Читать книгу True Love Ranch - Elizabeth Harbison - Страница 11

Chapter Two

Darcy rounded a corner, still following the pickup and thinking about the old days. She could see Joe in her mind’s eye, a little younger, a little thinner and a bit more baby-faced...but as devastatingly handsome as he was today. She never dreamed he’d still be working at the ranch. For years she’d felt guilty about the fact that he’d probably been fired; now it turned out that he never had been.

But her grandfather had been so angry! Once he’d learned of their secret trysts, he’d sent Darcy straight home, even though it was only the beginning of August. She’d assumed Joe had been sent on his way, too, especially when her letters had gone unanswered.

Now that she thought about it, though, it figured that he hadn’t been. R. Kenneth Beckett’s world was a man’s world. Always had been. She could see it now: Joe had been given a warning and a wink.

She turned into the driveway, and the ranch spread out before her. Her heart soared. Acres and acres of sharply angled hills, dotted with horses of all sizes and colors, cradled the beloved house in a valley.

It didn’t look much like a ranch, apart from the horses on the hill. It never had. The ranch had been built by a Swiss settler centuries before, and to Darcy the old European styling had always seemed like the setting for a fairy tale.

The house was large, with pointed gables and shady eaves. Thick vines climbed the wall and snaked across the front, netting the building’s facade like a spider web. The windows were beveled lead glass with diagonals of iron bar slashing it into diamonds. The window sills, however, were scaly with peeling paint. Closer inspection revealed two of the windows on the far corner of the house were broken, and Darcy could clearly see boards behind several others.

When had that happened? Grandfather had always taken great pride in his home. There had never been a chip of paint missing, much less scales of it peeling off.

Darcy swallowed a lump in her throat. If she’d known he was ill, if she’d known that the house had practically fallen to ruin, would she have tried one more time? Yes, a melancholy voice inside her said, of course I would have. Another question followed quickly: Would he have responded with more warmth if he’d known their time for reconciliation was drawing to a close?

Apparently not. After all, he had known he was ill, and yet he had neither contacted her nor had anyone else do so.

Bullheaded to the bitter end.

She tightened her hands on the steering wheel. It was more comfortable to be angry with him than to miss him. There was no point in mulling over the past.

Darcy parked the car next to the pickup truck and got out warily, watching Joe Tyler from the corner of her eye.

Joe raised his eyebrow. “You ready?” He gestured toward the house.

Darcy straightened and kept walking. “Yes, I am.”

“You don’t look ready. You look like you’ve been crying. Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course I’m okay.” She sniffed and hated herself for the giveaway. “It’s just hay fever. I always have hay fever when I come here.” She walked quickly toward the front door.

He followed.

Darcy hesitated at the door. She had always just walked right in, but that had been a very long time ago. She wasn’t at all sure whom she’d find in the house now or what they would expect of her.

She pushed the doorbell and waited, trying to ignore the fact that Joe Tyler was standing close behind her. Right—as if anyone could ignore such a presence. For one thing, he smelled fantastic. She could detect a hint of sweet laundry detergent or fabric softener mingling with the crisp masculine scent of aftershave. It was a combination that tempted her to lean back into him, as if collapsing into a freshly made bed.

Heat pulsated from him right through the gauzy batiste of her pantsuit. His proximity felt uncomfortably... what was the word? Intimate flew to mind. The heat that passed from him to her felt intimate.

This foolish line of thinking was getting her nowhere. A long time ago she and Joe had shared a predictable teenage curiosity about each other. Nothing more, she insisted silently. It was a lifetime ago, and Darcy had been married and divorced since then, had gone from carefree wealth to economic struggle. Now she knew that following the lead of sexual chemistry could only result in disaster.

There was no way she was going to make that mistake again.

“Why don’t you just go on in?” Joe reached past her toward the door. His arm brushed against her shoulder and left a burning spot on her skin.

“It’s not my home.” Although it was the closest thing she’d ever had.

