Authors: Beth D. Carter
"Smoking's bad for you,” came a deep, rumbling voice behind her.
Heather didn't jump, though she did take a moment to close her eyes as his voice washed over her. She knew, somehow, that they would meet here again. Call it fate, destiny, invoke whatever deity happened to be listening. She had felt his presence the moment he had moved into the open doorway, and her battered heart jumped with excitement.
"So's fighting bulls, I hear,” she answered without turning around, taking another drag on her cigarette.
He remained quiet, and tension grew so thick between them she half fancied she could cut it with a knife.
"There's no smoking in the barns,” he finally said, the words hard and forceful. “Fire and hay don't mix, so make sure you bank that thing good."
And then he was gone. Heather turned around and watched him walk away. She ogled his rear, the way his jeans caressed his ass and molded to the hard sinew in his legs. Men were one species she did know, and she recognized a fine cut when she saw it. Those muscles had been made by hard work.
Twenty years ago he had been a promising young man. She closed her eyes for a moment and the Tristan Rogers of then came easily to mind. Dark hair, a face smooth and unlined, the wicked wonderment of a hell-raiser shining from his eyes.
Heather took a deep breath and then opened her eyes. He had gone, vanished in the workings of a ranch. She raised a foot and smashed out the lit end of her cigarette on the sole and then pocketed the butt. She made sure to stomp on the ash that had fallen before leaving the deserted arena behind to make her way back up to the house.
She had known he would be here. When her grandfather's lawyer had called her, he had told her that Tristan had been the foreman for the past ten years, taking over when his uncle had unexpectedly died, along with hers, in a truck accident. He had a love for the land and knew every facet of Hart Ranch. Though the lawyer didn't say it out loud, it was clear by the tone in his voice that her grandfather respected Tristan in a way that he never respected her father.
Over the years he had entered her mind, lingering in the background as she had grown into womanhood. He had been a fantasy, albeit a safe one, with the whole romantic cowboy persona like in the movies. But she had learned the hard way that fantasies lie.
She walked back the way she came, this time going directly to the entrance that opened to the kitchen, and went in without knocking. Not much had changed here either. Same oak table that sat eight, same linoleum floor, more brown than tan, with faded areas from years of feet walking on it. The inside had the same neglected air as the outside.
In fact, the only things that looked new and updated were the appliances. Heather opened the refrigerator, shocked to see the thing packed with all types of food, from lunchmeats to a whole ham. Potato salad, macaroni salad, regular salad, fruit salad, not to mention trays of cut vegetables and hunks of cheese. Pies lined one shelf, covered with plastic wrap and stacked neatly one on top of the other. Pitchers of beverages, sodas and several types of beers. Heather was afraid to look in the freezer. She grabbed a beer and shut the door, twisting off the lid and tossing it on the counter. She wandered from the kitchen into the dining room that had long ago been abandoned as a place to eat. The last time she had been here, twenty years ago, they had either eaten in the kitchen or outside on one of the picnic tables. Come to think of it, they were gone too, she mused as she wandered on through the house. The den had a desk overrun with papers. The study still had floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with books. She walked in and found the book she had been reading the last time she had been here,
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde. Of course, that was before a certain dark-haired cowboy stole into all her spare reading time.
A creak sounded overhead. Heather sat the still-full bottle of beer on a shelf before abandoning the library. She headed up the stairs and saw a black woman coming out of the bedroom at the end of the hall. The woman paused, eyebrows raised, as she caught sight of Heather.
"May I help you?” she asked politely.
"I'm Heather Hart."
Recognition lit her soft ebony eyes, and she smiled. “You grandfather is in here.” She gestured to the door she just closed. “He's been waiting for you."
"You've been taking care of him?"
The woman nodded. “Him and the boys for the past fifteen years. My name's Mabel."
Heather held out her hand. “Good to meet you."
Mabel smiled and shook Heather's outstretched hand. “You got his eyes, the Hart eyes as I call it. Not quite brown, not quite green. Your Uncle Avery had ‘em too."
