“All right.” Evan backed off, palms raised in surrender. “You need some time, I’ll give you that, but you know I’m not a patient man. When you get back to New York, I’m going to expect an answer.”
***
Tom’s attorney, Bob Wright, was there to greet Monica when she stepped off the plane. She’d met him once before, years ago, when Tom had legally adopted her and again when he’d rewritten his will.
“Ms. Brant.” He offered his hand. “Good to see you again, although I heartily regret the circumstances. Tom was a good man and a true friend. We’ll all miss him.”
“Yes. We will,” she agreed, fighting the lump in her throat.
“Is this your first time on the ranch?” Bob asked.
“It is, actually,” Monica answered. “Tom invited me several times, but I never came. Now I wish I had. I feel like a total stranger here.” She almost wished she’d waited for Rosa and Ty before coming, but she was on Evan’s timetable and he was eager to get back to New York.
“Maybe you’ll feel more at home once I introduce you around,” Bob suggested.
“That’s kind of you, but it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t plan to stay long.”
“Gettin’ itchy for the big city already, Ms. Brandt?” he teased.
“I admit feeling very much out of my element,” she confessed.
“Since we have some time, why don’t I show you the place?” Bob suggested.
For the next couple of hours, Bob drove her around on a golf cart, showing her the grounds and introducing her to the ranch hands. The foreman, Bart, was a gruff, old weather-beaten cowboy who tipped his hat with a glower and mumbled condolences.
“Don’t let ol’ Bart fool you,” Bob said. “Trust me when I say he’s hurtin’. Ol’ timers like him would rather be strung up by their . . . er . . . boots than show any emotions.”
She knew the same was true of Ty, who she was certain would rather be strung up by the balls than ever be reminded of his impassioned outpouring. Cowboys. She shook her head ruefully. The breed seemed to be an odd blend of both the best and worst traits of the entire male species.
“This place is huge,” Monica remarked, as they returned to the sprawling Spanish-style ranch house.
“It is,” Bob agreed. “The house is about four thousand square feet and sits on over five thousand acres of prime pasturelands. There are six bedrooms,” Bob continued. “Tom and Rosa’s rooms are on the east side, and there are four more in the west wing, each with a private bath.”
“I wonder why he built so many.” She also wondered if Tom had ever felt lost in it living alone.
“He always wanted a big family,” Bob said.
“It’s a shame he didn’t get that wish,” Monica replied. Although Tom had married and divorced three times, she was his only child.
Wandering the great room, she noted the dated furnishings, and distinctly masculine, mostly burnished oak and studded leather. There were also myriad painful reminders of Tom—a worn pair of boots by the door, a hat rack that held several cowboy hats, and a pair of reading glasses sitting beside a recent issue of The Cattleman.
She picked up the dog-eared book beside it, a well-worn hardback of Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. She caressed the cracked leather-bound cover. The book reminded her of Ty’s drunken eulogy. She’d been enraged at the time. Now she only felt vague wistfulness that Ty had known Tom so much better than she had.
She deeply regretted that she hadn’t met her father until ten years ago. She was eighteen and already in college when he’d walked into her life. All her mother, Vivian, had ever told her was that Monica was a mistake made in Vegas. She’d never known her biological father until Vivian discovered her ex- was a billionaire, and filed a patrimony suit. Although Vivian won eighteen years of back child support, Tom hadn’t cared about money. He’d only cared about getting to know his only child.
Their relationship had developed awkwardly at first, but he’d been dogged about them getting to know each other. Tom was nothing like the other people in her life. She couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if she’d been raised by him. What kind of person would she be today had she grown up with a father’s love?
At the stocked bar, Monica examined the bottles. Not finding any brandy, she poured two glasses of Chivas Regal and handed one to Bob, who accepted it with a nod of thanks. She took a sip with a tiny grimace, missing her usual Calvados.
“When you’re ready, I’ll need you to go through Tom’s personal effects,” Bob said. “You can start that process any time.”
