She made her way into the house and found Jesse sitting at the kitchen table, his big hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.
“Where you been?” he asked without looking at her.
“Sheridan. Needed time to think, away from everything.”
He nodded like he understood. “There’s fresh coffee.”
She poured herself a cup and sat across from him. The silence grated on her nerves, and it wasn’t going to make the conversation any easier. “So, what does this mean?”
“That Mark has a right to some of the ranch, to everything.”
As she’d anticipated. But it wasn’t the family fortune that mattered so much to her. It was how the situation was going to affect her family from now on.
She’d never seen Jesse look so haggard, so bone-deep weary. Yes, he could be gruff and overbearing sometimes, but she loved him. He worked hard to keep the Cottonwood Ranch thriving while not letting his dream of winning the National Finals in bull riding slide. He’d always taken his role as firstborn very seriously. And now that had been ripped away from him.
Despite all the family on the ranch, he seemed like the loneliest person in the world. At least she’d found happiness in someone else’s arms for a short time. She saw every day how happy the women in Walker’s, Dex’s and Dusty’s lives made them, and she wanted that for Jesse.
Even if it might never be in the cards for her.
At the moment, she couldn’t imagine being with anyone but Will, but couldn’t face being with him either. How would she know if he were keeping something important from her? How could she ever trust him?
She refused to go through the same kind of pain her mother was experiencing.
“How much?” she asked.
Jesse looked down at his coffee, but Elly felt like he was staring beyond it. “Will said it’s up to Dad and Mark to work out.” He took a drink of his coffee before rising and dumping the rest down the sink.
She wondered if he’d been sitting here alone with his thoughts long enough that the coffee had grown cold.
“Jesse.”
He looked back at her.
“Janie told me Mark isn’t interested in the ranch. I think he probably just wanted the truth.”
“Well, he got what he wanted.” He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. “I’ve got work to do.”
Work awaited her attention as well, but the walls of the house threatened to close in on her. She too pulled her coat on and followed Jesse out the door. When he stopped a few feet from the house, she redirected her gaze and saw her father talking with Mark in the lengthening shadows next to the ranch office.
The ferocity of Jesse’s anger came off him like a shock wave as he spun in the opposite direction and headed for the practice arena. She hated the idea of him astride a surly bull at the moment, but there wasn’t anything she could do to stop him.
As she watched her oldest brother stalk to the barn, she had never felt so powerless. When she glanced back at Mark, it struck her that in reality he was her oldest brother. Even though it might never feel like it.
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, Will didn’t feel like going to work. He doubted he’d be terribly productive, and he sure wasn’t going to want to talk to anyone. Not exactly the best way to drum up business. And if word of his and Elly’s blowup hadn’t reached Delia already, one look at him and she’d know something was wrong.
He lingered over his coffee, but the longer he sat and tried watching the morning news, the more a feeling of claustrophobia pressed in on him. He couldn’t stay in this house all day with nothing to occupy his mind.
By the time he reached work, he was an hour late.
Delia started to say something, but she didn’t get it out before he stepped into the doorway of his office—and saw Kate standing inside. Tall, stylish, gorgeous Kate with her long, golden-brown hair and elegant features looked so out of place that he wondered for a moment if he wasn’t really awake yet.
“Kate.”
“Will!” She rushed forward and wrapped him in a hug.
He was too stunned to do anything beyond offer a feeble hug back. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, you talked about how wonderful it is here so much that I had to see for myself. I booked the cutest little cabin outside town, had breakfast in a quaint diner this morning.” She smiled. “And I can see the allure of practicing here if you’re keeping a banker’s hours.”
“I had something to do this morning before coming in.” Yeah, refereeing the two halves of himself. He couldn’t decide if he was an idiot for messing things up with Elly or if the anger he felt at her attack was more than justified. Maybe a bit of both.
“That’s okay. Delia has been a sweetheart and kept me company.”
Will hazarded a glance back at Delia, who was looking at him with a million and one questions in her eyes.
“She said a good friend took these amazing photographs.” Kate walked across the office and touched the edge of the frame around one of Elly’s scenes. The herd of elk depicted in it looked as if they might walk out of the foggy river valley where they were grazing right into his office.
“Yeah, Elly’s very talented.”
“Is her work sold here in town anywhere?”
Will wanted to say, “No.” Something deep inside him didn’t want Kate’s and Elly’s worlds to touch each other. But that was silly. If Kate bought some of Elly’s photographs, maybe she would display them in her office back in Denver. Perhaps clients would see them and buy some of their own. Elly was talented, and more people should see that, despite his conflicted feelings toward her.
“There’s a gallery down the street.”
“Great, let’s go.” Kate hurried past him. “It was wonderful to meet you, Delia.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
Kate probably wouldn’t be able to tell Delia wasn’t being totally truthful. What had Kate said before he’d arrived?
