A Cowgirl's Christmas (9 page)

He was right. Damn it. But she wouldn’t apologize. “Well, then, I guess you’re glad you won’t have to put up with me any longer.” She started for the house, but Court stepped in front of her. She remembered the maneuver he’d pulled on her in the bar and tensed, but he didn’t touch her.

“We need to talk. We can do it out here in the wind and the cold. Or you could invite me inside and make us a pot of coffee.”

She considered her options. Saying no was her favorite. But that would be postponing the inevitable. It had already been a crappy day, with little prospect of improvement. So why not get this over with?

“Okay.”

He seemed surprised. Perhaps he’d been expecting more of an argument.

“Okay,” he repeated, stepping aside and walking with her to the back entrance where they removed their boots and jackets then washed up before entering the main house.

The aroma of the bacon her sisters had cooked for breakfast still clung in the kitchen and the dish rack was full of the extra glasses Mattie had washed after lunch because they wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. Reminders that just a few hour ago all her family had been here.

But now they’d returned to their regular lives and routines.

She was the only one who couldn’t go back, because her normal life had changed forever.

Mattie had washed out the coffee maker, too, so it was a simple matter to put on a fresh pot. While they waited for that, Callan pulled out a tray of baking Mrs MacCreadie had brought over yesterday.

They sat at cross corners on the island, and each of them reached for a gingersnap at the same time. Callan quickly withdrew her hand, waited for him, then selected her own cookie. It was moist and spicy, creamy and sweet. She glanced from the cookie to Court and found him watching her.

Those blue eyes. They were rather disconcerting.

She’d underestimated one thing about him. Today he’d proved he could ride a horse. But it took a hell of a lot more than that to run a ranch like the Circle C.

“I’d like to make you an offer,” he said, resting his arms on the island and leaning in her direction.

She waited.

“Live in this house. Keep working on the Circle C. Give it one year.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What’s in it for me?”

“After one full year, I’ll deed half the ranch back to you. You and I will continue to run the place. Fifty-fifty partners.”

She choked, coughed. Had to get up for some water. “Why would you do that?”

“It seems like a fair compromise, respecting Hawksley’s wishes but also your rights as a legal daughter who has spent all her adult life on this ranch.”

She considered the offer. She would effectively be signing up for a lifetime business partnership with this man - man whose capabilities she knew very little about. “A week ago, we’d never even met each other. Now you’re offering me a lifelong partnership venture.”

“You have a lot of knowledge and history with this place. I could use that. Plus, I recognize how unfair Hawksley’s will must seem to you.”

“Do you, really? Then why don’t you give me one-hundred percent of the ranch? I’d be happy to give up my share of Hawksley’s money in exchange.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would! I don’t care about the damn investments.” The money was meaningless to her if it meant she couldn’t own the Circle C.

“Have you given any thought to why Hawksley left me the ranch in the first place?”

“Because you’re related by blood. And you’re a man.” Just saying the words left a bad taste in her mouth.

“There’s more to it than that. Your grandfather Carrigan had a sister—who was my grandmother. She was shut out of the will when our great-grandfather died. She married Arthur McAllister and they had one child—my father, Aaron. If my grandmother had been given her fifty percent of the family ranch, it would have been handed down to my dad andyour father recognized how unfair that was. A long time ago, he offered to right the wrong, but my father was already settled in St. Paul and my mother didn’t want to move. That’s when they came up with the plan to give me the ranch after Hawksley died.”

Callan stared at him.  She knew just how his grandmother must have felt back then. “But why give you the entire ranch, rather than just the fifty percent share your father would have inherited?”

“I admit that’s where some of Hawksley’s biases play in. He felt it would be better to have the ranch in just one person’s hands—and preferably a man’s.”

Callan swore.

“I agree. It’s not fair. That’s why I’m offering you fifty percent now. Because it’s the way things would have worked out, if the ranch had been divided equally and fairly from the beginning.”

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C
ourt watched as Callan thought over his offer. No doubt what she really wanted was for him to walk out of her life and stay out. Court could sympathize. But he’d grown up on Hawksley’s promises that one day he would own the Circle C. He’d studied and trained to be an accountant like his father, all the while knowing it wasn’t his true destiny.

Evenings and weekends, he rode the horse that Hawksley had bought him for his tenth birthday. When he was eighteen, Hawksley had bought him a second horse, and this one Court had used to learn basic roping and cutting skills. He’d been good enough to enter competitions, had even won a few events.

His successes had pleased Hawksley—a few times Hawksley had even come out with his father to cheer him on.

But Court was all too aware that he lacked real-life experience. The foreman at the Circle C could help him with that. But he also needed Callan.

Her father had been so sure that she would agree to stay on at the Circle C once she got over the shock of the will. But Court was afraid he’d under estimated his daughter. She looked so delicate and pretty. But scratch beneath the veneer and she was pure grit. He admired her tremendously. Not that he could let her know that, or she’d walk all over him.

“What if I stick out the year and we find we don’t work well together?” Callan asked him. “What happens then?”

“I’ll still deed over the fifty percent. But one of us will have to buy the other out.”

