Chapter Thirty-four
Tanner was sitting on the open tailgate of Liz’s truck when she left the house, wiping at her eyes. She stopped in front of him, and he patted the metal beside him.
“Up you get, Lizzie.”
She hefted herself onto the tailgate beside him and slouched against the side of the truck box.
“So?” she asked simply, focusing on him rather than the giant question of Jake staying or going. “You gonna become a tree hugger and rescue cougar kittens so you can get this place back?”
He snorted a laugh and leaned back, looking at her from under the brim of his hat. He didn’t look mad, which she was glad to see, but he did look like he’d been thinking. Hard.
“I don’t know. It’s a lot to try to understand. You know I have no head for the numbers side of this place,” he replied.
“No, you don’t, but it doesn’t mean you can’t learn, you know,” she teased. He frowned.
Tanner liked being the hands-on guy. Spreadsheets, paperwork, accountants—it made him break into a cold sweat whenever he had to buckle into that chair in his office and fire up the old computer.
He could organize the work, keep schedules, and knew the cattle inside and out, but balance sheets, bills, and banking?
He avoided it whenever possible or wheedled her and Brady into helping.
“We could always hire a business manager,” Liz hinted.
Tanner would squirm at the mention of adding staff, and they already had one with Jake.
But if he didn’t stay, they’d have to think about it.
Liz had no idea if they were solvent; Jake hadn’t mentioned anything about financials being dire.
All the same, securing a salary for a full-time office person would put a dent in their operating costs, she at least knew that.
“Not the right time, not with all this up in the air,” he confirmed, and sighed. “But you’re right. I do hate it. Not like Jake. He’s a natural at keeping up with the books.”
“He’s run a few restaurants, I think,” she replied dryly, trying not to think about Jake running a restaurant, and not here.
“What if he stayed?”
Liz blinked in shock as she gaped at Tanner. He was looking out at the main road, squinting, the corners of his eyes wrinkled up. He glanced over at her and huffed out a laugh.
“What?” he asked.
Liz let out a strangled noise of exasperation. “Damn it, Tan, you just about made me fall over. Stay? You want him to stay?”
Tanner adjusted his hat on his head and hopped off the back of the truck. He turned, hands in his pockets and leveled her a look that was pure West grit.
“I mean it, Liz, what if he stays? What if he’s the West who’s supposed to run this damned place and Dad knew it? Lets us keep our hands in the dirt. Do what we’re good at.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Trademark Tanner-last-word antics. He was whistling as he made his way to the barns, his hands still in his pockets. Almost like a weight had been lifted.
“Tanner, wait—” she called after him, but he just waved and disappeared down the path.
Of all people to suggest it, that it was him and not Brady was a small miracle. Liz sat back and closed her eyes for a moment, still processing his statement when the truck jostled. Brady hoisted himself up beside her, right on cue.
“Tanner looks happy. What’d you say to him?” he asked, his tone light.
“He, well—” she stuttered, gesturing, not sure what to say. “He suggested that Jake stay on, even said that he should be the one running this place. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was drunk again, but—”
Brady burst out laughing, his head back, his eyes shut tight. It got Liz going, and in moments the two of them were howling, holding their stomachs.
Brady put his arm around Liz once he’d gotten himself back under control.
She leaned into him, thankful once again for these men who had adopted her as one of their own all those years ago.
Tanner for his no-nonsense work ethic and decision-making, Brady for his spirit and sense of humor.
Both of them buffers from Brett, there when she needed a hand.
If not for them, she’d have thrown in the towel long ago.
Jake had remarked that they made a good team when they had gone out for that ride. They did. Jake was part of that now, too, whether he wanted to be or not. She had already considered him so, and apparently now Tanner did too.
“Of all people,” he said through his laughter, then sobered a bit. “But he’s right, you know. It could work. Jake has to want it, though. He’s not from here, not a rancher. He’s a chef. A damned good one. Shouldn’t he be doing that?”
Liz hung her head, all the levity from a moment ago sucked out of her in that statement, like air escaping a balloon.
Brady was right, damn him. Jake needed to be where his career was.
Which was not running a ranch in Alberta.
