The Cowboy Imports a Bride(The Cowboys Of Chance Creek #3) (18 page)

Morgan lay in bed, listening to Rob's quiet breathing beside her. One thing she was sure of; she didn't want to break off her engagement to this man. She had come to depend on his presence in her life and she loved their time together; especially when they were alone. She'd never met a man so interested in what interested her, and the way he was working to make her dreams come true left her speechless with gratitude.

No, she wouldn't let the Mathesons or the Cruzes break her and Rob apart.

Just when she'd decided to give up on sleep all together that night, an idea occurred to her. She wasn't prepared to let her marriage to Rob or the development of her winery destroy families and friendships that had held together over years. And she wasn't making any headway by trying to reason with everyone. She couldn't force them to like her, or want her vineyard on their properties.

But maybe she could show them exactly what they would be missing if she were gone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rob didn't think he'd ever had such a long day in his life. He hadn't had more than four hours of sleep for the past few nights, and Jamie blindsided him in the barn first thing this morning to tell him again how little he appreciated him going behind his back to make deals with Ethan. When he tried to explain the circumstances, Jamie accused Morgan of being hateful to Claire. He hadn't taken kindly to Rob's suggestion that his bride was to blame for all the drama around the Cruz spread these days.

Ethan had intervened then, ordering Rob to spend the morning mending tack and straightening the barn while he had a head-to-head with Jamie. As the hours crept by, the strongest feeling of deja-vu swept over him: wasn't this exactly the type of work he'd been trying to escape when he left home?

At lunchtime, he didn't feel like joining the rest of the crowd up at the Big House, so he only ducked into the kitchen, gave Morgan a peck on the cheek, and grabbed a ham sandwich off the pile she and Autumn had made.

"I'm going to eat on the run today," he said. Morgan only nodded. He left the house feeling even worse, but when he came back to the stable, Claire and Jamie were already there, talking in the shade of north wall.

"This isn't about Morgan and you know it," Jamie was saying. He leaned against the side of the stable. Claire paced in front of him.

"Yes it is."

"Baloney. It's about me wanting to start a family and you saying no."

Claire turned away from him and spotted Rob. "Damn it! Now you're eavesdropping?"

"Just trying to find a quiet place to eat," Rob said, holding up his sandwich. He backed up quickly, spun on his heel and hiked over to the bunkhouse before Claire could start another fight.

Why didn't Claire want to start a family? And what did it have to do with Morgan?

He couldn’t fathom it, but he resolved to talk to Morgan about it the first chance he got. Meanwhile, he relaxed some about the tension on the ranch. If Claire was angry at Jamie, rather than at him, things would eventually work out.

He hoped.

Still, when dinner time rolled around and his workday for Ethan was over, he looked forward to heading over to Carl's where things weren't so off-kilter. So when he arrived at the bunkhouse to gather his things and found Jake waiting for him on the front steps, his stomach sank.

"Whatever you've got to say, I don't want to hear it," he stated and tried to push past him. Jake stood up and blocked his way.

"You seriously going to let that girl break our family apart?"

"Morgan's not breaking anything apart. Dad's the one doing the destruction. And what do you care, anyway – I'd think the lot of you would be happy to see the last of me."

"How do you figure that?"

"Oh, come on," Rob said. "You've spent your whole lives trying to run me off the place. Picking at me, criticizing me, making sure I don't do anything meaningful over there."

Jake had the grace to look a little shamefaced. "That's Ned, mostly."

"Mostly," Rob echoed. "And Dad, and the rest of you."

"Dad set this whole thing up for you, you know that, don't you? That's how badly he wants you to stay on the ranch." Jake still wouldn't let him past.

"Set what whole thing up?"

"This…contest. The 200 acres. He told us point blank out in the barn after he announced it that it was meant for you – none of us were even supposed to try for it."

Rob blinked. "Why would he do that?"

Jake held his hands out wide. "Because he wants you to stay on the ranch. I just said that. He knew you were going to make a break for it."

