Chapter Five
S he had to be joking. Cal stared at her, perplexed, while her face slowly turned the color of ketchup. He didn’t know… he couldn’t tell… and there was only one way to find out. “Is this a joke?”
Her blush was so very fetching. “No.”
“Is it something you’ve thought about? At all?”
“Also no,” she confessed.
“Didn’t think so.”
“But it does make sense on a business level,” she said tentatively. “If you think about it.”
Money and business had never been his driving force. And, yes, Beth was his kind of woman, and she’d made the most of her situation once before, but why on earth would she want to do that again? And why would he agree to such a business arrangement when she’d just finished telling him he was worth something? That he was worth more .
Wasn’t it high time he started believing it?
Even if the very woman he’d been hung up on for more years than he cared to count was the one doing the asking?
“Problem is that even if we could wrangle the money angle between us, I’d never stand in front of a preacher and say things I don’t mean,” he offered quietly. “Love. Honor. Devotion. They’re actions , not just words.” Call him a diehard romantic, but he’d held out this long for a love he could give his all. “That’s what I’m holding out for. And it’s not what you’re offering.”
“I—” Did she even know what she was offering? “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. At all.” She met his gaze briefly but couldn’t hold it. “Lord, I’ve offended you again. Of course, you deserve to marry for love. Of course. Like I did.”
“And here I thought you married Red because you were pregnant.”
Ruthless honesty was a weapon, and he used it to try and distance himself further. Used it to try and hurt her, a small voice told him unhelpfully. The same way her reckless proposal had hurt him.
Had she always brought out the worst in him, or was this a recent development?
Recent, he decided.
Finding Red, burying him, had changed everything because suddenly Beth was available to him in a way she never had been. “Begging your pardon, Beth. That comment about you being pregnant was out of line.”
“True, though,” she said quietly, before lifting her head to reveal penny-brown eyes chock full of shadows. “Yes, I married young because I wasn’t careful enough and got pregnant. But love grew between Red and me. Not easily. Not without a lot of compromise, but we stuck at it and nurtured what we had. I kept my vows and did my best. I can be proud of that, can’t I?”
“Yes.” The answer was yes. He’d always respected her for that.
She nodded hard. “But you want more for yourself, and why should you settle for someone like me? I’m an unthinking idiot. Especially around you.” She reached out and placed her hand on his forearm, a gesture of comfort, nothing more, but his body didn’t get the memo. A jolt of pleasure rushed through him at the simple act of skin on skin.
He noted, belatedly, that she had callouses just like him.
Too much hard labor and skin-drying antiseptic handwash when she worked at the hospital. She worked so hard with hardly any downtime he could see.
“Cal, I’m so sorry I offended you. Again. I didn’t think.”
Dude, cut her some slack. And maybe get your arm back.
“’M not offended. Surprised is all.”
“I proposed, and it wasn’t a joke, but it was ill-considered. You said no, and rightly so. I give you full permission to tease me forever if we can put this behind us and go on being friends.”
Was that what they were? Didn’t feel like it. She’d always been friendly enough when Red had been alive, less so once he’d disappeared. Cal had always been careful to bury the admiration he’d always felt for her under six feet of snow.
That was just how they rolled.
Only a couple of people had ever realized his feelings for her ran deeper than they should. Mason. His mother.
He’d never worn his heart on his sleeve.
Red had never guessed.
Their meals arrived, and he ate his in silence. Beth nibbled on a bacon strip or two, her face a study in misery.
“I guess I could be flattered instead of offended,” he said finally. “I’ve never had a marriage proposal before.”
“Definitely be flattered.” She nodded quickly. “I’ve never proposed before. I wouldn’t have proposed at all if I hadn’t been sure you’d make a brilliant husband. Hand over heart.” She suited actions to words. “The woman you do marry is going to be the luckiest woman in the world.”
“You’re laying it on too thick now, Beth Ann.”
“No I’m not, ’cause you’re smiling. I’m calling it a win.”
He thought back to her earlier conversation with Sam, and, even before that, her desire to set up a meeting with him to talk about her situation. “I don’t imagine your place is going to sit on the market for long—not if my brothers have any say in it—but if you need cash now , I could take your herd off your hands in a separate deal. Fair market value for each and every one.”
The gratitude in her eyes was nearly his undoing.
She held out her hand for him to shake. “Done.”
*
Later, much later, after the day’s work was done, Cal let himself into the little mountain cabin he and his brothers had built, and that Cal had called home for nearly ten years. It wasn’t much—one of the doors never sat quite right and the floor in the wet room wasn’t level—but it had a lower level workshop area, two big bedrooms, a combined living and dining area with views clear across the valley, and Seth had crafted the counters in the kitchen with Cal’s extra height in mind.
