Christmas at Colts Creek

by Delores Fossen

  “Tell your mother the truth about the lie when you see her,” Brody advised. “There’s already been enough deceit around here.”

  “True,” she agreed, her voice a weary whisper. “But I don’t want you to lose this ranch.”

  Their gazes met again. Held. And for a flash of a moment, he saw the teenage girl who’d come into his life and turned it upside down. The girl who’d stomped on his heart—and she hadn’t even known it. In fact, all this time Janessa had believed he’d been the heart stomper.

  Yeah, no way had she inked her butt cheek with his name.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” Janessa muttered, limping back toward her car.

  Alone, he stood there and watched her drive away. Brody grieved the death of a man he’d loved like a father. But what he grieved more was that the last seventeen years of his life had been one huge-assed lie after another.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JANESSA MADE HER way up the porch steps of the palatial house at Colts Creek Ranch. Slow cautious steps. Not because of her aching toe but because she wanted to give herself a few extra moments to settle. Her stomach was churning, and her head was a little light.

  She silently cursed both reactions. For Pete’s sake, she ran a home for troubled teens and wasn’t a wuss. She could handle walking into her father’s house. Could handle staying here, too, while she started the process of challenging the will. After all, as Brody had pointed out, it was now hers. Temporarily, of course, but for this moment in time, she owned Abe Parkman’s house.

  Janessa paused at the door and rang the bell. She waited. Heard nothing. So, she rang it again. The seconds ticked off, turning into minutes, before she huffed and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked so she opened it and stepped inside to the marble floor foyer.

  “Hello?” she called out. But again, she got no response.

  Maybe the housekeepers hadn’t come in, or it was possible that Abe no longer had full-time employees here. Hard to imagine that though with a place this size. Janessa recalled counting the rooms on her previous visit, and there had been twenty-three of them. Twenty-three rooms for a man who’d spent most of his life living alone.

  She glanced around and into the large front living room, noting that both it and the foyer had been redecorated since her last visit. Abe had carried the black-and-white color scheme of the gate and fences into the house. White marble floors here, too, along with sterile pearl-colored walls and ebony wood furniture.

  There were no I’m-home-y’all vibes that she’d gotten when Brody had driven her through town. This was like walking into a museum. Abe Parkman’s museum where everything looked unapproachable and untouchable.

  Unlike the grounds of the ranch, there were no Thanksgiving decorations, and she suspected the exterior ones were all for show. A way of bragging—look here, look what I can afford to do.

  Janessa walked into the living room, glancing at Abe’s portrait over the white limestone mantel. He looked as unapproachable and untouchable as the house, but it was obvious they shared plenty of DNA. Those were her eyes, a realization that didn’t help settle her nerves.

  Sighing, she went back into the foyer so she could keep watch out one of the front windows. She wasn’t sure why Sophia had insisted on meeting her here. Especially since her mother was staying at the inn in town. Janessa seriously doubted her mom wanted to take this particular stroll down bad memory lane, but maybe it was possible she just wanted to get a look at the place where her “grandchild” would spend the first few weeks of her life.

  If that was it, it would give Janessa the lead-in to tell Sophia the truth about the baby. A truth that was going to hurt way more than her throbbing broken toe. Still, Brody was right. There’d already been enough deceit, and if she waited to tell the truth, it would mean only delaying Sophia’s exit before the conditions of Abe’s will were met. Best to lay all of this on the line and hope for the best.

  She heard the clip clops of footsteps and turned to see the housekeeper/cook, Velma Sue Bilbo, coming toward her. The iron-hair woman might have been plenty old enough to retire, but she still looked formidable. She had to be to have dealt with Abe all these years.

  Janessa had fond memories of her from the summer she’d spent here. Velma Sue had not only made her feel welcome, she’d written Janessa a few letters over the years. Letters about Abe, of course, and the ranch. Janessa wasn’t sure why Velma Sue had taken it upon herself to do that, but she’d read each one and even written back with her own life updates. Just because Abe had been rude to her, Janessa hadn’t seen a reason to pass that rudeness on to Velma Sue.

