Half a Ranch, page 3
Her dreams roared back. Apart from Sharon's doubtful protection, she was totally alone with a man who could pick her up and crush her with one hand. With Mindy out of the way, who knew what would happen to her aunt's estate?
"Yes." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded hesitant.
He leaned against the wall looking down at her despite her efforts to pull herself to full height. "We have a will reading to attend."
"Oh." Her optimism about getting things settled and moving on with her life faded. Evidently Bret was an heir as well.
"After you have your fat grahams breakfast, stop by my office. We'll head for town."
****
"How far is it to the lawyer's office?" she asked.
Bret had led her to a faded gray pickup truck and started driving without a word. She'd meant to out-wait his silence, but she should have guessed that he'd prove the master of that game. After twenty minutes, she'd given up.
He tossed her a map.
The wrinkled and greasy paper told her nothing except that west Texas is a big area with precious few dots of civilization. And some of those dots might have been oil smears on the map. If Bret were to shove her out the pickup’s door to the side of the road, she might be able to flag down another car before she died of thirst. Then again, quite possibly she wouldn't.
"Thanks. Now that we've settled that, how far to town?"
"Another hour."
Oh, great. How many times had she enjoyed the fantasy of spending an hour alone with a gorgeous man? This definitely fell into the category of being careful what you wish for.
"You're obviously angry at me," she told him.
Bret simply stared through the windshield, studying the road. As if the next five miles of board flat highway needed every bit of his concentration.
"Would you like to explain why?" she continued. Since she couldn't beat him at a game of silence, she'd make sure that he talked.
"No." He answered just as she was getting ready to give up on that gambit and start on the weather.
"You wouldn't like to explain why you're angry?"
"No I'm not angry with you. I wouldn't waste my time."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I'm thirty-three years old. You act like seventeen."
"I'm twenty-seven."
"So you said." He looked at her, hooking her gaze with his. "I don't get angry at squirrels when they steal my supplies. I figure out what to do about them. Right now I'm trying to figure out what to do with you."
"I am not a squirrel."
Just for an instant, he smiled at her.
She had dreamed of that smile and woke herself up to assure herself that no man could look so sexy. She had been wrong.
Then his smile vanished. "Aren't you?"
She fought the urge to reach over and touch his lips, to try to bring back the smile. Her schoolteacher approach might work. "I'm sorry to hear that you're not angry. Actually, that was the only excuse that I could dream of for your obnoxious behavior. Let me assure you, I didn't come all the way to Texas to be snubbed by a bunch of cowboys and their pet leader."
"I know why you came to Texas."
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Let me step you through it, Ms. Russell. I stretched my poor brain muscles and really did do some figuring. What I came up with is this." He controlled the steering wheel with his knees as he ticked off his points on long elegant fingers, folding them down as he made each argument. "You turn eighteen and no longer have to listen to your parents. Yet you don’t visit your aunt. Then, two years ago, your aunt was incapacitated. Still not a word from the loving niece Mindy Russell." One finger down.
"After a horrible and lingering illness, Lucy dies. We have a nice funeral. Everyone from the ranch, all the neighbors, most of the town show up. Still no word from Mindy Russell, though." He pressed another finger to his palm.
"Finally the lawyers turn up a will. All of a sudden, we not only hear from Ms. Russell, we see her in the flesh. Welcome to Texas, Ms. Russell." He pressed the rest of his hand into a fist.
Mindy felt herself flush and rolled down the window of the increasingly stuffy truck. "No one told me that she was dying."
"Foolish me. Of course you thought cancer was a joke."
"No, I don't think cancer is a joke." Despite Mindy's attempt to keep her voice level, she could hear the volume start to increase. "I never knew Aunt Lucy had cancer."
"Really? How very convenient for you."
Mindy sighed. This whole thing still didn't make a lot of sense but at least she could see some pattern. Bret was angry because Lucy had named her as heir even though she hadn't had to put up with the dying woman.
