Page 19 of Christmas with the Cowboy
Trenna pushed her hair back with her forearm.
Where had her teen rebellion been hiding when she needed it?
It had been stifled by hero worship.
She’d headed off to college not long after the breakup, repeatedly telling herself that she’d done the right thing. Of course she had. Then she’d gotten word that Reed had married. Cue emotional tailspin.
Despite everything, a small hopeful part of her had always believed that once she graduated, Reed would be there for her. They’d both have some life lessons under their belts and would be ready to reengage as adults, with the tools necessary for a successful relationship.
So much for fantasies.
Reed was using his tools to raise his daughter, and Trenna suspected that he had yet to forgive her. He might say that their breakup had happened a long time ago, that they were now different people, but she had a feeling that, like her, he wasn’t yet over it.
She blew out a breath and went to the sink to wash the paintbrush. She had a lot of evenings during which she could paint between now and the time she was due on campus, and there were ways she could better spend this time—like say by paying a visit to her dad and finding out exactly what he was doing at the river. She’d let Reed fight his own battles, but there was nothing saying she couldn’t be privy to what those battles were. And she wanted to make sure that her dad was clear with Jay about offsite confrontations—as in, there would be none. Reed could fight his battles, but she could see to it that there weren’t as many—especially if Jay happened to be a guy who nursed a grudge. He had that look about him.
She shrugged out of her painting shirt and collected the framed deed from where she’d left it on the kitchen table.
She’d do it for old times’ sake.
Yeah. That was it.
Old times.
*
Trenna had driventhrough the stone and log entryway to their ranch so often that the structure was almost invisible to her, but as she passed through today, she considered how ostentatious it was. The stonework was sublime, and the logs that formed the archway were varnished every year by whatever ranch hand found himself at loose ends when Carter realized that the winter weather had taken some of the shine off the wood. Carter liked everything just so.
Trenna got it. Her dad had humble beginnings and he liked status symbols. Heaven knew he and his dad, Porter Hunt, had worked hard enough for them, but the difference between the two men was that Carter needed to be seen as a leader among men, a winner, while his father had been content working his way from life in a tramp miner’s shanty shack to being a successful ranch owner.
Porter had grown up during the Second World War, logged, mined, did construction, and finally, in the 1970s, had scraped together enough capital to buy a bankrupt hunting lodge and the surrounding land on which he started the Hunt Ranch.
The lodge itself was a beautiful log edifice that had become a money pit after years of neglect, and other than being used for storage and children’s games of hide-and-seek, it had remained empty until her dad reclaimed it after Porter’s death. Carter and Davis had been raised in a used double-wide trailer that her grandfather refused to upgrade, even after the ranch began making a healthy profit, and that, Trenna surmised, had ultimately led to ostentatious gates. Carter Hunt was no longer a guy who lived in a double-wide with loose siding.
Less than a year after she and her dad had moved in with her grandmother, Carter had the lodge renovated and the double-wide sold for scrap. She could still remember the satisfied expression on his face as he stood on the porch of the lodge and watched the reminder of his frugal childhood disappear into a cloud of road dust.
Trenna let out a sigh.
She had nothing against money. It had certainly made her life easier, until she hadn’t had as much. That was when she began to understand the power of her father’s favorite bargaining chip. But after they’d had their blowup, she’d never allowed him to buy her back. When they got together, it was on her terms, which flummoxed the hell out of Carter. She was certain he’d expected her to cave as her student loans piled up, but pride, and a gnawing bitterness at what she’d allowed him to maneuver her into regarding Reed, kept her strong.
Now when they were together, she and her father engaged in safe, superficial discussions, tippy-toed around issues that they disagreed on. She was still a touch surprised that he continued to play nice, but apparently, the fact that she hadn’t come crawling back, begging him to reopen the family coffers, had left an impression.
Well, today she was going to push the boundaries of their unspoken truce, because she couldn’t stand by and watch him mess with the Kellers without saying something.
After the entryway came the mile or so of custom jackleg fence. At least her father didn’t make the ranch hands varnish it, too. And then came the pastures and fields and the timber behind the lodge.
It was a beautiful property, one Trenna appreciated more now that she’d lived in other parts of the country. A property her father intended to expand onto Keller land by some nefarious method. It would be a legal method, but from what Reed had indicated, not a neighborly maneuver. But that was her dad. Every man for himself, and if Carter found a loophole, or a crack that allowed him to take advantage of someone in a business or financial sense, he was all over it. Survival of the fittest and all that.
Dawn met Trenna on the front porch, a long expanse of polished wood with handmade Adirondack chairs looking out over the pastures. She pushed her short red hair behind her ears and beamed at Trenna, who smiled back. Dawn had that certain something, which allowed her to look put together even when wearing denim capris, white Keds, and a madras blouse. The Grace Kelly effect.
“What a surprise,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased. She was fifteen years older than Trenna, a former East Coast debutant, but she was also wonderfully down to earth and, unlike everyone else on the planet, had a knack for managing Carter Hunt. To a degree, anyway.
“I brought the deed.” Trenna lifted the framed document, and Dawn gave a gasp of pleasure.
“It’s beautiful.”
Trenna returned her stepmother’s spontaneous hug, wondering how her dad had managed to snag such a woman. And how that woman managed to put up with Carter Hunt’s brusque personality. Not that he was brusque with Dawn. She seemed to bring out a softness in him that no one else, including his daughter, did.
To be fair, though, her father had been different with her, too, before she asserted her independence.
