Page 40 of River Legacy
The hard part would be convincing Ryder to trust her ever again.
Claude wasn’t surprised when he’d barely gotten rid of Victoria before his phone began to ring. He let it go to voice mail. But it immediately rang again. Grabbing it, he planned to turn it off, but realized he needed to end this. Why not now?
“What?” he snapped into the phone as he drove. He’d never been so happy as to see Powder Crossing in his rearview mirror—and Victoria Forester with it.
“Did you hurt my daughter?” Wen said, his voice low and deadly.
“The drama queen? I wish. I just dropped her off on the main drag of Powder Crossing like she’d demanded. I never touched her. She’s your problem now because I quit.”
“Claude,” he said reasonably, “you know you can’t do that.”
“So sue me.”
“Oh, I will. I’ll drag your name through the dirt and leave you penniless.”
Claude began to laugh. “She’s just like you, a coldhearted bitch. I’ve had more than enough of both of you.”
He could hear Wen breathing hard, trying to control his temper. “I’m sensing that you’re angry.”
“You think?”
“What do you really want?”
“Not your daughter, I can tell you that much. You couldn’t pay me enough money to marry her.”
“Since that isn’t on the table, what is it you want?”
“You have nothing I want.” Except a ride back to Dallas in the company jet. He knew he should get off the phone. Wendell Forester was the devil, and he was after Claude’s soul. Right now, Wen was just fooling with him, trying to establish his price.
“Claude, I can make all your dreams come true. Isn’t that why you came to work for me in the beginning? I don’t want to lose you as my associate.”
Associate?What a laugh, he thought. “You despise me as much I despise you. I’m tired of being your flunky, Forester.”
“We can work with this,” Wen said reasonably. “I’m going to get the Stafford Ranch no matter what Ryder Stafford says. That should make you happy.”
Claude shook his head and pulled over to the side of the road. His hands were shaking, his heart thundering in his ears. He would like nothing better than for that cowboy to lose everything. But it wasn’t enough. What was his price? “I want Victoria to pay too,” he said. “Cut off her money.”
The connection went so quiet he thought his former boss had hung up. Everyone knew how Wen felt about his daughter. Claude feared that he’d asked too much.
Then he heard a sigh. “I’ll do it if you promise not to quit, because I need you. I have a job for you that I think you’ll enjoy. You’ll be working with CJ Stafford. He’s going to help me take the Stafford Ranch. I want you to do whatever he needs to make that happen.”
“And as soon as I’m done with this last job, I want you to fly me back to Dallas in the jet.”
“All right.”
“And Victoria?” he asked, not willing to give an inch.
“Just as you want. She’s now on her own.”
Once in the café, Victoria ordered pancakes and bacon. She couldn’t believe how hungry she was. In one day’s time, she’d gotten used to the ranch meals. She couldn’t bear the thought that for a moment she’d almost been one of the family and her father and Claude had snatched it away without a thought to what she might want.
She could feel the locals in the café watching her, wondering about her. She wondered about herself as well. Ryder thought she was like her father. She was... to some extent. But not in the way Ryder thought.
The rancher and this life had gotten under her skin. That was the only way she could explain it. She couldn’t leave. Not yet anyway. She couldn’t let her father take Ryder’s ranch. She’d seen how much he and Brand loved the place. Her father could never understand that kind of love. He hadalways been about the money. Only lately, he’d gotten so much worse.
The problem was stopping him. He’d never listened to her—not when she’d told him she wasn’t marrying one of his yes-men or when she’d tried to explain why she worked at a nonprofit. What made her think she could make him see reason now?
Earlier when she’d made Claude let her out on the street, she’d been so sure of what she had to do. Right now, though, she was beginning to realize that she had no plan and no power. Her father was determined that he knew what was best for her.
