I ought to just cut her loose and let her run.
The wind rose at that moment, rushing through the study, ruffling the pages of the ledger book. Wade grinned. Don’t worry, old man. I won’t. She can cry, beg, yell, threaten, whine, or try to bribe me with all the money in the world, and I won’t budge. I made you a promise to look after her, and I’ll keep it.
But it was going to be a helluva chore—and a helluva long year.
Chapter 6
When Wade walked out to the bunkhouse for his weekly poker game with Rooster and old Baldy and some of the other wranglers that night, he found them all making bets on how soon the new part owner of Cloud Ranch would bolt.
“Me, I give her one week,” Miguel, the handsome Mexican cowpuncher announced, tossing a greenback onto the pile.
“Naw, I give her a day.” Rooster added two silver coins. “She’ll be gone by suppertime tomorrow. I saw the look on her face when she first got here, soaking wet and all, and that lady was never meant for livin’ on the land. She’s the tea party and toast type, if ever I saw one. She’ll be gone by tomorrow,” he said sagely.
“Wal, she’s Reese’s daughter.” Baldy’s rheumy old eyes fixed on each man in the group. “She’s got to have some of his stubbornness in her, no matter where she was raised. I bet she’ll stick it out for aboot ten days or so. Then”—he blew smoke from his cigarillo—“she’ll light out of here so fast your haids will spin.”
“I hope she stays.” Jake Young sighed lustily. He was the newest wrangler, fresh-faced, clean-shaven, best man with a rope Wade had seen in years. “She’s about the purtiest gal I ever did see. I’d rather look at her than any of them fancy ladies down at the Dixie Dance Hall in Laramie.”
“Someone’s in love,” Miguel jeered, and Wade joined the others who began to grin at the flushing cowhand.