by Leigh Riker
“Yes, ma’am. Don’t you worry. We’ll clean up here too.” Obviously chastened by the scene, Clete was already angling his new chestnut mare in that direction. Dex rode on his heels, and Nell supposed they couldn’t get away from the slain bull fast enough.
For long moments, she and Cooper stood beside the carcass while Nell remembered the loss too of Elsie, the twin calves and those a few other ranchers had lost, tried not to let go of the last of her inner control. In a brittle tone, she finally said, “Good thing Jesse wasn’t here. He’d be making noise about all the prime steaks and roasts we’d have.”
“Nell.” Cooper moved to take her in his arms, as he’d done after Jesse had gotten hurt, but she stepped aside, her eyes avoiding the fallen bull as she gathered up Bear’s reins. Her brother, the two rebellious cowboys tonight and even Cooper’s new place in her life weren’t the only things she would have to face tomorrow.
“How am I going to tell PawPaw?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
COOPER SWEPT ANOTHER load of debris from the Ransoms’ old living room into a trash can. With a mop, Nell cleaned a path through the dining room and into the kitchen. They’d been working together in silence for over an hour, but his former home didn’t look that much better. And that wasn’t what had Nell keeping to herself.
The morning after they’d come upon the dead bull, she was still grieving—and worried about her grandfather.
“Did you get hold of Ned?” Cooper asked.
“No. Once he and Will set out to fish, they drop off the end of the earth—I mean that literally. It’s not as if those two just dip a line in the creek here, or take advantage of all the fly-fishing to be done in any Western state. The bigger the river, the wilder it is, the better. Oh, and remote isn’t the word for it.”
“He called from some town before. Don’t they have to stock up on supplies now and then? Bait, whatever?” Cooper leaned on his broom. He had never cared to fish. He didn’t understand how a man could spend a whole day—or, in Ned’s case, weeks—with his feet planted in the raging current of some far-flung tributary, waiting for a trout to take the hook while communing with his own thoughts. Cooper preferred action. He and Nell had some decisions to make.
She swabbed the entryway to the kitchen. “He doesn’t need bait. PawPaw and Will love tying flies almost as much as they like to actually fish. They’re artists, he always says.”
He added more junk to the pile he’d been making. “Then they might not have to come into town. That what you’re saying?”
“Not unless they run out of beans and bacon.” Her voice sounded huskier than usual. She swiped the dirty floor with even more force. “I was irritated with them before. Now I don’t know whether I’m furious because PawPaw hasn’t checked in again or more fearful that he will. I left several messages.”
“Nothing else you can do, Nell.”
“Except dispose of his prize bull,” she said, then cleared her throat. “I’m going to start upstairs while you finish down here. This floor will need another mopping—and then some.”
“Mom sure didn’t leave all this behind,” Cooper said. “From this mess, I assume that over the years, with the house empty, people camped out here.”
“Drifters, although they’d have to drift pretty far from the road to even realize the house is here. Maybe temporary cowhands then from the NLS,” she agreed. “We hire on for haying every year and there’s not enough room in the bunkhouse for all of them. PawPaw keeps track of that.”
Cooper set aside his broom. “Or could be there were young lovers who wanted a place to be together.” Like us years ago, only sloppy ones. His comment, as he expected, was met with more silence, but there were things that had to be said. For all he knew, Ned might suddenly show up without bothering to respond to Nell’s messages, and that raised another issue. “I’m going to sleep here tonight. The lights are on now, the water’s hooked up again and I can probably find a sleeping bag or bedroll somewhere at the NLS.”
Nell leaned her mop against the wall. “With Jesse back from Grey’s and in the main house, he’ll learn, if he hasn’t already, that we’re...not really married.”
“We are married,” Cooper insisted. “I figured if we can get this place clean enough, my mom can move right in.” Today, she was in town buying things for the house. “That will free up the foreman’s bungalow. I’ll talk to Jesse about moving in there, convince him we deserve our privacy—since we couldn’t take time for a honeymoon.”
