Texas Tango: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 2 (3 page)

Jason took a seat closer to the sofa. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Great. Bad news first then.”

“Fitzgerald had KC prepare his will about a year ago, so his estate won’t be going to the state to resolve.”

Travis scowled. “I was afraid of that,” he growled. “So what can you tell me now?”

“All the beneficiaries have been notified and the will duly probated. It was fairly straight forward. I don’t foresee anyone challenging it.”

“So don’t keep me waiting. Who do I need to talk to about buying Singing Springs?”

“Dr. Caroline Graham.”

Chapter Two

The breath left Travis’s lungs as though he’d been kicked in the gut by a wild stallion.

He leaned forward. “Are you shitting me?” His brother flinched, which made Travis realize how loud he’d just yelled.

Caroline Graham was the first woman he’d been seriously attracted to since his wife died ten years ago. He hadn’t acted on his attraction to her and didn’t plan to. She was a short-timer. No reason to start something that would leave him alone when she left…and she’d made no secret of her traveling lifestyle.

And now to find out he’d have to deal with her to get Singing Springs made his insides ache. That might require too much close interaction.

He lowered the volume when he continued, but the shock of the information continued to stun him. “Solely to her? Nobody else?”

His brother nodded.

“But why?”

Jason shrugged. “Apparently, he adored Caroline.”

Travis flopped against the back of the sofa and blew out a long, exasperated breath. “Apparently.” Damn. So close and yet not close enough. “Did you get any other news out of our dear closed-mouth cousin?”

“Don’t be pissed at KC. She was just doing her job.”

“Damn woman has heard me talk about getting that ranch for years. She could have tipped me off to be nicer to the good doctor.”

Jason chuckled. “Like you haven’t had your eye on Caroline Graham already.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right.” Jason’s mouth twitched as though he was struggling not to smile. “Sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking to accuse you of being attracted to a beautiful woman.”

Travis gave his brother his best eat-shit expression. “She’s still planning on leaving at the end of the year, right? Inheriting Singing Springs hasn’t changed her plans, right?”

Jason shrugged again. “Not that I’ve heard. Lydia has talked to her about staying on full time, but she insists she’s off to Montana in January, so it doesn’t appear she has any plans on remaining in Whispering Springs past December.”

“Well, tell your fiancée to stop asking her to stay, damn it. Lucky for me, she’s just passing through.” Even as he said the words, a pang of regret at what might have been hit him in the solar plexus. He took a long draw on his water to staunch the pain. It didn’t help much. If only he could have a stiff shot of bourbon… “And what are you smiling about?”

Jason made like he was zipping his lips.

“As I was getting ready to say, she’d probably be glad to leave town with a nice chunk of change in her pocket. I want to make her an offer before anyone else has the chance. Why don’t you draw up a bill of sale and I’ll run by this weekend. Leave the sale price blank, and I can fill it in when we come to terms.”

Jason held up a hand. “Whoa there, bro. Slow down. Caroline just lost her great-uncle, and now she has all these decisions to make about the estate. Give her a chance to catch her breath.”

“But what if someone gets to her before I do?”

“I suppose that’s possible, but the way your holdings wrap around three sides of Fitzgerald’s place, I can’t see anyone else wanting Singing Springs.”

“Did she say anything to you or KC about selling?”

Jason shook his head. “KC said Caroline’s a little overwhelmed at the moment. Angus hadn’t clued her in that she was his heir, so she’s still processing the ramifications and all her options. If you start pushing her, I’m afraid she’ll just shut you down. Maybe in the next week or so.”

Travis scratched his head. “Okay, but no later. Go ahead and draw up a bill of sale for me to have just in case.” He studied his brother’s face. “What? You’re looking at me strange.” He grinned. “Stranger than usual.”

“Nothing. I’ll put together something for you. On a different subject, you going over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner Saturday night?”

“Probably. You and Lydia going?”

