Rodeo Baby. Mary Sullivan
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the company. Tiffany got it as part of the divorce settlement. She bought me out. To be accurate, her father bought me out. Since he’d bankrolled the company for Tiff and me at the start and owned a controlling share, it was easy for him to pull the rug out from under me.”
The betrayal had come on so many levels. “Those two. That snake.” Aching with all he had to say, he nonetheless held back with Chelsea nearby. After all, Tiffany’s father was her grandfather.
Sam leaned against the wall. “I’m free for the next month.” He knew he sounded bitter. Divorce and losing his livelihood, even if he had come out ahead with millions in the bank, had never been part of his life’s plan. He told his grandfather about the new venture starting in a month.
“You sound excited.”
“I am, Gramps. I don’t like to be idle.” In fact, without the formation of the new firm, Sam didn’t know what he would do with his life. He’d never, not once, felt so rudderless.
Even these months off since the company had been given over to Tiffany had been hell.
He felt better when he had purpose and activity driving his days. As well, there were those thoughts ringing through him, every day, about success and revenge.
Oh, yeah, he’d like to show Tiffany and her father how successful he could be without them. And he would. Be successful, that was.
He had a talent for business. Not so with this cowboy stuff. What had he been thinking?
“Always felt the same way myself,” Gramps said. “Didn’t want to be idle for a single second of the day.” They visited for an hour while Sam itched to get to the ranch, to find out how hard his job was going to be and whether he was truly up to the task.
On the way out, he stopped at the nurse’s desk and asked about Gramps’s doctor. He wouldn’t be in until Monday. Sam would have to wait for answers.
As soon as they left the building, Chelsea voiced what she’d obviously been thinking inside.
“Dad, I’m worried.”
“About Gramps? Me, too. He’s not himself.”
They got into the SUV and drove away.
“Dad...”
Sam glanced away from the road for a second. Chelsea chewed on her bottom lip.
“What is it, possum? Something worrying you? Spit it out.”
“You’ve been strange lately. Is it because of the divorce?”
“Strange how?”
He sensed her shrugging beside him. “I don’t know. More hard. Tougher. You were an easygoing guy and so much fun. I loved that about you. But now you don’t seem to like people anymore. You don’t trust anyone.”
“Yeah. True. That’s because of the divorce.” Sam hesitated to criticize Tiffany to her daughter. “I’m not comfortable talking to you about your mother behind her back, but her...”
“Her affair, Dad. I know what she did. She shouldn’t have slept with that guy.”
Sam hated that Chelsea knew about that kind of thing. “Her betrayal was profound,” he admitted. “It’s going to take a long time for me to trust like I used to.”
The farther they drove away from Gramps and the closer they got to the ranch, the more Chelsea slumped in her seat. She crossed her arms and settled into the sulk she’d been in for the drive out.
Gone were the smiles for Gramps and the old woman with her cute dog.
“I don’t want to stay with people we don’t know. I wish Gramps wasn’t in an old-folks’ home so we could stay with him.”
“You and me both, Chelsea.” He thought of the two-story house that sat on Gramps’s land. Tonight, they could have been sleeping in the very house his dad had grown up in if the townsfolk hadn’t talked Gramps out of his land.
* * *
ONCE THE LUNCH crowd finally left and she knew she had a couple of hours before launching dinner service, Violet packaged up a container of rice pudding for her friend Rachel and Rachel’s daughter, Tori. They both loved it. She added a jar of parsnip soup for Travis.
At the last minute, she remembered the coconut-cream pie Rachel had bargained for.
Why was the new man in town pretending to be a cowboy? Did he think people in Rodeo were so stupid they wouldn’t notice? Who was he? Why was he here?
Since he’d left her diner, questions hadn’t stopped swirling through Vy’s brain.
Rodeo had taken her in with open arms fourteen years ago as a grieving sixteen-year-old and she’d spent her years here giving back ever since.
This close to resurrecting the fair and rodeo that would bring much-needed tourism dollars to the town, they couldn’t take a chance on anything going wrong.
What could that project possibly have to do with the new stranger in town, Vy?
She had no idea.
She phoned Rachel. “Is he there yet?”
“Not yet, Vy.”
“Why not, I wonder? Why didn’t he go straight to the ranch? If he isn’t there, where is he?”
“Why are you so worried about him?”
Vy bit her bottom lip. “Maybe I’m seeing shadows where there aren’t any, but what if he tries to screw up the fair and rodeo somehow?”
“Vy, that’s a huge leap. Why would this guy have anything to do with our fair?”
“He has money. I’m sure of it. Maybe he wants to steal our ideas and put on his own show.”
“That’s crazy talk. You’re overreacting. What’s gotten into you? You usually have more common sense than this.”
“I just... God, Rachel, I don’t know.” She sighed, battered by intuition not based in fact and clueless about her worry. She tried to shrug it off. Strangers came through all the time, for Pete’s sake. “I’m coming over for a visit, anyway. I’ve got food.”
Rachel laughed. “Yum. Good. I’m exhausted. Beth was up nursing every two hours last night. Must be a growth spurt.”
“Plenty of tasty calories on the way to replace what that little cutie is using up.”
Vy loaded the food into her car and drove out of town.
She slowed down when she realized the SUV she followed on the small rural highway possibly belonged to the stranger. Okay, so she hadn’t been above watching him leave the diner to check out his vehicle. Good thing. She didn’t want to walk in at the same time.
She pulled onto the shoulder to sit and allow Sam and his daughter to get inside the house.
Travis Read had bought the Victorian on the two-lane highway when he’d moved to town back in October or November.
In the past, he’d been determined to remain single and not be tied down. But he’d quickly fallen for Rodeo’s own effervescent, lovely Rachel—even though she’d already had a three-year-old and had been more than seven months pregnant with her second.
In the end, he’d taken on a ready-made family, a house and a new ranch.
Vy glanced across the road toward the ratty trailer from which he’d rescued Rachel. Dark and lonesome against the cloudy sky, it stood like a festering wound.
Trailers left Vy feeling antsy and slightly nauseated. She hated them. Hated what they represented to her.
Despite her envy, she was damned glad Rachel and her children had a real home now.
Vy didn’t need a husband and children. Men were a complication