“As the rightful heir to the NLS, in his opinion, he won’t want to stay in the foreman’s house.”
“Too bad.” He ran a hand over the nape of his neck. “Jesse gets his way too often. He always did.”
She frowned. “And what happens when PawPaw does come home? I mean, after he takes a strip off me for losing Ferdinand?” Which to Nell probably meant losing the NLS too.
“Then we’ll have another problem, I guess.” Cooper hesitated. “Unless you’d like to stop this nonsense about a marriage of convenience, or whatever you call it, and try to make whatever this is between us real. I’d be in a stronger position to support you...”
She tensed. “We’ve been over this.”
“Nell, we have to find a solution here, not some halfway measure. Not a deception that neither of us feels comfortable about. If you want to convince your folks, Jesse, my mother and eventually Ned, then let’s just go full gas.”
Her gaze faltered. “I don’t know.”
Cooper’s patience ran out. “You want to hear me say it? Okay, I will. A lot of years back, we had a thing for each other. Call it what you want. Attraction, connection... Doesn’t matter to me.” He touched her cheek, stroked one finger down her soft dewy skin. “Love would do it too. I wonder how much has really changed?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going there again.”
“Nell. I’m not just talking about...wanting to touch you, to hold you,” he said. “Because it’s more than that. I hoped we’d gotten past the way things ended before, that we’re friends again at least and that you can trust me. Not just to do my job but to stand by your side with Clete, and Dex, and everyone else. I don’t want to endanger what we have now. I want to help that grow.”
“Let me remind you what hasn’t changed—your determination to have the land we’re standing on. I heard what you told PawPaw then. I remember what you promised me the first day I saw you at Finn’s house. Are you saying you no longer want your land back?”
Her words confused Cooper. Was she throwing down a challenge? Give up his plan for this house, the land, everything he’d wanted from the moment he didn’t have it anymore? That was all he’d ever wanted. Yet, he didn’t want to hurt her either. As his mom had said, Nell must still feel something for him, and he ached to have her admit it.
“Listen,” he told her, “I’m a guy and we don’t talk about things like this much. So maybe you think all I want from you is...physical. It’s how a lot of men express their emotions, while women go for the emotional side first and the rest follows. But I do want a true relationship with you, Nell. The whole package. All of it.”
“I’m not sure I can do that,” she murmured. Nell tossed him a despairing look, then pushed past Cooper. She was out on the porch, down the steps and in the saddle before he realized what was happening.
He called after her as she disappeared, headed for the NLS side.
“I’m not giving up, Nell.”
On the ranch. Or her.
But for the first time, he wondered: Was making his offer to Ned a good idea anymore? If he was able to get his land—would he lose Nell?
* * *
NELL WAS STILL breathing hard when she rushed into the kitchen at noon. Jesse was sitting at the table, eating a burger with all the trimmings, and it appeared as if he’d been waiting for her. Nell hoped he couldn’t see the flush on her cheeks or t
he way her heart kept racing as if Cooper’s words had chased her home.
I wonder how much has really changed? Maybe this marriage hadn’t been a good idea after all, but she’d be darned before she let Cooper see what he obviously wanted to see in her eyes. That should have been flattering—if she wanted the same thing.
Nell told herself she didn’t. But had she outsmarted herself? Cooper’s plea for a real relationship with all that entailed, including his support, kept repeating in her mind, tempting her. She sank down on a chair across from Jesse.
He didn’t waste words. “So you managed to get PawPaw’s best bull killed. Nice work, Nell. Makes me look better though,” he added.
She’d been expecting this when he had lain in wait for her. “No one got that bull killed except those coyotes.” It was time to call Grey and the others about that. “Somehow we need to eliminate the pack.”
“I’d certainly help but...” He held up his casted arm.
“But you got yourself hurt trying to cowboy.” Nell had actually been surprised at how long he managed to stay on his horse that other night before he flew over its head. “Jesse, why don’t you go back to KC? Mom and Dad wanted you to leave with them, and I don’t understand why you didn’t.”
