Trusting the Cowboy (16 page)

“Insurance company didn’t need them. They had everything on file.”

“I might need them. Just in case,” Dwayne said, pulling on his gloves.

While he got ready, Vic walked over to the truck and yanked on the passenger door. It took a few tries, but he finally jerked it open. The glove box proved just as unwieldy. He pulled his jackknife out of his pocket and fiddled with the latch, then finally managed to get it open. The insurance papers and registration card were tucked in a black vinyl folder inside. He pulled the folder out and as he did a stained and wrinkled envelope came with it and drifted to the floor of the truck.

Vic bent over and picked it up. Then frowned.

The envelope had his name scrawled across the front. In Keith McCauley’s handwriting.

A chill feathered down his spine as things came together. Keith McCauley had been on his way to Vic’s place when he had his accident. Had he been coming to deliver this?

He thought of the letters Lauren and Jodie had mentioned. Letters that spoke of regrets and sorrow and offered apologies. Was this letter one of those?

“Got the stuff?” Dwayne asked as Vic slowly closed the door, still staring down at the envelope.

“Yeah. Here it is.” He handed him the folder but folded up the letter and tucked it in the back pocket of his blue jeans.

Dwayne flipped open the folder and shot Vic a puzzled glance. “You look kinda pale. You okay?”

“I’m fine. Let’s get this truck loaded up and out of here.”

Twenty minutes later the truck was on the flat deck, Dwayne was headed back to town and Vic was finally alone. He tugged the envelope out of his pocket, trudged over to the corrals and sank down on a hay bale. He held the letter a moment, thinking of Keith. Remembering.

Then he ripped opened the envelope and tugged out two pieces of paper.

The first was a letter.

Dear Vic,

I want you to know that I hope to get to the lawyer and do this right but for now this note will have to do. We never signed anything permanent so until we do, I want you to have this. Keith.

Vic read over the letter once again, then set it aside and glanced quickly over the second piece of paper.

Across the top of the letter, Keith had written, “Lease Agreement Between Keith McCauley and Vic Moore.”

Vic swallowed, and his heart did double time, pounding in his chest. This was the documentation he had been looking for all this time.

This document verifies that I, Keith McCauley, am leasing my ranch, the Circle M, to Vic Moore. This is a lease-to-own agreement.

Vic dragged his hand over his face and continued. The agreement went on to state that Keith agreed to sell Vic the Circle M Ranch for a set amount of money in the first year he leased it, then a set amount if he bought it in the second year.

Vic had leased it for three years, so the second number applied. And it was exactly the amount Keith and Vic had agreed upon. The amount he had figured on when he spoke with Lauren at Drake’s office the first time he saw her.

The amount that didn’t come close to what Alex, the current buyer, was offering her.

He leaned back against the fence as the implications of this letter sank in.

He would have to talk to Drake. See if it was legitimate. But he guessed it would be as legal as the will Keith had drawn up in his own handwriting.

Would Lauren contest it?

She could stay now. Would have to. She couldn’t buy the business if he exercised his rights to the ranch.

But was that what he wanted? To force her hand? He wanted her to choose of her own free will. He thought of what she had told him about her ex.

He could only imagine how humiliating it must have been not only to be dumped the week of her wedding but also to be so duped by a man you thought you were going to share your life with.

Just for once I’d like to think of me.

“Hey, honey, what’s up?”

His mother’s voice behind him made Vic jump. He spun around in time to see her walking toward him, her hat hanging to one side, as she pulled off her gardening gloves.

“I was working out in the garden and saw you sitting here. What’s going on?” she asked, lowering herself to the bale beside him.

Vic wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about what had happened, but he knew the facts would come out some time or other.

“I just found this in Keith’s truck,” he said, holding out the papers for his mother to look at. “It’s the lease agreement I’ve been looking for all this time.”

“You found it?” His mother took the papers and glanced over them, her eyes flying over the words. “All this time and they were right here. You could have saved yourself so much trouble.”

And a broken heart.

His mother handed Vic the papers back. “Is something bothering you?”

Vic folded up the papers and slipped them back in the envelope. “This agreement means I can probably stop Lauren from selling the ranch to Alex.” Vic turned to his mother and gave her a wan smile. “Which means I’ll have dibs on the ranch. For Dean. It means I can finally take care of him.”

