The Cowboy's Last Goodbye (Grass Valley Cowboys Book 6) Page 21

  By the time she pulled into her apartment parking lot in Boise, she was exhausted. Although she was supposed to give notice on it months ago, she’d continued paying rent on both it and her office space until she felt ready to make a decision about leaving or staying in Grass Valley. At the moment, she was glad she hadn’t made up her mind at summer’s end. Her former life in Boise gave her an escape from Ben Morgan and the painful way he’d annihilated every delusional idea she’d had about love.

  The rational side of her understood his fears and need to be cautious, but her heart railed against the way he’d walked away from her and the special love they shared.

  This whole horrible fiasco was precisely why she’d been so careful not to fall in love. She knew it would end with her heart in pieces.

  The relentless pain, however, was somewhat unexpected. Nearly a week had passed since Ben showed up on her doorstep and crushed her hopes for the future. Rather than lessening, the pain seemed to grow in intensity each day.

  With a resigned sigh, she lifted her heavy suitcase from the back of the pickup. General walked beside her as they entered the building and went up to her apartment. Flicking on the lights, Harper looked around and felt an overwhelming emptiness in the quiet, orderly space.

  Quickly shutting the door behind her, she sank down on the floor and buried her face in her hands, sobbing out the anguish and disappointment that had tormented her soul since the day Ben told her goodbye.

  How she hated that word. Hated what it meant.

  Hated that one good-looking cowboy’s goodbye had left such a cavernous hole in her heart.

  ><><

  “Ben? Are you out here?” Tess called as she walked into the barn.

  “In the tack room,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag to remove the oil he’d been rubbing into bridles they hadn’t used in a while.

  He turned and watched his sister waddle inside. With just a few weeks until her due date, he fully expected her to go into labor any moment. She looked miserable, as if each step pained her.

  In truth, he was surprised she’d come all the way out to the barn to find him.

  “What’s up, Tess?” He hung up the bridles he’d finished and began cleaning the work area. Although it used to annoy him as a teen when his dad would tell him to clean up after himself as he went and he’d never have a big mess to deal with, the lessons served him well now.

  “Lunch is ready. Everyone’s waiting on you,” she said, glancing around the tack room, taking in its clean and orderly state. Ben had been busy since her dad’s accident. Too busy.

  “I’m not really hungry,” he said, turning his back to her.

  Tess fisted a hand on her hip and glared at him. “I don’t care if you’re hungry or not, Ben Morgan. You just march your grumpy butt into the house and play nice for a while.”

  Ben glared at her over his shoulder. “Pass. I’ve got work to do.”

  Tess grabbed his arm, forcing him to face her. “What is wrong with you, Ben? This isn’t like you, to be so withdrawn and cranky. I know you broke up with Harper, but that’s all on you. If it’s making you this miserable, maybe you should rethink your stupid decision and go crawling back to her.”

  Ben considered shaking off her grip on his arm, but didn’t want to jostle her. Instead, he gently lifted her hand away and moved toward the door. It wouldn’t take much to outrun his sister in her current condition, but he had a strong hunch she’d follow him anyway. “It’s not just Harper. There’s other stuff going on.”

  “Then enlighten me. All of us would like to know what’s wrong and help.” Tess sighed. “We’re all aware that Dad’s been hard on you. I thought he was starting to come around.”

  Slowly, Ben nodded. “He’s been better this week, but I don’t know how long I can keep putting up with things as they are.”

  Tess gave him a shove forward and shut the tack room door. She latched onto his coat sleeve, tugging him out of the barn.

  “What are you doing?” Ben asked, reluctantly going along with her.

  “Let’s have this out right now. Regardless of his injuries, it’s ridiculous for you to work this hard and Dad not to appreciate it. While we’re at it, you’re gonna tell us what’s really bothering you if it isn’t just breaking up with Harper.”

  Abruptly, Ben stopped and Tess tripped. He reached out and steadied her. Terrified she might have fallen, his heart pounded, making him even more cross. “Just leave me alone, Tess.”

  She clutched his arm again and continued walking. “Nope. I can’t do it, Ben. I love you too much and care about you too much to let you go on being this miserable.” A grin lifted the corners of her mouth as she looked up at him. “You can pout and call me whatever names you like, but this is happening today. Right now. If I have to call my he-man husband out here to beat you into submission, I’ll do it. BB will help if I ask.”

  “Travis and Brice would love any excuse to team up on me. Let me be clear that it would require the combined efforts of both of them to take me down.” Ben frowned as Tess waited for him to open the back door.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed, following her into the house.

  After he shrugged out of his outerwear and washed his hands, he took a seat at the end of the table beside Bailey. She appeared to be the only one not intent on adding to his misery. He glanced around her and made a funny face at Maizy. The baby smiled and waved her hand at him.

  Michele offered thanks for their meal then they fell into the routine of filling their plates. Ben ate in silence as the others talked around him about Thanksgiving plans, the baby shower Cady was hosting for Tess the following week, and news from around the community.

  Once they finished eating, Ben started to rise from the table, but a glare from Tess caused him to drop back into his chair. His sister really did have it in for him.