“Yes, you do. I’m not about to tuck tail and run when PawPaw’s likely to show up any minute. Then we’ll see who gets the NLS.”
Nell’s spirits drooped even lower. Once her grandfather learned about Ferdinand, she’d have no defenses left, even with Cooper’s help. So what had been the point of getting married? Jesse was probably right; PawPaw would leave the ranch to him. That wouldn’t help Cooper, and it certainly wouldn’t help her.
“What would you do with this place? Even after your arm is healed?”
He set the rest of his burger aside with a sly expression. “Maybe I’ll put it on the market. Sell off all these acres and make another profit.”
“You can forget that,” Nell said, fists clenched. “PawPaw would never agree.”
“Once he’s gone, he won’t know about it.”
“Do you care about anyone but yourself, Jesse? There are people who love this ranch, most of all me, and you’d throw it all away?”
He laughed. “For millions of dollars, sure. Farmers and ranchers are always land rich and cash poor. Why keep worrying about the weather, the price of beef cattle, coyotes? You’ll get your share, baby sister. Then you can move to Kansas City, make Mom and Dad happy.”
“And find a good man?” Nell said, her tone brittle. “In case you forgot, I’m already married.” Jesse didn’t need to know Cooper’s plans. She felt hemmed in on all sides now. I do want a true relationship with you, Nell. “You saw us take our vows.”
“I’m still wondering what that was all about.”
“It’s about working together, making the NLS even more than it is now.”
“Then why is Cooper over at his old house and you’re here?”
“He’s fixing it up for his mother. If you must know.”
“I need to know everything that’s going on here,” he said, giving Nell a once-over. “Funny thing, you don’t look like the blushing bride. A ten-minute ceremony and that’s it? Doesn’t ring true.”
“How we conduct our marriage is our concern. I won’t explain myself to you.” Cornered, Nell lashed out. “Why don’t you buy another business, build that up, then sell it rather than the NLS—instead of pretending you’re a cattleman, breaking your arm so you don’t have to actually do any work?” Jesse winced but she couldn’t quit now. “You could add more millions to what you already have.” She put a hand over her still-racing heart. Fighting for survival. “That’s what doesn’t ring true.”
Jesse shifted in his chair. His gaze fell away from hers. “Calm down, Nell.”
“No, I won’t,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Why you wanted cash from the office safe when you must have money stashed in accounts everywhere? Illiquid? All of it? Why isn’t some available to you? Or were you trying to get into the safe for some other reason?”
“I needed the money,” he said, studying his plate. “There are no accounts.”
Nell gaped at him. “What do you mean? You’re a wealthy entrepreneur. The apple of Mom’s and Dad’s eyes.”
“Fiction, nothing more. If you want the truth, I’m in hock up to my eyeballs.”
“But, Jesse—”
“There never were half a dozen companies, only one. It was going to be the next Google, huge, and I’d have been set for life. Then, in a blink, it all went sour. When I finally tried to sell, the valuation was way lower and the only people who wanted to take it off my hands offered me pennies on the dollar.” He stared into the distance, not at what must be Nell’s shocked gaze. “Then, of course, there are the lawsuits.”
“What for?”
“Copyright infringement, for one. Trademark. All kinds of things I don’t want to get into right now. Bloodsuckers, all the people I relied on, trusted, my partner among them. He’s suing me too. I screwed up, Nell. Fancied myself the next Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos, or someone, even Steve Jobs in his heyday.”
Nell reached out a hand. “Jesse, a few hundred dollars from the ranch safe wasn’t going to help that.”
“No,” he agreed.
But the NLS would, and she and Cooper had been right. Something to hide? Oh, yes. And that made Jesse—her own brother—a dangerous person.
The question was: To help herself, should she tell PawPaw?
