by Gigi Moore
Tamara glanced at her mother to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem unduly concerned one way or the other, which didn’t mean she hadn’t been expecting her share of her ex-husband’s worldly possessions just because she’d been married to and had a child with him once upon a time ago.
Her mom met her gaze and arched a delicate brow as if in challenge.
What are you going to do?
Tamara heard the words loud and clear, and they weren’t just in her mother’s voice but Jess and Jax’s.
She cleared her throat and asked again.
When Mr. Clemson gave her the date of the will’s final version, Tamara gaped.
Her father had made his will out just after she’d gone off to college and never amended it.
Had he always planned that she’d come back eventually? And when she hadn’t he’d just given up on seeing her in his lifetime and hoped that she’d come home after his death to see him off if she had nothing else to do with him?
At least she knew he hadn’t been trying to push her together with Jess and Jax. How could he? He’d signed off on the will when she’d just been a teen and the boys had barely reached puberty. He couldn’t have known she’d come back one day and be taken with the boys she’d practically raised.
Mr. Clemson leaned forward and put a hand over hers. “I’ve been your father and Jeremiah’s lawyer for a long time, Tamara, and I know Bailey wanted you to be happy.”
She looked at him. “I know,” she rasped.
“He also wanted you to be well taken care of in his absence. And The Double R is a very successful and self-sufficient business venture, I assure you. You wouldn’t have to work another day in your life if you didn’t want to.”
But what if she wanted to work? What if her chosen profession made her perfectly happy?
Tamara glanced at everyone present and saw the approving smiles of Jeremiah and his sons, the approving grin of her mother and sisters.
Why did this new development make everyone here happy except her? Why didn’t she see this whole thing as a positive, a chance for her to stay with the boys and not worry about her livelihood?
Even if she didn’t have to work another day in her life, it wasn’t like the boys wouldn’t be working. They made their living as cowboys after all. The ranch wasn’t just a job either, but their home and their life. And it didn’t sit well with her mooching off of them. Sure, she could set up a practice anywhere. But did she want to?
Mr. Clemson squeezed her hand and smiled. “It’s not like you have to make your decision right away. You have some time to mull it over.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clemson.”
The rest of the reading went over her head in a haze and a half-an-hour later when Mr. Clemson finished the reading, Tamara left the law offices, oblivious to everyone who tried to get her attention or get her to ride back to the ranch with them, and she just drifted.
She had no destination in mind. She just wanted to get away from the places and people that reminded her of her father the most.
How could she stay at The Double R after what they had all done to her, after all the secrets they had kept, lies they had told and time they had all wasted for her own good?
God, she felt seventeen years old again, and the only way she could get away from all of it, rise above it, she felt like she needed to leave and start her life fresh and anew—somewhere else.
But it wasn’t like New York didn’t have its bitter memories and skeletons in the closet. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be bringing herself and all her regrets with her when she went back because in the end it was like her father and Jeremiah used to say: “You can’t run from yourself. Wherever you go, there you are.”
She had issues, and she knew it. She had never gotten over first her mother’s abandonment and then her father’s condemnation. She had taken all that grief and sadness right back to New York with her and tried to bury them under her studies and workaholism. It had worked for a while.
But now the same situation faced her again—going back, eighteen years later, leaving a bunch of issues unresolved.
She couldn’t do it, not this time. She needed to face her mother, Jeremiah, the boys and clear the air once and for all.
* * * *
No one could have been more shocked by Bailey’s will than Jax, except for maybe Jess, who had the same thought in mind at the terms as Jax. They’d discussed it on the way home, firm in their wish. They’d rather keep their forty percent share of The Double R without the additional thirty percent if it meant that Tamara would stay. She meant much more to them than owning a majority share of the ranch.
Jax wished that telling her would make a difference, but he somehow got the feeling that nothing he or his brother could say to her would make her change her mind about leaving. They had told her how they felt, that they loved her and wanted to be with her and that hadn’t worked. Counting on her to stay for nostalgic reasons would be a long shot.
What did she have left to do?
“Did you see her face when Clemson stated the stipulations of the will?” Jess asked now as he sat on the barstool at the island in the kitchen.
Maria had begun breaking out fixings for sandwiches as soon as they had all arrived home together minus Tamara, but no one seemed to have an appetite, and their dad, Jasmine and her daughters had all retired either to their rooms or other pursuits around the ranch.
This left Jax and Jess sitting in the kitchen in front of a meal neither of them really had a taste for.
Jax nodded now in response to his brother. “Who could miss it?”
“She thinks her mother came back for the money.”
“You really believe that?” Jax asked.
“I don’t, but I think Tamara does.”
“I reckon she’s got every reason to think that way.”
“I reckon.”
“Tamara and Jasmine need to talk,” Jax said.
“Good idea, but easier said than done. They don’t stay in the same room together longer than it takes to say hi and bye.” And the fact that Tamara allowed this much civility said a lot when Jax knew how abandoned she felt by her mother, how betrayed.
