“Don’t be ridiculous.” Caitlin smiled.
He turned her to face him. “I’m not being ridiculous. You wouldn’t have stood a chance at getting me to sell any land back to you if we hadn’t met in person, I can truthfully tell you that. I’ve always lumped you in with your father and half brother.”
“Big mistake,” she said. “But then Grandmother didn’t like your family, so there you are. I didn’t, either.”
“Hopefully, that has changed forever for you.”
“Time will tell,” she said.
“That’s a reserved answer, Caitlin,” he said, studying her.
“My guess is, you feel the same way. You can’t expect me to be overjoyed with you if you turn me down and I’m definitely not saying that as an ultimatum.”
“Let’s not get into conflict when it isn’t necessary,” he said. His cell phone buzzed and he answered to talk briefly before placing it in his pocket again.
“The car, trailer and horse are waiting. Shall we go?” he asked. As they left the house, they emerged into a clear day with water still dripping from trees and the rooftops.
They reached the truck and Jake held her door while she climbed inside. In a short time they were on the highway and she thought of the long ride to his ranch on horseback and how angry and determined she had been to see him.
As they sped toward her ranch, she studied his profile. His stand toward his father’s unreasonable demand, his care for his sister and brother—she envied that slightly because she had never had any love or even much kindness or attention from Will. Those things softened her harsh feelings toward the Bentons. Plus the wild unwanted allurement that had captured both of them.
Jake was turning out to be so different from the man she had imagined him to be. Much more appealing. Yet beneath all the good things lay their past history. He was a Benton who had done unacceptable things to Santerres. Will’s dislike of Jake and competition with him in sports and school was legendary. Maybe both had excelled simply because they were each trying to outdo the other.
Soon they were on what had once been Santerre land, and she grew more tense with each mile. She wanted to keep her house, keep the people who had worked for her grandmother. Damn Will and his selfish ways and the ultimate cruelty in selling all this to Jake without giving her any chance to buy part of it.
“In a way, I’m surprised Will would sell you the mineral rights.”
“I wouldn’t have bought the ranch otherwise, but Will told me there’s no oil. His father had geologists study the land, even leased it at one point, but they gave up and said there was no oil.”
“What about natural gas?”
Jake smiled at her. “As far as Will’s concerned, if there’s no oil, there’s no gas. Will is into buildings and cities and finance, not oil, gas and wind. Or even water rights. There’s a lot of water on your ranch.”
“I can’t believe Will’s lawyers let him do this without giving him a lot of advice that was solid.”
“Your brother doesn’t strike me as the type to take advice well. Not even from men he hires to give it to him.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Will is supremely confident. It helps him in many ways, but sometimes it blinds him.”
“You’re so much younger. I’m surprised you were around him often.”
“I wasn’t, but we had family gatherings because my father was the darling of my grandmother.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, yes. She was wonderful to me. I’m a granddaughter, the daughter she never had. But she loved my father with all her being. He loved her, too, so we were together on holidays where Will made his presence felt. I hated being with him because when I was little, he was mean. He’d pinch me or thump me. When I’d cry, he’d deny he had done anything. He’d say I was pretending until Grandmother lectured him. With someone checking on him, he left me alone, but he was never nice, never a brother. Since she passed, he’s barely spoken to me.”
“Will is something else,” Jake said with disgust in his voice.
When they topped a hill, a tall three-story Victorian house came into view. Trees surrounded it and shaded the steeply sloped rooftops, gables, balconies and wide bay windows.
“See, Jake, it’s a beautiful old house built by the first Santerre.”
“That wasn’t the first house,” he said.
“There’s a tiny log house that was the first, but in time, this house was built. The family considers it the first real ranch house.”
She wanted Jake to see the house, meet the people who worked for her and had devoted years to her grandmother. It should be much more difficult for Jake to displace them if he knew them, rather than faceless, nameless entities.
They drove to the corral where a wiry, sandy-haired man with streaks and sideburns of gray came forward to greet her. His weathered face was tan from years in the sun.
“Jake, meet our foreman, Kirby Lenox,” she said when she stepped out of the truck and greeted Kirby. “Kirby, this is Jake Benton.”
She watched the two shake hands and Kirby size up Jake. She saw no reaction from Jake except a friendly greeting, but she suspected he was taking in everything he saw to help him make his decision about her place.
“I’ll get the horse now. It won’t take long and then you two can go on to the house,” Kirby told them.
As he backed the horse out of the trailer, Jake watched. “That’s a fine horse,” he said, looking over her bay.
“This one’s a dandy. Caitlin has a keen eye for a horse.”
“That’s because I learned from you,” she said, smiling at Kirby.
He grinned as he patted the horse. “He’s a fine one. He’s Caitlin’s favorite. Nice to meet you, Mr. Benton.”
“It’s Jake, Kirby. We’ll see each other again,” he said easily as he held the pickup door for Caitlin.
She felt as if she were walking on broken glass, treading carefully, hoping Jake would appreciate the old house and the people or at least like them even half as much as she did.
“Thanks,” she said. In minutes Jake stopped in front of the house and walked around to open her door. He took her arm in a light touch that was a blistering contact.
“Come look around,” she said, gazing with satisfaction at the porch with wooden rockers, swings, pots of blooming flowers. Lacy gingerbread spindles formed the posts and lacy curtains were pulled back inside the bay windows. Caitlin sighed, wondering how anyone could resist the house’s charm.
“This is too beautiful to bulldoze,” she said as they crossed the porch. “I don’t think a Benton has ever been in this house,” she added, knowing this was another twist
