Chapter Thirty-eight
“Pass the ketchup, please.”
Jake handed it over, and Brady squirted a dollop over his eggs. Jake eyeballed his brother, wrinkling his nose. To each their own, but as he watched his perfectly fluffy, Cordon Bleu–perfected recipe utterly ruined, he held back the urge to gag.
Liz elbowed him and mouthed the word snob at him, and then very deliberately squirted some ketchup on hers as well when Brady passed her the bottle.
Jake raised his hands in defeat good-naturedly, seeing how ridiculous it was for him to fuss, and feigned absolute shock. “Me? A snob? If you want to ruin perfect eggs, far be it for me to—”
Tanner burst into a full-out belly laugh, and everyone joined in, including Jake. The old him would have said something and been offended. The new him? What did it matter? His family was enjoying food he had made for them, and that was enough.
“Get off your high horse, City Boy. Out here, we don’t care about highfalutin recipes. We just want to eat good food,” Tanner said as he picked up his fork. “This ain’t steak and eggs from the Brightside Diner, but it comes close.”
Peony, who was carefully buttering a piece of toast, shook her head at both of them. “You boys,” she happily muttered under her breath.
Everyone was in a good mood this morning. Despite the somber letters and the heavy emotions they’d dragged up to the surface, it felt as if everyone had experienced some form of closure after what had been a month of drama, grief, and uncertainty.
Conversation eventually reverted to the day to come, and Jake got up and took his empty plate to the sink.
He looked out the window, watching the flowers waving in the early morning breeze, the sky a light, hazy blue with puffy clouds in the distance.
It would be warm and sunny today, but the breeze would make it less miserable. That would be good for the crew.
How interesting that he was now thinking of the weather as an important thing to keep track of. The idea of running a restaurant was so far gone, that life descending into a fog behind him.
He returned to lean on the door frame into the dining room, his family sitting around the big oak table, talking, teasing, laughing with one another. Waiting to tell everyone how he felt, and what he’d decided seemed ridiculous. Liz looked up at him and he nodded, and her eyes brightened.
“You gonna tell ’em?” she asked, and everyone turned to look at him.
“I should probably get this out in the open,” he announced, raising his voice. Peony lifted her eyebrows and then smiled as she picked up her coffee cup. He caught her eyes, and she winked back at him, her smile spreading as he shook his head in mock chagrin. That woman could read him like a book.
“Okay, New York. Spill,” Brady said, and tilted his chair back. “What’s the plan? What’d you find in that study last night?”
“I have documents nullifying the will, pending signatures. We can have that done when I call Frank today, and the title goes back to you and Tanner by default. There’s a lot of other paperwork for life insurance policies and then we’ll have to revert the banking, but the solution is all in there.”
“And if we don’t want to change how it is right now?” Tanner replied. “Like I said last night—”
“I know what you said,” Jake replied quickly, and paused, feeling the weight of his decision. “If that is what you want, Tanner, we can—”
“Are you staying to run this ranch with your brothers like your father wanted or not?” Peony asked point blank, interrupting him. She cocked her head to one side as he turned and raised his eyebrows at her. “Because, Lord above, if you don’t—”
“I would like to do that, if you’ll all have me.”
Silence echoed through the room except for a garbled gasp from Liz, who scraped back her chair and beelined to him. She buried her head into his chest, her arms around his waist, squeezing. He dropped his arms around her.
“I don’t think that’s the only reason you’re staying,” Tanner said, and stood, walking his plate over to the sink and setting it in, before coming back to put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You’re meant to be here and run this place. With her.”
Nods from Brady, and tears in Peony’s eyes that she dabbed at with her napkin were all he needed to let the breath out he was holding.
There. Decision done. It felt simple, easily made, even though it wasn’t.
It was a huge, fundamental change in his life, who he was, what he did for a living, but the click in his mind last night sitting in his dad’s chair had been almost audible in the quiet.
