The Bridal Path: Sara (17 page)

“Sara, please. This is foolishness. Talk to Daddy yourself. Tell him what you’re prepared to do to keep the ranch. If anyone’s entitled to it, you are. I’ll back you up. So will Ashley. We both know it’s all you ever wanted in life.”

Maybe that could have worked once, if she hadn’t been too proud to talk to her father when this whole mess started. Now, though, it was too late. Way too late.

“They’re in town right now closing the deal,” she admitted, trying to keep a thoroughly defeated note out of her voice. She crossed the room and hugged her sister tightly. “Please, it will be okay. I know what I’m doing.”

Dani sighed. “How soon will this so-called contest take place?”

Sara heard the resignation in her sister’s voice and knew she’d won this battle, if not the war. “Next week.”

“I wish you luck,” Dani whispered, brushing at the tears dampening her cheeks. “One last thing.”

“What?”

“Call the lawyer.”

“Why?”

“If I were you, I’d want to have all my affairs in order before getting within a hundred yards of that horse.”

Sara shuddered a little even as she silently conceded it was probably darn good advice.

* * *

Jake’s hand shook as the president of the Riverton Bank pushed the final papers concluding the sale in front of him for his signature. Pen poised, he hesitated, thinking suddenly of Sara and what this moment meant to her. For him it was the beginning of everything he’d ever dreamed of. For her, it was a bitter ending.

“Don’t go getting buyer’s remorse at this late date,” Trent Wilde said. “Sign those papers so we can get on with the celebration. You’ll have your ranch and I’ll be halfway to Arizona before sunup.”

“Sneaking out in the dark of night?” Jake inquired with a surprising edge of sarcasm.

Trent didn’t take offense. “That’s my worry.”

“It’s mine, if you don’t fill your daughters in before you go.”

“Is that why your hand’s shaking? You scared of my girls?”

“Only one,” Jake said honestly.

“Sara, I suppose. I thought the two of you always got along. Certainly has looked that way lately. I know the two of you have been sneaking around behind my back.”

Jake’s startled gaze shot to his boss’s face. Surely Trent didn’t know about Jake’s visit to Sara’s room. A load of buckshot in his butt, not a casual remark, would be the more likely reaction to that knowledge.

“Sneaking around?” he repeated cautiously.

“I heard about the night the two of you went dancing at the Old West Grill. And I saw the way the two of you got along the night I had the Pattersons over. Put a damper on poor Harold’s plans, I can tell you that.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Jake insisted.

Trent glanced toward the banker, who was listening to the exchange with avid attention. “This doesn’t leave this room, right, Logan?”

Logan Marshall looked thoroughly disappointed, but he nodded his agreement. Trent Wilde was not a man to cross, even if he was planning to leave Wyoming in the morning. Jake knew his influence in the state would last for years to come.

“You’ve always claimed you wanted no part of marriage, so I kept silent,” Trent told him. “I had no right to meddle in your business. Now, though, I want you to know that if something were to spark up between you and Sara, I wouldn’t object to it. She needs taming and I figure you’re the only man on earth who might have a shot at accomplishing it.”

“Selling me your ranch doesn’t give you the right to plan who’s going to move in with me,” Jake pointed out irritably.

“Of course, it doesn’t,” Trent agreed a little too readily. “I’m just saying, if you want Sara, I’d give you my blessing.”

Jake gave him a wry look. “I’m sure you know that Sara more than likely has her own ideas on the subject and very little of what you or I might want will influence her.”

“That’s the God’s truth,” Trent said adamantly. “They’re all stubborn as mules, but she’s the worst.” He regarded Jake speculatively. “But something tells me the two of you might be a good match.”

“Your matchmaking skills haven’t been a resounding success up until now,” Jake reminded him. “You picked Harold for her, for God’s sake. If I were you, I’d stick to prowling around for a new dance partner for yourself and stop worrying about your daughters.”

“Just putting my two cents in,” Trent insisted. “Now sign those papers, son, before the ink in that pen dries up.”