“At the moment, it’s no one’s home, and I don’t want to stand here all day while you ring the bell.” He stepped around her and pushed the door open. “The Coxes are too deaf to hear it these days anyway.”

“The Coxes?” She remembered Anthea, the kind woman who worked as the housekeeper, and her husband, Hank, who was the family driver. “Are they still here?”

“For the time being.” He hesitated, then added gently, “It’ll be a short reunion. They’re getting ready to leave for Florida.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure. This week sometime.”

It was Darcy’s second encounter today with the living past, and the second time she felt her fond memories meant more than the truth did. “Is anyone else still here? Anyone I might know?”

Joe was quick to shake his head. “There’s no one here at all beyond some hired day help. The guys you knew are all long gone. The last of them was Skip Morton and he left—” he paused to think “—well, it must be nearly a year now.”

“Oh, no.” Darcy was filled with apprehension. She was walking into a situation that was even more unfamiliar than she’d anticipated.

“Things really changed over the past few years, Darce, and not for the best.”

“Oh.” Darcy didn’t know what else to say. She’d had such happy times here as a child. When she went in this door, what changed vision of the past would confront her? She hesitated, almost afraid to disturb her memories.

“Let’s go.” Joe guided her through the front door into the wooden entryway. “Like I said, it’s a little different since you were here last. Toward the end, your grandfather was too ill to do much with the place and too poor to hire someone else to do it for him.”

“But you said he had hired help.”

Joe shook his head. “Just a few men. All together we have our hands full just dealing with the livestock.”

A door at the end of the hall creaked open before Darcy could reply.

“Joe? Is that you?” An elderly man bustled down the hall toward them. “How are you, son? Didn’t recognize you from back there without my glasses on. How’s Ricky?”

Darcy felt Joe glance at her quickly. Who was Ricky? she wondered. Another ranch hand? Was someone else requested at the reading of Grandfather’s will?

“Just getting over a cold, but he’s all right,” Joe said. He took off his hat and tossed it onto the foyer table. His hair was dark and gleaming. “How are you and the missus?”

“Fine, fine.” Hank turned his gaze to Darcy. “My stars, this isn’t Little Darcy, is it?”

“Not so little anymore.” She smiled, but tears burned behind her eyes. Hank had aged thirty years in the last ten, but he was still wonderfully familiar. He made the place feel like home in a way that no one else could. “I’m awfully glad to see you, Hank.” Impulsively she went to him and gave the frail body a hug. Hank returned the hug with the warm kindness she remembered.

“Wait ’til Anthea sees you.” He hesitated and appeared to think that over before saying, “She’ll be so sorry it’s just to say good-bye.”

“I can’t wait to see her,” Darcy said, trepidation weakening her words.

“You waited ten years,” Joe said quietly.

Darcy bristled.

“Come right this way,” Hank Cox said, walking through a heavy oak doorway to the left.

Neither Darcy nor Joe moved. They stood facing each other like boxers in opposite corners of the ring.

“What did you mean, ‘you waited ten years’?” she demanded.

“Just that your grandfather could have used your help over the past few years, and if you weren’t so bullheaded—”

“Me bullheaded? What about him?”

“Both of you. Not that it’s any of my business,” he added as an afterthought.

“It certainly isn’t.” She was sorely tempted to spit the truth right into Joe Tyler’s condescending face, but it was none of his business. Let him think the worst of her—what did she care?

He stood for a moment with his eyes fixed on her, and his enviably sculpted mouth quirked into the half smile she’d noticed earlier. “Sweetheart, you’re way too uptight.”

“Don’t call me ‘sweetheart.’”

“See?”

She felt her face flush. “You have no right to speak to me that way.”

“You didn’t used to feel that way.”

Exactly three hard, solid heartbeats passed before she managed to say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His casual approach to what had meant so much to her was humiliating.