Shaking his head, Rob turned around and stared out at the mountains in the distance. "Well, doesn't that beat all. I don't understand him. I don't understand any of you." He turned back. "If you want me to stay, why the hell do you try so hard to make me want to leave?"

"I'm not trying," Jake said. "I thought we got along all right."

"Until I try to do anything that's not your idea," Rob pointed out.

"Well, yeah. I guess so," Jake said. "Maybe I could work on that."

"Might as well not bother," Rob said gruffly. "Ned and Dad aren't going to change."

A funny look came over Jake's face. "I'm not so sure about Dad. He ain't been feeling so great lately. He's feeling his age. I think he wishes he'd done a few things differently."

"Dad's hated me my whole life," Rob said. "I doubt that's going to stop now. And I'm done trying to change his mind. I've got other people to worry about – like Morgan."

When he glanced Jake's way, however, his brother was staring at him open-mouthed. "Dad…hates you? You've got to be kidding me."

"What the hell are you on about now?" Rob said, bracing himself for a new round of cruelty. Jake was right – usually it was Ned sticking the blade in and twisting it in his guts, but Jake was no slouch when he was in the mind to get a dig in.

"You never heard him spouting off about his rodeo star son down at the bar?"

"When has he ever done that?" Rob stared at his brother in open derision. Heck, he hadn't even ridden much these past couple of years. Jake must be talking about ancient history.

"When doesn't he do that?" Jake scratched the back of his neck. "You're not at the right bar – you're always at the Dancing Boot."

He sure as heck wasn't going to hang around with a bunch of old fogies at Rafters, but he wasn't going to say that to Jake. "He's never even seen me ride. He always finds somewhere else to be when it's my turn."

"You don't get it, do you?" Jake said, leaning against the stair railing. "It's like you're totally blind. You're the damn baby of this family, Rob. You're the apple of Dad's eye. He didn't have time for the rest of us when we were young, but he was always hauling you around on top of his shoulders when he did his chores. I can remember when he taught you to ride. How damn proud he was of you. I wanted to knock you into next week. I'd been working on a trick to show him and he couldn't take his eyes off you long enough to see it."

"You're putting me on," Rob said, but his mind was busy dredging up old memories – a view of the stable-yard from way up high. Sitting on a horse that seemed as big as a Mack truck, his Daddy standing beside him, holding him steady. He hadn't thought about any of that in years.

"When you started riding in the rodeo, he had this little book he kept in his pocket. He wrote down the dates and your scores. Shit, Rob."

"How the hell could he do that if he wasn't even watching?" Rob said.

"He was watching, you just couldn't see him. He couldn't sit in the stands. He couldn't sit still. He was so scared you'd…I don't know. Fall, or get hurt, or lose, or be sad. He can't stand it when you're unhappy, don't you know that?"

"So he yells at me all damn day long? Tells me how stupid I am for caring about anything other than ranching?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing – it made no sense. Jake was making all this up, he knew it. He just didn't know why his brother would take the time to spin such stories.

"He's never called you stupid."

"He tried to make me stupid," Rob countered. "He ripped up my report card the first time I brought home A's. He wants me stupid, ignorant, and stuck in his shadow for the rest of my life."

Jake sighed. "Shit. I remember that. You know why he did that, don't you? Nah, you probably don't." He wiped a hand over his face. "Aw, heck, I never realized until you disappeared to Canada how much we've screwed things up – me and Ned and Luke."

"What do you mean?" Rob turned away again. This whole conversation was making him mighty uncomfortable. The past was the past, and the only reason it kept dragging into the present was because his father was trying so hard to keep him under his thumb.

"What a mess," Jake said. "Okay, you're going to hate me, but try to understand – you're the youngest. We didn't mean to keep secrets from you."

"Secrets?" Rob didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Yeah, secrets. Although I have to admit I'm surprised you never guessed."

"Guessed what?" Shit, was Jake going to tell him he was adopted? He tensed, not sure he could handle that.

"Dad can't read. Not much, anyway. You really never figured that out?"

"Wait, hold on a minute." That was the last thing he expected Jake to say. "What do you mean he can't read?"