“That’s the plan.”

Travis stood and collected his hat. “Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow. And for Pete’s sake, keep your ear to the ground about Singing Springs though. If the good doctor even hints she wants to sell, I want to be the first to know.” He reached for the door.

“Travis.”

He turned back. “What?”

“Caroline will probably be at dinner tomorrow night. Lay off her, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

“I’m driving up tomorrow, Mamie.”

“You don’t need to do that.” Mamie’s cough rattled through Caroline’s phone receiver.

“I want to see you. I should be there about noon or so.”

“How long can you stay?”

“I have to get back to Whispering Springs on Monday.”

“I wish you could stay longer.”

“Me too.” Caroline’s head rested against the back of her sofa. She unsuccessfully struggled to suppress the tears welling up. She talked to her grandmother every day, saw her as often as she could make the seven-hour drive back to Arkansas. Her grandmother was dying. Caroline knew it. Mamie’s doctor knew it. And Caroline was pretty sure that Mamie knew it too.

“Is that Montgomery boy coming with you this time?”

Her heart thudded at the mention of Travis. “No. Not this time. Maybe next time.”

She hadn’t meant any harm when she told her grandmother she was dating Travis Montgomery. Mamie worried so much about Caroline being alone. Caroline had only meant to give her grandmother some peace of mind, but instead Mamie asked about him on every visit, with every call.

“Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” Mamie’s years as a judge had groomed her voice into a strong, authoritarian tone. The whispery, weak voice on the other end broke Caroline’s heart. It didn’t sound anything like Caroline’s robust grandmother.

“Bye, Mamie. Love you.”

Caroline dropped her cell onto the coffee table. Guilt gnawed at her. Lying to her grandmother about dating Travis was so wrong, but the idea of her beloved grandmother on her deathbed worried about Caroline’s love life—or lack thereof—sliced and diced Caroline’s heart. How many times had Mamie said she wanted Caroline to love and be loved by a man worthy of her affections?

Caroline pressed the back of her head into the softness of the sofa. The deception had started so innocently. When her grandmother kept asking about Caroline’s life in Texas, Travis had been standing outside her office door talking to Lydia, and his name had rolled off her tongue before she could stop it. Once the idea was planted, her mind refused to let go. It was as though gasoline had been poured on her tiny spark of crush on him, exploding it into an inferno attraction.

Unfortunately, Travis hadn’t expressed any interest in her, so she’d never acted on her feelings. Besides, she had no plans to settle down with anyone, much less settle in Texas.

Mamie had never mentioned anything about bad blood between her brother and the Montgomerys. She’d questioned Caroline at length about Travis and how he treated her, but when Caroline had continued to sing Travis’s praises, her grandmother had seemed pleased—and relieved—that Caroline had found her true love. God, she’d felt so guilty when her grandmother used the phrase
true love
, but luckily it’d been on the phone and Caroline had been able to hide her remorse at the lie.

She dipped her chin to her chest and rolled her head from side-to-side to stretch the stiff muscles in her neck. An elephant-sized tear rolled down her cheek and Caroline swiped angrily at it. She might have overdone the “sell the idea of being in love with Travis” to Mamie. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fall in love, but she was nothing if not realistic.

Mamie and Grandpa Richter’s kind of love didn’t happen often and certainly would never happen to her. Besides, she wasn’t sure she had the capacity to produce that degree of emotional attachment to anyone other than her grandmother. Attraction to a man was a long way from love, right?

The gratitude she felt for her grandmother had no bounds, just like what Caroline would do for Mamie had no bounds. When Caroline let herself stew over the past, her guilt about crashing into Mamie’s life unannounced and uninvited made her nauseous. She never doubted for a minute that her grandmother loved her, but Mamie had had to give up so much of her personal and professional life to raise Caroline and then Noah. There was no way Caroline could ever repay her.

