Chapter Thirty-Two
Riley drove back home with an appointment next month, after the holidays, for True to come out and take a look and give them an estimate.
Some of the questions he’d asked had sent her mind back to the time when she’d decided they needed to do this.
The time when she’d realized she was never going anywhere, never leaving the ranch, and wanted a bit more than what had been her childhood bedroom.
At the time, she’d been a little bitter.
Not that she was never going to leave, but that she’d been foolish enough to think that she and Derek would need the bigger space.
In fact, it had been when she’d mentioned it the morning of the wedding that it had all fallen apart, with him telling her not to waste the money, since they’d be living in the city.
He had other plans for her money anyway.
So now all she had to do was stop imagining what it would have been like to share this planned new space with Miles.
She’d barely gotten out of the car when Ed, their foreman, trotted over toward her from the hay barn.
“How’s Marguerite?” she asked immediately.
The man’s smile was warm. “Better every day. Hard to get her to take it easy.”
Riley smiled. “That sounds like her.”
“Yep, that’s my wife.”
There was such pride and love in the man’s voice it made Riley’s throat tighten a little. Once, finding someone who’d love her the way this man did his wife had been her dream. But she was awake now, and knew exactly how hard—in her case apparently impossible—that was.
Ed handed her the receipt from the hay delivery that had arrived while she was gone. They were good and stocked up until spring now. She’d wanted it done before Christmas, and he had come through, as usual.
He turned to go, then turned back. “I keep meaning to tell you, I like your guy.”
She blinked. Only one name came into her head at that phrase. She carefully kept her response neutral. “What?”
“Your Mr. Flint. He works pretty darn hard, for a wimp.”
Riley frowned. It wasn’t like Ed to call people names. The foreman laughed. “Hey, he said it, not me. When we first got back, he hunted me down to say we work hard, and it shows. That trying to do what we do around here made him feel like a wimp.”
“That was…nice of him.”
“He’s a nice guy.” With a smile the man who had helped her run this place for twenty years turned and walked away, whistling cheerfully.
A nice guy. A nice guy who, since money wouldn’t get him what he wanted, had resorted to seduction. And was charming enough, handsome enough, and yeah, sexy enough to do it quite efficiently.
It helped that he set his sights on such a sucker.
She went up the steps onto the porch with her jaw set, calming herself before she went inside. Her father knew her too well, and if she was in an uproar, even if only internally, he would sense it. She plastered a smile on her face as she pulled open the door.
Her dad was at the dining table, a cup of coffee in his hand, his crutches leaning against the table beside him, and a white paper envelope lying in front of him.
“Grab a cup and sit,” he said.
Uh-oh.
Her reaction was instinctive, because she knew that tone.
It wasn’t a request. She eyed the only thing out of place—that envelope.
She would have guessed it somehow held bad news, except that it was face down so she could see it hadn’t been opened.
A little gingerly she did as ordered, leaving the coffee black, thinking she might need the jolt because her father wore his most deadly serious expression.
And so was his tone of voice when he finally spoke.
“I kept my promise.”
She blinked and drew back slightly.
“I kept my promise,” he repeated, “and now I need a promise from you.”
“About what?” she asked warily.
He raised one brow at her, in that way that had always perturbed her even as a kid, because she couldn’t do it. “You need a qualifier now, to make your father a simple promise?”
Her mouth quirked slightly. “Sometimes your promises aren’t all that simple.”
“This one is. It’s very simple.” He flipped the envelope in front of him over and slid it across the table. “Read this.”
Now she could see her name written on the front. Funny, she’d never actually seen his writing, but if she’d tried to picture what it would look like this would be close. A flair and sweep with the capital R, echoed by a final arc at the end of the Y, balancing it out neatly.
He definitely had an eye, did Miles Flint.
“So he was here,” she said flatly.
“He was. And a more desperate man I’ve never seen.”
And how would you feel if I told you what he was desperate for, Dad? That all he ever wanted from me was a way to rebuild his Stonewall empire?
She stared down at the white rectangle as if it somehow concealed a rattler.
“Promise me, Riley. Promise me you will read it, not just toss it in the trash, or burn it.”
In fact, burning it was the first thing that had popped into her mind.
Yes, her father knew her too darn well. And he knew that ever since she was a child, formally stated promises made between them were sacrosanct.
He’d never broken one to her, and she’d never broken one to him.
Casual assurances were one thing, but a “look me in the eye and say you promise” was a vow that would be kept.
“Why?” It broke from her before she thought about it, but once it had she knew she meant it. She had to know why this of all things was so important to him.
“Because that man made you happier than I’ve ever seen you. Made you laugh. Made you light, cheerful, blissful in a way I haven’t seen from you in years.”
She opened her mouth to protest, to explain that it had all been a lie, but her father shook his head and held up a hand to stop her. Then he went on, in a flat, unshakable tone that was not to be argued with.
“Any man who can do that for you deserves to be heard. What you do after that is your decision, but don’t make it without all the information.”
