amenities tomorrow, Mr. Halliday, if you’re still interested in the place. We can take a drive down to Steamboat Springs, tour the far boundaries of the property. There’s a little cabin higher up, and you can get an idea of the fishing and gaming possibilities. If you’re still here after all that, we’ll take a closer look at the cattle.”
“Sounds good.”
“For now, we’ll start with the house,” she said, “since Mom’s not here to get disturbed by us coming through. Then the corrals, machinery sheds.”
“Forget about the house,” Lucas said, thinking aloud—insofar as he was thinking at all. Raine would be unimpressed with the ranch’s primary residence. She’d want it bulldozed to make way for something much grander. “It’ll have to come down, anyhow.”
Rebecca flinched and pressed her lips together, making her chin jut, and he realized that his statement had been cruel. She’d probably called this place home her whole life.
He couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Since his parents’ divorce when he was three, his mother had lived in four different homes, and his serially divorced and remarried father in…he’d lost count. At least seven. Lucas himself had shuttled back and forth between most of these so-called homes until going away to college at eighteen, but he’d never put down roots in any of them.
At one level, it had been fun, and yet… A faintly remembered sense of bewilderment and loss blew over his spirit, and for a few moments he almost envied Rebecca Grant.
Neck and jaw muscles tight with regret, he considered an apology, but that would only make his mistake worse. He wasn’t used to this kind of situation. His purchases and his takeovers didn’t usually have the power to hurt someone like this, on a personal, individual level.
The meaning of her jerky smile, mistrustful eyes and abrupt handshake became clear to him.
She didn’t want to sell.
“Would you like to stop in for coffee before we start, Jim?” Reba asked the realtor, but he shook his head. He was anxious to get out from under the awkward weight of atmosphere, probably.
“You’ll drop Mr. Halliday back to town when he’s ready, Reba?”
“Or Dad will.” Her voice was a little husky, and deeper than Lucas would have expected. It seemed to curl around him like a ribbon of scented smoke, drawing him in.
I should have driven the rental, he decided. Instead he’d listened to Jim’s warnings about dirt roads and confusing directions. Now he was beholden to prickly, intriguing Reba Grant in a way he didn’t like.
“Lucas, you’re going to be real impressed with this place.”
Jim offered the comment as he climbed into his vehicle. He roared out of the yard and back along the dirt track to the main road while Lucas was still, uncharacteristically, searching for the right reply. He really had no desire to hurt this woman, after the unthinking body blow he’d already delivered.
“Well, I’d like coffee,” she said, on a slow, stubborn drawl.
She turned on her heel and stalked toward the house, like a bad-tempered horse. Compared with the women he was used to, she didn’t walk with grace. Her movements were too angular, and too purposeful—blunt body language, surprisingly expressive.
Attractive, even.
Behind her, Lucas kept watching, for longer than he should.
“Sounds good,” he told her.
“So you’ll have to waste time on the house, after all,” she said sarcastically, over her shoulder.
“Listen, Ms. Grant—”
“You probably have no idea how it feels to care about a place like this, right?”
“No, you’re right, I don’t,” he answered, his voice clipped and tight.
“You probably think it’s only possible to care about a home with sixteen rooms and fifteen foot ceilings and priceless artwork on the walls.”
“Actually there’s no home I care about in that way.”
She stopped, turned fully, and stared at him for a moment. He stared back with narrowed eyes, masking the unexpected vulnerability he felt.
“Oh, well.” She sounded less defiant now, and her eyes had softened a little, although the words themselves were still an attack. “Maybe over your coffee you can work out the best angle for the wrecking ball, or something.”
He didn’t trouble to tell her that using a wrecking ball on this place would be like using a stonemason’s hammer on a thumb tack. In fact, they needn’t ’doze it at all. They could haul it to some less desirable position and use it as a bunkhouse for ranch hands or for the house staff Dad and Raine would require when they were in residence.
Yep, definitely. Ideal. Practical. Inexpensive—it would come right off its footings, and onto a truck. There was no basement.
Would moving it instead of wrecking it come as good news to Reba, after his initial blunt announcement? Lucas didn’t think so, somehow. This house looked as if it had grown in this spot, like lichen on a rock. She wouldn’t want it moved.
Ahead of him, she reached the screen door. It opened into a screened-in porch that ran across the house’s narrow front and around to the side. Her backside rocked as she pushed on the door and stepped inside, and he had to pull his gaze away.
There was something about her. You couldn’t call her pretty. And “beautiful” was such a loaded word. All the women he knew were beautiful. It didn’t fit her, either. But she definitely had something. A current of energy running in her veins, a kind of magnetism, and undeniable strength. Whatever report he gave his father about this place in the end, he knew he wasn’t going to be bored here today.
Rebecca led him into a big farm kitchen and he saw furniture comfortably worn from use, and huge windows showcasing views of the mountains. On the bench top, a coffeemaker sent out the aroma of ground beans steeped in boiling water. She slung the dark liquid into two mugs like a waitress. She didn’t ask him if he wanted cream or sugar, just raised the waxed carton, the china bowl and her eyebrows.
He shook his head. “Black, thanks.”
Was it his imagination, or did she add generous quantities of both cream and sugar to her own mug with a big dollop of attitude at the same time?
“There you go,” Reba said, as she slid the steaming beverage in Lucas Halliday’s direction.
She was glad Mom and Dad weren’t here. She squeezed another token smile onto her face, then let it drop as soon as it had fulfilled its contractual obligations. She didn’t want to sell this place.
If it wasn’t for her mother’s health, and the much easier life Mom would have down in Florida where her sister lived, it wouldn’t be happening. And if Reba hadn’t broken off her long-standing engagement to her ranching neighbor Gordie McConnell two months ago, it wouldn’t be happening, either. She and Gordie could have run the two ranches together, leaving Mom and Dad free to make their move, but she didn’t have the right skills to do it on her own.
She