When Caroline’s parents had dropped her on Mamie’s doorstep to raise, freeing them up to return to their missionary work, Mamie had greeted Caroline with more hugs and kisses than Caroline could remember in all of her five years of being alive.

Then Mamie had stepped up again to take in Noah.

She’d been more than a grandmother to both of them. She’d been their lifeline, their anchor. At least Caroline had been blessed to be raised to adulthood by her grandmother. Noah had had only nine years with Mamie.

The reality of losing Mamie swamped her. She stood and went to the bathroom for a tissue.

Get a grip, Caroline. All this navel gazing about her life wasn’t solving the problem. Her problem was how could she convince her grandmother that she was in love and happy when the exact opposite was true?

She glanced at her cell phone to check the time. Right now she didn’t have the time to worry about her love life—or lack thereof. If she didn’t get a move on, she wasn’t going to be ready when Jason and Lydia got here to pick her up.

After drying her eyes and repairing the minimal makeup she wore, she went to work on her hair, shoving a couple of more hairpins into the French twist at the back of her head. She frowned at herself in the mirror. Was going to Lane and Jackie Montgomery’s for dinner a good idea?

The Montgomery clan had always been warm and welcoming, but she’d noticed the undercurrent of tension that rippled around the gravesite when Travis Montgomery had walked up to Angus’s casket to pay his respects. At the time she’d thought the reaction odd, but given her state of mind that day she’d passed it off as her imagination. She’d always found Travis to be a little aloof toward her, so maybe he was that way with many of the townspeople.

It was only after reading Angus’s will and having KC explain the history between the Montgomery and Fitzgerald families that she understood why Angus had asked her to not mention their familial relationship. He’d wanted her accepted in the community without the taint of an old feud.

She pushed a pair of gold hoops into her pierced ears and picked up her ever-present charm bracelet from the dresser. Various state shapes dangled and chimed together. It was hard to believe she’d worked and lived in so many different places over the years. She made a mental note to start looking for a Texas charm to add to the collection.

Outside, a horn honked. She glanced at the clock on her phone again. Had to be Jason and Lydia. As she snapped the bracelet around her wrist, she wished they hadn’t insisted she ride with them to the Bar Halo Ranch. Granted, the drive was about thirty minutes outside of town on a dark road that was mostly loose gravel, but she felt stranded without her own car. Probably too many years of being on her own.

Any lingering concerns about Lane and Jackie’s reaction to her being Angus Fitzgerald’s great-niece vanished the minute she walked into their home.

“Caroline,” Jackie said, wrapping her in a hug. “I am so sorry about your uncle.”

“Thanks, Jackie.” Caroline returned the hug, relief streaming through her.

From the day she met Lane and Jackie, they’d treated her like a long-lost daughter. Jackie worried whether Caroline was eating well. Lane warned her about late nights and keeping her doors locked.

“C’mon here,” Lane said, throwing a muscular arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “What can I get you to drink?”

Jackie, Jason and Lydia followed Lane and Caroline to the family room. Caroline had loved this room from the minute she first walked in, loved the comfortable, relaxed feeling the room evoked. Overstuffed, well-worn leather furniture. An eighty-inch flat-screen television, perfect for watching football, which she’d done here many times last fall. Highly polished oak floors under a large Navajo rug. On the wall opposite the entry, an old oak bar from the early nineteen hundreds stood, its counter gleaming under the lights. Lydia had told her that Cash, the youngest of the Montgomery sons, had shipped the bar home after rescuing it during a hotel renovation. But Caroline’s favorite addition to this room, and the one that made her stomach quiver with nerves, was Travis Montgomery.

She didn’t know why the man made her knees quake and her lungs collapse. In all the months she’d been in Whispering Springs, they’d probably had twenty conversations and none of those private or personal. Their interactions were usually short and abrupt as though he were in a hurry to get away from her. She didn’t understand. She’d always tried to be pleasant to be around, and she thought most people liked her.