The admission to Liz after they had made love had acknowledged his heart and his head were both on the same page.
“I’ll come see you later, after you’ve called Frank,” Liz said, pecking Jake on his cheek as her phone buzzed and she fished it out of her jeans pocket, making a face at her screen. “I’m late out to the stable now.”
Peony sat back, her coffee cradled into her chest, and watched it all, still silent. Brady was wolfing down a second helping of breakfast and finished the last bites as he too headed for the sink.
“S’good. Thanks, Jake,” he mumbled as he finished chewing.
“Let’s get goin’. Animals don’t feed themselves,” Tanner broke in, and Liz and Brady moved out to the back mudroom. The flurry of activity left the kitchen and suddenly Jake was alone with Peony.
He sat down beside her, and she leveled one of her Peony-looks that he now knew so well. He leaned on the table, fist against his cheek, propping himself up, and they appraised each other.
“Did she tell you she snuck into my room and read my letter last night?”
Jake chuckled. “Didn’t tell me what was in it, but she did, yeah. How’d you know?”
“I heard her, sniffling and stomping. That girl cannot sneak anywhere, Lord love her. I put two and two together in the morning when the letter was stuffed sideways into my sweater pocket, and was slightly damp.”
“She came to me last night in tears. I thought it was likely something in her own letter from Brett, but obviously it wasn’t,” he said, and Peony waved her hands.
“I don’t mind. I figured she would’ve pestered me until I gave it to her anyway. Was quite a letter. Brett was never very verbose in life, but his flair for the written word was always a bit less restrained. He had a beautiful soul. I wish it hadn’t been buried so deep inside him.”
“He loved you, Peony,” Jake replied, and she nodded, a frown flitting over her face, quickly masked, her steel back in place.
“Brett gave me a second chance at a decent life. He gave my daughter and me a place to call home, and a living. I can never repay him for that, other than to ensure his memory isn’t lost.”
“It won’t be. I don’t think it could be,” Jake admitted, and sighed as he slouched, realizing that what Brett was to this place was now on his shoulders in a different way.
Now it wasn’t about solving a problem; it was about not letting the place fail.
The work ahead of him was daunting. He hoped he could handle it.
“What is it?” Peony asked, and he smiled tiredly and shrugged.
“Just hope I can get it right, is all. This is going to be a huge change for me.”
Peony leaned into him and patted his leg as she held his eye. “You have us, my dear. Besides, you’re a West. It isn’t in your nature to be wrong.”
He let that sink in as she took a sip of coffee, then took another breath and finished her thought. “You have Liz too. And if I am not mistaken, I think that is for life.”
Jake grinned then and bowed his head. “Yeah, I think so. Or as long as she’ll put up with me. I’m not the easiest man out there, I can be a stubborn prick sometimes.”
“As I said. You’re a West, my dear. Comes with the territory,” Peony quipped back. “Now, let’s get moving on today’s lunch, shall we? I think you have a lot of paperwork to get to.”
* * *
Frank drove out just after lunch, canceling his entire afternoon to come and see for himself.
As he and Jake sifted through all the documents, Frank muttered and cursed under his breath, shaking his head and groaning about how sneaky Brett had been.
Ultimately, as he finished sorting it all, he looked relieved.
They decided to get the letters amended so all three brothers were equal partners. The will didn’t need to be challenged with the new documents they’d found, so it was an easy fix from Frank’s end.
“I wish you’d found this sooner or at least made this damned decision before now.”
“You and me both, Frank. It would have solved a lot of headaches. But I also think, in some way, this entire episode was necessary, and Brett knew what it would do. It did bring me here, which was what he wanted. We’ll never know why he just signed it all over to me but never once contacted me.”
“Maybe he was afraid you wouldn’t want anything to do with him and his plan would fail if he did,” Frank mused. “As a parent, it’s a constant fear of mine that I’m letting my children down. For Brett, he had regrets, and it colored everything he did, I think.”