  “Don’t you have something you’d like to share with Dad?” Tess prompted.

  “Not really,” Ben said. He toyed with the saltshaker since the plates and silverware had already been cleared away.

  From her place on the other side of him, his mother tipped her head toward Mike, urging him to tell his father the truth.

  “What’s on your mind, son?” Mike asked, turning toward him. Although he still hadn’t recovered his full vision, he gained clarity every day. The doctor thought by the end of the year, he’d be able to see as well as he did before the accident.

  Like ripping a bandage off a wound, Ben decided to barrel through the pain as quickly as possible.

  “You’re driving me crazy. I’m not a dumb kid. You taught us all well and we know how to run this ranch. Just because I don’t do everything the way you would do it, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I’m sorry you were injured, Dad. I’m grateful every day that you survived that crash. But until you can get back in the saddle and take charge, you need to let me do things without second-guessing my every move. You can ask anyone sitting around this table, and I think they’ll all tell you I’m doing a good job of handling things.”

  Ben waited for his Dad to get defensive, yell, or shuffle out of the room in an angry fit.

  Instead, Mike sighed and swiped a hand over his face. “I’m so thankful for your help, Ben. If it wasn’t for you, I honestly don’t know what we would have done these past weeks. It’s beyond my ability to comprehend how you willingly left your life in Portland, your job and friends, to come back here and keep things going. You do a good job, and you’ve been working so hard.”

  Mike took a deep breath before continuing. “If I was man enough to admit it, I might even say you’re doing a better job with a lot of things than I could do. You bring a different perspective to the ranch operations and that isn’t a bad thing. I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you, but it isn’t because I don’t trust you. It’s because your old dad is struggling with being an invalid and feeling useless.”

  “But, Dad, that’s completely…” Ben started to say, but his father held up his hand, indicating he wasn�
�t finished speaking.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Ben. The one thing I’ve had lately is plenty of time to think and it would make me so happy and proud if you’d consider becoming my partner in the ranch. You’ve proved to me you’re more than capable of running things without my help and I think together we could do great things here.”

  Stunned by his dad’s offer, Ben was speechless. Six months ago, he would have laughed it off and said he wasn’t interested. Now, though, he realized he missed being on the ranch and would like to stay.

  “Wow, Dad, that’s um…”

  “Look, son, I understand if you want to go back to Portland. No matter what you decide, you’ve got our support, one hundred percent.”

  Ben swallowed back the lump in his throat and smiled at his sister. She gave him a triumphant smile, like she’d known all along what would happen if he and his dad talked. “Actually, Dad, I’d like to accept your offer and stay on as your partner. However, to make it fair, I want to invest in the ranch, so set a price for me to buy into that partnership. I wouldn’t want Brice or Tess to think I was getting special treatment.”

  Brice snorted and shook his head. “You’ve always been special,” he teased, tapping his finger to his head and making a deranged face.

  Tess glared at her younger brother then looked back at Ben. “I think what BB is trying to say is that neither one of us has the time or inclination to be involved with the day-to-day operations of the ranch. You’re the one who stepped in and took care of it since the accident and you’re the one who came home on almost all his days off to help Dad. I don’t think I’d be speaking out of turn when I say you’ve earned a partnership through your hard work.”

  “Thanks, Tessie Bessie,” Ben said. Tess stuck out her tongue at him, making them all laugh. He looked back to his father. “We still need to come up with a price you think is fair for me to invest, because that’s the only way I’m doing this.”

  Mike nodded in agreement.

  Ben stood and walked around the table and shook his father’s hand. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a partner, Dad. I’ll give my notice at work tomorrow and I might need a day off to go clean out my apartment.”

  “Just say the word and we’ll help you move your things,” Travis volunteered, looking at Brice for agreement.

  “Absolutely, Ben,” Brice said. “We can take our pickups and have you moved out in no time.”

  Ben offered them a look of thanks. “The question is where I’ll be moving to. Eventually, I’ll need my own place. For now, I’ll store my stuff in the barn loft, but once Dad is back on his feet, I’d like to find a place nearby.”

  Michele smiled at her oldest child. “I usually hear about any places for sale or rent. I’ll keep my ears open for something.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Ben said. He squeezed his dad’s shoulder then returned to his seat at the table. “Since Tess staged this little confab, I might as well tell you guys about something and apologize for not saying anything sooner.”

  The night he’d told Harper about his marriage, he realized he had to tell his family. The longer he put it off, the more it ate at him. It wasn’t just cutting his ties to Harper that had bothered him, it was also the fact he needed to tell his family the truth.

  “What is it, honey?” Michele asked, placing her hand on top of his and patting it encouragingly. “You know you can tell us anything.”

  “I know, Mom.” Ben took a deep breath and looked over at Tess. “My sister has pointed out that I’m taking the breakup with Harper hard. That’s true. I’m in love with her and that’s why it hurt so much to tell her goodbye.”

  “But why did you break up with her, Ben? That’s what we don’t understand. She’s wild about you.” Tess rested a hand on her belly, rubbing it back and forth as she spoke.

