Homecoming Ranch (11 page)

“Okay, so let me fill in some background information,” Jackson said as he popped the top of one of the Diet Cokes. “Ladies, when Grant passed, he’d just ended his fifth marriage, and to put it bluntly, he lost his shirt in that one. All he really had left was this ranch.”

“When did he
get
this ranch?” Libby asked.

“He took possession about a year ago,” Jackson said and took a long swig of soda.

There was an interesting turn of phrase,
took possession
. As if Grant had wrested it from Dad’s grasp—which wasn’t too far from the way Luke pictured it had happened.

“At the time of his death, he was upside down on the mortgage,” Jackson added.

That was so shocking, so impossible, that Luke spoke without thinking. “There’s no way,” he said. “He bought it far under market value. How could he owe more than it was worth?”

Suddenly, all three women were staring at him.

“Oh…,” Jackson said casually, “… I should probably have mentioned that Grant Tyler bought the ranch from Luke’s father, Bob Kendrick. And he did indeed get one helluva deal.”

“Right,” Luke said. “Some might say he took advantage of my dad.”

“Well, that’s one interpretation,” Jackson said cheerfully. “But while he was waiting for your dad to live up to
his
end of their agreement, he divorced and he needed money. So he took out a second mortgage on this ranch, and unfortunately, the real estate market took a hit, and he found himself upside down by fifteen thousand dollars. Which, of course, does not include realtor fees. Right, Madeline?”

Madeline blinked. “Well, I… I don’t know—”

“Oh—Madeline is a realtor,” Jackson added.

“No wonder you want to sell,” Libby muttered.

“No!” Madeline protested. “My wanting to sell has nothing to do with that.” She looked at Luke, but his heart had lodged itself in his throat. A
realtor.
There it was, no denying, no pretending that he wasn’t going to face an uphill battle in which the odds were stacked against him.

“But you have to admit, your being a realtor could come in handy,” Jackson observed casually.

Madeline didn’t say anything. She slowly leaned forward, put her forehead on the table, and Luke thought he heard her suck in a long, deep breath. He also thought he heard her whisper something that sounded like
lunatic.

“Can we backtrack to what he said?” Libby asked, pointing at Luke. “He said Dad took advantage of his dad. What does that mean? What’s he talking about?”

“We’ll get to that,” Jackson said. “But first, let me tell you that Luke’s dad had a
great
idea for how to make that money back and Grant was totally onboard. He had the idea to make this
the
destination in the Colorado Rockies for homecomings, reunions, and weddings. And he thought that you girls were just the team to make it happen.” He threw up his hands as if the problem were solved.

“Jesus, this
is
a chick flick,” Emma said incredulously. She stood up. “Do you have any bourbon to go with that Coke?”

“I wish,” Jackson said apologetically. “Listen, I know this is all a bit of a surprise. But I think it could work. Before Grant died, he spent what he had left on advertising this great retreat. The Johnson family—they’re out of Texas—was looking for a place just like this to have their family reunion. A place where they can camp, and the kids can raft and hike, and the men can barbeque, and honestly, I don’t know what all. But I drew up a contract and they signed, and so did Grant, and they paid their deposit, and the estate must honor that contract. It would cost you more to try and get out of it than to just do it.”

“Do what?” Madeline demanded, lifting her head.

“Now don’t get upset, ladies. There is still a lot to be done,” Jackson said. He took another long drink of his soda and crushed the can, the first outward sign that he was as uncomfortable as they were. “Ernest will be back this week, and he can do a lot of it. But we might need to hire some of the work out.”

“Such as?” Luke asked.

“For starters, we have the bunkhouse showers—”

“Shower,” Luke corrected him.

“Shower, right, at least at this moment. We need to build a separation for men and women and maybe add a few temporary showers. Maybe a few. We need to round up horses for horseback riding, move the cattle up to lease grazing, and hopefully make a deal with some river guides for rafting. The good news is I’ve already done a lot. The tents will be delivered tomorrow. Barbeque pits come next week. But we’ll need someone here to manage it all. Which could be one of you!” he said, as if he were a game-show host.

“Where’d you get the money for that?” Luke asked.