"It must gall you to realize that you wasted the best years of your life chasing a woman who ended up dying before you persuaded her to leave you every last bit of her property."
He slammed his fist into the steering wheel. "That's it, Ms. Russell. I'm ticked that she couldn't die better. Now, if you don't have any other questions requiring immediate answers, I'd like to pay attention to the road."
His attitude shouldn't have surprised her. In some ways it didn't seem quite fair that she inherit a ranch just because of a rarely observed blood tie between herself and Aunt Lucy. On the other hand, what gave him the right to judge her like this? Mindy had written occasional letters to her aunt, bringing her up to date on what was left of her family. Naturally Lucy would have known how badly Mindy needed to return to college to get her teaching credential. As the only heir to a Texas billionaire, certainly Lucy's estate would be plenty big enough to provide her niece some tuition money and still leave Bret whatever her aunt felt reasonable.
"Sure, Bret," she told him. "Pay attention to the road. Looks to me like there's a tumbleweed about two miles down. You might want to get ready to swerve when we get there. You know how dangerous they can be."
Bret pressed the truck's gas pedal a little harder, inching the speedometer above the speed limit. Had her barb hit home, or was he merely laughing at her? One corner of his mouth turned up, almost as if he was struggling not to smile.
Bret's silence grated on her nerves like sandpaper. Surely her aunt hadn't picked him just because of his looks. With her money, she could have had her pick of the young man-things from anywhere in the country. Bret must have some other positive characteristics, not all of which expressed themselves in bed. So far, Mindy couldn't figure out what they might be. Maybe her aunt had simply succumbed to the same irrational desire that surged through her own body every time Mindy looked at Bret.
****
Bret was concentrating all right, but he sure wasn't concentrating on his driving. As Mindy had suggested, he could just tie down the steering wheel and go to sleep for the next five minutes. Instead, he concentrated on ignoring the appeal of the woman who glared at him.
The worst part was, he couldn't even accuse her of sexual provocation. Yesterday, her outfit had left little to his imagination. Not that his imagination hadn't gone into overdrive anyway, stripping off those few garments. She'd deliberately toned down her outfit today, wearing clothing more appropriate for a conservative ranching town. To his chagrin, he found the result even more intriguing than yesterday's all-out display.
"Do you always talk this much or are you making a special effort for me?" she asked him.
"I guess when you spend your days with a bunch of dumb cattle, you get out of the habit of brainless chatter."
"Really?" She must be hard-up for conversation because she ignored the insult and sounded interested. "I'd think you'd kind of save it up. You know, really let loose when you get around humans again."
He decided to answer her seriously. "We get people like that sometimes. Normally they don’t last long. Most cowboys choose their job because they enjoy solitude. Sure they go into town and party all night once in a while. After that, though, they need to go back to the country to recharge, alone."
"Maybe so." From her cheery smile, the idea didn't much worry her. "I'd think anyone out here would get lonely. How did Lucy survive?"
Her hand flew to her mouth as if to keep her last words from escaping.
"I mean--" she stuttered
"I know what you meant." Was he crazy? She had put her foot deep into it and he was letting her off. Did he really want to spend the next few minutes listening to her chatter?
To his surprise, he did. Like cotton candy at the rodeo, Mindy's conversation was addicting.
"I was real young, but I remember her as a pillar of Houston society," Mindy explained. "She went to at least three parties every weekend."
"She wanted to get away from that," he said.
It had been more than that, of course. "She wouldn't be the object of pity," he said. "Letting Houston society watch her die would have been her worst nightmare." It had certainly wreaked havoc on the ranch. He'd done what he could to keep her comfortable but, at the end, nothing had helped.
"Maybe." Mindy sounded absolutely unconvinced.
He pulled through the small town, eased the truck into a parking place and stepped out.