She scrunched up her face as she mulled that over. “Who buys out who?”

“We could flip a coin.” He thought a moment. “Or shoot a game of pool.”

She tried to fight it, but he saw her smile. And it made him feel good, knowing he’d been able to coax a little humor out of her.

“What was it like when Hawksley came to visit your family at Christmas? What did you do?”

Her questions caught him unaware, as did her pensive tone. “We spent a lot of time riding horses. In the evening he and dad would look at pictures from their summer at the ranch and share the same stories over and over. They never got tired of them.”

“Where did you ride horses?”

“My folks own about a hundred acres outside of the city. Both Mom and Dad are avid riders. That’s how they met. They used to take lessons from the same trainer when they were in their teens.”

Callan raised her eyebrows. “So that explains it.”

“Why I didn’t take a tumble when you were racing to the barns? Yeah, I guess it does.”

Again she smiled, a fraction wider this time. But almost immediately she sobered. “I wish Da—Hawksley had told us stories like that. He never talked about his past much, unless it was to explain how to do a job on the ranch.”

“Since he and Dad were both single children, they grew up more like brothers than cousins. I know my Dad still wants to come to the Circle C and pay his respects, once Mom’s condition has stabilized.”

“I did hear your Mom had a stroke. That’s awful. Is she going to be okay?”

“We hope so. She has a lot of weakness in her left side. Trouble walking and speaking. But she’s getting therapy.”

“Why didn’t your family ever visit the Circle C when Hawksley was alive?”

“He never invited us. Dad told me he wanted to keep the two sides of his life separate.”

“I can guess why.” Callan’s tone was bitter. “It’s clear Hawksley considered you and your parents his real family. Who knows what we were to him? Just an obligation, I guess. We weren’t his kids, but he’d promised our mother he’d raise us as his own.”

That was pretty much the way Hawksley had described the situation to them, so Court couldn’t argue with her. He tried to remember a time when Hawksley had said something nice about his daughters, something he could recount to Callan as an offering, to make her feel better.

But Hawksley had only rarely mentioned his wife and daughters during his visits.

She jumped up from her seat. “Hell, I forgot all about the coffee. How do you take yours?”

“Black.”

Apparently she did, too, because she filled two mugs and brought them straight to the table. She pushed his across the island toward him. “How much longer are you planning to stay at the Graff Hotel?”

“I’m hoping tonight will be the last time. Eventually I’d like to settle in the furnished cabin down the road. At some point I need to get back to St. Paul, pack up my things and settle business with my firm.”

“The cabin is quite nice. The foreman before Red used to live there. Red has a wife and three kids and they prefer to live in Marietta. The cabin probably needs a good cleaning, but it’s comfortable. Red should have the key.”

“I’ll ask him this evening. I’ve set up a meeting with him at the hotel at seven. Want to come?” He kept his tone casual, but couldn’t help feeling anxious about her reply.

“Why would I do that?”

“If we’re going to run this place together, don’t you think we both need to talk to Red?”

“You’re assuming I plan to accept your offer.”

Damn right he was. “Only a fool would walk away from the opportunity to own fifty percent of the Circle C.”

“Then call me a fool. Cause I’m walking. If Hawksley didn’t consider me Carrigan enough for the Circle C, then I don’t want any part of it. I promised my sisters I’d stay here until after Christmas, but come January I’ll be moving out and putting this place up for sale.”

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T
he woman was incorrigible, insufferable and unpredictable. Court had never met anyone like Callan. What sane woman would walk away from an offer—a very generous offer—like the one he’d just made?

And she’d meant it, too. No sooner had he finished his coffee than he’d been shown the door.

“That takes care of our business,” Callan had said briskly. “If you don’t mind, I need to start packing.”

Gravel crunched under Court’s boots as he headed for his truck. He was just opening the door when Callan reappeared on the front porch.

“You and Red better make plans to move those cattle soon. A heavy snow won’t be long in coming.”

Before he could answer she’d withdrawn inside, closing the door firmly behind herself.

“Damn woman.” He started the engine and took off for the highway, his mind running through the past few hours, trying to work out if he could have handled the situation smarter. If only Hawksley had set up Callan as a fifty percent partner in his will. But the old coot had stubbornly insisted that a man needed to be the one in charge. “Callan will be mad but she’ll see sense eventually.”

But Hawksley hadn’t counted on how hurt his daughters would be after they read those letters from their mother. He and Beverly should have told the girls the truth right from the beginning. Damn Hawksley and his stupid male pride.

Court glanced at the reflection of the Circle C ranch in his rear-view mirror and despite all the recent aggravation with Callan, his heart swelled with unbelievable joy.

He’d had the same feeling earlier, while riding. This land was wonderful, strong and beautiful, clean and pure. Hawksley and his father had told him that love of Montana and ranching was in the Carrigan blood.

Based on the way he felt today, he had to believe they were right.

He wished he could fully enjoy this moment. But thoughts of Callan, her hurt and her sorrow, kept nagging at him. He wasn’t about to throw away his father’s legacy and walk away like she wanted him to. But he didn’t want to take the Circle C away from her either. There had to be some way to get her on side with the idea of working together.