When he looked at Delia, he tried to convey his surprise at Kate’s appearance and that there was nothing for her to worry about, nothing that she should share with anyone. He wasn’t sure she saw what he wanted her to, but he’d have to deal with that later.
Once he stepped out onto the front walk, Kate slipped her arm through his. As they walked toward downtown, she took in everything around them. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before. It’s an adorable little town.”
“I like it.”
“So my being impulsive and showing up on your doorstep won’t convince you to come back to the big city?”
“I’m sorry if that’s why you came here.”
“Only partly. Intense curiosity was the other. I had to see what took you away.” She didn’t say it as if she were angry or as if she’d been sitting at home pining away for him. That wasn’t Kate’s way.
He nodded toward the line of stores and the comings and goings of Cody’s residents. “Now you see it.”
They approached the Tangled Antlers Gallery, but when Will reached to open the door it flew open. Elly froze when she saw him. When she noticed Kate, he saw confusion and hurt in her eyes.
“Elly,” he said, needing to say her name out loud, to draw her attention from Kate.
“Elly?” Kate asked. “Oh, this is the photographer. How fortunate you’re here. Will was bringing me to see more of your wonderful work.”
“Oh.”
The awkwardness of the moment pressed in on Will. “Elly, this is Kate Sturgeon. We went to law school together.” Please, Kate, don’t say anything else.
“Nice to meet you,” Elly said, but he could tell she didn’t really mean it. She didn’t offer to shake hands.
“You, too.” Kate casually took a step to the side, moving herself farther away from him. “I was passing through the area and stopped to see what Will’s raved about all these years, why he came back here instead of taking my father up on his offer to join our firm. I can certainly see why he made the choice. It’s lovely here.”
&
nbsp; Kate met his eyes for a moment, her keen ones having missed nothing of what was really going on.
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” Elly said. “I’m sorry, but I have to run.”
Will ached as he watched her walk away, but he didn’t want to chance a scene on the street, where everyone in the county would know about it before the end of the day. She didn’t deserve that, not with everything else she was going through. Not even the cruel words she’d hurled at him could make him petty enough to deliberately hurt her.
“She’s the reason you came back.” Kate didn’t sound hurt, perhaps more resigned.
He nodded. “I didn’t know it at the time.”
“You knew.”
Maybe he had. Maybe he just hadn’t admitted it in case a relationship with Elly never became reality.
“She’s beautiful,” Kate said. “I hope you work out whatever is going on between you.”
“Me, too.” His heart had never felt heavier.
“I have a feeling you won’t need it, but the door is always open.”
He tore his gaze away from the empty sidewalk where Elly had been moments ago. He knew from the tone of Kate’s voice that she would be leaving Cody as soon as she collected her things.
“Thanks. It was good to see you.”
“You, too.” She looked at the town around her. “Especially here. You fit.”
Just like she fit in Denver.
“I think I’ll take a rain check on the gallery today,” she said. “Maybe another time.”
“Be careful on your way home, okay?”
“Of course.” She smiled at him. “I’d give you a kiss goodbye, but I have the feeling that it would get back to Elly in about three seconds.”
He smiled back at her. “I think you have small-town life figured out already.”
She reached out and quickly squeezed his hand. “Good luck. Elly’s a lucky woman.”
As he watched her cross the street and head for the parking lot where she’d evidently left her car, he hoped Elly would eventually think the same thing.
ELLY COULDN’T BREATHE. Seeing Will with another woman had been the single most horrible feeling of her life. Was this all-consuming heartache how her mother felt?
She’d seen guilt in Will’s eyes, but was it for what had already happened between them or for his being with Kate now? Kate, who looked like she had walked off the pages of a fashion magazine.
They’d known each other in Denver. Would he go back there now? The thought brought tears to her eyes, more pain than she could handle. She leaned her head forward on her steering wheel and squeezed her eyes against the tears that wanted to fall.
She couldn’t deal with this now. Too much else was jockeying for space in her worry column—the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, which would no doubt be like sitting on a powder keg; the Denver rodeo after that; figuring out how Mark would fit into their family and how her brothers would react to that; facing the fact that she would have to speak to her father again at some point. Adding the situation with Will to the mix—it was just too much.
She started the truck’s engine and pulled out of the parking lot, deliberately not looking at anything but the road in front of her. She feared seeing Will and Kate again and how it might cause her to lose her precarious grip on her emotions.
As she left Cody and headed toward Markton, she gradually relaxed as much as she was able and started compartmentalizing. The only way she was going to get through the next couple of weeks was to only think about one obstacle at a time. First up, Thanksgiving and trying to figure out how to ensure no blood was shed, and nothing so horrible was said that it could never be taken back.
Chapter Twelve
Even though things felt anything but normal, the normality of cooking for Thanksgiving filled the days leading up to the big family meal. And despite the tension hanging over the ranch like dense fog, Anne Cody had made it clear that everyone would be at the family Thanksgiving dinner. No exceptions. And everyone would be civil or answer to her.