“I’ll wait until Ty arrives,” she said. “He grew up here, after all. I wouldn’t feel right doing any of that without him. When do you expect him?” She anticipated Ty’s arrival with renewed anxiety. Not that the sprawling ranch wasn’t plenty big enough for her and Ty to stay well out of each other’s way.
“He called earlier to say he’d be arriving in the morning,” Bob replied.
“But didn’t he just leave Las Vegas this afternoon?”
“Yup, but he said he’d rather drive straight through and rest when he gets here.”
“He’ll be exhausted,” she said.
“Probably, but he’s done the drive plenty of times before. He lived on the road for years when he was doing the rodeo circuits.”
“Did you know him back then?” she asked, recalling what Ty had told her about those years.
“I ran into him now and again,” Bob replied cautiously.
“Is he much different now than he was then?” she couldn’t help inquiring.
Bob sat back, contemplation wrinkling his forehead. “Ty will always be Ty, but he’s no longer hell-bent on self-destruction. His marriage was a disaster, but he seems to have gotten himself together since then. Tom was real proud of the job he’s done at the hotel.”
“But the place is on the brink of bankruptcy,” she exclaimed. “Believe me, I know. I’ve reviewed the books.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not Ty’s fault. The place was struggling long before he took over. He’s all that’s kept it afloat. Without him, Tom probably would have closed it years ago.”
“You believe that?” she asked dubiously.
“Tom believed it,” Bob replied. “It’s why he decided to let Ty call the shots.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“You should probably be aware that Tom made a few changes to his will in the past year.”
“What kind of changes?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, Miss Brandt. You are still Tom’s personal representative and primary beneficiary, but there’s a codicil granting Ty controlling interest in Brandt Morgan Entertainment.”
“Tom left the hotel to Ty?”
“Not quite. I said controlling interest in Brandt Morgan. You still own twenty-five percent of it.”
“Does Ty know about this?” she asked. She didn’t know what she was going to tell Evan about the hotel. She was already dreading that conversation. She’d agreed to sell it to him and they’d all but signed the deal. Now it seemed all bets were off.
“Not yet,” Bob said. “I was waiting for Tyrone to arrive before I went over all the details of the will.”
“Tyrone?” she almost choked. “Is that Ty’s full name? I would have guessed Tyler or Tyson, but Tyrone?”
“He’s named after his maternal grandfather, Tyrone Jefferson,” Bob replied, impervious to the laugh that gurgled up in her throat. “He was a good ’un, ol’ Tyrone.”
“So you knew Ty’s family?”
“Yup. I know just about everyone ’round these parts. I grew up here. Moved away to go to law school, but still have plenty of connections.”
“Staying out here at the ranch must save you a lot of inconvenience,” she remarked.
“Hell, yeah,” he laughed, “Tom’s place is a second home to me. I’m almost ready to set up a second practice here.”
Monica sighed. “As much as I hate to do
it, I’ll probably sell the place, I know Tom loved it here, but I have no desire to own a cattle ranch, even with someone else running it. I don’t see the point in being an absentee owner of a business I have no interest in.”
Bob rubbed his jaw. “I’m afraid that won’t be your call either.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Tom didn’t think you’d give a fig for the ranch, given that you’d never even come out here, so he also bequeathed the ranch to Ty. Said he always felt bad that Delaney took half of Ty’s place, so he wanted to make it up to him. Ranching ain’t the life for everyone, ’specially women,” Bob said ruefully. “Tom loved this ranch, and he didn’t want to see it sold.”
Monica wished she understood that kind of attachment. Having traveled from place to place most of her childhood, she’d never known any real home. Since adulthood, she’d worked a seventy- to eighty-hour week and eaten most of her meals out. Her poshly decorated Manhattan apartment wasn’t much more than a place to shower and sleep. Marrying Evan wouldn’t have changed anything in that respect. He was always on the move.
