The Rancher's Texas Twins

by Allie Pleiter

  “Tomorrow?” he asked, his voice unusually soft.

  “That’d be just fine.”

  “I’ll be in town most of the morning, but I can circle back and pick you up.”

  “No need. I’ve got some things to pick up in town myself, so I’ll just meet you in town and we can drive out from there.”

  She wanted him there, but she didn’t want him to take her there. She needed to do that part herself. Which made no sense. The line between standing on her own two feet and depending on Gabe was starting to blur, and that bothered her.

  Because she was leaving when the weekend was over. At least she was mostly sure she was. It was getting harder to know what it was she wanted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Avery walked out of the town hardware store Friday morning with a big bag of cleaning supplies. She could have borrowed all this from Gabe, but it felt better to purchase them on her own. The run-down cabin at the back of the Culpepper ranch property was hers now, so she should start to clean it up. Even if all she could do before she left was make a small dent, it would feel good to do something. It might help settle her mind about what to do next.

  It would certainly be only a small dent, if that. The place looked to need a lot more than a good scrubbing to be either livable or sellable.

  Pulling some juice boxes from her handbag, she lined the girls up on a park bench while she looked through the list of handymen that Tanner Barstow, the owner of the farm supply store, had given her.

  Where to start? Avery pulled photos she’d taken of the property up on her cell phone. The pictures made her heart sink. She knew enough about houses to see that the place had good bones, but the fallen shingles, a boarded-up window and debris scattered about the foundation told her how much work was ahead of her. Or ahead of anyone she hired. Well, maybe it will give me a reason to come back and visit, she thought.

  “That’s ugly,” Dinah said, swinging her feet as she sat on the bench sipping apple juice. “Who’d want to live there?”

  “Nobody’s lived there in a long time,” Avery explained in optimistic tones. “It needs fixing up.” She nervously fingered the keys to the place. “Mr. Boots is meeting us here. Then we’ll drive over to the cabin to go inside and get started.” She’d know for sure once she was inside, but it was a good guess the place needed major structural repairs. Could she sell it in its current shape? Would anyone even buy it? They’d be more likely to tear it down, and that felt wrong. Her grandfather had grown up there—it was the closest thing to roots she could claim.

  If someone hadn’t claimed it first—and by “someone,” she meant a snake, or a possum, or any number of varmints she’d imagined might have taken up residence in the abandoned home.

  She peered at the photo again, as if it would hold clues to anything living inside. At best, she’d encounter trash and disrepair. At worst...well, let’s just say that was another reason not to have to enter alone. Maybe she should have left the girls at home for this trip.

  Avery looked up to see a familiar old man crossing the street. Wasn’t that Harley Jones?

  “Hello, Mr. Jones!” she called, wanting to be friendly. After all, Gabe had said Mr. Jones lived in an old cabin at the back of Gabe’s property. Maybe he knew a thing or two about bringing an old cabin up to snuff.

  He turned, startled. As if surprised anyone would say hello to him.

  “How are you today?” she asked.

  “Same as any other day.”

  Maybe he didn’t recall who she was. “I’m Avery Culpepper. We’re guests of Gabe’s at Five Rocks.”

  “I remember,” he said, his sour face softening a bit. “And these are...” His face scrunched up into a collection of weathered wrinkles as she could see him trying to remember the girls’ names. “Starts with D’s...”

  “I’m Debbie.”

  “And I’m Dinah.”

  He almost grinned. Not quite, but almost. “You’re sure now? You could be switching ’em on me and I’d never know.”

  Avery laughed. “No, they gave you the right names.” She slanted a glance toward Dinah. “Not that they haven’t tried that particular trick on some other folks.” She sighed and held up the photo on her phone. “We’re meeting Gabe here to go check out the inside of my new property.”

  Harley squinted at the phone display and scratched his chin. “Ain’t much to look at, is she?”

