Ginna Gray - The Ties That Bind

Another wave of shock slammed into her, and her hold tightened on the chair back, whitening her knuckles. “You mean…are you saying that I would have had to leave the ranch?”

“I’m afraid so,” Edward said gently. “The Rocking R would have been sold in a closed-bid auction, just as it will be if any of you refuses to abide by the conditions.”

And she would have been left out in the cold.

Willa closed her eyes. She knew that later, when the hurt was not so fresh, anger would resurface and come to her rescue, but at that moment all she wanted was to curl up in a tight ball and wail out her misery until she was nothing but a hollow shell.

The pain was so great she forgot for a moment where she was, and with whom. Then she opened her eyes and cringed when her gaze fell on the brothers. The knowledge that she had meant so little to Seamus was devastating enough, but having that revealed in front of these men compounded her humiliation. They had the grace to avoid looking at her, but somehow that oblique act of compassion made her feel worse than if they’d gloated, as she had expected them to do.

Gathering her tattered pride around her like a cloak, Willa lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and pulled herself up to her full five feet three inches. Ignoring the others, she turned to the attorney. “I’ll challenge the will. Other people heard Seamus promise me the ranch. Maria, for one.”

“That’s your right, of course. But you should know it will be expensive and it could take years. In my opinion, in the end you’d lose. I’m telling you this as a friend, Willie, not as your stepfather’s attorney. Trust me, the will is air-tight.”

“I see.” Her full mouth folded into a bitter line. “Then I guess I have no choice but to accept the conditions.”

“Maybe you don’t have a choice, but we do,” Zach said.

“Oh, please.” She shot him a look of patent disbelief. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that you would actually turn down the bequest. Yeah, right.”

“This may come as a shock to you, Ms. Simmons, but we had lives of our own prior to Seamus’s death.”

“That’s right,” Matt snapped. “I say to hell with it. And Seamus. I’ll be damned if I’ll let that old tyrant dictate to me how and where I live my life.”

“I agree,” J.T. chimed in.

Zach nodded. “I’ll admit, that was my first knee-jerk reaction, as well.”

“You fools!” Fear that she might actually lose all claim to the ranch wiped away every other consideration. “Do you city slickers have any idea what such a rash decision would cost all of us? What we’d be giving up? I don’t like what Seamus has done any better than you, but only an idiot would toss away a fortune of this size. Tell them, Edward.”

The attorney rattled off the appraised value of the ranch and last year’s revenues.

Matt let out a low whistle, but J.T. was more vocal.

“Holy cow! This place is worth a freakin’ fortune!”

“The Rocking R is one of the largest ranches in this part of the country, and our firm’s most important client.” Edward paused.

“You have exactly two weeks from today, both to make up your minds and to do whatever you need to do and move in. Once you do that, the year begins.”

“Mmm. Two weeks isn’t much time. We need to talk it over before we make a decision,” Zach said.

“Of course. I understand.”

“Well, I don’t,” Willa snapped. “What is the matter with you people? You can’t seriously be thinking of refusing? No one throws away a chance like this.”

“Miss Simmons, if we do this, it’s going to change all of our lives. Yours included. The least we can do is talk it over calmly and take a vote. So why don’t you sit down.”

“I don’t need to talk it over. I can give you my vote right now. I detest the very idea of sharing the Rocking R with you people, but this is my home, and I’ll do whatever I have to to keep it. Even if that means putting up with a bunch of greenhorn freeloaders.” She stormed out and slammed the door behind her.

Edward winced. “I’m sorry about that. I do hope you’ll excuse Willie.” Standing, he slipped his reading glasses into a leather case and put them and the will into his briefcase and snapped it shut. “I know it doesn’t seem so now, but she’s really a nice person and normally quite good-natured and easy to get along with.”

“We understand. She’s upset, and apparently with good reason.”

Matt rolled his eyes at his wife’s comment. “Spoken like a psychiatrist. You ask me, she’s a spoiled brat.”

“That’s not fair,” Maude Ann protested. “From the sound of it, Seamus has been stringing that poor girl along for years.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Edward said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going. It’s a long way to Bozeman. When you’ve reached a decision, give me a call. If I’m not at my office you can reach me on my cell phone,” he said, handing each of them his business card.

He turned to leave, then hesitated. “Uh…it’s true that the Rocking R Ranch is a sizable inheritance, but I feel I must warn you, if you decide to stay you’ll earn every penny you get from it. Running a ranch this size is far from easy, and nothing is guaranteed. A poor calf crop, a string of bad luck, a few slaps from Mother Nature can hurt even a place this size. It won’t be a piece of cake.”

Zach didn’t need anyone to tell him about the hardships and perils of ranching. He knew them firsthand. In college he’d earned degrees in ranch management and business and before going out on the rodeo circuit he’d been general manager of the Carter Cattle Company, better known as the Triple C, a huge spread near Ridgeway, Colorado. Zach, however, saw no need to mention that to the attorney.

