Christine Rimmer - The Man Who Had Everything

“It’s good,” he said, as he dug in.

She was filling her own plate from the plastic containers. “Oh, yeah.” She tasted the potato salad. “Mmm. My mom. She sure can cook.”

He waved the drumstick at her. “You mean you didn’t fry this chicken yourself?”

She laughed, glad that he seemed to be relaxing a little. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to you.” She knew how to cook. Marie had insisted on teaching her the basics, at least. But she was always much too impatient to hang around the kitchen. She wanted to be out the door and on the back of a horse. So her biscuits ended up gooey in the center and half the time her chicken got charred. “I know my limitations. I’m a rancher, not a ranch wife.”

He set the chicken leg back on his plate. Suddenly he seemed kind of thoughtful. “You’re happy, huh? Working cattle? Up before dawn to get the chores done, freezing your butt off all winter, dripping sweat while you fix fences and burn out ditches in the blazing summer sun?”

She tipped her head to the side and studied his face. “What kind of question is that? You know me. Does a dog have fleas? Do bats fly?”

He frowned. But when he spoke, his voice sounded offhand. “Just making sure you remember there are other options for you.”

“Too bad there’s nothing else I want to do.”

“But there are other things you could do. As I recall, you got As and Bs in high school.”

“I’ll have you know I got straight As.”

“I’m impressed.” “I did my best in school. That doesn’t mean I enjoyed being there.” She wouldn’t have gone past the eighth grade if her mom and Grant hadn’t insisted she get her diploma. And she still believed she could have held on to the Triple J, if only she’d been able to work full-time, instead of spending five days out of seven at Thunder Canyon High.

He advised in a weary tone, “You scrunch up your face like that, it might get stuck.”

“Hah,” she said. “You sound like Mom.”

He chuckled. “Just don’t be bitter. Believe me, it was the best thing. You’d have regretted not finishing high school.”

“No. I wouldn’t have. But it’s okay—and I’m not bitter.” She wrinkled her nose at him again. “Well, not much, anyway…”

He ate half of his flaky, perfect dinner roll. She chomped a carrot stick and got to work on a tender, crispy-skinned thigh. Eventually he said, “What I was trying to tell you is that I’m doin’ pretty well now. I could help you out, if you decided you might want to give college a try…”

Emotion tightened her throat. Not because she felt she’d missed out on college, not because she wanted it. She didn’t. Not in the least.

It was just that he was always so good to her, so generous. “Oh, Grant. Thank you. But no. I’m pretty much a self-starter. If I need to know something, I find a way to learn it. I never had a yen for any formal higher education. All I’ve ever wanted was a chance to do exactly what I’m doing now.” “I see.” His voice was flat. He set his plate down beside him, only half-finished.

Distress made a leaden sensation in her stomach. “Okay. I don’t get it. What did I say?”

He stared at her for a long, strange moment. And then he shrugged and picked up his plate again. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“But you—”

“No buts, Steph. I am positive to the millionth degree.” He grinned as he said it.

She grunted. “Oh, very funny.”

The Christmas she was seven, five years before their dads were killed, her mom had tried to talk her into asking Santa for one of those fancy American Girl dolls, the kind that came with a whole perfect miniature wardrobe—and a doll-size trunk to put all those fine clothes in.

Steph had sworn that a doll was the last thing she needed. She wanted a pony more than anything. She knew she was old enough for a horse of her own.

Grant, a high-school senior that year, had been over at the house, for some reason long lost to her now. She’d been following her mom around the kitchen, arguing endlessly, “I mean it, Mama. Don’t you get me any doll. I don’t want a doll and if you get me one I’ll rip its head off. I need my own horse. I got work to do. Just ask Daddy. He’ll tell you I’m his best helper and his best helper needs a horse.”

Grant had stuck his head in from the living room to tease, “Oh, come on, Steffie, you know you want a pretty little doll.”

She still remembered whipping around to glare at him, shaking a finger as she lectured him, “Do not call me Steffie. And I don’t want any doll.”

“You sure?”

“I am positive, Grant Clifton,” she’d smartly informed him. “Positive to the millionth degree.”

Now, he lifted his drumstick to her in a salute. “You were one feisty kid.”

She faked a groan. “Oh, please. Feisty? Not me. I was a practical kid. And I got my first horse that Christmas, if you recall.”

Malomar, her sweet-natured bay mare, had ended up sold at auction with the rest of the Triple J stock. It was one of her saddest memories: her mare being led into that horse trailer, the trailer kicking up dust as it rolled away.

That memory, somehow, was almost as bad as seeing her dad’s lifeless body with that big red hole in the side of his head on the day that he died. The death of a parent was an enormous and terrible thing—too terrible in some ways for a young mind to comprehend. But the end of her life as she’d known and loved it?

That had been horrible, too. And by then, three years after her dad died, she’d been old enough to understand what was happening when she watched Malomar being taken away.

But she wasn’t dwelling on any sad memories today. Uh-uh. She had the man she loved sitting right beside her, and he was finally seeing her as a woman grown. She fully intended to enjoy every minute of this afternoon.

They ate in silence for a little while, finishing off their drumsticks and potato salad, sipping their lemonade.

Finally Grant said, “I remember that you got your horse that Christmas, just like you wanted—and promptly fell off her and broke your collarbone.”

She confessed, “It’s true. I was never what you’d call a cautious kid.”

“Uh-uh. You were brave and bold and nobody ever told you what to do.” Those sky-blue eyes of his gleamed at her. She saw admiration in them.

For the fearless kid she’d once been? Or the woman she was now?

Or maybe…both? Her heart skipped a beat at the thought.

And then he was frowning again. “Look. Steph. There’s something I really have to—”

“Oh, don’t,” she cried before he could finish.

Now he seemed puzzled. “Don’t?”

“That’s right. Don’t. I know just what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it, okay?”

He actually gulped. “Er, you know? ”

She set her plate aside and wiped her hands on a paper towel. “Of course, I know. How could I not? Something like this, a woman always knows. I admit, you had me wondering at first. But I got the message eventually. Really, it’s all just so…perfectly obvious.”

“Obvious.” He gaped at her.

“Yes.”

He set his own plate down. And he knocked back the rest of his lemonade, crushing the paper cup in his big fist when he finished. And he swore under his breath. “Steph.”

“Yeah?”

“What, exactly, are you talking about?”

Should she say it right out? Probably not. Her mom always used to tell her that men didn’t like it when a woman got too direct, when a woman dared to take the lead in an obvious way.

But her mom was from a different generation, after all. From a time when women were expected to wait around for men to make the first move.