“I know how much that means to you,” she said, slipping her hat off her head. “But I think you need to know that we never expected you to take care of Dean. I know that you seem to think it was your fault Dean got hurt. That you should have stopped it.”

She gave Vic a caring look. “I don’t think Dean ever expected you to take care of him. I know I certainly didn’t, and I think it’s time you let go of that notion.”

Vic heard his mother on one level and understood, but months and months of thinking he had to take care of his brother were hard to shake.

“Maybe not. Maybe my reasons for buying Keith’s ranch were tied up with him. But I still think it’s a good opportunity.”

“It is. And I’m sure Dean would be happy if you ended up with it. But I think it’s time you make this decision for yourself. Not for Dean. You’ve taken on too much. You have to let Dean take care of himself. Live with the consequences of his own actions.”

As Vic listened to his mother, he felt an easing of the burden he’d been carrying all this time. But at the same time, while one weight had fallen off his shoulders, it was as if another one had replaced it.

Now it was entirely up to him to decide what to do for his own reasons.

And as he thought of what Lauren had told him and what the repercussions of this agreement would be for her, he knew exactly what he had to do.

Chapter Fourteen

“S
o I’ve kept my mouth shut for the past five minutes, but now you have to tell me about that sad face of yours,” Aunt Laura said as she placed a delicate fern in the floral arrangement she was working on.

Fifteen minutes ago, two hours after she drove away from the ranch, Lauren had walked into her aunt’s flower shop. As she stepped inside, a bell above the door tinkled. The muted drone of the refrigerated case holding an assortment of arrangements and the mixed scents of flowers, potpourri and candles enfolded her in a familiar embrace. Sighing with relief, Lauren had followed her aunt’s tuneless humming to the back room, where Aunt Laura was perched on a stool at the butcher-block table. A huge mug of coffee was parked beside her and a glorious spill of flowers in front of her.

Lauren grinned as she sorted through the flowers she was working with. “I should have guessed you wouldn’t miss that.”

“I just know my girls,” Aunt Laura said, twisting a red silk ribbon into a bow and tying some wire around it. “And as soon as you came into the shop, I knew something was wrong.”

But, bless her aunt’s heart, she didn’t say anything. Didn’t press. Just gave Lauren some flowers and directions and time.

Lauren snipped a rose, then carefully cut the thorns off before inserting it in the block of Oasis that would hold the arrangement. “It’s been a bad morning,” she said as she picked up a white lily and pared it down. She felt a quiver of sorrow rise up her throat and she swallowed it down. She didn’t want to cry.

She had done enough of that on her drive around the county. She’d stopped at the lookout point and sat a moment, overlooking the valley and the Saddlebank River, letting the beauty wash over her. A love and appreciation for this place had been easing its way into her heart and soul ever since she arrived. Looking out over the valley, she’d felt a sense of continuity from the only place in her life that had always been there. Had always been a part of her life.

And now someone else had found a place in her heart.

She had tried not to think of Vic, but every word they spoke, every emotion that had spilled out, washed over her again and again.

Thankfully she’d forgotten her phone at the ranch, so she didn’t have to deal with Amy and Alex and their incessant demands.

But still her aunt said nothing.

“Vic and I had a fight,” she said after a long pause.

“Oh, dear. That’s not good.” She didn’t press for details.

But Lauren knew she needed to talk this through.

“It was about the ranch and the business I want to buy.”

“What did you fight about?” Aunt Laura asked.

“I think he was hoping I would stay.”

“Why would he hope that?”

Her aunt’s comment seemed artless, but Lauren heard the other question behind that.

And why didn’t you want that?

I do want it
, she thought.

But Alex and Amy and expectations and dreams of independence clung with tentacles she was afraid to pull away from.

“Because we’ve been spending time together. Because we’ve...” Her voice faltered.

“We’ve?” her aunt said, her tone encouraging.

Lauren ripped a tiny strip off a banana leaf, twisting it around the flowers she arranged, the words rising up her throat, demanding to be articulated.

“We’ve kissed. We’ve shared dreams. We’ve talked about our faith,” she said, her voice wavering with sudden and unwelcome emotion. But once she started it was as if the words rose up, needing to be spoken aloud. “We’ve spent enough time together that I dared to think I was able to let someone into my life again. But I’ve got all this other stuff going on and I can’t sort it out. Alex. Amy. The business. My plans for the future.”