Jackson shrugged. “I sold his Porsche. It was a classic. I got enough to cover the initial improvements.”

Emma slowly resumed her seat. “Is it just me, or does anyone else notice how screwed up this is?”

“Me,” Madeline said, raising her hand. “This is… this is not what I thought, Jackson. I can’t stick around for this. I have a life and a business in Orlando. There has to be another way.”

“No,” Jackson said quickly and firmly. “Unfortunately, no, at least not in the immediate future. And there are a few other issues that Luke alluded to we should probably discuss at another time. You know, once you’ve had a chance to absorb this.”

Madeline rubbed her temples. “This is crazy.
Crazy
! There is no plan, no organization.…”

No highlighter,
Luke thought.

“What other issues?” Emma asked. “Get them out. I don’t want to hear about them later, I want to know what the hell is going on here now. All of it, Jackson.”

Jackson looked at Luke.

So did the women, three pairs of suspicious female eyes trained on him.

Luke sighed. “There were some mitigating circumstances in the deal our fathers made. They were friends, supposedly—or at least my dad believes that they were—and he believed that your dad was helping him out.” He shook his head. He was making it more complicated than it had to be. “So Grant gave my dad the cash he needed for some financial issues, and the deal was that when my dad repaid the loan, he’d get the place back. At the same price.”

Libby and Emma looked at him blankly. But Madeline’s brows dipped.

“It was a gentleman’s agreement. Mine needed some cash. Grant had some cash and offered to help him out.”

“He didn’t have as much cash as he thought,” Jackson muttered.

“Nevertheless, the agreement was that as soon as my dad could pay him back, Grant would sell the ranch back to him at the same cost. But then Grant died and left my dad in a bind.”

“Is there a contract for that agreement?” Madeline asked.

“Nope,” Jackson said, clearly knowing where she was going with it.

“Not to put too fine a point on it…” Luke said, “but this is my family’s home. This is where I grew up.”

Madeline suddenly smiled. “Well then, great! That solves our problem, doesn’t it? You can buy it back.”

Luke clenched his jaw. “Can’t buy it yet,” he said tightly and stared into Madeline’s blue eyes. She held his gaze, but her expression went from hopeful to stoic. She understood. She was a realtor, a negotiator, she was used to this. And Luke guessed she was not the type to be swayed by sentimentality.

“Well!” Jackson said brightly. “Like I said, lots to sort out.”

“For God’s sake,” Emma said, and got up, sauntering off with a Diet Coke in hand, apparently in search of bourbon.

It was almost dusk when Madeline made her way back to Pine River. She was exhausted, light-headed, her head pounding and her stomach rumbling with hunger almost to the point of nausea.

It was true that she did not deal well with stress. Not her own, anyway. She was great at talking Trudi off a ledge, and soothing little girls who felt slighted on the soccer field. But her own stress was a different matter entirely. She tended to internalize it.

She usually avoided it with careful planning. It was Madeline’s experience that when things were planned, when events unfolded according to schedule, that expectations were managed. Yes, it was all about managing expectations, and Jackson sucked at it. For example, this day would have gone a
lot
smoother if he’d just put some thought into how to present the issues. But between his glib attempts to appease them, and Libby’s enthusiasm for that damn reunion, and Emma’s cool indifference, Madeline had felt like she was treading water.

At some point, they’d agreed to take a break—Emma was determined to find some booze in that house. Madeline had sat on the porch, rubbing her temples, and Luke had come to sit next to her. God, but that man was good-looking. He looked like he’d jumped right out of an ad for Dinty Moore stew. He sat closely, his leg lightly
touching hers. Madeline was fixated on his leg. Thick and powerful, dwarfing hers, and oh, so sexy.

He’d bent his head to look at her. “Are you okay?”

Beside the fact that her head was exploding, her feet were numb, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of fatigue or chill, she was perfectly fine. “I’m good,” she’d said, and forced a smile.

He’d nodded, squinted out over the landscape and had said, “I gather this is a little like having a tornado touch down in your life.”

“
Yes
,” she’d said, relieved that someone understood. “Yours too?”

“A little,” he agreed.

