“Then why aren’t you answering your cell? Your father’s on the landline again.”
My smile moved aside for a grimace. My father had been blowing up my phone for days and that was never a good thing. Which was why I wasn’t answering.
“I got bad knees. I can’t be chasin’ you around this property because you’re a sullen boy with daddy issues.”
At the ripe old age of thirty-eight, I was neither a boy nor did I have “daddy issues.” The sullen part was debatable, but I wasn’t in the mood to debate Laurel. Not when I had one waiting for me on the phone in my office. It would go better for me if I kept my trap shut anyway. I’d learned that early too.
“Didn’t I say that if he calls to tell him I’m out checking the fence line?” The question came out harsher than I’d intended, the impending phone call making me irritable.
“I told him that the last three times he called. He’s no fool, Scott, and I don’t like to lie. He’s your father. Just speak to him. Swallow your medicine and be done with it.” Laurel loved nothing more than to dispense wisdom that I had no use for. Regardless, I’d swallow my medicine.
The sound of jeans-clad thighs rubbing together told me she was struggling to keep up. I slowed down to let her catch me. There would be hell to pay if I got to the office before she did. Then I’d really never hear the end of it.
* * *
The hold button on the phone that sat on my desk flashed. Looking over my shoulder, I glared at Laurel who was watching me with her hands on her hips and her mommy face on. I kicked the door shut.
Things had been strained between me and my old man for a while. Basically, since I’d cleaned up my act, bought the Lazy S Ranch, and turned it into a profitable investment. Which was weird. We’d gotten along perfectly well when I was partying my life away. And yet lately, we could barely exchange two words without arguing. I’d become the man my father wanted me to be, had pushed me to be, and then it had gone to shit between us. Go figure.
He was pissed that I hadn’t come home and taken my rightful place working beside him at Blackstone Holdings––everyone in the family knew it––but he’d never come out and said it. And knowing my father, it was his pride that wouldn’t allow it. I was under no false illusions, however. It was only a matter of time before that showdown happened, and it would be an ugly one because I wasn’t going back to New York––not ever if I could help it.
I hit the button I’d been staring at for a full minute. “What’s up, Dad?”
“I don’t know what’s more surprising, the fact that you finally took my call or that you remembered you have a father.”
Gritting my teeth, I answered with the truth. “I’ve been busy.”
“Still carousing? I had my share of fun before I married your mother, but this is shameful. Even for you.”
“Carousing? Is that old-timey speak? Next you’ll accuse me of chasing skirt.”
“Quit the shit, Scott. I’m being serious.”
“What do you want, Dad?” I asked, exhaling tiredly. I could sense the conversation was going to quickly escalate into yet another argument. “I’m working. I’ve got my hands full day and night managing thirty thousand head of cattle. I wish I had time to chase skirt. Now, unless it’s important I need to get back to it.”
“It’s important.”
There was no escape. If I brushed him off, he’d only get more persistent and my father could throw his weight around better than any prized Angus bull. Putting my feet up on the corner of my desk, I tipped back my chair and hunkered down for a longer conversation than I’d hoped for. “I’m listening.”
“It’s far past time you came home.”
And there it was…
“I am home. Going on eight years now.” I glanced out the picture window, at the Grand Tetons. At the powdered sugar-capped peaks. At the miles of open snow-covered land. It was winter now, but in the summer the mountains would grow brilliant green, and in the fall the autumn aspens would turn every shade of gold.
I’d made mistakes in the past, paid the price, and found my feet again. This place had given me a second chance. An opportunity to redeem myself. And I had.
Wyoming had saved me. It had sunk its claws into my bones and leaving would be like ripping out what held me together. Nothing and no one could pry me away from this place.
“I’m not getting any younger and neither is your mother.”
My father’s voice trembled, and the first pang of guilt made its presence felt. In truth, it was always there, eating away at the lining of my stomach. This conversation was inevitable. My parents were in their seventies. And although Dad was built like a brick shit house and had an army of people working for him, it was only a matter of time before his age finally caught up to him. I couldn’t ask Devyn, my sister who lived in California, to uproot her family and move back east. Which left me––the bachelor son.
“I know.”
“I’m retiring…” Part of me breathed a sigh of relief––he couldn’t go on dominating the world forever without it taking a toll on his health. The rest of me was in a state of high anxiety for what came next. “I’m going to hand the reins over to Sydney.”
I sat up abruptly, the heels of my boots hitting the wide plank flooring with a loud thud.
Sydney Evans…
I’d met her over a decade ago––at the height of my party days––and vaguely recalled kissing her at my sister’s wedding. I also recalled it being pretty damn good before she kneed me in the nuts. I was trashed out of my mind that night, but no man forgets a woman that almost made a eunuch out of him. Yeah, I remembered her. She was a cold, uptight bitch. Pretty if you liked nondescript vanilla blondes. Which I didn’t. Curvy brunettes were more my style. Ones with blood rather than antifreeze in their veins. Ones that enjoyed sex as much as I did.
My father had sung her praises for years. She had a head for business and a thirst for blood equal to his. I never cared for it––the blood, the kill. The art of the deal. I preferred open land and clean air.
“Good,” I said, a major weight being lifted off my chest. I wasn’t being asked to step up and that’s all that mattered to me. “She’s more than capable.”
“Yes, she is. Unfortunately, the board won’t see it that way. They’ve been waiting to install their person for the past decade. They’ll fight her tooth and nail.”
“You’ve never backed down from a fight.”
“I’m glad you remember that.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight. I could almost underscore the pronounced evil glee in my father’s voice with a pencil and being intimately acquainted with it I knew it would only spell trouble for me.
“I need you to do something for me, Scott. I need you to marry Sydney.”
I couldn’t possibly have heard that right. My father couldn’t have asked me to marry a woman I could barely tolerate. He couldn’t have asked me to marry anyone. That only happened in bad romantic comedies and my life wasn’t fodder for anyone’s entertainment.
“I don’t have time for your jokes, Franklin. It’s been fun. Say hi to Mom for me.”