Marie Ferrarella - Colton Undercover

“Because she doesn’t deserve to be treated so disrespectfully,” Mac informed his son. “Because if it wasn’t for her, neither one of us would be standing here right now!”

Thorne had no idea what his father was talking about. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“It’s nothing,” Leonor said quickly. She knew what Mac was going to say and she didn’t want him to. This was a private matter between the two of them, not something she’d done for any sort of credit or recognition.

But Mac wasn’t about to allow Leonor’s generosity to go unnoted any longer. Thorne needed to know just the sort of person his sister was.

“It’s not ‘nothing,’” Mac told her. “And it’s about time people knew how you came through.” He shifted his eyes toward his son. “When the bank was breathing down my neck a few years ago, threatening me with foreclosure because I’d had a run of bad luck and missed a few payments, Leonor used her own money to help bail me out. She paid off the bank.” There was gratitude in his eyes when he looked at her. “If she hadn’t done that, it would have gone up for sale.”

Completely stunned in the face of this information, Thorne could only stare at his father. “You never said anything.”

“Not the kind of thing a man likes to advertise,” Mac replied flatly. “It wasn’t my finest moment. But it definitely was Leonor’s,” he added, looking significantly at her.

Thorne blew out a breath, completely caught off guard. It was his turn to look contrite. “I didn’t know,” he said to his sister.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” Leonor said simply. “I didn’t do it because I wanted people to have something nice to say about me. I did it because your father needed help and this was my small way of paying him back for all the times he was there for all of us. For me,” she added with affection as she looked at the tall, strapping, dark-skinned rancher. “In a way, you’re the parent the rest of us never had,” she told Mac.

Mac smiled at her. “You made it easy.” And then he turned his attention toward his son. “You want to apologize to her?”

He made it sound like an option, but Thorne knew that it wasn’t. And, given what he’d just found out, his father was right. He did owe Leonor an apology. Not for being angry about the blog—she hadn’t denied being responsible for that—but for losing his temper with her like that. No matter how angry he was, she didn’t deserve to have him ranting at her like that, especially not after she’d helped his father the way she had.

Apologies weren’t exactly his specialty and this one was no exception. He went with something positive rather than dwelling on the negative. “Thanks for helping Dad out.”

“Like I said, it was the least I could do.” Leonor shrugged as if it had been no big deal—because, to her, it hadn’t been. The far bigger deal would have been to just ignore Mac’s plight and move on as if there was nothing wrong. “And I did have the money.”

“But you didn’t have to use it,” Mac pointed out.

He wasn’t a man who took anything for granted. Life was hard and he knew that better than a lot of people. He had no really high expectations, but when the occasional pleasant surprise came his way, he was grateful to be able to experience it.

Leonor looked at the rancher. To her way of thinking, there had never been a choice. It was a matter of doing the right thing, or not being able to live with her conscience if she had chosen to close her eyes and just walk away.

“Yes, I did,” she told him quietly.

“Okay,” Thorne conceded. “I take back everything I just said to you,” he told Leonor. “You didn’t sell us out. But what are we going to do about this character who sold the info to the blog?”

“You ignore him,” Mac said, addressing his words to both of them, just in case his son was getting Leonor all fired up about the man again. He wanted her to let go of her anger over this—permanently.

Thorne was not keen on his father’s input.

“That doesn’t seem right after what they wrote,” Thorne protested.

Mac shook his head. His son was missing the point here. “You go after him in any way, even if it’s just to carry on an online war, and all you’ve done is succeeded in getting more people to pay attention to this jackass’s blog. If you want a story to die, the way you kill it is ignore it until it eventually runs out of fuel and burns itself out.”

“What if it doesn’t burn itself out?” Thorne challenged.

Mac was unwavering in his response. “It will. All things die eventually. Yesterday’s news is just that, yesterday’s news. Unless, like a scab, you keep scratching at it and making it bleed. Then somebody pays attention to it.”

Leonor shivered. “A bleeding scab. Not exactly the most appealing image,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Mac agreed. “But that doesn’t make it any less accurate.” And then he took a deep breath, his barrel chest expanding impressively. He considered this topic to be over. “I just bought two new stallions and they were delivered this morning.” He looked from Leonor to his son. “You two up for a trip to the stable to meet the new arrivals?”

She’d always loved horses. It was the best part of her childhood. She couldn’t think of anything she would have liked better than to see the stallions that Mac had purchased.

“Count me in,” she told Mac.

Thorne paused. The fire had settled down in his veins. “Yeah, me, too,” Thorne said.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Mac wanted to know. He crossed to the front door, beckoning them to follow him. “Let’s go!”

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.