He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. He had never felt more helpless and vulnerable in his life except for those few times when his hopes had been dashed, and he’d lost the most important people in his life. Comparatively, he had not had it as bad as some people, though worse than others. So he didn’t have a career in football. He still managed to live in a place he enjoyed waking up in every day, and did a job that by and large he loved. Losing his and Jess’s mom hadn’t affected him as bad as it could have since they’d been pretty young when she died. But finding out about Bailey’s illness and being told there wasn’t anything they could do about it made him feel more vulnerable than he ever wanted to admit to.
He could just imagine what it felt like for Tamara, having to see her Mom every day and not speak to her, feeling trapped—damned if she left and damned if she stayed.
“I didn’t think Tamara a coward, but now I’m beginning to wonder,” Jess said. Jax stared at him across the island for a moment before his brother elaborated. “I mean, we told her how we feel, we spilled our guts, and she’s still planning to leave?”
“I think it’s more to it than that, Jess.”
“What more? Either she loves us or she doesn’t. Either she’s willing to forgive us or she’s not. She’s using the excuse of how we handled Bailey’s illness as a wedge to keep us apart.”
Jax could see his brother’s temper building and hoped that Tamara didn’t walk through the door that minute. In Jess’s frame of mind, he might just be tempted to tell the woman how he felt. He couldn’t say that he blamed his brother. He felt a little frustrated with the whole situation himself.
Did Tamara love them? He had difficulty telling from the way she acted sometimes. He knew she had feelings for them, had to believe this, because he found the alternative, that she could lay with the
m and accept their affection without having any for them, unbearable.
Jess often told him that he would get back how he treated all those girls in spades. Did all the girls he had slept with feel this way? He always tried to be up front and never lead a woman on that what they did together would lead to anything more than fun and games sex, a good time between the sheets. But now that his own heart was on the line, he wondered how far the divide was between his kind of up front honesty and their romantic expectations.
And what did Tamara’s rejection say for Jess, he who had been living as chaste a life as any reverend or other holy man that Jax had ever known? Didn’t he deserve a woman who loved him to settle down with? “Do you think it still might be the threesome thing?” he blurted.
“Why? Are you willing to step out of the picture to see?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Jax frowned at his brother’s confrontational tone. “Whoa, pardner. I’m not the enemy. I want the same thing you do.”
Jess closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I guess I am a little cantankerous.”
“Putting Pop to shame.”
Jess grinned and put his hand over his brother’s on the island top. “You don’t deserve my bad attitude. No one does. I need to come to terms with this sooner or later.”
“Come to terms with what?”
“That we’re going to lose her.”
“No one’s losing anyone.”
Jax and Jess jerked their heads toward the threshold of the kitchen where Jasmine stood in a pair of cowboy boots, jeans and an orange western shirt tucked into her jeans.
She managed to bring cosmopolitan elegance and polish to her cowpoke outfit without any effort at all, and Jax smiled at how much she looked like a darker skinned version of her oldest daughter.
“How long have you been standing there eavesdropping?” he asked. Jasmine smiled like he intended and obviously knew he teased her.
“Long enough to know I’ve been sitting on my patooty too long waiting for my daughter to come around.”
“You got any ideas about what we need to do to keep her here, we’re open,” Jess said.
“I’m going to talk to her. I can’t guarantee that she’ll stay after she hears what I have to say, but I’ll give her something to think twice about.”
“All we’re asking for is a chance,” Jax said.
“Then that’s what I’ll give you.”
Chapter 30
Tamara froze on the threshold of the door when she saw her mother standing at the island alone. She slowly closed the door as Jasmine turned to her with a grave look on her face.
“We need to talk, Tamara.”
“What is this, an intervention?”
“Intervention. Therapy. It’s whatever you want to call it to make you feel better about talking to me.”
“Too late for therapy.” Tamara tried to walk past her mother but came up short when the woman put a palm in her chest to stop her.
She automatically tried to go around her mother but then the woman took that decision out of her hands when she caught Tamara around the biceps and held on.
“It’s never too late to unburden yourself.”
“Are you talking about you or me because I don’t have anything to unburden.”
“Are you sure about that, Tamara?”
Hell, she wasn’t sure about much of anything when her mother looked at her with her dark glossy eyes taking Tamara in with such regret.
Tamara squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “You want my pity, I’m sorry I’m fresh out.”
“Please, baby. I don’t care if you just say that you hate my guts and don’t want to see me ever again. I just want you to talk to me.”
“You don’t really want that.”
Jasmine lowered her hand. “Have at it.”
Tamara had to give the woman points for her gumption and could see what her father must have seen in her all those years ago besides her beauty—her spirit. But something had obviously taken some of that spirit away and run her off, someone maybe? “Would you have come back if he hadn’t died?”
Her mom released her and dropped her arm to her side. “You think I came back for his money?”