  “I rang the doorbell,” Janessa said to let Velma Sue know she hadn’t just walked right in.

  The housekeeper nodded. “I heard it, but I had to take some bread out of the oven, and the kitchen’s all the way at the back of the house. I don’t move as fast as I used to.”

  Clearly, since Janessa had been in the house a good ten minutes. “Are you working alone today?” Janessa asked her.

  “No, Lottie’s cleaning upstairs, but she wears those little earbud things and cranks up the music. It’s Stelly’s day off. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m waiting for my mother. She should be here soon.”

  A ghost of a smile bent the woman’s mouth. “Sophia. She was a spitfire.”

  “Still is. She won’t be staying here, but I will. For a little while anyway. I hope that’s okay.”

  Velma Sue shrugged in a suit-yourself gesture that still managed to be welcoming, and with creaky steps that made Janessa wonder just how much housework and cooking she actually managed to get done, she joined her at the window.

  “How much of what I’m hearing is true?” Velma Sue asked. “Abe left you everything, but you and Sophia have to stay in Last Ride for three months for you to keep it.”

  “That’s true,” Janessa verified.

  “Like one of those silly things people post on Facebook,” Velma Sue muttered and nearly made Janessa groan and laugh at the same time. “Still, it got both you and Sophia here so it must have worked. Well, it’ll work if you both stay.”

  The question of them staying was indeed the big smelly elephant in the room.

  “I don’t blame Sophia for leaving like she did,” Velma Sue went on. “I hope she’s had a good life.”

  Janessa thought about that a moment. “Good-ish. Depending on your point of view.” And she left it at that.

  Sophia could champion lost causes with her legal wit, but she had some seriously bad judgment when it came to men. Abe hadn’t been her one and only mistake, but it was the only marriage that resulted in a child. Sophia had gone through the “I dos” four times, and Janessa had lost count of the number of engagements and breakups. Her mother made an art form of jumping from one relationship to the other before the proverbial ink had dried on the divorce papers and while the shine was still on the engagement ring.

  “Sophia’s probably already told you, but Abe didn’t treat her right,” Velma Sue continued a moment later. “Plus, he married her on the rebound, and that’s not a good way to start things off between a husband and wife.”

  Her mother definitely hadn’t told her about that. In fact, Sophia had told her very little about Abe.

  “On the rebound?” Janessa repeated, and she hoped the woman didn’t realize this was surprising news and just clam up.

  She didn’t.

  Velma Sue nodded. “Abe was all moony-eyed over Brody’s mom, Darcia. She was a mite younger than him, five or six years, but I guess she had a little of the moony eye for Abe, too. It didn’t last, though. Darcia took up with his best friend, Jimmy Harrell, and that was that.”

  “His best friend,” Janessa muttered. Ouch.

  “Best friend and blood brother. Abe kept the scar to prove it. When they were ten or so, the idiots cut themselves a little to
o deep for their blood brother ritual. Nearly bled to death, and both of them ended up needin’ stitches.”

  It was hard for Janessa to think of Abe being a kid. Or having a best friend for that matter. When she’d spent that summer here, she couldn’t remember him once socializing with anyone. Business meetings and parties, yes, but nothing personal.

  “So, you think Abe’s breakup with Darcia is why he married my mother?” Janessa asked.

  “That’s the way I saw it. Less than a month after Jimmy and Darcia got hitched, Abe showed up here with Sophia. He’d met her at some fancy cattleman’s ball up in Dallas.”

  Janessa wasn’t sure why her mother would have been at a party like that, but she had seen photos of Sophia when she’d been in her early twenties. Plenty of those pictures had involved her being at grand parties. Added to that, Sophia had come from old money and even had family with royal roots. So maybe a fancy cattleman’s ball had been part of Janessa’s late grandparents’ social circles.

