by Brenda Novak
“I’m also the father of your baby.”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s what I want to know!” He leaned on the railing facing her, but where they were was even more shadowed than by the door, and she had a hard time figuring out what he was feeling. He seemed upset, frustrated, but when she’d left him at the ranch he’d been fine. Why the change?
“I can tell you what it doesn’t mean,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you can order me around or decide where I go or when I leave.”
“This is crazy,” he said. “I have no rights where you’re concerned. If you want to dance with someone else, you’re free to do so. If you want to go home with someone else, you’re free to do so. Yet you’re walking around with my baby inside you.”
“I already told you, I’m not going to do anything to endanger this baby! I’m amazed you care so much about it. You’ve been angry ever since you found out.”
“It’s not just the baby,” he said.
“Then, what?”
He frowned. “It just doesn’t seem right that you can take off with any guy you want.”
“You have the same freedom I do,” she argued.
“Maybe I don’t want it,” he said, then straightened as though he was surprised by what had come out of his mouth. He tried to correct himself. “I mean, of course I want my freedom. I just…”
“Don’t want me to have any?” Delaney supplied.
“No, that’s not it. I realize that wouldn’t be fair. But—” he paused, grimacing “—oh, I don’t know. If you stay, what are you planning to do?”
“Nothing!”
“Then what’s the big deal about leaving?”
“You’re the one who’s having a problem.” She thought about going home just to please him. He was obviously worked up about her staying. And she’d brought this whole baby thing on herself. But she couldn’t see any point in giving him that kind of power over her, didn’t like where it could lead. Whether she stayed at the Honky Tonk or went home shouldn’t matter to him. She’d just gone through three of the most miserable months of her life, and tonight, for a change, she wasn’t sick. She wanted to be with her old friends and pretend she hadn’t destroyed the life she knew—before Rebecca got married and moved away and everything became irretrievably different.
“This conversation isn’t making sense,” she said.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, and after another pause, said, “You’re right. I don’t know what I’m saying. Go inside and have a great time.” Then he strode off into the darkness.
Delaney heard his truck start, watched his headlights swing around as he drove out of the lot, and wondered why going back inside suddenly seemed so much less important than it had five minutes earlier.
DELANEY SAT AT THE TABLE, no longer interested in playing darts or dancing or anything else. Rebecca and Billy Joe and Bobby badgered her about her abrupt change in mood for the first half hour or so, but Delaney couldn’t forget the frustration on Conner’s face, couldn’t release herself from feeling responsible for his confusion and anger.
Eventually Billy Joe took a bathroom break and Bobby wandered off to play some pool, leaving Delaney and Rebecca alone at the table. “Delaney, he was in the wrong, so forget about it, okay?” Rebecca said.
Delaney rested her chin on her fist. “I’m the one who started all this, Beck. I feel terrible.”
“I told him he can walk away if he wants to, that you want him to walk away.”
“I don’t want him to walk away.”
“Then, what do you want?”
At this point, she wasn’t sure. She’d altered her life and Conner’s, and even Aunt Millie’s and Uncle Ralph’s, with one night’s irresponsible behavior. But there was no changing things now. And sometimes, when she thought about the baby, she knew she wouldn’t go back even if she could.
“I want to go home,” she said. “Can you get a ride?”
IT FELT GOOD TO BE HOME in her own bed, in her own room, and yet Delaney couldn’t stop thinking about the ranch. Rebecca had stayed at the Honky Tonk, promising to catch a ride with someone sober, but she wasn’t home yet, and Delaney found it odd to be completely alone. She was so used to Conner being somewhere in the house, just a few rooms away. She thought about the times she saw him throughout the day—when he was freshly showered in the morning, with his hair wet and curling slightly around his ears; when he was heading out to work, wearing his jeans, boots and cowboy hat; when he came in for dinner, looking tired and dirty but still appealing, always appealing; at night, when he buried himself in his office and his jaw was just beginning to show dark stubble after a long day. The moment she’d realized Conner was Clive’s grandson, she’d expected him to be lazy or incapable of doing the work required of a cowboy. But from what she’d observed, he cared about the ranch, worked hard and was quickly gaining the respect of the other ranch hands. Even Roy, who hadn’t been the least bit happy to have Conner at the Running Y, now seemed to admire him more than anyone else did. Except, perhaps, some of the ladies who’d seen him at the Honky Tonk tonight.
Delaney remembered the heads he’d turned and wondered how she would’ve felt if he’d shown any interest in those women. It would’ve bothered her to see him on the dance floor with someone else, to think he wanted to take someone home with him. Billy Joe and Bobby weren’t any threat to Conner or anyone else, so she had difficulty seeing them in the same light. But Conner didn’t know them or her habits. Maybe the way he’d behaved tonight hadn’t been so strange, after all.
Rolling over, she eyed the phone, wanting to call him. But it was nearly one o’clock. Conner was probably asleep; he’d left the Honky Tonk before midnight.
