“Enough,” he hissed at himself, annoyed both by his self-pity and by the fact that he couldn’t either get Sara’s situation out of his head or muster the courage to just outright ask her what was going on. “Stop it now.”
He nodded as if the advice had come from an outside source instead of from his own mind. He half-bent, considering doing some more work, but when his back groaned in protest, he righted himself again. It was starting to get dark anyhow, and he was anxious to get in to supper. Lea had been starting to come out of her shell again ever since Pete had stopped coming around, and he didn't want to miss a moment of her conversation. Then there was the envelope burning a hole in his pocket, which he was anxious to deliver to Sara. He wanted to get a look at her face when he handed it over to see if he might be able to glean something of its content from the expression on her face.
He was already starting towards the barn with what few tools remained to him when the sound of a truck coming up the drive stopped him in his tracks. His first thought was that it must be Pete come back to try to take something more from him. If it was, Austin feared what he might do.
The old man drove a car, though, not a truck, and the sound of crunching gravel and snapping twigs told him that the vehicle parking in front of his house was a big one. Whatever it was, Austin was loath to turn around and face it. He'd had enough surprises in the last week to last him for the rest of his life. Still, he was supposed to be the man of the house, the provider and protector, which meant he couldn't just put his head in the sand and wait for the bad things to go away. And it was bound to be a bad thing, this new intrusion. Austin saw that clearly enough before he was turned all the way around.
“Hello there!” Caleb called loudly, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops as he sauntered towards where Austin stood. “Just the man I was hoping to find!”
“Shouldn’t be surprising that you did,” Austin shot back icily, his arms held rigidly at his side, his hands balled up into fists. “This is my land, after all.”
"That it is," Caleb said smoothly, turning in a slow, languid circle to survey it like he was a prospective buyer come to inspect his future purchase. "I just thought I'd pay a visit and see how things are coming along. See how you folks are faring, if you catch my meaning."
“We’re doing just fine,” Austin answered, willing himself not to engage. Out of everyone in town, this was the man he could least afford to lose control of himself with. Unfortunately, at the moment, he was also one of the most tempting targets.
"Are you really?" Caleb asked, his voice dripping with false concern as he took another step towards Austin. "Because I heard some whispers around town that your good-for-nothing pop came sniffing around. Took you for a tidy sum, too. Least, that's what I heard."
Austin's nails were digging into his palms so deeply now that he could feel the skin break, and still he could barely contain the urge to take out all of his recent stress on this arrogant man's face. He wasn’t surprised to hear that news of his father's scam, and likely of how easily Austin had fallen for it, had clearly traveled through town quickly. But at least everyone else had the good grace not to throw it in his face. The sheer, callous cruelty of it riled Austin, but he bit back his reaction by sheer willpower. Whatever Caleb was hoping to gain by this, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m late to supper,” he said in a strained, clipped voice, brushing past Caleb without apologizing when he bumped the man’s arm. “You’ll have to be on your way.”
"I came to offer you a partnership!" Caleb called, causing Austin's steps first to slow, and then stop altogether. "I'm not asking to buy this place from you outright, friend, I'm talking about a partnership now. Fifty-one – forty-nine, percent in my favor. It might not be your first choice, Austin, but something tells me you're starting to run out of options."
It seemed that many of the more important, more stressful of Sara and Austin's conversations had taken place while she stood at the kitchen counter, and so her heart jumped in anticipation when he came up behind her now, sliding an envelope onto the empty space beside her chopped vegetables. One quick glance was all she needed to know what said envelope contained, but she made a show of hardly glancing at it as if it were the furthest thing from important. She could practically feel him straining behind her, wanting to ask her about it, which in turn made her tremble all over. It was all she could do to keep from slicing off the tip of a finger instead of the base of a carrot, her hands were shaking so badly. On an intellectual level she knew she wasn't doing anything wrong by failing to disclose the job offer she’d received. Yes, they were intimately involved, but that wasn’t the same as having the kind of committed relationship where job opportunities were discussed together. Truth be told, she wasn’t really sure what kind of relationship they had. He hadn't ever broached the topic of what was going on between them, and Rachel was right that she couldn't keep basing her life decisions on other people instead of her own hopes and dreams. Even so, keeping the Casper job to herself felt a lot like lying, something that had never sat well with Sara.
“Something came for you,” Austin said pointedly, almost like he could sense her hesitation on the matter and was going in for the kill. “Looks important. They had me sign for it and everything.”
"Shoot, I'm sorry," she said with what she hoped was a light-hearted laugh. "I know how much you hate to be interrupted when you're working. Speaking of which, did I hear a car out there just a minute ago?"
There was a moment of continued silence on his end where all she could hear was the ticking of the hands on the old clock hanging above the kitchen table and the distant sound of Lea humming to herself as she played in her room. Then Austin sighed, running his hand through his hair, and her knees went weak with relief.