  “Are you a cowboy?” Debbie asked. She’d begun to ask that of anyone wearing a cowboy hat. While some of the answers she received were amusing, Avery was wondering if the charm was wearing off. Harley certainly didn’t look amused, but then again she’d never seen him looking like anything but as if he’d just bitten a lemon.

  “We’re from Tennessee,” she offered by way of explanation, which really wasn’t much of a reason for a state that boasted the country music capital of the world.

  Harley leaned on his cane to stare at Debbie. “Ain’t they got cowboys up there in Tennessee?”

  “They got cowboy hats,” Debbie said, completely unfazed by the old man’s gruff demeanor. “But anyone could wear those.”

  Harley chuckled. “Oh, well, you’re right there. The hat does not necessarily make the man.” He turned to Avery. “Sharp girls you got there, ma’am. You’re Cyrus’s granddaughter. The real one, I hear tell.”

  Avery shrugged. “That’s me.” Why did everyone feel compelled to remind her someone had tried to step into her identity—and her inheritance? Considering the state of the cabin, it made the whole scheme seem that much more absurd. Who’d go to such lengths to get their hands on that mess? No one knew if there was anything more to her inheritance, least of all her.

  “Whole thing’s a mess, that’s what it is. Only now with you here, it’ll mostly shake itself out, I suppose.”

  Avery remembered the silhouette of Gabe hunched in defeat against the porch column. “Well, not necessarily.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Yes, but I’m only one of the stipulations.” It still sounded crazy, no matter now many times she said it. “There are still the four original residents of the boys ranch to find. They’ve found three—and me, of course—but unless they find the last one, it won’t matter. Without Gabe’s grandfather, it won’t matter how many of the other requirements they’ve met. Cyrus made sure it was an all-or-nothing proposition.”

  That seemed to agitate the old man. Which was understandable—even Avery couldn’t understand why her grandfather had gone to such extremes. She was glad he eased himself down on the bench beside her. “Find Theodore Linley? He’s long gone. They won’t hold anyone to such nonsense.”

  “From what I hear, they have to. Seems my dear old grandfather locked the whole thing down tight—legally speaking, that is. If they don’t find this man and bring him to the party, then the Triple C becomes a strip mall and the boys ranch has to go back to the Silver Star.”

  “They’d never do that.” He shook his head. “Strip mall? And send half the boys elsewhere? That’s fool talk. It won’t never come to that.”

  “They’ll have no choice.” She sat back against the bench. “A strip mall, can you imagine? My grandpa Cyrus was one wily old coot.”

  Harley worried at his cane handle with one gnarled hand. “You’re tellin’ me all that happens if that Linley fellow don’t show?”

  “Sad, isn’t it?” Avery pulled a box of animal crackers from her bag and handed it to the girls. “It’s tying Gabe into knots that he can’t find any trace of the man.”

  “Nonsense. That isn’t Gabe’s fault.”

  “You and I can see that. And it seems pretty clear to me the guy doesn’t want to be found or is long dead—but Gabe sure blames himself.”

  Harley turned his face to look down the street. “Takes a lot on himself, Gabe does.” His ton
e was so sad.

  “He speaks very fondly of you,” she offered. The poor man probably considered himself a burden the way Danny’s grandmother had in her last days. She hadn’t been. She was a sweet woman who almost made Avery feel like she had a family. She hated how Danny’s actions were teaching Debbie and Dinah that family was something that could be discarded when it became inconvenient. That’s not how family should ever work. Not that she’d experienced much to the contrary.

  Harley kept staring down the street. “Does he now?”

  She remembered how often Gabe went to visit Harley with food or just to keep him company, and tenderly touched the old man’s elbow. “I think you’re actually quite dear to him, but you know Gabe—I doubt he’d ever come out and tell you.”

  That sent Harley into a chuckle that all too quickly dissolved into a rasping cough. Dinah sweetly held up her apple juice to share with the man, but he waved her off and began to struggle to his feet. “I’m sure Gabe’ll be here any minute. I’d best get on.”