She twisted up another leaf, inserting it in the arrangement. “Trouble is, I don’t know if I want that anymore. I don’t know what I want.” She picked up another lily, catching her breath. “And yet my practical self, the part of me that helped me survive living with Gramma, taking care of my sisters, my mother, working my fingers to the bone so that Harvey and I could get set up and then getting dumped—that part of me tells me not to be foolish. To take care of me first.”

Her aunt calmly snipped another carnation and placed it in the piece she was working on.

“That sounds serious,” she said, not meeting Lauren’s eyes.

Lauren was surprised at the relief she felt at finally being able to speak about what had been tangled up in her mind the past few hours.

“Do you care for Vic?” her aunt asked, finally looking directly at her.

Lauren held her gaze and then her shoulders slumped. “More than I want to admit. More than I’ve ever cared for anyone.”

“If you could let go of expectations from other people and demands and old dreams you’ve clung to, if you could set them all aside and narrow everything down to you, what would you choose?”

“It’s not that easy. Everything is so wound around everything else, I don’t know how to untangle it.”

“Have you prayed about this?”

Lauren split off another piece of the banana leaf, turning it over in her hands, trying to do exactly what her aunt suggested.

“I’m not sure what to pray.”

“I think you have to be careful not to expect that God will suddenly show up with a bolt of lightning and give you the answer. I think you have to acknowledge that you need to place your life in His hands and trust that the people He has placed in your life will also, if they are faithful, watch over you.”

“Other than you, I don’t know if that’s ever happened.”

Her aunt came to stand beside her, slipping her arm around Lauren’s shoulders. “Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve always watched over your sisters. Always been watching out for someone else. I know that. I heard a saying once and I think you should try to apply it now. Sometimes the place where your head and your heart intersect is the place where your best decision is made. So think of where that happens. Think of what you want and what you need and see if there’s a connection.”

Lauren shot her aunt a puzzled glance as what she said seemed to settle. Take root.

“I think I just want something that belongs to me. A place and business of my own...but I don’t want to be on my own.” She drew in a slow breath as a new realization grew. “I want to be with Vic. If everything else was stripped away, I’d want to be with him. But I’m afraid that if I do...”

“He’ll have control over you.”

Lauren nodded, surprised at her aunt’s ability to see past the trees and identify the forest.

“That’s something you’ll have to deal with,” her aunt continued. “Trust is a huge part of any relationship, and if you can’t trust, then the foundation is weak.” Aunt Laura squeezed just a little harder. “So my question to you is, can you trust Vic?”

“My heart tells me I can.”

“And your head?”

Lauren thought of everything Vic was willing to do to secure the ranch for his brother. How he put up with her own initial antagonism. How regularly he showed up to go through papers and the computer, always hoping something would happen. All for his brother.

How attentive he could be. How caring.

“My head tells me that Vic is a good man. That he would take care of anyone in his life. And he has.”

Lauren felt a flicker of fear even as she spoke the words. The thought of what she could be leaving behind if she went through with her plans with Amy.

What she could lose.

Then the store’s phone rang just as a bell above the entrance announced a new customer.

“You take care of your customer,” Lauren said. “I’ll get the phone.”

“Floral Folly,” she said, tucking the handset under her ear as she turned back to the arrangement she’d been working on.

“Finally,” Jodie said, breathless. “I’ve been calling and calling your cell phone. I thought Aunt Laura might know where you are and here I get you. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been driving around,” she said. She didn’t want to talk to Jodie right now. Didn’t want to talk about what Vic might have told Finn, who might have told Jodie.

“Have you talked to Vic?”

Nothing like coming directly to the point.

“When?” she asked, preferring to see where her sister was going before she blindly stumbled along behind her.

“In the last half hour or so?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to Drake? He’s been trying to call you, too.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“You should call Drake. Then Vic.”

“I don’t feel like it right now.”

“Well, then I’ll let you know what happened. Are you sitting down?”

“Yes.” A prickle of fear trickled down Lauren’s neck. “It’s not Erin, is it?”

“What? No. Not Erin. It’s Vic. He went to see Drake. Apparently he found that lease agreement he was looking for. It laid out the terms of the lease and the buyout.”