Cal had furnished it over the years with furniture he’d made, or that Seth had made. More recently, his sister-in-law Madeline had gifted him a stack of bed linen and comforters she swore she didn’t need. The jewel-colored velvets and cashmeres had replaced the serviceable brown cotton bedding he’d had for years. It’d take holding his feet to a forest fire before he’d admit that he liked the softness of this new stuff against his skin, but he did. And Jett’s little daughter Claire had been fretful last time she’d visited, but she’d tucked right up in that petroleum-blue velvet rug and gone straight to sleep, so Cal wasn’t the only one enjoying the velvet, now was he?
But a family home this wasn’t , and for the first time in forever, he stood staring out the kitchen window at the mountain range beyond and took stock of what he had to offer a woman. A cabin on a ranch he would never own outright—with his mother still in the main house and not looking to relocate to the heavens any time soon. A million or so saved and no real way of getting out from beneath the yoke of family ranch management and shared decision-making, and Mason, as firstborn son, having first claim on everything.
Any woman who hooked up with him would have a lifetime of knowing her husband had never made his own way, and their children would have no sure claim to a ranching life. And yet he couldn’t imagine striking out on his own someplace else, somewhere more affordable but completely his. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this valley his family had tended for so long.
Did that mean he was a man of limited imagination?
Maybe so.
Or did he simply know with gut-wrenching certainty that this was where he belonged?
He heard voices outside and moments later the wet-room door opened to reveal Madeline and Seth.
“Howdy,” he offered warily. Not that they weren’t welcome whenever they wanted to drop in. But the timing was suspicious.
“I come bearing gifts,” Maddie said, crossing the room and placing a canvas shopping bag on the table. Bottles clinked from somewhere within. “I thought we might need an icebreaker.”
She drew bourbon from the bag. Very old. Very famous. Mighty expensive. Another one joined it. His eyebrows rose.
“I’m well aware you’re the strong silent type,” she mused. “Good thing I brought backup.”
She darted out the door again without further explanation. If Seth had tried to follow her, Cal would have pinned him to the wall. Fortunately, his brother stayed put. “What’s going on?”
“Beth was sitting in mom’s kitchen earlier, having coffee, when me and Maddie dropped by.”
Cal crossed his arms defensively. “And?”
“And I have a proposal for you.” Seth’s eyes glinted with amusement.
Cal stood his ground, stone faced. “Had enough of those for today, thanks.”
“So I heard.”
Forewarned was forearmed. “If you’re fixin’ to laugh, you might want to consider that I have no sense of humor about this at all.”
“For the record, I didn’t laugh for long .” Seth’s amusement morphed into wary concern. “Can’t have been easy saying no to a woman you’ve admired for such a long time.”
“Wasn’t that hard.” Okay, so maybe Seth also knew where his affections lay. Mason, Mom, and now Seth. Still a small enough number as to be manageable. It wasn’t a herd . “What’s this all about?”
“The family buying the Evans ranch.”
“Is Mason joining us?”
“Mason’s on his way to North Dakota to buy steers, but I hit him up earlier and he’s on board with the plan I’m about to table. I’ve spoken with TJ, Jett, and Mom, too.”
Busy man. “I take it you’re the family representative?”
“Head wrangler at your service. Did you really expect us to send Mason here to negotiate this? Because, dude, no one’s that stupid.”
Point. “Did you tell everyone Beth proposed, and I refused?”
“Of course. Full disclosure for all the business partners, guaranteed. I was in the kitchen when Beth was confessing all. Beth’s convinced you think she’s a horrible, no good, very bad person. You might want to do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“Do something friendly.”
“Like what?” Maybe he was a man of little imagination after all.
Maddie returned bearing kitchen gloves and a casserole dish and sent Seth out to bring in the rest. Minutes later she was unwrapping home-cooked beef casserole, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn. Cal contributed by laying out the sourdough and sharp cheddar he’d bought in Marietta, and providing knives, forks, plates, drinking glasses, butter, and a roll of kitchen paper if anyone wanted napkins.
He didn’t run to tablecloths or placemats and certainly not to table napkins. There was a limit to his admiration of home fabrics.
“You said you had a plan for buying Red’s place,” he said after he’d eaten his fill in silence. “Spit it out.”
Seth took his time pouring bourbon for them all, not even wincing when Maddie topped hers with cola. “Several plans, but here’s the current favorite. Mom splits Casey and Sons into six equal shares: one for her, one for each of us kids. We’d be worth about five million each on paper, but there’s a catch—we can only trade property shares between ourselves. The Evans property is worth twelve million and Beth has around ten percent equity left in it. If she keeps that in trust for Sam, we only have to come up with eleven million, give or take.”
Which was still an awful lot of money.
“Beth will move to Marietta and continue her nursing career,” Seth continued. “TJ’s in for ten percent as a silent partner. Jett for twenty and he’s willing to help out whoever’s in charge if they need a hand. I’ll take nine percent. Mason is all out, and by that, I mean he’s considering an offer I made to buy him out of Casey and Sons completely.”
