Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
One Month Later
Lincoln
I glanced to my right and my heart caught in my throat yet again.
Livvy’s hair flowed behind her like an auburn wave as she rode Calico across the field.
She’d lost her hat within the first minute of our race.
It had been a month since she’d set aside the crutches as her ankle healed.
I knew it would take far longer to set aside all the painful memories of her past, but when she turned to look at me, the pure joy on her face told me she was well on her way.
“You’re gonna lose!” she taunted.
“Just giving you a head start,” I called back, not the least bit surprised to see her dig her heels into Calico’s side to urge the paint to go just a bit faster.
“You’re gonna let a girl beat you?”
I looked left to see Luther riding up.
“I don’t need to win the race, I’ve already won the girl,” I said. Then I cocked my head. “Though looks like you’re about to lose.”
He glanced behind him just in time to see Kate bending low over her horse’s neck as she raced by us both. Luther looked back at me and grinned. “How the hell did we get so damn lucky?”
“That’s all Dad’s doing,” I said as we slowed further to let the girls enjoy their race. “Without those lessons and his example, I’m pretty sure the only one I’d be racing on this ranch is your sorry ass.”
“I’ll have you know, my ass is considered quite fine.” he said. His pretense of being affronted was ruined by his huge grin.
“I wasn’t aware we had any ass connoisseurs on the ranch.” I looked around as if searching for one.
“Only need one and she’s that brunette who is about to whup your redhead’s butt.”
I turned to see the girls riding side by side and grinned. “They do make quite the sight don’t—oh hell, no!”
We took off at the exact same time, hitting a gallop at the very moment the girls’ horses took flight. I lost another ten years off my life until they landed safely on the other side of the fence.
“That girl isn’t gonna sit for a month!” I said as I urged Zephyr to go faster.
“Kate will be standing right beside her,” Luther said as Duke matched the pace.
By the time we’d reached the fence, the girls had recovered their senses enough to gradually slow their pace until the horses were walking. I had just dismounted when I saw Livvy looking over her shoulder, her mouth forming a perfect little “O”.
“That’s right, pixie, your ass is about to meet Daddy’s paddle.”
Luther stood right beside me as we both lifted a hand and quirked a single finger in that universal come here gesture.
“What the hell were they thinking?” Luther asked as the girls looked at each other, then at us, then across the adjacent pasture.
“Don’t even think about it!” I called out in a tone that brooked no nonsense. Changing my hand’s position, I pointed to a spot directly in front of me and added, “Now!”
The girls looked at each other again and then Livvy called out, “Move so we can jump back,” before tapping her heels against her horse’s flanks.
“No!” Luther and I chorused.
“Jesus, pixie, are you trying to kill me?” I asked when she pulled back on Calico’s reins.
“Of course not, I just thought you were in a hurry so—”
“So you will walk along the fence until you reach the gate. Then, young lady, you will walk through the gate all the way to the barn where you will unsaddle Calico, brush her down, water her and then head into the house where you will drop your jeans and panties and stick your nose in the corner of the living room.”
“Kate, you’ll be in the opposite corner. And, if you both aren’t there by the time we arrive, the only dancing you’ll be doing today is to the tune of a belt after the paddle.”
“Any questions?” I asked without missing a beat.
“No, Daddy,” the girls chorused.
We didn’t say another word as they turned to guide their horses along the fence line. Once they were out of earshot, I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair. When I realized Luther was leaning over to stare at me, I froze. “What, is something in my hair?”
“Nope, just checking to see how many gray hairs pop out because I feel like I aged about ten years.”
I chuckled and settled my hat back on my head. “Says the man who so cockily welcomed me to his club.”
“I never said that club was boring,” Luther said with his own chuckle.
“Nope, you didn’t, but you also never mentioned membership just might kill me,” I said as I put my foot in the stirrup.
“Yeah, but what a way to go,” Luther quipped as we both swung up in the saddles again. “So how long do you think it’s gonna take them to make it all the way home?”
“Hopefully long enough to put the fear of God into them.”
Luther’s chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh. “Seriously? Have you met those two?”
I could only sigh. “Yeah, but you know what they say, hope springs eternal. Come on, let’s go check the herd and get that out of the way.”