Lauren’s heart rate, already increasing, now began pounding in earnest. She knew the buyout amount from the figure Vic had quoted her. And it was less than what Alex was willing to pay. “What does that mean? Is it legal?”

“Apparently. Dad signed it and Drake verified it.”

Lauren swallowed, confusion warring with happiness for Vic and fighting with concern over how this would affect her.

“So, what do we do now?”

“Well, we don’t do anything. Vic told Drake he wasn’t following through on it. He didn’t want to claim his legal rights to first purchaser of the ranch at the amount Dad had written in the agreement.”

Lauren struggled to keep up with the words her sister was breathlessly tossing at her.

“What?”

“Vic has the lease agreement. It’s legal. But he’s not exercising his rights of first refusal,” Jodie said again. “You do know what this means, doesn’t it?”

Lauren still wasn’t sure. Her head was spinning as she tried to absorb this startling turn of events.

“Where did he find it?”

“Apparently in the glove box in Dad’s truck. He was driving to Vic’s place when...when he rolled the truck.” Jodie stopped there, her voice breaking just a little.

Lauren felt as if her brain was exploding with all the information she’d just heard.

“So he brought the agreement to Drake?”

“Yeah. To have it verified, I guess. And then he changed his mind.”

“Did Drake say why?”

“Nope. You’ll have to talk to him.”

That was going to be her next call.

“So nothing’s changed, has it?” Jodie said, her voice rising with a faint note of hope that begged Lauren to negate what she had just said.

“I don’t know what to think,” Lauren said truthfully. “I can’t believe he did this.”

She ran her hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face as she blew out her breath.

“Well, I’ll let you go. Make your phone calls,” Jodie said. “Let me know how this all works out.”

“I will.”

Lauren ended the phone call, looking at the unfinished arrangement sitting in front of her, the implications of what Vic had just done slowly settling into her soul.

He had found the document he knew existed.

And once he found it, he’d given up the rights laid out in it.

Why would he do that?

Had Dean changed his mind about ranching? She pushed herself away from her stool and walked to the front of the store, where her aunt was just handing Jane Forsythe her receipt.

“Hey, there, Lauren,” Jane said, smiling, as Lauren stopped by her aunt. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good. I understand Vic Moore was at the office today?”

“Yeah. He just left half an hour ago.”

“Did he say where he was going after that?”

“I imagine back to the ranch. He said something about having to work with one of his horses.”

“Thanks.” Lauren couldn’t call him, because his number was plugged into her phone, which was sitting on her desk at the ranch. She turned to her aunt, touching her shoulder. “I need to go” was all she said.

“Of course. Thanks for coming.”

Lauren gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for your help.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to talk to Vic.”

* * *

The colt turned away from Vic and once again he waved his rope at it and sent it around the round pen in the arena, the dust from its hooves settling in the warm summer air trapped in the building.

Stubborn horse simply wouldn’t give.

When Vic had come back from town, he’d needed to keep busy doing something. Anything. He hadn’t talked to Dean yet, explained to him what had happened and what he had done.

Working with this colt was a way of putting that conversation off.

A couple of times he’d felt a chill of regret at what he’d done, but each time he did, he thought of what Lauren had told him.

How she’d given up everything for everybody. He heard the pain in her voice. Sensed the depth of the sacrifices she had made.

Keith had often mentioned how frustrated he was with his daughters. But when Vic sat and talked with Drake today, after making his decision to rip up the lease agreement, he’d found out more about Keith’s expectations of young girls whom he’d barely known and barely gotten to know.

He, who had grown up with loving parents and a caring community, couldn’t imagine the loneliness and responsibility that must have haunted Lauren.

The colt whinnied at him, lowering its head, tonguing its mouth.

He stopped and let the colt come toward him, waiting for its response, ready to reward it.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice steady, even, while his thoughts spun and doubled back in his head.

Why had he done what he had? What would happen to Dean? Why had he ruined their one big chance?

He stilled the noisy voices in his head as he reached out and gently touched the colt’s withers. It flinched and he drew back, but then the colt came close again.

“It will be all right,” he told the colt, gently stroking its side, rewarding the movement toward him.

Please, Lord, let that be so.

And as he prayed, the noisy, accusing voices grew still.

He heard the creak of a door and he half turned, expecting to see Dean come storming in to accuse him of ruining his future in yet another way.