When she went back to work on Monday, she’d tell him she understood how he felt and see if they could work out something they could both live with until the baby was born. The front door opened and closed, and Rebecca made her way noisily through the living room and down the hall.
“Buddy called,” Delaney said, when Rebecca passed her door.
“What’d he say?”
“He wants you to call him tomorrow.”
“Okay. Want to go out for breakfast in the morning?”
“Sure,” Delaney said. “Just don’t wake me up too early.”
“No chance of that. But aren’t you going to get up and bake pies this weekend like usual?”
“I’m not going to bake any pies for the next few months. I’m sick of baking pies.”
“Jeez, Laney. You get yourself pregnant and give up baking.” Rebecca yawned. “The world must be coming to an end.”
“The world as I know it already has.”
“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Conner asked, eyeing Roy closely.
Roy bent toward the magazine Conner had spread out on the desk. “You dragged my butt out of bed to show me an article in a magazine from—” he flipped to the front cover “—two years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“This couldn’t wait? It’s six o’clock in the morning.”
Ever since Conner had learned that Josh Hill and his brother had money to invest, something had been niggling at the back of his mind. Once he’d gotten home and been able to think beyond Delaney, it had come to him. He’d been up half the night searching through every magazine he’d ever read and had just found what he was looking for. “Don’t you know what this is?”
“It’s a golf course,” Roy said, as though he wasn’t particularly impressed.
“It’s more than a golf course. It’s our answer.”
Roy picked up the magazine and read the caption. “‘Visitors travel from as far away as Europe and China to play eighteen holes on this unique and difficult course.’”
“See? Golf is huge,” Conner said. “People pay green fees of over $200 per game to play on this course.”
“That might be true. But golf courses take a lot of money to build and maintain. You’re not thinking of putting one out here on the
ranch, are you?”
“Not just a golf course,” Conner said. “Look at this.” He pulled out another magazine and slapped it on top of the first. On one side was a picture of a large, rustic-looking lodge. On the other was an article with the headline “Last Bastion of the West?”
“I don’t get the connection,” Roy said.
“I’m thinking of turning a section of the ranch into a resort. We could have hunting and fishing, horseback riding, songs around the campfire, you name it. We could get into one of these vacation magazines and draw people from all over the world with the promise of a truly western experience. And we could hedge our bets by having one of the best golf courses in America.”
“Are you still drunk from last night?” Roy asked.
“I was never drunk last night. Listen to me. All it takes is money.”
“That’s what we don’t have, Conner. Your grandfather’s not going to spend any more money on the ranch. He’s selling, remember? He’d never go for something like this.”
Conner tapped the magazine. “I don’t think my grandfather will like the idea, either, which is why I’ve never really considered it until now. But didn’t you hear what Josh Hill said last night?”
“Yeah, he’s looking for some long-term investments. But this is…” Roy shook his head as he gazed down at the two magazines, then at the others strewn across the floor and around the desk. “This is crazy. For Josh, this wouldn’t be as simple as buying a piece of land, Con. This would be spending millions of dollars to change the use of the land.”
“Not completely. That’s the beauty of it. It would still be a ranch.”
“Josh is just a homegrown horse-breeder. He’s done well, but I doubt he has as much as this will require. On top of everything else, he already has a business to run. Why would he want to branch out into an area he doesn’t know anything about?”
“Because it’s smart not to have all your eggs in one basket,” Conner said. “And we’d be giving him the chance to be part of the biggest thing ever to hit Dundee. We’d run it. He’d just lend us the money.”
“But your grandfather’s already listed the ranch, which means he has to follow through with selling it if a buyer comes along. Someone could buy it right out from under us.”
“Only if that buyer meets all the terms and criteria of the listing agreement. If the Realtor procures an offer that’s even a penny short, we can reject it.”
“We? We don’t have anything to say about it. And you know how gung ho your uncles are to get rid of the place. I tried telling them about the campsites we’ve cleared, but they didn’t want to hear it.”
“So you’re giving up?” Conner said, mimicking him.
Roy rubbed his whiskery chin. “You’re serious about this?”
“I think so,” Conner said. “It would mean I need to figure out a way to buy the ranch myself as soon as possible, which is definitely risky. But it’s going to take something big to save the Running Y.”
The telephone rang, and Roy answered it because Conner was too excited to bother. What if he could do it? What if he could pull it off? He’d be able to keep the ranch in the family and start something of his own at the same time. He’d be able to provide for his child, put down some roots, belong. Best of all, he’d be a father his child could be proud of. And a resort would be good for the community, too. It would bring in thousands of tourists who’d spend their money right here in Dundee without destroying the country setting he’d come to love….
“Con?”
The somber note in Roy’s voice finally pierced Conner’s preoccupation. “What?” he said.
Roy handed him the phone. “It’s your mother. Clive’s had a heart attack.”
IT WAS TOO SOON. His day of reckoning had come too soon.