It was running fancy restaurants in New York City, cooking for millionaires and celebrities.
Brady squeezed her and then let her go as he stood. “I know. If he stays? Holy hell, that would be awesome. But if he goes, we gotta be okay with that too.”
“No. I don’t,” Liz grumbled, and jumped down, slamming the tailgate closed, her eyes filling with tears yet again. “I don’t gotta be okay with it, Brady. Because, damn it—”
She let out a sob and his arms were around her again, this time comforting her as she attempted to get control over herself. She was entirely too emotional for her own good right now, bouncing in and out of moods like a damned tennis ball thrown from the roof.
“Fuck,” she warbled, through tears. “Mom warned me about this. I—”
“Mmmm, ya think? She does have some experience with West men, maybe?” he replied, and gave her a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Liz. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Liz wiped at her eyes and stepped away from Brady. “No, it’s okay. Shitty as it is, it’s reality, and I walked into it with my eyes wide open, right?”
“And your heart too. You love him,” Brady stated, eyeballing her.
She nodded and he grinned widely, gesturing out with his hands. “Then tell him and see what happens, you big stupid marshmallow!” he exclaimed, and pulled her under his arm while they walked toward the stables.
Would it be enough to make Jake stay? She didn’t want to put him in that position. What if he did? Would he resent her over time? All her doubts and worries crept in as she and Brady walked.
She had no doubts about how Jake felt—they’d said as much in the hayloft, he’d shown her in the following days.
But was it enough to make him change his entire world for her, and this place?
Feelings were one thing, but life was more than just feelings and desires.
It had to be more than just love to make it all work.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Brady admonished as they reached the stable door. “Just take it one day at a time right now. Nothing’s been decided. I think Tan needs to have a sit-down with New York and see where his head’s at.”
“And you. You’re part of this as well.”
Brady frowned and stopped, leaning against the bars of a stall. He looked away from her and she reached out to touch him, to reassure him. This was another wrinkle in the entire drama that they’d been living through.
“Brett wasn’t my father. I have no claim to this place,” he said tiredly.
“Brady,” Liz intoned. “You do, and that is ridiculous. You grew up here, Brett gave you his name, you were his son, even if he knew—”
“Knew what?” Brady blurted, his voice tight.
Liz met his eyes, unsure of what she should say or not say. He needed to process this on his own schedule, but should she say something? It might make things more complicated if she was wrong.
“Even if he knew you weren’t his, or knew whose you were,” she replied finally. “He raised you anyway.”
Brady let out a frustrated sigh. “You know what? I don’t care.”
She shook his shoulder, and he looked back to her once more. “You do care,” she murmured quietly. “And you’ll figure it out.”
Brady thinned his lips, his face betraying his normal happy attitude, and adjusted the beat-up ball cap on his head. She waited for him to say something, but when he stayed silent, she quickly leaned in and impulsively pecked him on the cheek.
“Let’s get back to work,” she said. Maybe now was not the right time to send him off by himself to tinker. The look in his eye all but gave away that his gears were turning. She handed him a fork and tilted her head toward a stall.
“Need a hand in the stable?” he said, catching on.
“Anytime,” she replied. They all had some heavy decisions to make, and she did some of her best thinking while cleaning a stall.
And she had a lot of thinking to do.
* * *
Jake and Tanner were on their own for dinner.
Liz had stayed at the barn late to catch up on month-end invoicing, and Peony had gone into town to eat with friends. The house was strangely quiet, which Jake decided wasn’t unwelcome.
He and his brother had slapped together sandwiches standing side by side at the kitchen counter, unceremoniously eating them over scrounged-up Christmas napkins to catch the crumbs.
Jake learned that he and Tanner both had an aversion to sliced tomatoes on sandwiches. When Tanner had made a particularly awful face at Jake handing him a tomato to slice, they had laughed at the similarity, and the tomato had gone back into the fridge.
Brady had texted Tanner to eat without him, and Jake wondered if today had reignited the hurt Brady felt about not being a true West.
“He okay, you think?” Jake asked as he fired his balled-up napkin at the paper garbage bin at the side of the kitchen. Tanner had poured them each a beer, and Jake picked his up, watching the light bounce off the glass onto the counter like a reverse shadow, wavering across the polished stone.