He stopped and turned back to her. Suddenly his hair looked darker—if that was possible—and his eyes looked like blue stormclouds. And his mouth—that sensually curved mouth; it was really starting to get on Darcy’s nerves—was quirked, openly mocking. “You didn’t used to mind one bit when I called you my sweetheart. Or have you forgotten?”

“There’s nothing to forget,” she answered, refusing to be bowled over by him. She raised her chin.

He gave a quick jerk of his head and sucked air in through his teeth. “Are you challenging me, Darcy?”

“To do what?” Darcy asked, deliberately misunderstanding.

He didn’t miss a beat “To make a more lasting impression on your memory.”

Part of her wanted to slap that complacent smirk right off his face, but at the moment she felt too weak and tingly to move. Once she had enjoyed this sensation. Now she hated it.

“If you’re ready...” Hank Cox returned to the doorway with a puzzled frown and swept a hand toward the other room. Darcy had almost forgotten he was waiting. She strode into the library and sat down in an embroidered antique chair.

The room was actually in pretty good shape, except for some chips in the built-in bookshelves and a few pieces of old furniture that had seen better days.

A little gray-haired woman who would have been perfectly cast as Mrs. Claus approached with teapot in hand but not a shred of recognition in her eye. “I’m Anthea Cox, and I’m delighted to meet you.”

“It’s me, Anthea. Darcy.” She stared hard into the woman’s eyes, willing her to remember. “Darcy Beckett.”

“Oh, my.” Anthea put a hand to her chest. “Little Darcy—is it really you?”

Darcy felt tears prick her eyes. “Yes. It’s been a long time.”

“It certainly has,” the woman answered, her voice wavering with emotion. “Far too long.” She walked over and reached her hand out to touch Darcy’s cheek. “How lovely you’ve turned out to be. I always knew you would.”

“Th-thanks,” Darcy said awkwardly, giving Anthea a quick embrace. She was keenly aware of Joe, standing nearby, listening.

“How about a nice cup of tea?” Anthea asked. “I remember how you like it, with lots of sugar and cream.”

Her sugar and cream days had been over for a long time, but Darcy saw it was important to Anthea and said, “How kind. I’d love some.” Seeing that Anthea’s hands shook with age, Darcy reached out to help, but the older woman didn’t notice.

“Nothing quite like a nice cuppa to cure what ails you,” Anthea murmured. She’d always said that, but Darcy didn’t believe it anymore.

Darcy watched the thin trickle of tea dance in and around the cup as Anthea poured unsteadily.

“Dear, did you see that Joe is here, too?” Hank Cox asked from across the room.

Anthea Cox looked up. The teapot shifted position but continued to pour, now onto the table, as she said, “Well, Joseph, how nice—”

“Excuse me, Anthea,” Darcy said, reaching for the teapot. The older woman apparently didn’t hear her, because just as Darcy was about to grasp the teapot Anthea shifted both her gaze and the teapot back to Darcy.

“Mr. Beckett would have been so pleased that you’ve come back at last,” she said faintly to Darcy, who was frantically setting empty tea cups under the trickling stream.

Joe walked over and took the pot from Anthea Cox, saying, “I was just telling Darcy myself what a shame it was that she waited so long to come back.”

Darcy looked daggers at him. She wanted to tell him that the responsibility for her absence was not hers alone, but she knew it would sound petty. If he remembered that she’d given him her virginity, it certainly didn’t seem to mean much to him now. “Well, our past doesn’t mean that much to me, either,” she contended, looking down at her shoes. She didn’t realize she’d spoken the words aloud until she looked up.

Three surprised gazes landed on her like bugs.

“What do you mean, dear?” Anthea asked.

A long moment of silence followed.

“I mean,” Darcy stammered, “I mean that the past is the past, and there’s no point in regretting it now.” She leveled her gaze on Joe. “No matter how much I might want to.”

“Quite so,” Anthea agreed. “Quite so.”