  “You’re sure? You can sit with us a spell. We can give you a ride back to Five Rocks.”

  His face took on the sour, tight countenance she’d seen almost all the time from him. “I got my own car. I ain’t so far gone that I can’t get myself to town and back, young lady.”

  The girls looked up at his sharp tone, and he seemed to realize how harsh his words had been. “You all come tell me what you found in there one of these days,” he said, backpedaling and trying to show a sliver of a smile. “I expect it’ll be quite a story.”

  “Oh, I hope not,” Avery replied. Dinah and Debbie made dual slurping sounds as they finished up their juice boxes just as Gabe’s truck pulled around the corner.

  “Tell Gabe I said hello,” Harley called as he started down the block.

  “You sure you don’t want to stay and say hello yourself?” He couldn’t have so much to do that an extra five minutes would be so much of a burden. Harley had to be lonely, living all the way on the back of Five Rocks all by himself.

  “Nope,” he called abruptly over his shoulder, picking up the pace of his labored hobbling.

  What was that all about? Was Harley avoiding Gabe? Had the remark about Gabe’s fondness for the old man crossed some sort of line with him?

  For a small simple town, Avery thought to herself, Haven sure is complicated.

  * * *

  Avery was trying to put up a good front as she stood inside the mess of a house. She was trying to act as if inheriting this pile of lumber was a good thing. Based on what Gabe saw today, he might just tear the whole thing down if he was in her place.

  She stood in the empty front room, staring at the dented, crumbing walls. “It has good bones,” she declared.

  Bones? he thought. No one could want to live in this skeleton. Cyrus hadn’t done her any favors by leaving her this. It’d take a year’s worth of work—and a wheelbarrow full of money—to make this place anything anyone would ever want. Another reason she had every right to head on back to Tennessee come Monday.

  “You going to sell the place?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she replied quickly. “It makes no sense to keep it. We have a home in Tennessee.”

  Yes, she did. The fact seemed to follow him around like a shadow. He’d already come to dread the moment she would leave Five Rocks and return to Tennessee. The selfish part of him wanted her nearby, wanted her to be a part of Haven.

  But in two days, she’d have no reason to stay. Everything felt like it was slipping through his fingers.

  “Look, Mama!” Debbie had opened a closet door and pulled out a musty old afghan.

  The large blue square was falling apart, but Gabe could still make out the faded design stitched into the center. “That’s Cyrus’s brand,” he said, outlining the design with his finger. “I wonder if June made it.”

  Avery held out her hands for the relic. “June Culpepper? My grandmother?”

  “She was always knitting things, I recall. Every church bazaar had a dozen hats or throws from her. Before she passed, that is.”

  “It smells funny,” Dinah said, wrinkling her nose.

  “It’s very old,” Avery said, touching it with a sad tenderness. “And not in good shape. I expect it’s been in the bottom of that closet for decades.” She pulled at one piece of the fringe and a whole corner of the afghan seemed to unravel in her hands. Avery whimpered as if wounded.

  She had next to nothing from her family, and here she had to watch something crumble before her eyes. It seemed cruel. “Maybe we can save the design,” he offered, having no idea if such a thing was possible. Avery had a trunkful of cleaning supplies, but they’d given up any hope of starting that within five minutes of opening the door. This house didn’t need a dustpan, it needed a shovel. Maybe even a backhoe.

  Gabe removed the cleaning supplies from the box Avery had brought and held it out. “Put it in here,” he said as gently as he could. “You can take it to Marnie over at the ranch and see what she can do. She does all kinds of yarn stuff and if anyone knows how to save it, she will.” He understood the sentiment. He had a ratty old football jersey of his father’s, and that chair of his mother’s—and he’d be beside himself if anything happened to either of those. Even family you resented was still family, and everybody deserved at least a piece of their roots.

  The tattered afghan seemed to unhinge something in Avery. She’d kept up a nervously optimistic attitude the whole time they’d been in the house, but he could practically watch her lose the ability to keep that up. Her shoulders fell forward, she began to pace the empty room and her lips pressed together.

