by Jeanne Allan
“Fine. You’ve told me. Now get in your truck like a good little errand boy and go back to Durango.” She sent a cool look over her shoulder. “Don’t bother to air out the guest room. Because I won’t be visiting.”
“Don’t you think you ought to discuss the matter with your mother?”
She stopped and turned. “Don’t tell me he left her anything, because I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Charlie Gannen wasn’t into forgiving or forgetting when someone crossed him. The letter specifically said you lose everything if she accompanies you to the ranch.”
“Isn’t it lucky I have no intention of going?”
“Aren’t you interested in what happens to his estate if you don’t come to Durango?”
“No.”
“It goes to Connie Maywell.” At her blank look, he added impatiently, “The woman your father was engaged to marry.”
“I hope she enjoys it.” Once again she headed up the walk.
He grabbed her arm and swung her about. “Charlie’s first wife, your grandmother, Emily Gannen, died not too long after your father was killed in Vietnam. Charlie almost went crazy.”
“Good for her. She was well rid of him.” Pain shot through her arm as his fingers tightened.
“Charlie remarried about ten years ago. His second wife was good to him, putting up with his contrariness, nursing him during his last illness. You might even say she made him happy.” A hint of anger flashed across his face. “Charlie didn’t leave her a red cent.”
“She can have my share. I don’t want it.”
“You don’t have a share to give. Not until you stay at the ranch for two weeks. Then you can sell the ranch to me. The second Mrs. Gannen will be provided for.”
“Forget it.” She shook loose his hand and brushed imaginary dirt from her sleeve. “I’m not going to the ranch. As for his wife, she was a fool if she didn’t know what he was like when she married him.”
“You’re like him. Stubborn as a mule.”
“Name-calling won’t get you anywhere. I long ago grew a thick skin in order to survive.”
“We do feel sorry for ourselves, don’t we? How much is it going to take to make little Charlotte feel better?”
She frowned in puzzlement. “How much what?”
“How much money to overcome your self-pity.”
“If that’s your idea of salesmanship, it stinks.”
He stalked her up the walk. “I’m going to hound your footsteps until you agree to my proposition. All you have to do is take a two-week vacation on the ranch and it’s yours. Then you sell it to me for fair market value.”
“Why?” Charlotte spun around and eyed him suspiciously. “Why do you want something you described as just a house, some outbuildings, a few acres and this and that?”
“Charlie’s second wife deserves more than a backhanded slap across the face.”
“What’s she to you?”
“She’s—” he paused “—special to me.”
“Why didn’t she come do her own begging? Did she think you’d be more persuasive? That I’d be swept off my feet by some handsome hunk of brown-eyed cowboy?”
“It’s happened before.”
Red spots of anger rampaged across her vision. “If you mean my mother,” she said furiously, “Chick Gannen’s eyes were green.” She whirled away.
“Wait.” He stepped in front of her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... The handsome hunk bit threw me. I wasn’t talking about— That is...”
“My mother and Chick Gannen. Go ahead. Say it. My mother fell for a handsome hunk of cowboy, and they slept together without benefit of wedding vows. Mrs. Charles Gannen no doubt thought it extremely clever to sic a cowboy on me. Like mother, like daughter.” She stomped around him.
“She knew I was coming to Denver to see you.” He kept pace with her. “She didn’t know I was going to try to reach an agreement with you to buy the ranch.”
“Then you won’t have to report you failed, will you?”
He moved to stand between her and the front door. “Listen, Ms. Darnelle, you may as well accept that I’m not leaving Denver until you agree to visit your grandfather Gannen’s ranch.”
“Enjoy your stay because I’m not going to any ranch.”
The door opened behind him, and Charlotte’s mother peered around his large frame. “I thought I heard voices,” Jewel said. “Why are you keeping your friend on the doorstep, Charlotte? Bring him in.”
“He’s not my friend and he’s leaving.”
The cowboy turned around and extended his hand. “Matthew Thorneton, Mrs....uh, that is, ma’am.”
“Tricky, isn’t it?” Charlotte asked. “Just exactly what is the proper way to address someone’s mother when she’s never been married?” She couldn’t help the bitterness edging her voice.