At least Mindy didn't wait for him to step around the truck and open her door for her. He had seen enough of her lady of the manor routine not to need more. He did offer her a hand down from the high-wheeled rig.
Her hand felt small in his. Not like a child's, but it made him feel protective. He tried to ignore the sensual awareness created by the touch of her skin against his own.
"Is this it?"
He almost answered something inappropriate. Something like It isn't it, but it's a good start. Then he caught himself. She wasn't talking about their touch. He looked at the two-story office building. Jason and Longstreet was the only law firm around and occupied the town's biggest building.
"We don't need a lot of lawyers out here."
"I mean, is this the whole town?"
"You got it the first time."
"I think it's quaint. But it's so small. And we had to drive more than an hour for this?"
"They're waiting for us. We'd better go in."
He hadn't spent much time in Jason and Longstreet, but a law office is a law office. Lots of books to impress gullible clients. A couple of computers jealously guarded by paralegals who spent too much on their wardrobes. Lawyers with tanning-booth tans doing their best to look frantically busy.
"Bret. How the heck are you?"
Bret gritted his teeth against Henry Longstreet's completely phony greeting. Together with his friend Andresson, the lawyer had done everything he could to drive Lucy out of business. Now he was acting sympathetic. It was enough to make Bret gag.
"Fine, Henry. Ms. Russell, this is Henry Longstreet. Henry, Mindy Russell, Lucy Babbage's niece.
Henry gave Mindy a slow up and down lookover that lingered overly long on her breasts and hips.
About one second before Bret smashed in his nose, Henry looked Mindy in the face.
"Well, hello, Mindy!"
"Nice to meet you, Henry."
Bret fought down his irrational irritation that Mindy went to a first name basis with a shark like Henry. The predatory gleam in Henry's eyes made Bret feel protective of her. As if she needed protection. Maybe the two deserved each other.
"Lucy's will," Bret reminded Henry.
"Oh, sure. I didn't think it was a social call." Henry turned his attention back to Mindy. "Don't mind Bret's ways, Mindy. Underneath that gruff exterior beats a heart every bit as gruff."
"I'll remember," Mindy said.
"We've got things to do today and the weather doesn't look good," Bret said. Small talk with a hick lawyer who thought he was God's gift to women wasn't on even his priority list.
"Step into my humble abode, then." Henry gave a mocking half bow and pointed at the open door to his office.
Mindy sat at the edge of one of Henry's overstuffed leather chairs as if fearing that it would swallow her if she sat back. That showed some sense, Bret reluctantly conceded.
"Won't you take a seat, Bret?" Henry asked.
He would have done a lot more than just sit down to get this experience over. The sooner the will was read, the sooner Mindy would be gone, and the sooner he could get on with his life.
"All right, I'm sitting," he said.
"Fine," Henry said. He picked up a small china bell. "I think I'll have a cup of coffee. Would you join me, Mindy? Bret?" He made adding Bret's name an obvious afterthought.
"No," Bret snarled.
In the exact instant he answered, Mindy said, "Please."
"Great." Henry shot Mindy a toothy grin and rang the wimpy little bell.
A secretary walked in with a pot of coffee and three cups.
Henry held up two fingers and pointed to Mindy.
"Certainly, sir," the secretary said.
Bret tapped his foot, waiting for this charade to end.
The secretary bustled around with coffee. Bret didn't bother hiding his smirk when Henry looked longingly at the sugar before waving off the secretary. Drinking his coffee black didn't make Henry macho any more than dressing like a cowboy made Mindy unsexy.
"I appreciate you coming into town like this," Henry began when the secretary finally left the room. "I would have offered to come out to the ranch, but you know how busy things get."
Things, as Henry named them, had gotten suddenly busy when Lucy's cancer had progressed to the point where she couldn't leave her bed. All of Lucy's so-called friends had abandoned her then.
Mindy smiled at Henry. "I certainly enjoyed seeing the countryside."