After we’d done exactly that and spent a few minutes watching Skeppy and Skippy butting their heads in play, I figured we’d given the girls enough time. Once we’d closed the gate, I cut my eyes to him and grinned. “Race you!”
Neither of us were too concerned to declare the win as we pulled up at the same time once we were within sight of the barn.
Though all four of us had basically spent the last month together, and this wouldn’t be the first time the girls had gotten into mischief and earned a spanking, those had taken place in different bedrooms. This was the first time they’d be punished together.
“Anything I need to know before we begin?” Luther asked as he unsaddled Duke.
I took the time to give the question serious consideration as I pulled the saddle from Zephyr’s back, knowing he wouldn’t rush me.
He’d have to have been blind, deaf, and not paying any attention at all to be ignorant of the fact that Livvy’s only and last relationship had been tainted from the start.
She’d shared a bit about how Spencer, her father, had hand-picked Roland for her.
He hadn’t even searched hard or any further than his own company as Roland had been his vice-president.
The two might as well have been cut from the same cloth.
If that didn’t make it easy for the asshole, the fact he’d kept his daughter under tight control by sending her to private schools and limiting her exposure to anything and especially anyone that didn’t meet with his approval, assured she was as malleable as clay.
His only mistake had been in failing to recognize that try as he might to ignore it, Livvy shared the same DNA as her mother.
And her mother had inherited the same DNA from her mother, Olivia Brenson.
Those strands of genes and the love Livvy had for those two women had been the difference in being poured into some mold and breaking free of it.
With Spencer’s death, Roland had become president of one of the largest firms in the United States.
He proved to be even better at seizing floundering companies and gutting them as well as the people who’d spent decades building those companies.
It had taken a lawyer who’d seen his clients losing their jobs at the whims of a man who hadn’t considered them at all to awaken the warrior in Livvy.
It all began with an envelope slipped to her, not by himself or in view of Roland, but by the lawyer’s wife in the restroom of the very building where the final papers were being signed to turn over ownership of yet another family owned company to a man who wouldn’t know the meaning of family if it bit him in the ass.
The contents of the envelope had led Livvy on several searches of Roland’s office whenever she had an opportunity.
One night she’d found the papers the lawyer’s note had alluded to.
I was still coming to terms with the fact that Livvy hadn’t cared about the fact Roland as well as her very father had basically stolen from her for years.
Oh, she hadn’t been forgiving enough not to turn over the evidence to the lawyer who took it to the proper authorities to bring charges against Roland that I was sure he’d spend the next twenty years or so fighting.
But it had been one document inside that envelope passed to Livvy that had truly set her free.
It had been a copy of the last will and testament of Olivia Brenson.
It had been written the year of Grace Brenson Boothe’s death.
The original was safely in the hands of Kevin Norton, who’d taken over the family law firm in the very town of Tumbling Falls.
Livvy learned that Grammie O had not only left everything she owned personally to her only granddaughter, including the house and the land it sat on, but her shares of the very company that her daughter’s husband had run.
Shares that, when added to those Livvy’s mother had gifted her at her birth, gave her granddaughter the majority of the company Roland thought he controlled.
Livvy learned that her father had known for years what the will contained and had chosen to not only ignore it, he’d lied to shareholders and had forged her mother’s and then his daughter’s signature for years.
To further destroy any love Livvy might have had for him, he’d lied to her, letting her believe her grandmother had died when she was just a child.
All those years Livvy could have spent with her grammie, stolen without any sign of remorse.
Spencer Boothe had gone to his own grave without ever revealing the truth to his only child.
Livvy could have taken great satisfaction in watching Roland’s world implode the moment she slipped the engagement ring off her finger.
Instead, after leaving the ring on the conference room table, she’d given instructions that her company was to be dismantled and reconstructed.
She’d worked with Kevin to set up a new board where the money would be used to rebuild instead of destroy.
Liv could have lived anywhere in the world to oversee the decisions the board made, but she’d chosen what she’d ached to do for years. She’d come home.
As we led the brushed and watered horses into their stalls, I finally looked over at my brother and answered his question. “Just that this woman is my life the same as Kate is yours.”
He nodded. “That’s all I need to know.”
And with that, we left the barn and headed to the house where the loves of our lives waited.