She studied him for a moment. She could tell this was digging at him at much more than a surface level, much more than simply being asked to deliver a letter.
And hardly for the first time she wondered what the full story was behind her father’s most unlikely marriage to a flighty, work—and motherhood—averse woman who’d abandoned them both.
But whatever the rest of the story was, nothing changed the fact that her father had never hesitated, never faltered. He’d accepted her, raised her, taught her, and above all loved her without question.
There was no way she could say no to him.
“All right. I promise, I will read it.”
She stood, grabbed up the envelope and stuffed it into her back pocket. Then she headed for the door.
“Riley?” her father called out.
She half turned to look back at him. “I promised I’d read it. And I’ll keep that promise. But I didn’t promise when.”
The next day she and King were riding the fence line—carefully avoiding the section she and Miles had repaired—when she spotted a pair of riders in the distance, approaching from the other side.
The Baylor side. She knew the one on the rangy appaloosa was Nic, because the newly broken in four-year-old would tolerate no one else yet.
Which pretty much meant the taller figure on the big bay was Jackson.
Obviously they were back from their honeymoon weekend.
And they were, she couldn’t help but notice as they got closer, holding hands as they rode. Sweet. She was so happy for Nic, and for Jackson too, and Jeremy. But that didn’t mean the sight didn’t give her a pang of longing. But she shoved it aside and rode over closer to the fence.
“We were hoping you’d be out here,” Nic called out, startling her. They’d been looking for her?
“I would think you two had better things to do,” she teased.
“Oh, we do,” came Jackson’s deep drawl as they reined in on the other side of the fence, so they were barely two feet away. “But even we have to come up for air now and then. Besides, we needed to talk to you.”
Uh-oh.
“To make sure you knew something critical,” Nic said. She paused, studied Riley for a moment, then said quietly, “You haven’t read his letter yet.”
It wasn’t a question, but it startled Riley into answering. “You know about that?”
“We know he spent hours on it,” Jackson said.
“Jeremy wanted him to watch a movie marathon with him Saturday night after the wedding, but he told him he couldn’t—he had to work on the most important thing he’d ever written.
Which, considering he wrote nearly the entire first season of Stonewall is saying something. ”
And he’d hand-delivered it the next day. A handwritten letter, as if he’d somehow guessed she wouldn’t be there, or if she was, wouldn’t listen to him.
Because he knew how mad she was. How hurt. And it was his fault, so why would she listen?
“You need to read it, Riley,” Nic said, sounding more than a little urgent.
“I will. Eventually. I promised Dad.”
“You should read it now,” Nic urged.
She had started to shake her head when Jackson said, seemingly apropos of nothing, “He told me once you asked why he wasn’t an actor.”
That caught her off guard. And reminded her of the times early on when she’d wondered why Miles hadn’t planted that gorgeous face of his, those amazing hazel eyes, in front of the camera instead of behind the scenes.
“I did, yes. He said that wasn’t what interested him.”
“That’s true. But there’s another big reason he’s never wanted in front of the camera. Why is that, do you think?”
She looked at this man who had walked away from that exact role, that much coveted and envied position in life. “Why?” she finally said, almost reluctantly.
“Because he is who he is, and he can’t mask it, even temporarily.
He’s no good at pretending to be someone he’s not,” Jackson said simply.
“He’s one of the most honest, decent men in that business.
If he wasn’t, he would be pressuring me to come back.
But instead he’s paying a steep price for respecting my decision, for Jeremy’s sake. ”
She hadn’t really thought of that aspect of the Stonewall situation. She’d kind of assumed they were all like that Swiffer guy they complained about, always pushing.
“And there’s one thing I’m sure is in that letter, but that I think you need to know right now,” Nic put in.
She stifled a grimace. She was feeling a bit ganged up on, and since these were two people she greatly respected, and Nic was practically the younger sister she’d never had, the pressure was powerful.
“What?” she finally said, resigned.
“Timing,” Nic said. “Riley, he didn’t know about your finances, about the clip, until right after our wedding.”
She frowned. “What?” This time it was in a completely different tone.
“He knew it existed, and that it’s all over L.A., but he never knew it was yours. Don’t forget, he hasn’t spent that much time in touch with the Last Stand grapevine. When he’s been here, he’s been with us. Or you. He never knew money was the last thing you need.”
“He told you he didn’t know?”
“He did. Not that he had to,” Nic said. “The shock was all over his face when I showed him mine, with the company logo on it, and told him just how big it was.” Her voice went very soft as she added, “He was stunned, reeling…but the very first thing he asked was what the middle G stood for. Because it was you at the front of his mind, nothing else.”
Riley wasn’t at all sure what she’d said after that. Something inane, probably. But as she watched the newlyweds ride away, again hand in hand, she felt her eyes begin to moisten.
She reined King around, and headed back toward the house. And the image in her mind wasn’t of the fence she’d told herself she was checking on, or her happy friends, or of the overlook she could no longer bear to visit.
It was of the unopened envelope that lay shoved into a desk drawer. Proving to her once more that out of sight did not guarantee out of mind.