Her voice was so sweet and modulated that it took Bret an instant to get the joke. The west Texas countryside is about as interesting as a baby's diaper.
"Well, sure." Henry obviously had missed Mindy's sarcasm.
"Can we get started?" Bret broke in.
"Of course, Bret." Henry made a show of looking through the thin stack of papers on his desk before 'discovering' the large manila envelope right in front of him.
Bret hardly listened as Henry ran through the legal mumbo jumbo at the beginning of the will. He shoved his boots against the fake mahogany of the desk and pulled his Stetson forward on his face.
"May I have your full attention, please?" Henry sounded just a little peeved at Bret's indifference.
Bret looked up.
"I was about to read the detailed bequests."
"I'm not stopping you."
"Well, you were hardly paying the attention I would think an important matter like this would deserve."
"It's my attention. Guess I can pay it where I want."
"Well--ah, that is to say, on to the specific bequests. My Ranch, commonly known as the Greasy Spot, along with associated accounts, I leave to my friend and colleague Bret Sanders, and to my niece Mindy Russell, in fifty percent undivided interest."
"What?" Bret's startled question left his lips before he could control it. This had to be a mistake. He had earned the ranch and Lucy had promised it to him.
"What about the rest of the estate?" Mindy asked.
"Miss Russell, I'm afraid I don't understand your question," Henry explained. "This is the complete will. I am very familiar with Lucy Babbage's estate and I'm afraid the ranch, together with its corporate bank accounts," he coughed discretely, "which are not especially large, are everything she had."
Mindy shook her head in obvious denial. "That's insane. She was worth millions."
Bret held up his hand to forestall Henry's answer. "Lucy had many admirable qualities, trust for one. But she never could manage money. If she hadn't turned ranch management over to me, she would have lost it too."
"I'm sure," Mindy said in a voice that reeked of sarcasm. "You just managed it to instant success, didn't you?"
"I'll just step out and let you discuss this unexpected development," Henry said. He scurried from the room looking like the rodent he was.
Bret took a deep breath. He had to stay calm. Whatever Lucy had promised him, it was gone now. Instead of an entire ranch, he owned half a ranch. That didn't mean giving up his dreams, it just meant that it would take longer to reach them.
"I won't be able to pay you much up front," he began. "With the mortgage we already have on the ranch, cash flow is a little tough. But things have turned around. Beef prices are headed up and around the country most herd sizes are down. We're in a good position to capitalize on our fully invested position."
"Exactly what are you trying to say?" Her cheeks flushed and she spoke softly but with surprising intensity. Mindy clenched her hands into little fists and stepped close to him. She smelled clean, like Texas wildflowers. Even angry, Mindy was sexier than anyone with her mercenary mind had any right to be.
"You're not interested in a ranch. I am. So you sell me your half. You get your money and I get my ranch." Even stubborn Mindy should be able to see the logic in that.
"I really don't see the logic in that. Why don't we be sensible. We'll sell the entire ranch. You take your half and head for wherever gigolos go when they get too old to work. I'll take mine and get on with my life."
She seemed to enjoy her name calling. He'd be damned before he let it get to him.
"Can you lay off the gigolo bit? It's getting a little old. I'm not a gigolo and you know it."
"Walks like a duck, talks like a duck."
He shook his head. He wasn't going to win this one. "You're wrong on that. You're also wrong on selling to an outsider. Property prices are historically low. We'll get killed."
Mindy stood and walked toward the door.
"Where do you think you're going?"
She nodded at the door.
Bret followed her gesture. The door moved ever so slightly. Exactly as it might if someone was leaning against it and it was swaying with his breathing.
Without speaking, the two moved in tandem, Bret reaching for the door and Mindy putting herself directly in to the side of it.
She nodded again, then he jerked it open.
Henry, one hand still grasping the door knob, stumbled into the room.
"Well, yes. I was just coming to check on you."
"And we were just going," Mindy said sweetly. "Thank you so much for your consideration."