“Who was it who said, life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans?” She smiled brightly, even though she was cringing inwardly. Not only did she
never
say things like that, she didn’t believe it for a minute. Life happened when she
made
plans.

Neither did Luke believe it, because he’d smiled wryly in a way that had made his gray eyes shine, and he’d put his hand on her arm. His strong, big hand on her arm. It was a workingman’s hand, with the little nicks and marks of his life. “John Lennon, I think. Hang in there, Madeline. Today is probably the worst of it.” He’d squeezed her arm and let go.

Madeline had appreciated his assurance, she had, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he knew what two hundred Johnsons would look like. Madeline knew—she’d worked enough of the office client appreciation days to have an idea.

What was very clear to Madeline at the end of the torturous day was that this situation would not be neatly resolved in one or two meetings.

She walked into the lobby of the Grizzly Lodge, with its rustic furniture carved from enormous tree trunks, a fire blazing in a cavernous hearth, and, naturally, the bearskin rugs. Yesterday, when she’d finally rolled into town, it was the only place she could find to stay. When she’d checked in, the proprietor of the establishment, Danielle Boxer, had asked if she wanted the Bear Cub or the Aspen Forest room.

Danielle was a large woman, probably six feet tall, with unusually bright red hair piled high on her head. She wore a pink Guayabera shirt—one of Madeline’s “dads” had worn those shirts on Sunday when he kicked up the footrest of her grandfather’s old recliner to watch football. “I’d give you the Mockingbird room, but someone had a bit of a party in there if you know what I mean,” she’d said, and had waggled her brows.

Madeline didn’t know what she meant and didn’t want to know. She thought the Bear Cub room sounded like the smaller of the two and chose that one.

“How long will you be staying?” Danielle asked—or Dani, as she insisted Madeline call her, as if Madeline would be staying for a time, long enough that they would know each other on a first name basis.

“I’ll be leaving first thing Monday morning.”

“That, I can accommodate. But I’ve got a big group of snowbirds coming through next week. They like to take the bus tours when the spring thaw starts.”

Madeline would be long gone before the mad rush to Pine River, that was for sure.

“License and credit card, please,” Dani had said. She glanced at Madeline’s license when she handed it to her. “Oh! You’re one of Grant’s girls!”

Madeline had been stunned by that. “How—”

“Jackson Crane,” she said with a laugh. “He has his breakfast here most days. I should have known it was you—you look just like your father.”

Madeline’s hands had gone instantly to her face.

“He was a good-looking man, I always thought so. And such a flirt!” She had laughed at that. “I tell you, if Big Ben hadn’t still been kicking, I would have considered it. But Ben and I were married for thirty-eight years.” She’d offered that up proudly.

“Impressive,” Madeline had agreed, but her mind was whirling around the idea that she somehow looked like the man who had abandoned her.

Dani had beamed and handed her the keys to her room. “Sorry about your dad, sugar. That must have been a blow.”

Madeline had merely taken the keys and smiled.

This afternoon, however, Madeline walked into a deserted lobby. The door to the coffee shop that faced the street was closed, the interior dark. That was
not
a good sign, as Madeline had hoped to grab a bite there.

Dani appeared from the office behind the front desk, dressed in a blue Guayabera shirt. Her hair hung in a long red ponytail down her back. “Oh, hey!” she said brightly when she saw Madeline standing in front of the closed door to the coffee shop. “Did you have a good day in our little village?”

No, it had been a disaster of a day. The worst. “It was okay.” She rubbed her forehead.

“Are you all right?”

Madeline dropped her hand and smiled. “I have a bit of a headache, that’s all. And I’m starving. Where’s the best place to get some dinner?”

“My coffee shop,” Dani said proudly. “But it’s closed.” She reached under the counter and produced a bottle of Bayer aspirin. “Take two of these. You probably have a little altitude sickness.”

“What?”

Dani smiled. “Sugar, have you never been to the mountains? You’re up in thin air. There’s less oxygen here than what you’re used to. Don’t worry, it passes in a day or two. You’ll get acclimated and hear those mountains call to you, I promise.”

Crazy old bat,
Madeline thought.

“Take two of these, get something to eat, and get some rest. The Stakeout is open.”