  “She was, although I’m pretty sure I destroyed any future we might have had together. For the record, I’m still crazy about her.”

  “I hear a big but in there,” Brice said, offering Ben a questioning glance.

  “Yeah, a really big one. Something happened in my past that made me decide I’d never get married again and that is exactly where Harper and I were headed.”

  “Again? What do you mean again?” Tess asked leaning forward.

  “I um… I got married when I was nineteen, not long after I moved to Portland.”

  “You what?” Michele gaped at Ben as if he’d suddenly changed into a stranger she didn’t recognize.

  Ben filled them in on the whole story, about marrying the con artist who thought he had money, and how she cleaned him out when she left.

  “Why in the world didn’t you say something? We had no idea,” Mike said, his voice thick with emotion. “Son, we would have helped you, gotten you set back up. No wonder you were always too busy to come home that first year. We thought you were just having a great time at college.”

  Tears streamed down Michele’s face as she hugged him. “Oh, baby, my heart hurts for you. I can’t even imagine the hardships you put yourself through.”

  “It was hard, really hard,” Ben said, blinking away the moisture in his eyes at the outpouring of love from his family. “But I realized I’d gotten myself into the mess and I needed to get myself out of it. If I’d come to you, you would have fixed everything. Who’s to say I wouldn’t have done something equally as stupid down the road? Because I had to work so hard to replace everything that had come so easily, I never took any of it for granted again. And I never took the idea of marriage lightly again, either.”

  “But what about the situation with Harper?” Tess asked. “She’s nothing like that woman and you said you finally got a divorce. There’s no reason you can’t marry her, Ben. If you asked, she’d move back from Boise in a heartbeat.”

  “I just don’t trust myself to give my heart away again.”

  Bailey nudged him with her elbow and grinned. “Like it or not, Ben, you’ve already given it to Harper. Don’t be an idiot and deprive yourself of knowing real love. What you felt for that woman you married wasn’t love and you know it. What you have with Harper is something precious that doesn’t come along every day. Just because you had one bad experience doesn’t mean you have to punish yourself for the rest of your life. It seems to me if you can pull yourself through an ordeal like you had when you were a kid, you can certainly figure out some way to get back into Harper’s good graces. Stop being a numbskull and figure it out.”

  Surprised by his sister-in-law’s observations, Ben realized he hid his fears of trusting someone, of opening himself up completely, behind one traumatic incident. He had to work past the fear or he had no hope for a future — not unless Harper was part of it.

  As his family offered their varied opinions about the best way for him to woo Harper, Ben hid a smile. It was nice for life at the ranch to be back to normal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ever has it been that love knows not

  its own depth until the hour of separation.

  Khalil Gibran

  “Load up, General. We’ve got places to go and people to see.” Harper smiled as the dog sailed into the pickup and woofed as he settled onto his blanket on the backseat. He seemed to understand they were heading home.

  After only two days in Boise, Harper developed an acute case of homesickness for Grass Valley and her uncle. Determined to return to the area she loved, she closed her accounting business, gave notice on her apartment, and packed up everything that would fit in her pickup. She donated the furniture to a local charity and said goodbye to the few people she knew, anxious to return to Sherman County.

  Aside from how badly things ended with Ben and the fact she would occasionally run into him, Harper would rather be there than alone in Boise. After all, she’d given her heart to Ben whether he wanted it or not, and it had stayed in Grass Valley.

  The nearly six-hour drive passed quickly. Thankfully, there wasn’t any snow on the road, so she made it to her uncle’s house early that
afternoon.

  In an effort to surprise him, she hadn’t told him of her plans to return.

  Excited, she parked the pickup and hurried out with General at her side. The two of them ran up the walk and tapped on the door.

  The television blared as she waited for Cletus to open the door. When he did, the look on his face was priceless.

  “Does that offer still stand for me to come back anytime?” Harper asked with a grin.

  Cletus wrapped his arms around her and gave her a tight hug while tears trickled down his weathered cheeks.

  “Oh, girlie, I’m so glad to see you, and even that bacon-hogging mutt of yours.” Cletus let her go and stepped back so they could move inside the warmth of his snug house.

  General wagged his tail and brushed against Cletus, waiting for some attention. The old man rubbed the dog’s head then hugged Harper again.

  “How long can you stay, honey?” Cletus asked as she removed her coat and looked around the living room. Cletus had kept it picked up even though he’d threatened that she’d need a scoop shovel to get through the door the next time she came to visit.

  “Indefinitely, if you’ll have me.”

  Cletus hooted and made an attempt at dancing a little jig. “Tell Santy Claus to cancel my wish list, I just got the best present in the world.”

  “Uncle Cletus…” Harper patted his cheek, so glad to be with her uncle again. “What would I do without you?”

  “Be a miserable mess.” He took a step toward the door. “Do you need help bringing in your things?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  ><><

  The next day, Harper drove into Moro and investigated a business space that was available for rent. After talking the owner down on the monthly rent, Harper signed a year’s lease.

  She planned to open her own accounting office in the area. Cady and Trey had assured her she’d have plenty of business if she were willing to give it a try.