* * *
“I’LL TALK TO JESSE.” In front of the foreman’s house, Nell watched Cooper load his mother’s bags into his pickup. Today was Merry’s moving day, a far happier occasion, Nell guessed, than when his family had left their ranch years ago. “The house isn’t done but Mom’s over the moon to be spending her first night there. She wants to pick her paint colors for the walls and outside, but live with what’s there for a while first,” he said, turning to Nell. “You know I’m not glad. About Jesse.”
Nell laid the straw hat Merry had bought on top of the bags. She had told Cooper about her discussion with her brother, who was lying low this morning two days later. Cooper had spent the past few nights at the old ranch house, cleaning up and avoiding the NLS’s guest bedroom or any proximity to Nell. Did he regret speaking out about their relationship? “What can you possibly say to Jesse?”
“Things you can’t,” he said. “Jesse has to understand he can’t just waltz in, like he thought, and take over. His being basically bankrupt and in hot water legally doesn’t get him special treatment.” He glanced up. “Here he comes. Why don’t you help Mom pack the last of her things? This won’t take long.”
“Stay out of it,” she said, catching his arm.
Cooper shrugged off her touch. “No way. We’re a couple, Nell—”
“For a short while,” she reminded him, ignoring the fact that she had indeed outsmarted herself. She was no longer sure she’d want that divorce. Nell couldn’t deny she’d fallen for Cooper all over again, and she missed the easy camaraderie they’d developed, until their last conversation, while working together. “You have no stake in this.”
“So you’d just step back and let Jesse roll over you?” He frowned. “He will, you realize.”
“He’ll try,” she said. “I thought you knew me better than that. I can handle him. Watch me.” Whatever her brother had to say, he would inherit the NLS over Nell’s dead body. She didn’t factor PawPaw into that decision. Not yet. “I don’t need any protection, including yours.” Especially when she still knew Cooper’s ultimate plan for the ranch. Even though he’d pressed her to make their marriage real.
He planted both hands on his hips. “Why can’t you just let go for five minutes? Stop being the cowgirl who can do everything, and that includes shutting out any man who tries to help.” He had turned aside so Jesse, who
was halfway from the house, wouldn’t see their heated conversation. “My dad would never have let my mother deal with this situation alone. He would have stood by her, shielded her—”
“Oh, please. Your mom is no shrinking violet.”
“Neither are you.” He rolled his eyes at the truth of that statement. “There. I said it for you. You both come from pioneer stock, women who crossed the prairies and the mountains in covered wagons. But so do I.” He dropped his hands from his hips. “Let me do this, okay? Don’t make me say please.”
“Cooper.”
“Go,” he said, his gaze fixed on Jesse behind her, and for once Nell decided to obey. He did have a point. She was too emotionally invested in the situation, and the whole matter made her as sad as it did angry. If Jesse played on their grandfather’s sympathy, would that alone get him what he wanted? Nell doubted that. Still, after losing PawPaw’s bull and being torn about Jesse, she was in no better position.
But Nell didn’t leave. Jesse had touched her shoulder, and she could feel his hand tremble. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Cooper ducked into the truck, rearranging the luggage and, she supposed, giving himself time to decide what to say. Nell didn’t respond. She hadn’t talked to Jesse since the bombshell he’d dropped in the kitchen. Cooper straightened and looked him in the eye. “You still here?” he said. “Thought you’d be in KC, asking your folks for a loan. What kind of man are you, Jesse?”
Her brother glanced at Nell as if to say, You told him everything? Traitor. “Who are you to challenge me, Ransom? I’m family. You don’t belong here.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I do.” He tilted his head toward Nell, silently asking her to disappear. Instead, she drifted off to the porch where Cooper had left the next stack of boxes for his mother. Merry had shipped them from Chicago before the wedding and her furniture was now on its way; she’d never intended to go back. Nell cocked one ear to hear what Cooper and Jesse were saying. She didn’t need protection, but as a more neutral party, Cooper might say things Nell couldn’t without seeming petty. “Now the cat’s out of the bag about your financial problems, what’s next?” he asked Jesse.