Feeling oddly bouyed by the unexpected man-to-man chat, Jake signed the papers. Even as Logan notarized them and gave him his copy, he had to keep repeating to himself that Three-Stars was finally his. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

He hadn’t dared to let himself dwell too long on this moment. Until just this second, when he’d tucked the signed papers in his pocket, he’d feared that something would go terribly wrong and all of his plans and dreams would go up in smoke.

Trent clapped him on the back and shook his hand. “Congratulations, son! I hope you’ll be half as happy at Three-Stars as I’ve been. I know you’ll turn it into the biggest, most modern cattle operation in the state.”

Logan Marshall looked about as stunned as Jake felt. It was as if the banker couldn’t quite believe that Jake had actually had the financial capacity to buy the ranching operation. Then he, too, held out his hand. There was a new measure of respect in his voice when he congratulated Jake.

“We’ll look forward to doing business with you,” he said with practiced sincerity.

Jake bit back a sharp retort about the amazing turnaround from the lack of welcome he’d gotten when he’d first walked through the bank’s doors ten years before. Back then he’d been a scruffy, broken-down cowboy, with a small stash of money in his pocket and a dream in his heart. He supposed he could understand why no one then had taken him too seriously. Besides, it was time to put old insults behind him and move into the future.

He couldn’t help wondering if Sara would be a part of that future, if he really wanted her to be. He tried to imagine Three-Stars without her strength and enthusiasm and commitment and came up blank. But then he wasn’t sure he could imagine it without Trent Wilde bossing him around, either.

“I think a drink is in order,” Trent declared magnanimously. “We’ll have dinner at the Old West Grill. My treat.”

Jake wanted to get back to the ranch. Back home. He had trouble even thinking of it in those terms. It was the very first place on earth that had ever felt like a real home to him and now it was officially his. Damn, but that felt good.

At some point during dinner, though, his satisfaction began to fade. He kept coming back to Sara and wondering what her reaction was going to be. She wouldn’t be happy, no doubt about that.

Suddenly, he knew he had to be the one to tell her. He had to make her see that his fresh start didn’t have to be her ending. Forget the certain outcome of the stupid contest looming before them, he had to persuade her that he wanted her at Three-Stars, by his side, sharing his vision of what the ranch could be. That was something they had always agreed on.

But in what capacity did he want her there, he asked himself over and over on the long drive back to the ranch? As a business partner? As a wife? Until he could answer that, did he have any right to intrude on the pain she must be feeling right now over the loss of her home?

Even though it was close to midnight, there was a light shining in her window when he drove up the long, curving driveway. Something deep inside him brightened at the sight. That light was like a beacon, welcoming him home.

Then reality intruded as he admitted that it only meant that Sara was awake and restless and probably fit to be tied. Unable to let the moment pass without some sort of peace offering, he walked over to the window, picked up a handful of small stones and tossed them lightly at the panes of glass. It only took three before the window flew up.

“What the dickens do you want?” she demanded, when she spotted him in the shadows.

Standing silhouetted against the light, her hair curling wildly to her shoulders, a robe clutched tightly to her chest, she took his breath away. He couldn’t see her face, but there was no mistaking the fury in her voice. He watched her uneasily.

“I thought maybe we could talk,” he ventured.

“It’s late.”

“But you’re awake and so am I,” he stated matter-of-factly. “And it’s doubtful either one of us will get any rest until we settle this.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

Jake had no doubt that Sara knew by now about the closing. Annie surely would have told her, if no one else had. Though the deal had been kept secret up until the papers were signed, the veil of silence vanished almost immediately afterward. Word had spread through town by the time he and Trent had reached the Old West Grill. Someone would surely have spoken to Sara or Danielle by now, hoping for a reaction to pass along on the grapevine.

“Come down and I’ll fill you in,” he said, going along with her pretended ignorance. “I’ll meet you in my office.”

“Your old one or your new one?” she inquired sarcastically.

So much for the pretense, Jake thought. “The only one I have,” he insisted.

He could practically feel her internal struggle. She didn’t want to see him while her emotions were still so raw and yet she clearly felt she couldn’t ignore his request.

“Give me five minutes,” she said eventually.