Conner sat on the plane, staring out the window at nothing but sky. After his mother’s call, he’d packed, headed straight to the airport in Boise and gotten on the first flight to California. They’d be landing in San Francisco, where his mother would meet him, in just another twenty minutes, but he still felt numb from the news—numb and afraid. He’d known his grandfather couldn’t live forever, that he’d die sometime. But the old “it could never happen to me” mentality had lulled him into thinking it would be later, always later.
What if the old guy didn’t make it?
Conner thought of his life and how he’d wasted so much time in empty pursuits, and was suddenly more ashamed than he’d ever been. He’d persuaded himself that he was fighting his uncles, somehow besting them by proving he could live fast and loose and get away with it, that he didn’t care about anything. But he was only playing into their hands. And now, when the important things in life seemed so apparent, he felt like a fool because he did care, deeply.
I’m coming, Grandpa. Hang on, he thought. Then he took out the magazines he’d shown Roy and stared down at them. The idea of turning part of the ranch into a resort seemed even more grandiose now. It would take millions of dollars. It would also require total control of the ranch and at least a couple of years. But Conner believed his plan could work. And he promised himself that he’d save the Running Y for his grandfather—and his baby. He’d link the past to the future if it was the last thing he did.
CONNER WAS SITTING in the breakfast room at the Napa house with his mother when he saw Stephen for the first time. They’d stopped by the hospital the night before, just after Conner had flown in, and spent several hours at Clive’s bedside. His grandfather had been in good spirits, and looked better than he’d expected, which gave Conner hope that he’d recover, but the doctors said he had a bad valve and would need surgery before they released him. Stephen had been in San José on business and hadn’t returned until late at night. To Conner’s knowledge, he hadn’t even been over to the hospital yet.
“Yee-haw! Well, if it ain’t the cowboy in the family,” Stephen said, lowering the newspaper he’d been reading as he walked.
Conner glanced down at his apparel, which was exactly what he would’ve worn out on the range, minus the heavy jacket and hat, and grinned. “That’s right.”
“Well, don’t get too comfortable in those boots. The Realtor said we should be expecting an offer on the ranch this week,” he said, and took the seat across from Vivian, where he immediately began to spread out the business section of the paper.
“That’s all you have to say?” Conner asked over the crackle. “Aren’t you going to ask about Grandfather? You know he had a heart attack yesterday.”
Stephen didn’t look up as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Marjorie’s been there.”
Stephen’s tennis-playing, social-climbing wife. “Now you have a delegate handling your familial obligations?”
“Conner, let’s not start,” his mother warned, wrapping her long fingers more tightly around her own coffee cup. But Conner wasn’t interested in backing down now. He stretched out in his chair, crossed his arms and waited for Stephen’s response.
“I’m doing what my father would want me to do,” Stephen said, setting his cup in its saucer with a clink. “Which is more than can be said for you most of the time.”
“Forever the dutiful son. Tell me, have you and your brothers broken out the will yet?”
“Conner!” Vivian said.
Stephen dropped the spoon he’d been using to dump sugar in his coffee and narrowed his eyes. “Funny you should bring up the will, since you’re the only one in danger of being cut out of it.”
Conner made a tsking noise. “And Grandfather hasn’t taken care of that yet? I can certainly see how this little heart attack would give you and your brothers a scare. What a relief to think there’s still time.”
Stephen clenched his fists as he stood, and his face went splotchy with anger. “You little bastard,” he said. “How dare you come into my house and—”
“Whoa, slow down. Grandfather’s not dead yet,” Conner said, but he didn’t bother to stand because Stephen suddenly seemed too pathetic to be
considered a threat. “This house still belongs to him, and I’m still welcome in it.”
“Once we sell that ranch, you won’t be welcome anywhere,” Stephen promised.
“We’ll see about the ranch,” Conner said, and for the first time in years, he thought he detected a glimmer of fear in Stephen’s eyes.
“Why do you say that?” Stephen asked. “What’s changed?”
Conner smiled. “I have.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DELANEY LOOKED DOWN at the notes she’d taken in her assertiveness training classes, wondering if any of the techniques she’d been taught might help her now. She needed to tell Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph that Conner was the father of her baby before they heard it somewhere else. But they were still adjusting to the idea of her having a baby at all. She hated to rock the boat again so soon. Especially because she knew they’d want some definite answers—what role, exactly, did Conner plan to play in the child’s life? Would he help out financially? Take partial custody? Delaney couldn’t give them those answers because she didn’t know them herself. She wasn’t sure Conner even knew what he was going to do once the baby arrived. The ranch was up for sale. Once it left the family, would he stay in Idaho? Move back to California? She had nothing but questions, and now that Clive Armstrong had had a heart attack and open-heart surgery, things were even more up in the air.
She flipped the pancakes she was cooking for the cowboys’ breakfast, then returned to the kitchen table to read the definition of self-disclosure again, this time focusing on the last line. “A key element of successful assertiveness is the development of rejection tolerance, so that disclosure of one’s self is not as threatening as it is to someone preoccupied with the thought ‘But what will they think if I say that?’”
“Morning,” Roy said as he entered the kitchen.