Since their mother was the main aggrieved party in the current disaster, Elly had convinced Jesse to set aside his simmering anger for a day just so they could all get through the required dinner.
More than once, Elly opened her mouth to ask how her mom was doing, but she couldn’t force the words out. Plus, as shameful as it made her feel, she didn’t think she could handle her mother’s heartache on top of her own. So she went through the motions, just as she suspected everyone else would.
As her family ate its way through the traditional meal, Elly couldn’t imagine it being any more uncomfortable. It was the first time they’d all been together since the revelation of her father’s affair.
Normally, there was laughter and teasing around the table during the holidays, talk of the rodeo season, plans for the ranch next year, good-natured bets about the day’s football games. This year should be extra special with the addition of Paula and her son, Clay, Josie and her son, Matt, and Maryanne, but it wasn’t.
Instead, the conversation revolved around “Please pass the potatoes” and “Would anyone like any pumpkin pie?” The tension would dull any knife that tried to cut it.
Elly looked at her father, at the man responsible for this ruined holiday, and was shocked to see he wasn’t even eating. He just stared at the food on his plate. He looked pale beneath his perpetual tan, his downcast eyes so unlike him. For a moment, worry flamed to life within her. He wasn’t the youngest of men anymore. Was the stress of this situation too much for him?
Well, he’d brought it on himself, hadn’t he? And onto the rest of them.
The longer the meal lasted, the more Elly thought of everything that was wrong with the picture. Her family not speaking, the gaping emptiness next to her where she wished Will was sitting. A Cody who wasn’t even invited, who instead was eating a more modest meal with his wife, sister and the mother who probably couldn’t even remember the affair that produced him.
Elly suspected the residents of Casper could hear the enormous sigh of relief when the meal was finally over. Her brothers vacated the premises so fast they nearly left the scent of burned rubber in their wake. Paula, Josie and Maryanne offered to help clean up, but Anne told them to go spend the rest of the day with their families.
Elly and her mom didn’t speak as they carried the dirty dishes and leftovers into the kitchen.
While loading the dishwasher, Elly noticed her mother scraping perfectly good food into the trash. A knot of unease grew in her stomach as her mom reached for an untouched pumpkin pie.
“Mom, I’d like to take the dessert over to Janie and her family.”
“I’m sure they’ve already eaten something,” Anne said without making eye contact.
“Maybe, but it’s a good gesture nonetheless.” Elly fought the anxiety gnawing at her, wondered when her subconscious had decided to take these steps.
Anne took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “You’re right.” She gripped the edge of the island until her knuckles went white. “None of this is Mark’s fault.”
Elly’s stomach continued to churn as she drove toward Janie’s home. How would she feel when she met Mark’s eyes and knew he was her brother? What would he say?
She tried to force her nerves to calm as she pulled into the driveway at Janie’s and walked to the front door, plate in hand. Janie opened the door before Elly had a chance to knock.
“Hey,” Janie said.
“Hey.” She held up the pie. “Hungry?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
But as Elly followed Janie inside, she didn’t smell any scents of festive cooking. In fact, everything was deathly quiet.
“How’s your mom?”
“We just got her to sleep.” Janie sounded exhausted.
“She’s having a bad day.”
“I’m sorry.”
Janie shrugged. “Thanks for the pie. I haven’t gotten around to eating anything beyond this morning’s Pop-Tarts.”
>
Elly’s heart ached for Janie, and she wished she could do something, anything, to make it better, easier.
“I’d planned to have a nice meal made when Mark and Nicki got back from her dad’s, but…” Janie’s voice caught on what sounded like a sob.
Elly closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around Janie. “I’m sorry.”
Janie shook her head against Elly’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault. I just feel like my life is unraveling. Mom’s worse every day, and I can’t stop feeling like I’m losing Mark. He doesn’t talk to me like he used to.”
Elly ran her hand over Janie’s hair. “He will.” Even if she had to kick him in the behind to get him to. Sure, he was probably feeling like his world had turned upside down too and now had a wife to talk to, but he had to consider how this affected his sister. The one he’d grown up with. No matter the biology, Elly still didn’t feel like his sister.
A moan and a crash from Abigail’s bedroom sent Janie hurrying in that direction. “Thanks for the pie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure.” Elly stood in the kitchen and listened as Janie tried to get her mom to calm down. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at the old linoleum, the cabinets in need of a new coat of paint.
Like Jesse, Mark was close to earning a championship in bullriding, perhaps his last chance because of his age. He’d made enough through the years that, along with Janie’s income from the Feed and Grain, they’d been able to take care of their mother. But how much more could they do, how much better could they live, what dreams could they both accomplish if they had more money? Cody money. And it wouldn’t be the handouts they both loathed if it belonged to Mark by right.
Elly looked up as the back door opened. Nicki, Mark’s wife, walked in.
Elly: Cowgirl Bride Page 13