“Well, this is certainly an unexpected turn of events,” Kate said when Edward had gone. “From what you told Maude Ann and me about Seamus, I thought we’d attend a funeral, then go home with five dollars or some such slap-in-the-face bequest.”

“Yeah, we all did,” Matt agreed. “I wonder what made the old man change his mind?”

“My guess is, during our first visit here he somehow picked up on the strain between us,” Zach said. “The old coot probably took sadistic delight in that. Like Manning said, he cooked up this whole thing to stir up trouble and make claiming the inheritance as difficult as possible.”

“Right,” J.T. agreed. “Wherever he is, he’s probably laughing himself silly right now.”

“He’s got us in a bind, that’s certain. If just one of us refuses to go along with the conditions, we all lose.” Matt swept the others with a regretful look. “Much as I hate to, I’m afraid I’m going to have to be the bad guy. Maudie and I can’t just abandon Henley Haven and pick up and move here. The kids we foster need her care.”

“Yeah, well, if it makes you feel any better, I can’t ask Kate to give up the Alpine Rose, either. Her parents spent years restoring that house and she’s turned it into a profitable business. Added to that, she grew up in Gold Fever. It makes no difference to me where I live. I can write anywhere, but I won’t rob her of her home.”

“Before you two start making any noble sacrifices, don’t you think you should ask Kate and me what we think?”

“Maude Ann’s right. What kind of wife would I be if I stood in the way of your inheritance? Besides, I wouldn’t have to sell the bed-and-breakfast. I’m sure I could hire someone to run it for me. And while it’s true that I love the Colorado mountains, have you looked around? It’s not too shabby here, either.”

“The same applies to Henley Haven,” Maude Ann stated emphatically. “I can get another psychiatrist to take over for me, and Jane will stay on. And there’s no reason why I can’t continue to work with abused children. I’m sure there are some here in Montana who need my help.”

“But what about our own kids? They—”

“Will love it here,” Maude Ann insisted before Matt could finish. “Can you think of a better place to raise five rambunctious children than on a ranch? Or to shelter others? The wide-open spaces will be good for them. And the drier climate will be good for your leg.”

Matt frowned at the mention of his disability. It had been seventeen months since he taken that bullet that had ended his career as a detective with the Houston Police Department and left him with a permanent limp.

“Still…I don’t know.”

According to J.T., Matt had become more flexible since marrying Maude Ann, but it was still his first instinct to resist change of any kind. Watching him, Zach could see the struggle going on inside his taciturn brother.

“We’re talking about a complete change in lifestyle and careers,” Matt argued. “I don’t know anything about ranching. Neither does J.T.”

“No, but Zach does,” J.T. said in a thoughtful voice, beginning to warm to the idea. “And you and I can learn.”

“Maybe. Still, we all have to live together in this house,” Matt said.

And that, Zach thought, was the real crux of the problem. He, J.T. and Matt might be brothers, but they didn’t really know one another. A year ago they had made contact again, but a lifetime apart had created a chasm between them that they couldn’t seem to breech.

Kate said they didn’t try, and maybe that was true. At best, their relationship was distant, with currents of disquiet and wariness, even an undefined resentment running just below the surface, making them guarded with one another. For whatever reason, the fact remained that they were strangers.

“It will be awkward, I guess,” J.T. agreed. “But it’s not as though it’ll be forever. Let’s not forget that we’re talking about a fortune here. And regardless of what Willa Simmons thinks, we are the rightful heirs. We’d be fools to turn it down. Surely we can manage to rub along together for a year. At the end of that time if anyone is miserable, they can sell out.”

Matt looked at Zach. “You’ve sure been quiet. What do you think?”

“I think I should stay out of this discussion and let the four of you decide. All of you know that owning a ranch is my dream. I’d put up with anything, even Ms. Simmons, to own a part of this place, but I don’t think it would be fair for me to try to influence you.”

“Yeah, but do you think we could live and work together for a whole year?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m sure Seamus figured if he threw us together we’d be at one another’s throats inside of a week. But one way or another, we won’t know unless we try. One thing is certain, though. It’s what Colleen would have wanted us to do.”

Sadie’s furious barking and the sound of vehicles approaching caught Willa’s attention. Tossing aside the curry brush, she gave her horse an absent pat and walked over to the barn door, arriving just in time to see a caravan of vehicles—a pickup loaded with boxes, three SUVs towing rented moving trailers and a minivan—pull into the ranch yard at the back of the house. Instantly her whole body tightened.

Pete Brewster left the tack he’d been repairing and came to stand beside her. “Looks like they’s here.”

Gritting her teeth, Willa folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. She watched Zach hop out of the pickup cab and go over to one of the SUVs and say something to Kate as she climbed from behind the wheel.

“Made it just in time,” the old man continued, undaunted by Willa’s hostile silence. He paused to squirt a stream of tobacco juice into the ground to one side of the door, then added, “Be two weeks t’morra since the funeral.”