Her small hand swallowed up by the larger masculine one, Jewel looked from Charlotte to the stranger. A bemused look on her face, she said softly, “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Thorneton. I’m Jewel Darnelle.”
“Now I understand why Chick fell head over heels in love with you.”
Charlotte wanted to slug him. Of all the dirty, low-down, conniving tricks. To remind her mother of the past. Not that her mother seemed to mind. Jewel absolutely glowed, clinging gratefully to the cowboy’s hand as if he’d handed her a million dollars. As for him, the insincere, lying louse, he ought to be in Hollywood. The way his face softened and his brown eyes warmed up. Who was he kidding? He’d stoop to any level to get the estate for his special friend. She’d settle his hash. “Charles Gannen sent him, Mother.”
Her mother’s free hand fluttered slowly toward her throat. “Chick’s father? Is that true, Mr. Thorneton? I thought, that is, Charlotte received a letter saying he was dead.”
“Please. Call me Matt.” His cool gaze held Charlotte’s. “Charlie asked me to give a message to Charlotte.”
“Not a message, an ultimatum. One I choose to ignore.” Charlotte made the explanation for her mother, but the angry glare was aimed at the man blocking Charlotte’s path.
Matthew Thorneton said to Jewel, “Charlie left everything to Charlotte on one condition. She inherits his estate if she spends two weeks on his ranch. It seems simple enough to me, but your daughter is being stubborn.”
“Stubborn!” She ground her teeth together. “You’re not telling all of it.” Charlotte looked at her mother. “Apparently lack of relatives convinced Charles Gannen to accept the result of his son’s fall from grace, but he’s not about to forgive the evil woman who led him into sin. You were blatantly excluded from the command invitation.” Renewed anger at the implied slur against her mother in Charles Gannen’s will drove Charlotte headlong into speech meant to shock the old man’s opportunistic errand boy. “Obviously you’re a fallen woman who seduced Daddy’s little boy, and Mr. Gannen was afraid if you stepped foot on his place, the very dirt would be contaminated.” Her mother’s white face immediately told Charlotte her arrows had wounded the wrong target.
“I think there’s a better place to discuss this than on the front doorstep.” Aunt Faye’s crisp voice came from beyond the open door. “Come inside.” The invitation from Charlotte’s great-aunt, the younger sister of Charlotte’s Grandpa Darnelle, was more of a directive.
As Jewel complied, Charlotte put a restraining hand on Matthew Thorneton’s arm. “She didn’t mean you.”
“You’re a real brat, aren’t you?” Contemptuously he shook off her hand and followed Charlotte’s mother inside.
Leaving Charlotte on the doorstep acknowledging she’d behaved badly. Not that she cared what he thought, but the one person she never could bear to hurt was her mother. Jewel had suffered enough.
It was inevitable that Charlotte’s mother invited Matthew Thorneton to eat dinner with them, not from curiosity, but to offset her daughter’s deplorable behavior. Charlotte covertly watched him as he easily conversed with the three women she loved best in the world. If he felt the s
lightest bit discomfited at finding himself the only male at the table, he hid it well. Obviously it would take more than a roomful of women or a shop full of lace and unmentionables to disturb this smug bastion of lazy male self-assurance.
Sunday was the only evening when everyone in the Darnelle family could sit down to dinner together, and by custom, it was an elegant meal. Candles flickered on the table, and overhead the electric chandelier was switched to low, a compromise her grandparents had reached over forty years ago and one Grandma Darnelle continued to honor. The soft lighting blessed the dining room, shielding from critical eyes water stains on the wallpaper and worn spots in the carpet. Charlotte looked with quiet pride at the mismatched silver, polished with the patina of age. The white tablecloth had been mended, a treasure from the past. She’d paid a quarter for it at a garage sale. Aunt Faye had unearthed the wineglasses at an estate sale, paying a rock-bottom price because there were only five left unbroken.