"I only met Avery once."
"Yeah, it broke your grandfather's heart when he died.” Mabel shook her head against the sad memories. “Avery was a fine man."
"So I heard."
"He'll be happy to see you. He's having a good day today."
Mabel smiled and then headed down the hallway, leaving Heather alone in front of the door. She took a moment to recall her grandfather, remembering a robust man with a head full of white hair and a moustache to match. She had been slightly intimidated by him at age fifteen, as she had been by the tension between him and her father. Now she entered his bedroom as an adult with twenty hard years under her belt.
"'Bout time you got in here.” Her grandfather greeted her on a wheeze.
Heather blinked at the frail-looking man lying in the middle of the hospital bed. Gone were the hair and the moustache. In fact, hair barely remained on his head in a bad comb-over. The once stout and sturdy man had been replaced by a body bordering on emaciation. Monitors and machines crowded around his bed like small statues paying homage, each one playing its part in keeping a dying man alive as long as possible.
She shifted her balance on her feet, ready to bolt, not sure if she felt up to talking with the living dead. Because that's all her grandfather was now, a skeleton talking.
"Gonna stand there all day, or you gonna come over and sit with me?"
"I don't know if I want to,” she answered truthfully.
A frightful chuckling sound came from between his lips. Heather moved closer. “At least you're honest,” he said. “More than your father ever was."
A padded chair sat next to the bed. Heather sat gingerly, poised on the edge of it. She looked all around the room, everywhere, except directly at him. She wrinkled her nose. The room smelled of lavender hiding the stench of decay.
"Do you know why I asked for you to come back here?” he asked with a wheeze, watching her indecision on whether or not she wanted to stay.
"Because you're dying.” She answered him blandly, finally committing to the conversation.
"A lifetime of smoking is gonna kill me at eighty-one.” The announcement was followed by a hail of coughing. His frail body shook through the fit until it passed, leaving him sweaty and pale. Heather took another look around the room, and the lingering taste of nicotine on her tongue suddenly felt disgusting and dirty.
"I'm glad you came. You're the only grandchild I have. The last of the Harts."
The words were whispered. Fatigue laced his voice. They pained Heather to hear.
"Dad's still alive,” she reminded him in a slightly sarcastic tone.
Lincoln Hart waved that reminder away, like he swatted at a pesky fly. “Your father...disgraced me long ago. A wastrel of a man."
Heather's eyebrows rose. With that statement, she heartedly agreed. The summer they had visited the ranch had been the last of her happy memories, the last she had been a carefree, innocent girl. After that, she had lost everything, including her father.
"I'm hoping you're not a wastrel of a granddaughter."
The statement brought her out of her reverie. “Thanks, old man. Is this why I'm here, for your charming personality?"
Lincoln Hart cackled, or tried to. It came out sounding like nails on a chalkboard. “My great-grandfather built this ranch bare-knuckle. This is Hart land."
"It's just a name,” Heather murmured, eyes narrowing. “Thousands of other people have it as well."
"Is that what you think, girl?” he demanded, though his weak voice sounded pathetic. “A name defines who we are, what our bloodline is. Your father shorted you on pride, and for that I won't ever forgive him."
She wanted to say that made two of them, but this man was nothing more than a familiar stranger, as was this place. She held her tongue and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms.
"So you brought me here to tell me that I may or may not inherit this ranch,” she said instead, “depending on my character. So if not me, then who?"
"You've met Tristan.” It wasn't a question.
"Oh."
"He's become the son your father should have been. I wish he had been mine. Then we wouldn't be here talking."
"Ouch. You definitely don't pull any punches do you, old man?"
"I don't have any time left to pull punches."
Heather sighed and narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me? I know nothing about running a ranch."
"Learn it."
"It would take a lifetime to learn it."
"So? I doubt you have anywhere you gotta be."
That brought her up short, as if he had slapped her in the face. Truthfully, no, she had nowhere to go and nothing to hold her.