There was a strained silence, but before the awkwardness became torturous a man walked into the room wearing a fine gray pinstripe suit and carrying a thin leather briefcase. “I’m sorry I’m late.” He gave a cursory nod to everyone in the room, then settled his gaze on Darcy and Joe. “I’m Edward Connor, Mr. Beckett’s attorney. You must be Ms. Beckett and Mr. Tyler.”

They both nodded.

“Good. Then we’ll sort out the future of the True Love Ranch.”

“The True Love Ranch?” Darcy repeated incredulously. “What’s that?”

“This is that,” Joe answered. “Didn’t you know?”

“The T.L. Ranch...you’re saying that stands for True Love?”

Joe looked at her strangely. “Yeah. You must have known that.”

She shook her head, trying to make sense of the sentimental name her grandfather had given to his home. “I can’t believe it.”

From the top shelf Joe took the baseball that had been signed to her grandfather by Babe Ruth and tossed it in the air. “It’s absolutely true.” He caught the ball.

“Does anyone know where the name came from?”

“Well, yeah. He named it in honor of his wife,” Joe said simply.

“What?”

“Your grandfather. He named it in honor of your grandmother.”

“You must be mistaken.”

Joe shook his head and tossed the ball again. “Nope. He told me so himself. Why the shock? Can’t you believe the old guy loved his wife?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Come on, Darce,” Joe said, using the old nickname he’d given her.

“I never thought he loved anyone.”

Joe’s look hardened. “He loved you, and you know it.”

She gave a wry laugh, ignoring the increasingly impatient lawyer and the increasingly confused Coxes. “That’s why he refused to speak to me when I married a man he didn’t approve of.”

“He was right, wasn’t he?”

“That’s not the point.”

“No,” Joe agreed, apparently no more concerned about the others in the room than Darcy was. “It’s not. He was worried about you. I think it was the only way he could think of to make you reconsider your decision.”

“At some point he must have realized it wasn’t working.”

Joe shrugged. “You Becketts are so inflexible sometimes. He probably didn’t know how to approach you anymore than you knew how to approach him.”

Just then the lawyer cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I just have some papers here for your signatures, and then I think we’ll be ready to go,” he said.

“Not that all of that is any of my business,” Joe went on to Darcy, “but—”

Darcy’s reply was pointed. “No, it isn’t any of your business.”

The lawyer went to a broad rolltop desk that Darcy remembered from childhood. It was an impressive piece of artistry, walnut stained to a deep amber sheen. Inside, she knew, it had all sorts of secret drawers and shelves. As a child she had loved playing with it.

No one spoke as the lawyer unsnapped the fasteners on his briefcase and pulled out a pile of papers.

“Mr. Tyler, Ms. Beckett, Mr. Beckett left the sum of $20,000 to Mr. and Mrs. Cox for their years of faithful duty. That is the whole of Mr. Beckett’s liquid assets. What remains, however, is this property, consisting of the house and everything in it, and one thousand acres of surrounding property.”

Darcy slipped a peek at Joe. What was he really doing here? Was there a token bequest of some favorite paperweight or money clip or something? How close had he and her grandfather become before the older man had died?

That question was quickly replaced by another, more fearful one: What had she been asked here for?

Grandfather couldn’t have left anything to her. Some cruel part of her mind told her that maybe he’d left her some final token of disapproval, but that wouldn’t have been like him. He’d been a hardheaded man, sure of what was right and what was wrong to his way of thinking, but she couldn’t believe he’d ever deliberately set out to hurt her. He certainly wouldn’t do that now, as his final act.

Darcy found herself kneading her hands in her lap. She wished the lawyer would just get on with it.

“Now for the rest of the estate,” Edward Connor continued, as if in answer to her thoughts. He looked from Darcy to Joe, and back again. “Mr. Beckett left the property to the two of you—Mr. Tyler, Ms. Beckett—to be shared equally.”

Darcy gasped.

Joe dropped the baseball.

“What do you mean ‘shared equally’?” Darcy asked.

The attorney gazed at her impassively. “As of this moment, you each have an equal share in True Love Ranch.”