“Dunno. He said he needed some space. When Brady needs space, I give it to him; he doesn’t ask for it often,” Tanner replied, and leaned back against the island.
Jake worried the glass a bit, then took a large pull. It tasted good after the day they had had, which had started out with making love to Liz in a field and ended with him and his family wrestling with a solution to what had brought him here in the first place.
The decisions he and Tanner were going to have to make were clouding his brain. It was hard to think about what to do when he was so confused about what it was he truly wanted.
“So I’m thinkin’ about what Frank offered,” Tanner said. Jake looked up at him and set his glass down.
“All right,” Jake said slowly. “And?”
“I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to run this place like some animal rescue. I mean, it’s been a cattle and horse ranch for as long as it’s been owned by a West. If we gotta fold that to run some sort of foundation just so I can own it—”
Tanner stopped speaking and leveled his gaze at Jake, unwavering. That was one of the longest speeches he’d heard from Tanner without a swear word thrown in. It seemed he was having doubts about Peony’s idea.
No matter what, they needed to talk it out.
Jake had wondered how to broach the subject with him all evening, considering Tanner wasn’t the most talkative man on the planet.
One-word answers and a razor-thin temper were not ideal for discussing big things like this, and tonight had been relatively easy, just the two of them.
Tanner was calm and seemed in control of what he was thinking and saying, so Jake tilted his head and made some assumptions about what Tanner had indicated with that statement, furrowed brow and all.
“Are you saying you don’t want to do that?” he asked carefully.
Tanner gestured at him and sighed. “I’m sayin’ that you are doin’ a good job learnin’ and runnin’ the business end. With a bit of experience, getting through this fall’s weaning, and Brady to help through next spring’s plant, you’d be fine to run this place for the year Dad put in the will.”
“You think so?” Jake asked, honestly shocked at his brother’s compliment.
That had been hard won, and he wondered if it was his resistance to change and worry for the simple survival of the ranch that was pushing Tanner to keep things the same, or if indeed that was a genuine compliment on Jake’s ability to muddle through an entirely new industry.
That fear of change had put them on the wrong foot at the beginning. Now that they had figured each other out, and the world hadn’t imploded without his name on the deed, maybe Tanner was having a change of heart?
“I do,” Tanner added and took a sip of his own beer, then tipped the glass in Jake’s direction. “You’ve got a head for this. You’re—”
Tanner swallowed the last of his beer instead of finishing the sentence. He looked away from Jake, thinned his lips as if trying to decide what to say, and then blurted, “Dad would have liked you.”
Jake bowed his head, absorbing the impact of that statement. Tanner had no idea what those words meant to him. It was profound, at least from this side of the conversation. Since Tanner didn’t do platitudes, he took it at face value.
All this time Jake’s identity had been the one given to him by his mother, his environment, his upbringing.
He’d fashioned a view of who he was from the knowledge that he wasn’t wanted by his father.
That bit of his personality, the awkwardness of becoming a man without that influence? It was a huge part of him.
Now, coming here, finding his roots, learning that his father had searched, getting a taste for another way to live . . . it had shattered that perception of himself into a thousand pieces.
Maybe he was afloat and looking for that connection so he could reimagine who he was now that his father was gone and reconciliation wasn’t possible. But Jake already knew he wasn’t afloat anymore.
With everything that had happened, Tanner’s words weren’t validation for him to find himself, they were confirmation of who he had become in the short time he’d been here.
This place, Liz, his brothers, these were the missing pieces that had dogged him. Tanner’s certainty that Jake fit into this world was not a reinvention, it was filling in the gaps.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Jake answered finally.
Tanner hmmed as he crossed the kitchen and rummaged across the key rack at the door to the mudroom.
It held dozens and dozens of keys, mostly for farm vehicles and buildings; some looked like they hadn’t moved in years.
Tanner came up with one on an amber-colored polished rock fob, palmed it, and gestured to the back of the house.
“This is for Dad’s war room. Peony told me you looked in it for paperwork. Let’s go take another look. I keep feeling like we’re missin’ something.”