why can’t I have a puppy?”
She closed her eyes a moment, praying for patience, for just the right words to make her son understand their financial situation without letting him know how desperate it really was.
“Before Matt died,” she said carefully, “we had two incomes to pay our bills. With him gone now, we only have the money I make.”
“I could help you so you could earn more money.”
Her heart melting at the offer, she reached to smooth the hair back from his brow. “Thanks, sweet heart. But I don’t want you worrying about our financial situation, okay? Once we sell Matt’s horse, everything will be fine.”
And everything would be fine, she told herself as she turned her gaze to the road again.
Just as soon as she found someone to break Matt’s horse.
After the unexpected visit from Melissa on Monday, Whit’s week went downhill in a hurry. Tuesday, one of the studs in his care cut his foreleg while fighting with another stud through the fence that separated them. It required a call to the vet and another to inform the stud’s owner, which cost him almost a full day’s work. To make matters worse, Wednesday night a raccoon got into the feed room and tore into the sacks of oats stored there, ruining three perfectly good sacks of feed and creating a hell of a mess for Whit to clean up on Thursday. Then on Sunday, a gelding Whit was working with bucked him off, conveniently dumping him in a fresh pile of manure. By the time he returned the horse to its stall and limped back to the house for a shower and a change of clothes, it was pushing noon.
He considered blowing off going to the Bar-T, where his stepbrothers and their families gathered for Sunday lunch, and kicking back with a beer and an afternoon of ESPN instead. But he knew, if he did, the entire Tanner clan would probably show up at his house, looking for him.
Shuddering at the thought of having all those people crammed into his small house, he climbed into his truck and made the drive to the Bar-T. Thanks to the gelding and the landing spot he’d chosen for Whit, he was the last to arrive.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he slid into the empty chair beside Rory.
Rory glanced his way, then pulled back, with a frown. “What happened to you?”
Grimacing, Whit rubbed a self-conscious hand over the bruise the fall had left on his cheek. “Horse pitched me off.”
Ry passed Whit a platter stacked high with chicken-fried steak. “If you want, I can take a look at that for you later,” he offered. “Make sure there aren’t any broken bones.”
Whit forked up a steak and dropped it onto his plate before passing the platter on. “It’s nothing. Just a bruise.”
Maggie gave her husband, Ace, a pointed look. “I’ve heard that one before,” she said dryly.
Familiar with the story of Ace’s fall from a horse and his refusal to allow Maggie to take him to the doctor, everyone shared a laugh at Ace’s expense.
“Laugh all you want,” Ace said grumpily. “But a man who can’t take a tumble from a horse, without running to some sawbones to get patched up, isn’t much of a man. Right, Whit?”
Whit glanced around the table. With two doctors and two nurses waiting expectantly for his answer, he decided discretion was the better part of valor. “Whatever you say, Ace.”
“Coward,” Rory said out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve already got one bruise,” Whit told him. “I’m not looking for another.”
With a rueful shake of his head, Rory returned to his meal.
“Looks like the lawyers are going to have the old man’s estate ready to settle in a couple of weeks,” Ace said. “We’ll need to pick a time we can all meet to sign the necessary papers.”
A discussion followed, but Whit tuned it out and focused on his meal. Although Ace had told him he would inherit a fifth of the old man’s estate, the same as the rest of his stepbrothers, Whit had informed Ace that he wanted no part of anything that was Buck’s.
“What about you, Whit?” Ace asked. “Is May 29 at two all right with you?”
Caught with his fork halfway to his mouth, Whit glanced around the table and found everyone looking at him expectantly. He slowly lowered the fork to his plate. “I already told y’all I don’t want any part of Buck’s estate.”
“And we understand your reasons for feeling that way,” Ace assured him. “But you’re getting an equal share the same as the rest of us, whether you want it or not.”
“You know damned good and well that if Buck had left a will, he wouldn’t have named me in it,” Whit said.
“That may be true,” Ace conceded. “But there’s a strong chance he wouldn’t have named us, either, since he wasn’t on speaking terms with any of his offspring at the time of his death. Since he didn’t leave a will, the law requires that his estate be divided equally among his children.”
“I’m not one of his children,” Whit reminded him.
“By law you are. I have the adoption papers to prove it.”
Whit slumped back in his chair. “Come on, Ace,” he said in frustration. “Can’t you just tell the lawyers to cut me out?”
Ace opened his hands in a helpless gesture. “Sorry, the law is the law. And without your signature,” he added, “the estate can’t be settled, nor can the assets be awarded.” Knowing he’d put Whit on the spot, he reared back smugly in his chair. “So, how does May 29 at two work for you to meet and sign the papers?”
Scowling, Whit stabbed his fork into his steak. “I’ll sign whatever papers are necessary, but I’ll never touch a cent of Buck’s money.”
“That’s your prerogative,” Rory said, then quickly changed the subject. “So what was Melissa doing over at your house the other day?”
His frown deepening, Whit cut into his steak. “She wanted me to break a horse for her.”
“Melissa Jacobs?” Elizabeth, Woodrow’s wife, asked curiously.
“One and the same,” Rory replied, then gave Whit a speculative look. “Didn’t the two of you use to date?”
Whit stiffened, unaware that Rory—or anyone else, for that matter—had known that he’d dated Melissa. Breaking open a roll, he lifted his shoulder in what he hoped came across as an indifferent shrug. “We went out for a while.”
“Really?” Ace said. “I didn’t know Melissa ever dated anyone other than Matt.”
And you could’ve gone on thinking that, Whit thought resentfully, if Rory had kept his dang mouth shut.
Avoiding Ace’s gaze, he slathered his roll with butter. “Like I said, it was only for a while.”
Elizabeth shook her head sadly. “I don’t know Melissa all that well, but I feel so sorry