She couldn’t say the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but that wasn’t what Tamara got at with her question. She could see that her mom had made out very well in the ensuing years since she had left her dad. She didn’t seem to want for any material possessions. “I just want to know if you would have come back to see me while he still lived.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s an honest answer.”
“Tam, you have to understand how things were between us. Up until a few weeks ago, you father opposed my having anything to do with you. It’s why I stayed away as long as I did. If it wasn’t for Jeremiah, I don’t think I would have considered coming back at all.”
“Jeremiah?” She should have known the buttinski had a hand in this. Good ol’ Jeremiah Reynolds, The Fixer.
Tam smiled at the thought.
“I just knew you hated me like your father did. But Jeremiah stayed in touch, convinced me I needed to come.”
“How do you know I don’t hate you?”
“Do you?”
“I’m not sure how I feel about you!” Tam threw up her hands in aggravation. “More than thirty years, Mom! Three decades. When I was a kid, I used to dream about meeting you, imagined how you’d say you missed me, and how leaving Dad and me was all a big mistake. Then I grew up. I was ten when I gave up those dreams.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“Too little too late.”
“I called you when you were little.”
Tamara arched a brow and stared at her, waiting for more.
“You were probably about six or seven. I was pregnant with Desi.”
Tamara swallowed and watched as her mother took a deep breath as if to prepare herself for that unburdening she had alluded to earlier. She tried to tell herself that whatever her mother said shouldn’t matter to her. She was a lawyer, a creature of logic. But she also missed her mother. She had a problem admitting this, even to herself. “You called?”
“I know it was too little too late, even then, but I wanted to talk to you, tell you about your sister, maybe try and be in your life in some capacity…I don’t know what I thought at the time, but your father nixed the idea, nonetheless.”
“Speaking ill of the dead?”
“No! I would never—”
“I mean it’s not like he’s here to defend himself.”
“And I’m not attacking him, just stating facts. Jeremiah can vouch for me if you need him to. I spoke to him first.”
Of course Jeremiah knew. Jeremiah knew all.
“Your father talked me out of coming back into your life—either of your lives, and he acted pretty adamant, expressing that he didn’t want me to try and speak to or see you. He said it would be too disruptive, that you were happy and fine and had grown to accept my absence. Is that true?”
Tamara folded her arms across her chest, feeling more defensive since she had arrived home than she ever had in her life. Now she could see where she had gotten her interrogational skills. “If you’re asking me whether or not I would have welcomed your call back then, I can’t honestly say. I don’t remember what my frame of mind was back then.”
“That’s fair enough.” Jasmine raised a hand to touch her arm. “I can’t really blame your father for his reaction, but I just wanted you to know that I…I did try.”
“Not very hard,” Tamara muttered. She knew she judged her mother harshly, maybe too harshly. The woman was human, just like her father, and humans made mistakes—some more irreparable than others, some more painful. How long would she allow her mother’s mistakes to affect her most important life decisions?
“I deserve that.” Jasmine nodded and it seemed more like in defeat rather than agreement. “
Can I tell you something?”
“Have at it, as you said.”
“I know you’ll probably find this impossible to believe, but I’ve regretted the decision I made to leave you and your father every single day of my life.”
“Please, don’t…” Why did she get choked up when she should have been righteously indignant? When she should have been doing like the woman had suggested earlier and telling her she never wanted to see her again?
Truthfully, she wanted to hear what her mom had to say, wanted to know that she hadn’t been forgotten just because she had been out of sight. Wanted to know that the woman who’d birthed her loved her. “Why did you leave?”
“Cowardice, Tamara. Plain and simple. I let other people decide what life’s journey for me or more accurately, who I took with me on that journey.”
“What people?”
“My family. They weren’t happy with my decision to marry your father. I think they thought him a passing fad, and that I’d eventually get over him and come down to earth.”
Much like her father had thought about her and Noah. “But you didn’t.”
“And my parents disowned me for it. Didn’t want to have anything to do with me…”
Tamara’s vision swam with tears she fought mightily not to shed, heart pounding at her mother’s words that had hit way too close to home. “You followed your heart. I…I think that’s brave.” Her mother had acted braver than her with Jess and Jax, at least. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the three little words to them much less commit her life to them the way they wanted to commit to her. This made her wonder how much of a passing fad her father had thought Jess and Jax. Or maybe he’d been so against the idea of her and them together because he knew they weren’t a passing fad.
“I wasn’t brave as much as young and rebellious. But when real life set in, and I realized the life of relative luxury I had given up to be with your father, and that the only way to get it back I had to renounce him and my…my child…”
Maybe she was emotionally overwrought and needed someone to hold as much as her mother needed to unburden. Or maybe she just missed her father so much more than she knew. Whatever the reason, she found herself falling into her mother’s outstretched arms and hugging her tight as the tears flowed—from her and her mother’s eyes.