  He felt for her, he truly did. Cyrus had put her through the ringer with all this business, and he admired that she’d held up as well as she had. It felt unfair that the one solid thing she’d gotten out of this whole mess so far was a tumble-down house that right now was more of a burden than a blessing.

  “Why’d he do any of this?” She was trying not to lose it in front of the girls—even he could see that. Should he stay beside her, or invent some reason to take the girls outside and let her go to pieces alone?

  Alone seemed the worse of the two, so Gabe reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. The act unleashed a short sob from her, one of Avery’s delicate hands flying up to cover her mouth as if she could hold it all in.

  He couldn’t answer Avery’s frustrated question—no one could.

  It was the wrong thing to do. It would confuse the girls and cross a dozen boundaries, but Gabe could no more stand there and watch Avery unravel than he could have left her there on Roz’s porch. He pulled Avery toward him, feeling her composure fall away as she dissolved against his chest and cried. Not pretty, careful tears, but great, reckless sobs that made her shoulders shake and her fists grab at his sleeves.

  “Don’t cry, Mama. It’s not that ugly in here.” Dinah’s heartbreakingly tender voice came from down beside them.

  Avery, of course, cried all the harder at her daughter’s attempt at comfort. At another time, he might have found her misguided grasp of the situation amusing, but there was no humor in today. He wrapped his arms more tightly around Avery, startled by the sense of honor and purpose that enveloped him as he did so. Gabe felt Dinah and Debbie circle around his and Avery’s legs in a tiny huddle that made his own heart twist in a surge of care and sympathy.

  He’d stand here and let her cry it out because no one should have to do this alone. And because he wanted to be the one to hold her up while she fell to pieces. He wanted to lend her his strength, to shield her in this overwhelming moment.

  Gabe let one hand fall softly on her hair, soothing as she cried against him. He couldn’t explain why the awful moment felt right, sacred even. These three people had come to mean so much more to him than the solution to the problem Cyrus had dumped on him and all of
Haven. But he also knew, with a certainty he’d been denying for weeks now, that he didn’t want them to go. Not after Sunday, not ever.

  Avery pulled her hands from his sleeves to wrap them tightly around his chest, clinging to him with a desperation that broke his heart wide open. For a moment, he allowed himself the indulgence of laying his chin against the top of her head, reveling in the way she tucked perfectly inside his embrace.

  It was the exquisite opposite of being alone.

  He wanted to kiss that soft brown hair. He wanted to kiss away the tears and make promises he couldn’t keep. Irrational promises that she wouldn’t have to do any of this alone or ever be alone again.

  Such promises would only make things worse for her. And so Gabe said nothing—not because he didn’t want to speak his fumbling words of comfort to her, but because Avery deserved to hear eloquent words from a man who would woo her and cherish her the way a lifetime bachelor like himself could never hope to do. He’d choke on his own silence before he added to the line of men who’d disappointed her.

  But oh, how unwise promises and declarations roared in his chest, clawing against her heartbeat to set traps for the both of them. While strong and stubborn, she’d pulled a surprising admiration from him. While weak and broken, however, Avery had gone and stolen his heart.

  And it was gone, he realized. He’d lost the battle to deny what he felt for her. For all three of them. He loved her.

  As he held her, the thought fixed itself clear and true in his head. He loved her. But that thought came with the equally clear truth that he would love her alone. He would love her enough to give her the happiness she’d never have with him. Life had made him a creature of privacy and distance, not the rest-of-your-life family man she needed and deserved. He would bear her tears today, and be honored to do so, but he would also bear her leaving. He would never, ever risk being the source of her sadness.

  It seemed to Gabe that he’d lived an hour in the span of minutes he’d held her, that time had stopped until she pulled away, embarrassed and sniffling. Even Debbie and Dinah looked up at him with tearful, confused eyes.