“It was a truck, actually,” he said grudgingly. When she glanced at him over her shoulder, she saw his entire face darkening as if it were a dirty word. “It was Caleb. He came to try and strike a bargain.”
"A bargain?" she repeated with surprise, abandoning her chopping completely and turning to face him as she dried her hands on a dishtowel. "What kind? I thought he just wanted to buy the place from you."
"He did," Austin said with a sigh, absently brushing a strand of hair out of her face. "Deep down, he probably still does. But now he wants to go in as partners. He'll have a fifty-one percent stake, and I'll have forty-nine. That way, he gets his hands on the land he's wanted for such a long time, and he gets to keep a boot on my throat while he's at it. Pretty sweet deal, don't you think?"
Sara put the towel down carefully, her heart already hammering at the thought of what she was going to say next. She could see how angry it made him even to relive his recent conversation, and it would almost certainly be better for her to keep her mouth shut. The thing was, she wanted what was best for Austin and Lea more than she wanted to avoid another fight.
“Maybe...maybe you should consider it,” she said quietly, the white knuckles of her tightly clasped hands the only indication of her nerves. “It might be an answer to your biggest problems.”
This time, his silence was so forceful that it seemed to suck all the air out of the room. First he went deadly pale, immediately followed by an angry infusion of color. He was more than angered by her suggestion. He was furious.
“Are you kidding me now?” he asked in a low, tense voice, his eyes giving off sparks of anger. “You think it’s a good idea for me to give the majority share of my family land to that guy?”
“I think that Pete put you in a major bind, leaving the way he did,” she insisted, understanding that it was too late for her to turn back now. “And I think we don’t always see where the road in front of us will take us. I didn’t know how things would work out when I left my old job, right?”
“That’s hardly the same thing,” he hissed, any affection he had for her buried beneath a heap of disgust. “This is family land. It’s not something you just hand over to someone
else when you’re unhappy.”
“And I’m not suggesting it is,” she said quietly, fighting to keep her eyes on his despite the disappointment she saw there. “But maybe it’s time to look for solutions to your problems instead of hitting your head against the proverbial wall. Sometimes you have to give different ideas a chance to figure out which one works best for you.”
“Right,” he said with a humorless laugh that made Lea look up from where she was playing quietly and virtually forgotten in the next room. “Like you’re giving your ex a second chance?”
Sara sagged back against the counter, the resolve going out of her along with the air in her lungs. She had wanted so badly to believe they had put the Ted issue behind them, but deep inside, she had known that wasn’t true. She just hadn’t expected him to throw it in her face like this.
“Is that what all this is about?” she asked, her eyes brimming with tears she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep at bay for long. “Seriously, Austin? I went to see him for the sake of closure, and that’s all.”
“Sure,” Austin replied in a dead, closed-off voice. “Whatever you say. I’m going to wash up. You can let me know when dinner is ready. Or not. I’m not really hungry anymore.”
And before she could think of anything else to say, he was walking out of the room. Sara just stood there, trying to figure out if things were supposed to be this hard in a relationship before you even knew what it was.
Twenty-One
“Come on, big brother, why the look of surprise? You must have known I was going to ask about it. People in town talk. They always do. At least I do it to your face.”
Austin watched Rachel shovel a forkful of pasta salad into her mouth, speaking around it with heroic effort, and couldn't help but laugh. Rachel had a way of doing that to him, forcing him to take himself just a little less seriously while also making him confront the reality of a thing for what it was. It was why he had asked her to have lunch with him. At this moment, Austin was definitely a man in need of a cold, hard dose of reality, the kind that nobody gave as good as Rachel did.
“I was an idiot,” he said now, his smile fading a little as he chased his food around on his plate without taking a bite. “I should have known better, right? Everything in our history with our father pointed to him doing something exactly like this.”
"That's right," she agreed with a nod, sitting back in her chair and smiling at him sadly. "But he can be a charming man when he wants to be."
"Still, I shouldn't have let him into our lives so easily," Austin muttered, more to himself than to Rachel. "I let him around Lea, and after everything he put us through when we were young."
“Because he used your love for your daughter against you,” Rachel said matter-of-factly, her eyes flashing with some of the same anger he’d been feeling since Pete’s disappearing act. “And your desire to get the ranch up and running again. And for what it’s worth, I was proud of you, you know.”
“For what?” Austin snorted, shifting uncomfortably under his sister’s scrutiny. He was a private man, some might even say closed off, and had never grown truly comfortable with accepting compliments.
"For being able to forgive him for a little while," she answered matter-of-factly. "I've never been able even to try. No matter how things worked out in the end, it's a good thing that you have that in you. You're a good man, Austin, although if you tell anyone I said so, I'll deny it all."