“Tom thought Ty would want to hold onto it since he pretty much grew up here,” Bob said. “He also wanted to be sure Ty always had a place to call home in Oklahoma. He hoped Ty would come back here and raise his own family one day. Tom was real sentimental like that.”
“Yes, he was. I imagine Tom would have loved to have been surrounded by grandkids,” Monica said. In all honesty, she couldn’t care less that Tom had left the ranch to Ty. She had no use for it and strongly suspected she’d be bored out of her mind if she was stuck out here for more than a couple of days.
Her heart gave a painful contraction that Tom had been denied his dream. Part of her wished she could have granted it, but this wasn’t her kind of life. During their engagement, she and Evan had never even discussed kids. Evan didn’t really like them, and Monica was ambivalent at best. Maybe it was because neither she nor Evan had come from a close family. He despised his, and she’d always felt unwanted in hers. If he’d asked her to, she probably would have agreed to get a tubal. If she had to choose, she’d rather deny herself the experience of motherhood than bring an unwanted child into the world—at least that’s what she’d always told herself.
“Seems like you and Tyrone have a lot to discuss, given that you both now have a vested interest in the hotel.”
“He might have controlling interest, but he’s no better off than he was before without money to renovate it,” Monica said.
They’d done nothing but fight over the fate of the hotel. They’d been at an impasse since her arrival in Vegas. She’d decided to sell, but he was determined to hold on. She’d finally offered to let him buy her out and gave him sixty days to line up financing, but as the new CEO Ty could do as he liked—providing he didn’t go bankrupt. Given her financial interest, she couldn’t stand silently aside for that. She’d just have to find a way to convince him to sell.
“I s’pose he could sell the ranch,” Bob said
“I hope he doesn’t,” she said. “It’s not what Tom would have wanted, but I don’t know how else he’s going to get cash to renovate,” she said.
Bob met her gaze, as if reading her mind. “With a twenty-five percent interest and almost a billion dollars in assets, maybe you have the answer.”
“I don’t want to be in the hotel business,” she said, now wondering if that’s what Tom had had in mind when he’d changed his will in Ty’s favor. Had he been trying to engineer a match between them? Tom had made it no secret that he’d wanted to see them together. Maybe because she and Ty had been his only family.
“But you wouldn’t have to be involved any more than you want to be. I guess that puts you in a unique position, doesn’t it, Ms. Brandt?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ty woke up with a hellacious hangover and a body nearly crippled from a night spent on the sofa. He’d never gone to his bed simply because he didn’t want to be alone in it. He’d hoped to convince Monica to stay, but once more she’d walked out on him, even after he’d laid everything on the line. A lot of last night was fuzzy, but that part wasn’t.
Neither was his emotional breakdown.
Jesus, he’d wept like a friggin’ baby. He hadn’t done that since he was ten and the bull gored his father. What kind of pussy did she think he was after that? He partly blamed the booze. He hadn’t drunk that much in almost eight years.
The anvils inside his head called for a hair of the dog, but he didn’t trust himself. Last night only proved how easy it would be to fall back into old habits. He’d allowed himself to wallow in grief, but he was done drinking and done grieving now. It was time to put all that behind him and move on with his life. Trouble was, he didn’t have a damn clue where Tom’s passing left him.
Monica was hell-bent on selling the hotel unless he came up with the money to buy her out.
Ironically, it was Delaney who’d come up with a potential solution. Delaney had offered him a means of securing a loan, but her deal came with strings. He still didn’t know why she was so eager to help him find an investor. He knew it wasn’t an altruistic move on her part. She wanted something from him, but he didn’t have a clue what it might be—other than his half of the ranch.
What time was it anyway? He squinted at his watch. Almost noon. Shit. He’d slept half the day away. He got up, clutching his head with a groan. He’d just have to pull himself up by the bootstraps and suffer through the agony, which would be a special kind of hell since he was facing a sixteen-hour drive to Oklahoma. He’d been stressed to the breaking point, but the drive would give him plenty of time to sort things out. Staring out at an empty highway, it was easy to get lost in his thoughts, an indulgence he hadn’t experienced in weeks.