"Why do you think he dropped out of school at fourteen? Why'd you think he hates books so much?"

"But…"

"Think about it," Jake said, and Rob did. To his surprise, a number of things fell swiftly into place.

"Mom does all the paperwork," he said.

"Bingo. Now you're catching on. That day he tore up your report card?" Jake laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "You kept shoving it in his face. Wanting him to read all the things your teachers wrote about you."

"Hell." That day had been the end of his career as a straight-A student. Once Holt was through bellowing about sissies and wastes of time, he'd sent Rob out to the stables to muck out every single stall himself.

Rob had learned that lesson well.

"Why the heck didn't anybody tell me?" he asked now.

Jake studied his feet. "Didn't think you could keep the secret, probably. No one but our family knows." He glanced up and caught Rob's eye. "No one can know."

Rob heard his unspoken message: this was a secret the Mathesons would take to their graves. If the rest of the town knew, they wouldn't be able to hold up their heads anymore.

"Why doesn't he learn how? Then there wouldn't have to be a secret." So many years of his life he'd blamed himself for his father's coldness. All because Holt couldn't read? No, there had to be more to it than that.

"From what I can figure out, he fooled his teachers for years this way and that, and no one figured it out until about the eighth grade. Then they sent him to some kind of specialist. The other kids gave him heck about it, though, until he quit school outright. So when Ned started having trouble, he refused to have anything to do with any doctors or interventions. He decided no kid of his was going to get teased."

I got teased
, Rob wanted to say, but held his tongue. "Ned can't read, either?" Well, that made sense. Ned never was any good at school.

"Yep. Same problem as Dad. Gets his letters all turned around."

"They're dyslexic?" How the hell had he never known? "There's all kinds of things they do for that nowadays."

"Only if you admit you have it," Jake said. "And they won't admit it."

"So Dad protected Ned and left me hanging high and dry," Rob said. "Helluva thing to do."

"Dad knew you'd do fine," Jake countered. "And you have, haven't you? You've always been able to protect yourself one way or the other. Everybody's been scared to death of you since you reached junior high. Remember what you did to the guy who attacked Morgan? You're a fighter, Rob – with your fists and your jokes. Now you're engaged to Morgan, you've got two jobs, a parcel of land…hell, I'm envious."

"Envious?" But as Jake's words sunk in, he realized his brother was right. He'd nursed his childhood grudges for way too many years, but no one had actually hurt him since…since…well, grade school, now that he thought of it. Even Ned hadn't touched him since they were kids. He still nagged him all the time, needled him and generally behaved like an ass, but he couldn't remember the last time they actually fought.

No. That wasn't true. He did remember. It had been the usual scrap, out by the barn, over chores or something along those lines. They'd tussled and rolled in the dirt and he'd finally landed a punch on Ned's chin that snapped his brother's head back. Ned had scrambled to his feet, kicked him clumsily, and run away.

He'd run away.

And instead of acting like the victor, Rob had kept telling himself the same old story – that he could never beat his older brothers, that he'd always be picked on, that there wasn't anything he could ever do to win.

Glancing around him, he wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Or bang his head against a wall, maybe. Why was he still acting like his father could force him to do things he didn't want to do? At any time in the last decade or more he could have left home, gotten a job and run his own life exactly the way he wanted to. Instead, he'd blamed everyone else for his dissatisfaction and didn't lift a finger to change.

"You're in a hell of a lot better situation than I am," he told Jake honestly. "You've always known you wanted to be a rancher and you work like a son-of-a-gun. I'm still figuring out what I want to do."

"Maybe so," Jake said, "but my life ain't perfect, either. There are things I'd like to try with the ranch that I can't because Dad vetoes them. Still, even if our family's not perfect, it's something. I hope you won't turn your back on us, and for what it's worth," he took a deep breath, "if you really think planting grapes would make you happier than running cattle, then I'm on your side. It's your 200 acres. You do what you want with them." He stuck out his hand.

Rob slowly reached out and took it. "You mean that? What about Ned and Luke?"