“I’ll make us a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Planning on a long night?”

“We have a lot to discuss.” He let it go at that and went on to the kitchen door. Inside, he fixed the coffee and carried the pot through the house to his office. He’d just poured himself a cup when Sara entered.

She’d changed into faded jeans and a cheerful green shirt, but she looked drained. Her eyes were dry, but a little too bright, as if she’d forced herself to hold back tears. Her lips were pinched. He wanted desperately to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right, but he didn’t know that. Not for certain.

“I’m surprised you didn’t chill one of Daddy’s best bottles of champagne for the occasion,” she said, standing stiff and straight in the doorway.

“The coffee’s more my style. Yours, too, as I recall.”

She nodded reluctantly and accepted the cup he held out. When she’d taken it and perched awkwardly on the edge of the chair in front of his fireplace, he put his own coffee aside and hunkered down in front of her.

Once there, though, he was suddenly at a loss for words. Sympathy wouldn’t be welcome, that’s for sure. She’d find it hypocritical anyway.

“Nothing has to change,” he swore to her solemnly.

Her eyes filled with a terrible, aching sorrow then. “Don’t you see, Jake? It already has.—

Chapter Twelve

S
ara had promised herself that she wouldn’t let Jake see how utterly defeated she felt, but the pitying look in his eyes just now told her she’d failed. She had never wanted him to feel sorry for her. She’d wanted to fight him fair and square, with every bit of ingenuity she possessed. She’d wanted to snatch Three-Stars from him in her own way.

But even though that was still a distant possibility, something inside her had died tonight while she’d awaited her father’s return. She had never felt more lost, more at sea about who she was or her place in the universe.

Damn her father for doing this to her, she thought bitterly. He still hadn’t had the courage to confront her. He’d slipped into the house just minutes before Jake’s arrival. She’d heard him climb the steps, then pause outside her door. Her breath had caught in her throat as she’d anticipated him coming to her, admitting to her what he’d done, explaining his decision to her, maybe even apologizing to her for it.

The last was a laugh, of course. Trent Wilde saw no need to make excuses or apologies to anyone for his decisions, least of all his own family. He’d ruled Three-Stars like a benevolent dictator, generous at times, but asking no opinions and explaining nothing.

Her sweet, docile mother, who’d loved her husband to distraction, hadn’t been bothered by his single-minded dominance. It had always driven Sara and her sisters crazy. Their constant struggle for a voice and, eventually, for independence had kept the household in a state of uproar that had thoroughly bemused their mother.

Tonight, even as she had waited with bated breath for her father to enter her room, she had heard him sigh and then move on. If he had struggled with his conscience at all, his conscience had clearly lost.

Given what she knew about his plans to take off for Arizona as soon as the deal was wrapped up, she wondered if she’d even see him in the morning or if he’d steal away before she awoke. She wondered if he felt any regrets at all, not over what he’d done to his daughters by selling off their heritage, but by walking away from his own.

She’d been about to rush down the hall and confront him, tell him face-to-face what a low-down, sneaky, conniving son of a gun he was, when Jake had appeared outside her window. All the heat and anger she’d churned up to take out on her father was now directed straight at the man hunkered down in front of her. She felt like slapping that sympathetic expression off his face, but she settled for sharp words instead.

“How does it feel to be a big, important man now? You must be feeling very smug,” she accused.

“Believe me, sweetheart, smug is the very last thing I feel.”

She deliberately ignored the compassionate note in his voice. “Don’t try to convince me you feel anything like remorse, because I won’t buy it. You wanted the ranch and to hell with anyone else who deserved it more.”

He took the verbal slap without flinching. “An interesting choice of words,” he noted. “Who gets to decide who deserves the ranch? Your father? He took what his father had built and turned it into a thriving operation five times as big. Are you suggesting he didn’t have any right to decide what to do with it?”

“Legally?” she asked. “Of course, he did. Morally and ethically? That’s a whole other ball game. Obviously neither of you understand those rules.”

“Sniping at me won’t change things,” Jake replied. “At least with me as the new owner, you’ve got a chance to stake some sort of claim here.”