“No way.” Surprise loosened his tongue. Surprise, good food and very good bourbon. Mason would never walk away from his birthright. He sat back in his chair. “Mason wants the ranch.”
“Mason wants to start his own beef genetics business, buying and selling the best bloodlines in the world. He needs startup cash. A lot of it.”
“Or he could start small. Smaller. ” He and Mason butted heads a lot over the everyday running of the ranch, but that didn’t mean Cal wanted him gone .
Seth shrugged with the confidence of a successful, self-made man. “Hard to impress Cara by starting small.”
“If she’s that shallow, why would he want to impress her at all?” Cal thought it a fairly convincing argument, but Seth just shrugged.
“Both Seth and Mason have delusions of grandeur,” Maddie stated as she reached for the last cob of corn. “Seth would like to buy you out of Casey and Sons, too.”
“No.” He didn’t feel the need to expand on that.
“Hear me out,” said Seth. “If you sold your sixth of the family ranch you’d be able to buy fifty-one percent of the Evans’ place and have majority say in how it’s developed. We thought you’d go for that. I, for one, want to see what you can do when you’re managing a ranch your way rather than by committee or because it’s how dad used to do it. Once it’s back to turning a profit—and it will—you use your profit portion, and the wage you’d pull for managing both ranches, and you either buy back your Casey share or increase your majority stake in the Evans ranch. Which we’d now be calling your place.”
Except it wouldn’t be. Not completely. There would always be Beth’s share, or Sam’s share, and their wants and needs and feelings to be considered. “Sounds a lot like being responsible for Beth’s financial wellbeing and Sam’s future without any thought for my feelings in the matter whatsoever. I already said no to that once today. I’m not interested in a business union with them!”
Maddie leaned forward, her eyes alight with curiosity. “Does any other kind of union have a chance here?”
“She’s talking about your deep and abiding feelings for the woman,” Seth added. “Don’t bother denying it.”
“ Excuse me?”
“What he means to say is that most everyone in your family thinks you’ve been in love with Beth for years,” Maddie said helpfully. “Unlike Beth, who has absolutely no idea you’re in love with her at all.”
“She buried her husband last weekend!”
“I mean, technically that’s true.” Maddie nodded. “She also asked you to marry her this morning, so I think you’re good to go.”
“That was a business offer.”
“Told you he was thick,” Seth murmured, but Maddie hadn’t finished with Cal yet.
“What if she’s sweet on you too—”
“She’s not,” he argued bluntly.
“And hasn’t even let herself think that way, until now. And what if her love language is so rusty she can’t figure out how to let you know she’s interested in more than just business? Let’s face it, your love language involves doing farm chores for her—it’s not as if you’re giving her obvious cues.”
Love language? “What the ever-lovin’ heck are you talking about?”
“Ask her on a date,” Seth said. “Make your move. Shoot your shot. Preferably soon.”
Did they really all know? Was he that transparent? No. Out of the question. They all knew nothing . Seth was bluffing. “Even if that was a consideration, and I’m not saying it is , why can’t a man take his time?”
“Because we’re buying Beth’s ranch and figuring out who wants which bits of it now .”
“You said it was all tradeable,” Cal reminded him. “Put me down for the nine percent, you pick up the major shareholder stake in Red’s place, and I’ll manage it the way you tell me to. I’ve followed Mason’s lead for years. I can sure as rain tolerate yours.”
Seth met his hard gaze without flinching. “You’re a hard man to help.”
It wasn’t Seth’s job to help his fool older brother get by. “Don’t need your help.”
Seth turned to Maddie. “Thick and hardheaded.”
“Mm. Still kind of lovely, though. Cowboy pride.” Maddie smiled at him and it felt a lot like approval, although for what he did not know. “Beth, too, has pride, which is why she probably won’t ask you to marry her again. Once bitten and all that.”
“Do you mean to say any future marriage proposals will have to come from him?” Seth asked with studied innocence.
“Yes.”
They were watching his every move, like wolves stalking a wounded deer. “Is this scripted? Because it sounds like something you practiced on the way over.”
“You mean did we discuss how to let you know that Beth has some fairly strong and not entirely platonic feelings for you? That she’s working through?” Maddie asked thoughtfully. “We may have touched on it on the way over, yes. We also discussed the guilt an honorable man might have carried around on account of having feelings for his best friend’s wife. That he might still be carrying, because he’s loyal to a fault. Loyal to a memory . Even though he’s now free to announce his feelings.”
He picked up his whiskey and downed it in one swallow. “Stop meddling.”
“I may have mentioned how lovely I thought second chances were,” Madeline offered with unbearable delicacy.
Cal looked to Seth pleadingly in the face of Madeline’s relentlessness. “ Help. ”
Seth poured him a refill. “Think about it.”