“I wish to hell we could ask him what happened with Brady,” Jake said. “That’s still a mystery, but we’re not pushing him to talk about it. He needs time.”
“That is a mess, isn’t it? Any idea who his father is?” Frank asked, stretching his shoulders. There was nothing in any of the paperwork that indicated Brett knew. Other than the omission of Brady’s name from the documents.
Peony appeared in the doorway with fresh coffee and set the steaming mugs down in front of them. She looked over the documents, which included her letter.
Frank had reluctantly asked for it because it was in Brett’s writing and would prove the life insurance policy was to go to her without any further need to investigate. Peony had handed it over, and Frank had read it, wiping his eyes afterward.
“I know who it is. I’ve known for a long time,” Peony answered as she sat across from them.
“Oh? Who?” Frank asked, leaning forward. “A dalliance with the rancher next door? Do we have any legal worries to come from it?”
“No. It’s long settled, and unless Brady decides he wants it known, I’ve already told him I’ll keep it to myself.” Peony chided Frank, and then changed the subject. “Remind me to give you the stack of books I have for your wife before you go.”
“We’re just about done here, so why don’t you grab them now?” Frank replied and hmphed as she left. “She’s a tease, that one.”
Jake laughed as they finished the to-do list and gathered everything up. Frank had to file some forms and said he would be back out next week with the partnership documents to wrap up.
Jake walked him out to his car, and Frank stopped in the middle of the gravel driveway in front of the house, looking out around him, squinting into the bright sunlight.
“Brett was an interesting man. Known him a long time, and even I was blindsided by all this,” he mused.
“I’ve gathered that,” Jake replied. “I’ve come to know a little about who he was, being here, rummaging through his life. Learned more about myself than I expected too.”
“It would have been a thing to see you two beside one another, standing man to man and making amends,” Frank remarked.
Jake wanted that more than anything, but he had to let it go and move on.
His father, in some way, had given all of them the ultimate push to set his offspring on their own path, a gift of forced independence.
To have his sons make the leap instead of him and change the legacy of this place from Brett’s to theirs.
He was thinking too hard, the lack of sleep catching up with him, and if he kept going he’d run himself in circles. He quirked a smile and gestured to the stables.
“In a way I’ve met him many times. He’s in all parts of this place.”
“True enough, son. True enough,” Frank replied.
They walked the rest of the way to Frank’s car and said their goodbyes.
Jake stayed rooted in the middle of the driveway, watching the dust billow out from behind the big black Caddy, letting the breeze sighing through the pines lining the edge of the driveway and the chickadees in the nearby flower bush be the only noise in his head.
Liz appeared beside him, her hand on his back an instant calming touch, lowering the shoulders that he hadn’t even realized were headed for his ears.
“I got five minutes. You done with all that paperwork?” she asked, her hand running up and down his spine. When she did that, it was always a grounding moment, the woman behind him connecting to him, understanding him. Ever since that first night in the kitchen, he’d sought it out. Her.
“Yeah,” he said, sliding his arms around her. She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his temple, standing on her tiptoes, her chest pressing into him. That was nice, and he let out a hum of appreciation, sliding a hand down to cup her ass through her jeans.
“Whatcha wanna do?” she whispered in his ear, wiggling in his grasp.
It was too easy. All she had to do was touch him and he was putty in her hands. But two could play this game, and he growled, earning one of her throaty, whiskey-rich laughs.
He swept her up over his shoulder before she could move an inch from his grasp and strode toward her house on the other side of the turnaround, lumberjack carrying her with one arm curled around her.
She squealed and kicked, shouting his name through deep belly laughs but not really trying to escape. She loved it as much as he did.
He set her down on her front porch, and she ran her hands over his chest, her eyes gleaming in happiness, her hair a mess. She was absolutely stunning, and all his, and there was nothing more he wanted to do than be with her.
“I’ve got more than five minutes, Liz. I’ve got the rest of my life,” he replied, before opening the door and pulling her through.