  “Abe married my mother after only knowing her a month?” Janessa pressed.

  “No, it was a little longer than that, but they were already engaged when Abe brought her to Colts Creek Ranch for the first time. It was a month or two later when they had a big wedding right here. Big,” Velma Sue emphasized. “I think Abe wanted to rub it in Jimmy’s and Darcia’s faces. Not sure it worked, though,” she added.

  Since neither marriage had lasted, Janessa wasn’t sure how and if any of Abe’s feelings for Darcia had played into the divorce. Maybe it’d played into his divorce from Margo, as well. Then again, maybe Abe’s personality flaws had been more than enough reason to end the marriages.

  “While you’re here, you should go through Abe’s things,” Velma Sue suggested. “Especially the stuff in his storage room next to his office. I think that’s where he left some things for you.”

  That got her attention. “What things? Is it something that’ll explain why he did what he did with the will?”

  Velma Sue shook her head. “Nothing recent. Just some stuff he got years ago. They stayed in the attic for a long time. Not sure why he didn’t give it to you when you were here that summer, but Abe didn’t always make sense.”

  That was true, and it dashed a quick zip of hope that Janessa had gotten over the possibility of there being another letter or some document to tell her why she’d been his only heir. There had to be something, some reason, and while she might be grasping at straws, maybe there had been some condition to Abe’s own inheritance. Something along the lines that he could only leave Colts Creek to blood kin.

  Velma Sue patted her arm. “You’re trying to fix what happened. I hope you can. But sometimes stuff, especially stuff involving Abe, just can’t be fixed.”

  Yes, Janessa knew that, but even if it was unfixable, not righting things would make her feel like a failure. If only she’d been home to read Abe’s letter while he’d still been alive, she possibly could have made things right before they’d had a chance to turn so wrong.

  “Why’d you work for Abe all these years?” Janessa came out and asked.

  That ghost of a smile returned. “I love the house, the ranch. Always did.” Velma Sue paused. “Guess I’ll have to retire if you can’t convince her to stay.” She tipped her head to the driveway where Janessa saw Sophia’s vintage candy-apple red Mustang come to a stop.

  Apparently, it was showtime. One that would almost certainly end the moment Janessa told her mother the truth.

  “Good luck,” Velma Sue said, giving Janessa’s arm a pat. “All of us are gonna need it.”

  Janessa couldn’t agree more. Steeling herself up, she went outside and greeted her mother with a smile and a wave. Sophia stepped out of her car, her gaze sliding over the house and grounds before settling her attention on Janessa.

  “Just checking to make sure hell didn’t freeze over?” Janessa asked her.

  Sophia opened her mouth to answer, probably to say something with more than a smidge of snark, but she frowned as Janessa limped her way toward her. “What happened to you?”

  “I kicked Abe’s tombstone and broke my toe.”

  Her mother stared at her a moment and then broke into a loud belly laugh. “Priceless. I might find the cemetery and give it a couple of kicks myself.” She pulled Janessa into a hug and kissed the top of her head.

  As usual, Sophia smelled like Chanel perfume and freshly laundered cotton. An odd combination, but that scent was Sophia to a tee. The expensive mixed with the environmentally friendly.

  Today, she was wearing raw silk pants and a cashmere sweater the color of ripe plums. Probably an outfit bought at some Dallas boutique that specialized in organic fabrics, and she’d paired it with outrageous high-heel lime booties that had likely set her back a thousand bucks.

  They stood there for several long moments, just holding onto each other. When she was growing up, Sophia had smothered her with motherly love and plenty of interference and meddling. If Janessa had let her, Sophia would have continued to try to run her life.

  “I brought your things,” Sophia said when she eased back. She used her key to pop open the trunk of her car. “I didn’t stick to the list you gave me, though. I figured you’d want some nicer outfits and such for when you were photographed with the baby. You’ll appreciate that when you look back on the keepsakes years from now.”

  Crap. So, they’d already launched into the baby topic.

