Dara Girard - Engaging Brooke

Gwendolyn shook her head, casting a quick glance at Jameson as if she expected him to say something. He remained silent. “Why didn’t he just come to us? We would have bought it from him.”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day one of us would sell land instead of buy it,” Grandpa Charles said, for a moment looking older than his eighty-four years. His blue eyes tired, he also sent Jameson a look as if hoping he could add something, but Jameson looked away. Charles had grown up on the land that his father, Silas Broward, had claimed as a homestead in the 1930s. While the Depression’s strong grip decimated lives in the big cities, Silas had built up the ranch one horse at a time, raising four sons with his wife, Olivia. Charles and his brother, Stanley, grew the Broward Ranch into a highly successful cattle breeding operation. Stanley also raised four sons who had prospered and owned ranches in another part of Montana.

Jameson felt that ranching wasn’t just a family tradition. It was a calling. He knew that both his father and grandfather wanted him to speak at this gathering, but he had nothing to say. Nothing that could be said to his family. He was seething but kept his face a neutral mask. His brother had a right to do what he wanted with his land. Because it wasn’t part of the BWB Ranch, it wouldn’t affect their bottom line, but it was the recklessness that bothered him. And the fact that Wes always did exactly what he wanted as long as it made him happy. It didn’t bother Wes that outsiders were sweeping into Granger like vultures to taint the pristine land with their foolhardy dreams of ranch or farm work, most of which they had seen romanticized on TV and in the movies. He looked at his younger sister, Laney, who was unusually quiet.

“Is there any way to talk to this woman?” Gwendolyn asked.

Steven sighed. “Damn it, I told you he did it too quickly for us to do anything.”

“Change is on its way,” Grandpa Charles said. “But sometimes it worries me. This ranch was built up one horse at a time, but others see a quick buck and don’t care about the people or this place. They don’t care that there are people who depend on us. Granger has been a major employer for cowboys and ranch hands who want to work the land.”

“Dad, things will work out,” Steven said to his father. He quickly looked at Jameson as if he wanted him to speak up. Jameson folded his arms instead. “Besides, it was Wes’s land. It was not officially a part of our family heritage. So, he had the right and freedom to sell it to whomever he wanted and for whatever amount he wanted. I just wish he had given us a chance.”

Excuses. All Jameson heard his father say were excuses. Excuses for Wes. Excuses to explain away how his younger son’s actions had hurt them.

“Jameson,” Steven finally said, clearly the only one brave enough to involve him in the conversation. They all had been sending glances to him, as if he were a volcano they expected to erupt. But he was too controlled for that. Yes, he was furious. He was enraged by a feeling of helplessness he couldn’t contain, but exposing how he felt wouldn’t be something he’d let them see again. They’d seen it once before, more than ten years ago when a woman had ripped his heart apart.

At twenty-two, Meredith Palmer, the woman he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with, had ended their relationship. She’d been his first love. She was his high school sweetheart and after they’d graduated, they’d maintained a long-distance romance while he’d studied agribusiness at Montana State University in Bozeman and she’d attended a college back East. He’d imagined them growing old together and making his family’s business even more successful than his father had. But with one phone call a few weeks before his graduation from college, she’d dashed his hopes.

“I’ve met someone else,” she’d said over the phone, as if she was reciting a weather report. Her words had been cool, practiced. What she had to say was stated without a single sign of emotion, while every word pierced his heart.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t marry you.”

Jameson thought of all the people who expected them to get married. Damn, he’d expected it. He’d had his whole life planned and at that moment it was coming apart at the seams. He knew he couldn’t win her back, and frankly, he didn’t want to. Years before he’d even looked at another woman.

He’d thought Priscilla Clark would make a perfect rancher’s wife. But he soon learned he’d been wrong. He should have known it wouldn’t work from the beginning. For one, she’d kept calling him “James,” which he hated. But he’d forgiven her all her faults, primarily because she was very pretty, beautiful in fact, and stroked his ego. He’d introduced her to his family and he didn’t care that the reception had been cool. His parents had been enthusiastic about Meredith and he’d seen how that had turned out. He’d gotten some subtle warnings from his Grandpa Charles, who’d said, “Be careful. A hungry man can find anything appetizing.” His father had been more to the point: “Any woman who can’t get your name right is after something else.” But, at that time, he didn’t care because Priscilla listened to him, unlike Meredith. She didn’t say anything disparaging about ranching and she told him how wonderful he was, which was all he needed to hear. Then one day he had traveled to Smithville, one of Granger’s neighboring towns, and overheard Priscilla talking to a friend in the grocery store.

“Oh, my God!” Priscilla said in a stage whisper. “You should see his parents’ place.”

“Well, I heard the Browards are loaded,” her friend said.

“Loaded is too humble a term. When I marry James I’m going to be rolling in money.”

“He’s asked you to marry him?”

“He hasn’t yet. But he will and I’m going to get him to build me a house as big as his parents’. No, even bigger. I have really hit the jackpot with this one. I usually don’t like going after men that other women have dumped, but this is one leftover I’m ready to reheat. I won’t have to use my degree because I’m going to be well taken care of. Mom was right when she told me to set my eyes on him. Men wallowing in heartbreak are so easy to use. And I’ll make him grateful to have me. I know his brother, Wes, would be a lot more fun, but he’s not ready to settle down like James.”

That’s when he’d finally realized that she only saw dollar signs when she looked at him. He’d never be seen as someone’s leftovers. He never told Priscilla why he broke it off, and the devastation on her face had almost made him smile. At that moment he vowed that women weren’t for him. Since then, he’d thought he could always trust his land and his family at least, but now Wes had taught him that he couldn’t even trust that.

“Jameson,” Steven repeated. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“No.”

“Did you know what Wes was up to?”

Jameson lowered his gaze and brushed imaginary lint from his sleeve. “I never know what he’s up to.”

Without his input the conversation floundered, as he hoped it would. He felt as if a fire was burning inside him, and talking about what Wes had done only added gasoline. Jameson needed to get away, to think of what his next step should be. The town was under threat and it would take a cool head to strategize how to handle the situation.

He lifted his gaze and sounded bored. “Are we done?”

His father nodded. Jameson stood and went out back. He needed to be outdoors. He stood in the doorway that led to the backyard and smelled the May morning air. How could someone love anything less than all this? Jameson looked out on the acres of land in front of him. The land stretched on for miles and miles and looked like a landscape painting. He loved the emerald-green grass against the backdrop of the rugged mountain range in the distance, dotted with the earthy, smooth, brown bodies of his cattle. Low-hanging trees provided a framework through which to see the land; to him it was more than beautiful. It was his life. He was determined. He wouldn’t let his grandfather or father down. He’d maintain BWB. He couldn’t—no, wouldn’t—let their heritage end with him.