He’d never considered before what losing Tom would mean to his future, but now it was time to face that reality. Tom had offered him the job in Vegas when Ty was at an all-time low and desperate to break the cycle he’d sworn never to fall into. But he had fallen, deeper and harder than even his old man ever had. Given time, his end would have been the same. The change of scenery had been a literal lifeline.
Tom had agreed to rebuild the Hotel Rodeo right before his first stroke, but then Monica had come into the picture, with guns blazing and plans to sell. She’d given him no reason to believe Tom’s passing had changed her mind about that. If anything, she now had even more reason to get rid of the place. Maintaining any interest in the hotel would mean a continued connection with Ty. She’d made it pretty damned clear how she felt last night when she’d come to collect Tom’s ashes.
Maybe she didn’t care about the hotel, but he did care. The people who worked there were like family. He was responsible for their livelihood as well as his own. Monica had given him the dubious courtesy of sixty days to buy her out before putting the place on the auction block, but he still needed fifty million dollars, and time was ticking away.
He forced himself to face the hard reality that he might have to sell out. Problem was, without the hotel he’d have to return to one of the only other things he knew—ranching or rodeo. Losing the hotel would still leave him with half of his ranch in Oklahoma, but once again, that meant dealing with Delaney. She didn’t want him there any more than he wanted to go back. Delaney would buy him out in a heartbeat, but he had no intention of letting her have his ranch, and they sure as shit couldn’t work the place together.
On the other hand, life on the rodeo circuit had almost killed him once. He was eight years older now and might not be so lucky the next time a fifteen hundred pound bull decided to plow him nose-first across an arena.
The only other option that sprang to mind was to maybe take over managing Tom’s place. The present foreman, ol’ Bart, had always liked him. He was also older than dirt and might be persuaded to retire if Ty wanted to take up the reins. Then again, Monica probably had plans to sell the ranch too. After closely considering every option, the only conclusion he’d come to was
that his entire situation sucked big, hairy, donkey balls. Any way he looked at it, Ty was screwed.
***
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook.” Bob set a plate in front of Monica with an apologetic look. “Fortunately, I found some of Rosa’s tamales in the freezer. Maybe it’s not haute cuisine, but it’s better than the cowboy beans and son-of-a-bitch stew the crew’s been living on.”
“Son-of-a-bitch stew? Did I hear you right?” Monica laughed.
“Yup,” Bob said. “That’s what they call it.”
“What’s in it?” she asked.
“Dunno and probably don’t want to. All I can tell you is they’ve been a sorry lot of grumblers since Rosa’s been gone.”
“Does she do all the cooking?” Monica asked and took an appreciative bite. She wasn’t a big fan of Mexican cuisine, but the tamales were surprisingly good.
“Yup. She usually prepares all the meals for Tom and the ranch hands. Don’t know what they’re going to do if she leaves.”
“Do you think she’ll want to?”
“Probably,” Bob said. “She has grown kids in Houston, I think. With Tom gone, she’ll probably want to move closer to them. Unless, of course, she goes to work for Delaney. That’s a possibility. I think they’re still pretty tight.”
“Delaney? Do you mean Ty’s ex-wife?”
“Yup. Rosa practically raised her. She followed Delaney out here and eventually came to work for Tom.”
Monica digested that connection along with her food. They finished the rest of the meal in silence. Although Monica found Bob’s company pleasant enough, she was happy when he pushed his plate away. “I hope you don’t mind if I turn in early. I have some briefs I need to review while I’m here. I put your bags in one of the guest rooms down that way.” He inclined his head to the west wing of the house. “Second door on the left.”
“Thanks, Bob,” Monica said. “I’m going to try to get caught up on some reading myself.” With her mind still racing about Tom’s will, she decided another drink and then some mind-numbing reading would be the best medicine. She had an entire week’s worth of Wall Street Journal to catch up on. Perfect bedtime material.
Sin City Cowboy Page 18