“Right,” he chuckled, raising his glass and clinking it with hers. “Now if only the banks handed out loans based on honor alone.”
“Yikes,” she said with a frown, setting her glass back down again and leaning forward with her arms crossed across her chest. “Is it really that important for you to have the loan to finish work?”
“The situation’s not good,” he answered with a shrug. He’d never spoken to her about his finances, and he was embarrassed to do so now. He just couldn’t seem to keep everything to himself any longer. If he didn’t start letting some of it out, he felt like he was going to explode. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been stretched this thin. I've never been so unsure of whether or not I'm going to be able to get the ranch done. Dad had me believing he was going to cosign on a loan that would have solved all my problems, and instead he cleaned me out."
“Oh, Austin,” she said, her face creasing with concern. “You should have told me. I could have saved you all of this suffering.”
“Really?” he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “How do you figure?”
“Easy,” she answered with a shrug and a mischievous smile. “I’ll cosign your loan.”
Austin was so stunned by the comment that he spent a couple of seconds trying to remember how to speak, something which seemed to give his sister no end of amusement. She broke into merry peals of laughter, which he had to wait out impatiently before he could figure out just what the heck she was talking about.
“Rachel, you can’t,” he sputtered, looking at her like she had just sprouted a second head. “You’re my baby sister. I'm supposed to be the one taking care of you.”
"Oh, brother," she giggled. "Again you underestimate me. I may be younger than you, but I don't need you to take care of me anymore. You've been trying to do that for basically all my life. And to be honest, I'm in a pretty good place right now, financially speaking. I don't have any kids, and I don't have an extravagant lifestyle. Plus, I really want to help. I know how hard accepting things from other people is for you, but please, let me do this."
Austin stared down at his hands, surprised to find them in fists yet again. It took a conscious effort to unclench them, and when he did, his fingers actually hurt. That was how tightly he was holding them closed. All at once it seemed to him that those aching fingers were a representation of how he had been living his life. Like a clenched fist, refusing to let go of any of his ideas or preconceptions, ready to fight anyone who got too close. He had let Pete in a little, and it had backfired, but that didn’t mean he had to go things alone, never trusting or depending on anyone. For the first time in a long time, he understood that solo wasn’t the way he wanted to live his life.
“Okay,” he finally said, his heart racing. “Let’s do it. If you’re sure, that is.”
“I’m totally sure!” Rachel squealed so loudly that several of the restaurant’s nearby patrons looked at them curiously. “And I can’t even tell you how happy I am that you’re letting me do this with you. There’s so much exciting change right now! First the thing with Sara, now this. I can’t even stand it, I’m so excited!”
Austin grinned, just as pleased to see his sister happy as he had been when they were young. He was on the verge of making a crack about how people never really grew up when something about what she’d just said stopped him cold.
“The thing with Sara?” he repeated cautiously, his skin prickling with a feeling very close to panic, although he couldn’t figure out why. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Rachel asked cautiously. She had the uniquely guilty look of somebody who had just unintentionally revealed somebody’s secret and knew there was no going back.
“No,” he answered in a low, tense voice. “But you’re going to, right? Because you’re my sister, and she’s important to me. I have a right to know.”
“She got a job offer back in Casper,” Rachel said after a moment of tense hesitation. “It’s a really good one, too. Probably the best offer she’s ever going to get.”
Sara turned her face up to the sky with a smile, letting the sun’s life-giving rays bathe it. With all the stress and tension of the last several weeks, there was something rejuvenating about being out in the field of flowers with nothing but the buzzing bees and sweet little Lea to keep her company. These were the kind of moments that reminded her how wonderful it was to be alive. They were the precious seconds that helped her understand that the world was much bigger than her and her problems.
“Look, Sara!” Lea cal
led happily, the sound making Sara smile before she even opened her eyes to see what the girl was so excited about. “So beautiful!”
Lea was holding up a purple wildflower, and although she stumbled over her wording, Sara couldn't agree with the sentiment more. The flower was exquisite, just like Lea. Just like the ranch, which had come to hold almost as dear a place in Sara's heart as anything else in her life.
"How will I ever leave this place?" she asked herself, the sad thought the only thing dampening an otherwise perfect afternoon. It seemed impossible, to leave Lea behind and simply walk away, even for the promise of a “dream job” waiting for her in Casper. There was one point she kept coming back to, however, and it was something she knew she could no longer ignore. As much as she loved the ranch and Lea, despite the dawning realization that she could easily see herself loving Austin, too, he had never actually asked her to stay. On the contrary, more and more often he spoke about how well Lea was doing, following the statements up with comments about how she would not need a speech pathologist for much longer. It sounded to her like he was planning for a time when she would no longer be a necessity in his life, instead of making a more permanent place for her in it. And if that was the case, why was she still factoring him into her decision at all?
The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny Page 15