"From the looks of ya,” he continued, “you need some meat on your bones, you need to learn how to dress like a lady, and you need a bath ‘cuz you stink of cigarettes. And I oughta know."
It took a moment for the words to sink in, because Heather wouldn't believe what she heard.
"Listen, old man,” she said as she rose from the chair. She put her hands on her hips. “I don't know who you think you are, but I have no problem driving away and never looking back."
Lincoln Hart's washed-out eyes narrowed on her. Once upon a time they would have frozen a man in his tracks, but all they did now was waver in long-lost intensity.
"You've got a hard look in your eyes,” he finally said, perhaps a bit sadly.
"What do you want, old man? For me to spout some bullshit that life is hard? Of course it is. And the only way to stay alive is through cash. So, if you're done criticizing my wardrobe and hygiene, then I think—"
"You stay for a month, I'll pay you.” He interrupted without a hint of emotion.
Heather cocked her head. “How much?"
"Five hundred."
Heather snorted. “A thousand."
"For one thousand dollars, I expect you to learn five things about this ranch."
"Five things? Like what?"
"I'm not gonna hold your hand, girl. Figure it out. Those are my terms."
Heather thought quickly. She could use the money, and she could use a roof over her head for the next month. Hell, she could use the money selling this place would bring her. How hard would it be to learn five things about a ranch?
"You're on, old man,” she said. “I expect cash."
"Most women do."
Heather decided if this was to be a popularity contest where the cowboys were deciding the winner of the ranch, then she had it won hands down. After moving her suitcase and various boxes into the room that Mabel showed her to, Heather sat down on the feather-tick mattress to plan out her strategy.
It was clear the old man wanted to give her the ranch. While she didn't think he needed to justify his final decision to the workers, she recognized that she didn't have all the facts. Clearly Tristan Rogers was a man to be reckoned with. Twenty years ago he had a forceful presence about him that even a naive girl could recognize, and the years only enhanced that budding promise.
Of course she remembered when her Uncle Avery had died. Her mother had called her up to let her know that Avery, only forty, had broken his neck in an auto accident on the ranch. It had been raining heavily, there had been a mudslide, and the truck had rolled. Tristan's uncle, Simon, had also been in that accident, and when the news had come, he had gone to Hart Ranch to help her grandfather.
He had never left.
But whether Tristan Rogers knew it or not, she wasn't about to let go of her inheritance without a fight.
Heather reached for a cigarette and lit one, taking a deep drag and holding it in her lungs for a moment before releasing it. Thoughts of Tristan made her jumpy, on edge. Over the years he had crept into her mind whenever her mother or father would mention Hart Ranch, or when the vacation album had been out. Of course, once her father had walked out on them, those fond reminiscences had disappeared altogether.
The past can't be undone, and the sins can't be erased.
Heather shook her head and deliberately steered her mind away from that door in her memory. It had been locked years ago for a reason. After another drag on her cigarette, she looked for a place to smash it out, finally opening her half-filled water bottle to throw it in. She swished the water around to make sure the fire was out and then sat the bottle on her nightstand.
A popularity contest would be no problem at all. She had learned years ago that men only thought with their cocks, and she had spent her entire adult life getting what she wanted by using her natural assets. Tristan Rogers didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.
As efficiently as the ranch ran, Tristan sometimes found himself without pressing matters to attend to, giving him time to think. Unfortunately, today was one of those days.
Currently, he had a certain blonde bombshell on his mind, and damn if it didn't rattle his cage. The promising little girl from the back of his memories had grown up into a sexy, eye-popping woman.
One dressed like a schoolgirl hooker.
Tristan frowned. Something had changed about her, something had hardened her eyes and turned her lips down at the corners. The years hadn't been kind to Heather Hart.
He rubbed a little harder with the leather conditioner, probably more than he needed, on the pommel. He had spent the rest of the afternoon inside cleaning the saddles after seeing her again, needing the monotonous routine to regain control of his thoughts.