  “Mom,” Janessa said as she lifted the two suitcases from the trunk, “we need to talk.”

  “Of course, we do. You’ll probably want to remind me of just how big the stakes are if I don’t adhere to Abe’s jackass rules. Rules no doubt meant to take a jab or two at me since that’s what jackasses do.”

  Maybe that had been Abe’s reasoning, but after hearing what Velma Sue had just said, it seemed to Janessa that Abe would have preferred those jabs to land on Darcia or Brody’s father. Then again, Velma Sue hadn’t gotten a chance to get into the nitty-gritty details of what had sent Sophia running from this place.

  Sophia took one of the suitcases from Janessa, and they started for the porch. “I won’t be going in the house,” her mother insisted. “I’ve already bent my hell-freezing-over rule enough. So, why don’t you come back to the inn with me?”

  “I can do that, but why didn’t you just ask me to meet you there in the first place rather than drive out here?”

  “Because I wanted to make the drive. To see the ranch. To see if the place still makes me want to curse Abe. It does,” Sophia concluded after another look around. “So, why don’t we go to the inn, and then you can tell me all about this Brody Harrell.”

  Janessa stopped on the top step, looked at her mother. “How do you know about Brody?”

  Sophia rolled her brown eyes. “I remember when you ran off to spend the summer here, and you called me all gooey over a boy you’d met.”

  “You wouldn’t talk to me the first month I was here,” Janessa quickly reminded her. And then, yes, she might have mentioned a boy when Sophia and she had gotten back to having semi-normal conversations. “I never mentioned his name.”

  “No, but you doodled it a lot after you got back. Doodled and scratched it out. So, I used my superior deductive skills and figured out that the gooiness hadn’t lasted and he’d broken your heart.” Sophia paused and stared at her in a way that only a mother could. A prying mother. “Maybe he did more than that.”

  Since Sophia didn’t have ESP, Janessa ignored the fishing expedition. No way would she tell her mother that she’d lost her virginity to Brody, here on the ranch, where Sophia hadn’t wanted her to be in the first place.

  “Anyway, I did a few computer searches,” Sophia went on a few moments later, “and discovered that Abe’s ranch manager was—ta-da—Brody Harrell and that he’d been working for Abe while you were here. So, I ran a quick background check on him last nig
ht.”

  Janessa huffed and continued to the front door. “You didn’t.”

  “Don’t scowl. There wasn’t much to find. No police record. No marriages. No red flags. Just a boatload of financial deals that made Abe richer than he already was.” Sophia set the suitcase inside the foyer when Janessa opened the door, but true to her word, she didn’t go inside. “Is Brody the reason you’re so adamant about staying here for three months?”

  “In part,” Janessa readily admitted. “But not because I’m still gooey over him.” Well, not much anyway. “I don’t want him or the other people Abe employed to lose their jobs. I told you about the terms of the will and what’s at stake in those voice mails I had to leave for you because you weren’t answering your phone.”

  Of course, Janessa hadn’t told her mom everything in those voice mails. There were just some things better spilled in person. Some things best avoided altogether, too, like the attraction to Brody.

  Sophia stared at her. “It wouldn’t be a smart idea to get involved with him. Even casual holiday nooky could end up causing lots of problems for you.”

  Janessa thought her mouth might have dropped open. “Casual holiday nooky? I’m here because of Abe’s will, not Brody.”

  “Good, because if you hook up with someone from Last Ride, where would that go, huh?” She didn’t wait for Janessa to answer. “Your job, your life and home are in Dallas. His job, life and home are here. It would never work.”

  “You’re giving me love and relationship advice?” Janessa asked after an eye roll.

  “Of course. I’m not only your mother, but I’ve also had a lot of experience with what doesn’t work in a relationship. This won’t work. That’s too big of a bridge to gap, and you’ll end up just hurting each other.”

  Too big of a bridge to gap? Possibly. Probably. And it didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t here to hook up with Brody again.