Seeds of Trust
Page 24
Apparently he’d decided that since he hadn’t been indicted yet, it wasn’t going to happen at all. He obviously had no clue how slow and careful the feds could be.
Now, by the son-in-law’s bid, it was equally obvious that Murphy didn’t intend to give up Mee-Maw’s farm easily.
“Twenty-twenty-twenty-five? Yes, I have twenty-five, do I hear twenty-six?”
The auctioneer acknowledged a bid from another section. Ryan didn’t recognize this bidder. He had the look of a big city attorney, complete with the pinstriped suit.
Ryan’s heart sank. No way he could win a three-way bidding war.
He stuck with it, though, until the bid topped out at the price he and Jack had agreed on. They exchanged looks of regret as Ryan dropped out of the bidding.
Mr. Pinstripes kept at it, hanging in as the farm price reached nearly fifty grand. Ryan gritted his teeth as he watched with impotent rage some land speculator show every intention of grabbing on to his grandmother’s property…and for a song.
Murphy’s son-in-law lost his nerve at forty-nine thousand. Ryan saw it in the man’s sweat-beaded upper lip, the clenched fists. Now Ryan could see that Murphy was there, hanging in the very back, signaling with frustration for his son-in-law to keep up the bidding.
But the man shook his head and stalked off.
The auctioneer paused again, scanning the crowd. “Prime property, folks, cotton ready for the harvester… Surely it’s worth fifty? Do I hear fifty? Going once? Going twice? Sold at forty-nine thousand to the man in the pinstripes.”
Ryan barreled through the crowd. Who had just bought Mee-Maw’s land—and what did the man intend to do with it?
The man took a few steps toward the office. Still more people came between Ryan and him. Ryan elbowed his way onward, not sure what he would even say to the man.
“Ryan! Ryan!”
The voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned, couldn’t believe who it was.
Becca.
Ryan knew the man was going, knew the papers were about to be signed, but he couldn’t move.
Not with Becca there.
She smiled at him. The smile was as radiant as any she’d ever graced him with. It bewildered and bedazzled him.
He connected the dots a halted breath later. He looked from her to where the man had stood just a few moments earlier.
“You? You had something to do with this?”
“Officially…no. But I’m now the proud owner of an old homeplace with lots and lots of cotton I have no clue how to harvest. I was thinking…maybe I needed to sell it back to its rightful owners?”
“How—”
She blew out a breath. “Remember the guy who was appealing the judgment I’d won in the countersuit? Well…let’s just say he got a blue-light special on a settlement.”
“You gave up your judgment? But that’s crazy! Why would you—”
“I needed to make this right, Ryan.”
He took in the earnest hope in her eyes—and something else. Peace.
The crowd’s overlapping conversations filled the silence between them. Ryan pulled her over to the side, out of the throng of people.
“You didn’t have to do this, Becca.”
He kicked himself the moment the words were out of his mouth—what he’d meant to say hadn’t come out right at all.
But it was too late. Already he saw Becca’s eyes cool.
“Thanks. But I couldn’t live with myself until I knew I’d done everything I could to get Mee-Maw’s farm back. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers, and you can set the repayment however you’d like. If I’d thought for a moment you would have gone along with my ideas, I would have just offered the money to you straight up.” She shrugged. “But you never did answer my calls.”
Before Ryan could reply, she smiled at him, this time in a more impersonal way, and turned from him, walking toward the office.
“Wait! The reason…I was…Becca.” For a panicked moment, Ryan thought she wasn’t going to stop.
“Yes?”
“I couldn’t figure out what to say. When a man screws up, it’s hard for him to know…how to fix it.”
“Fix what?”
“Us. You. Me. I’m not… I’m no good at this.”
“Try?” A measure of pleading in Becca’s voice let Ryan know he still had a chance with her.
She’d come closer to him, close enough for him to reach out and touch her, but he didn’t dare. Not until he’d made things right.
“I kept thinking,” Ryan said, “that the words would come. And all I could think to say was, ‘I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.’”
Now she closed the gap between them, wrapped her arms around him and stared up at his face. “Oh, Ryan.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t you know that’s all I needed to hear?”
He kissed her then. He didn’t care that half the town was probably thinking him a crazy man. He didn’t give a crap about how people would talk.
All he cared about was what he held in his arms.
“Well, now.”
Ryan and Becca broke apart to see Mee-Maw beaming at them. “Glad to see that’s taken care of. Becca, I would have taken him up to Atlanta if you hadn’t come back down—no point having somebody moping around all the time.”
“Hey, Mee-Maw.” Becca wiped tears from her eyes—and Ryan was amazed that he hadn’t realized she was crying.
“Just talked to that shyster over yonder, and he said you was the one who just bought my farm.”
“To sell back to you. I want you to have it, Mee-Maw.”
“Yes, ma’am. But if you was aimin’ to be a partner, that would be okay, too. I can always use an experienced hand with the chickens. ’Course, I’m hopin’ Ryan’ll change his mind about hauling off to go sell fertilizer.”
Ryan met Becca’s gaze again. He wiped another tear from her cheek. “I’m here to stay. And…Becca, if you’re interested…the partnership comes with room and board—all of Mee-Maw’s cooking you can eat.”
Becca chuckled. “Now, that’s an offer that’s hard to refuse.”
“Just one thing, though.” Ryan held up a finger. “One tiny limitation. The contract’s for life.”
“Life, huh?” She smiled again.
“Comes with seven-days-a-week work schedule, low pay, skimpy benefits…but one gold ring and all the love I can give you.”
Mee-Maw was not content to leave a tender moment alone. “And I’ll throw in my best cast-iron frying pan. ’Cause you’re gonna need it with this hardheaded numbskull.”
Becca pressed her lips to Ryan’s, then broke the kiss long enough to say, “Sold!”
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459227965
Copyright © 2011 by Cynthia R. Reese
Originally published as WHERE LOVE GROWS
Copyright © 2007 by Cynthia R. Reese
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com