Charlotte loved Sunday dinners. Until tonight. She wanted to scream. To remind everyone why Matthew Thorneton was here. But she couldn’t. Not at Sunday dinner with its unwritten rules of conduct. No arguing. No scolding. No unpleasantness. No problems for solving. The Sunday meal was reserved for best behaviors, interesting tidbits, amusing stories and the pleasure of being with those who loved you best. That pleasure didn’t include the complacent toad sitting across the table from her.
An old gold-framed mirror hanging on the wall behind Matthew Thorneton reflected the back of his head, his dark hair thick and wavy, the ends barely curling under to brush against his collar. Sharing the mirror, Charlotte’s image was a pale blob with ivory skin and pale red hair, her green eyes reduced to dark smudges in the dim light. At least her freckles weren’t visible. Piling her wavy hair atop her head with long curls hanging down in front of her ears accentuated her long neck, making her head look like an apple on a stick, but customers expected her and Aunt Faye to match the ambiance of the shop, and the hairdo suited her old-fashioned shirtwaist with its high ruffled lace collar. Outwardly Charlotte was the picture of ladylike gentility.
Inwardly she seethed. She wanted to throw her plate at Matthew Thorneton’s head. Followed by her wineglass. What was worse, he knew it and was laughing at her. She didn’t know why she was so sure of that because he seldom looked at her and not once had he directed a comment her way. His presence shrunk the dining room, the dark floral walls closing in on her.
It was a relief when Aunt Faye finally suggested they move with their coffee to the living room. In the brightly lit larger room with its easy, faded furniture and abundance of family photographs, Charlotte could lay the outrageous proposition before her family. Matthew Thorneton would be out the front door before he had time to drain his cup.
Turning to her mother, he stole the initiative from Charlotte. “It’s no secret how Charlie could hang on to a grievance. Considering he and Charlotte never met, I can’t get over how much like him she is. I’d blame the red hair, but her father had red hair, and you know how easy going Chick Gannen was. And Charlie Gannen was no redhead.”
“My hair is strawberry-blond, not red. You can insult me all you want, but I’m not going to that ranch.”
“As I understand it, you have to go to inherit,” Aunt Faye said.
“I don’t want anything of his.”
Matthew Thorneton turned to Charlotte’s great-aunt. “Once Charlotte inherits, I’ll be glad to buy the ranch from her, but she can’t inherit without fulfilling the terms of the will.”
The cowboy was clever. He hadn’t been in the house for five minutes before he figured out that practical, down-to-earth Aunt Faye was the one he needed to win over.
“It’s your decision, of course, Charlotte,” Aunt Faye said slowly, “but don’t you think you’re being a little hasty, turning down an inheritance you know nothing about?”
“No.”
“That’s the thing about Gannens, Miss Darnelle. They can make up their mind in a flash. That way they don’t have to be bothered about insignificant details like facts. Look at old Charlie. Without ever bothering to see his granddaughter, he made up his mind his son Chick couldn’t possibly have fathered her. Yet a half-blind idiot can see Charlotte could have sat for the portrait of Charlie’s first wife, Emily.”
“I am not a Gannen,” Charlotte said.
“Too bad Charlie’s second wife didn’t know that.” Matthew Thorneton set his cup and saucer on a nearby table, carefully, as if he didn’t trust himself with the delicate porcelain. “She wouldn’t have wasted the past five years trying to convince Charlie to stop acting like an old fool and to acknowledge his granddaughter.”
“I never asked for her help,” Charlotte said, ignoring their silent, wide-eyed audience.
“That’s right, you didn’t.” He stood up. “And I’m sure you don’t give a damn that Charlie’s will kicks her out on her ear.”
Charlotte paled at the accusation. “I’m sorry, but—”
“You and Charlie. Two of a kind.” He loomed over her. “So busy feeling sorry for yourselves about some imagined slight or other, you can’t be bothered to consider anyone else’s feelings.”
Shaking with anger, Charlotte put down her cup. “Stop saying I’m in any way like Charles Gannen. I’m not.”
“Charlie didn’t take kindly to having his behavior questioned, either. He decided if his wife was so set on him doing the right thing by you, then he would.” Matthew Thorneton’s mouth hardened. “That’s why he left everything to you. It was Charlie’s way of telling his wife to mind her own business.”
CHAPTER TWO
THERE was a long moment of horrified silence, and then Charlotte jumped to her feet. “Oh, no, you don’t.” She looked around the room. “He’s trying to manipulate you into insisting I go. Ask yourselves why our hero here is riding to the rescue of this poor, noble woman. I’ll tell you why. He said she’s special to him.” She gave Matthew Thorneton a frosty smile. “One has to wonder just exactly what that means.”
His smile rivaled hers. “Come to Durango and find out.”
“No.”
Her grandma Darnelle frowned over the rim of her cup. “Charlotte, you always talk too fast for me. How could Mr. Gannen disinherit his wife? I thought she died years ago.”
“He disinherited his second wife,” Matthew said.
Aunt Faye looked at Matthew. “What happens if Charlotte doesn’t go?”
“If she doesn’t visit the ranch within the specified time limit, the estate goes to Connie Maywell, Chick Gannen’s former fiancée. I’ll be honest with you, Miss Darnelle, Charlie’s will is irregular enough. If Charlotte hired a smart lawyer, she could probably tie up the estate for years. It would cost her a bundle of money, and in the end, she’d get no more than she can get now, which is everything. The simplest solution is for her to abide by her grandfather Gannen’s last wishes, go to the ranch for two weeks and then sell to me. That way Charlie’s widow wouldn’t be dispossessed for even a minute.”
“She’s still living in the house?” Charlotte asked.
“She’s staying on in a caretaker capacity until after your visit and the estate is settled. Would you like us to pay rent?” he asked coldly.
“Us? What did you do? Move in the day he died?”
“I’ve lived in the house for six years.” He looked steadily at her. “Does one have to wonder what that means, too? Would you like to know where I sleep?”
“I couldn’t care less.” She could figure that one out herself. “But it certainly goes a long way toward explaining why he left her nothing.”
“Charlotte!” her grandmother said in a shocked voice.
There was nothing pleasant about Matthew Thorneton’s laugh as he picked up his hat. “I can’t get over how much she thinks like Charlie did,” he said to the room at large. “Thanks for dinner, ladies. If you have any questions, I’m staying at the Brown Palace hotel. Charlotte, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You will n
ot.”
“Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Lady, until you agree to come to Charlie’s ranch, I’m going to be harder to get rid of than flies in a barnyard.”
“Then you’d better buy the Brown Palace, because it’ll be cheaper than renting a room every night the rest of your life. Charles Gannen never acknowledged me when he was living, and I refuse to acknowledge him just because he’s dead.”
“And to hell with everyone else involved.”
“That’s exactly right. To hell with your girlfriend.”
“Chickie...”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but he has no right to judge me.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t judging you,” Jewel said.
“Actually, I was.” Matthew Thorneton measured Charlotte with hard eyes. “Charlotte may look like a sweet, old-fashioned girl, but beneath that frilly exterior is a marble-hearted, selfish, redheaded shrew. On top of which, she’s a coward.”
“My courage has nothing to do with—”
“I think it does. You’re afraid to come to Durango.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He couldn’t possibly be that perceptive. “What would I be afraid of?”
“A soft, spoiled woman like you gets hysterical at the thought of getting a little dirt under your fingernails or smudging your pretty lace dresses. You don’t have to worry, Ms. Darnelle. Charlie’s place may not be up to your elegant standards, but we don’t eat with our fingers or sleep in the barn. We even have indoor plumbing.”
He was so far wrong, she felt almost giddy with relief. “Now you’ve spoiled my picture of your sunbonneted girlfriend, wearing patched dimity and scratching at the ground with a hoe.”
“I don’t know what the hell dimity is, but I do know—”
“Mr. Thorneton, Matthew, please. I know Charlotte is being somewhat contrary, but you must realize this comes as quite a shock to her.”
“Don’t apologize to him, Mother.”
“Somewhat contrary is a filly who’s acting skittish,” Matthew Thorneton said. “Charlie’s bulls are less stubborn than Charlotte.”
