Joanne Rock - The Rebel

It didn’t help matters that her intuition told her he was gesturing to a female companion. Not that it mattered now.

“Either we want a real marriage or we don’t.” Lily articulated the argument she’d been having with herself—quietly—for months. “After this conversation I feel certain that you’re not any more ready for that step than I am.”

In the background, she heard a woman’s tinkling laughter. Eliot glanced up in the direction of the sound—aggravated—before refocusing on Lily.

“Lily, please—”

“Rest assured, I’ll return the ring next week. And I’d like to wait until then to break the news to our families.” She wouldn’t keep a priceless family heirloom. Especially from a man whose interest in her seemed more mercenary by the moment.

“They’re not going to be happy with this decision,” Eliot warned her. “Not your family or mine.”

“Which is why I’m going to wait to discuss it with my grandparents until I’m back home next week.” Swallowing hard, she didn’t want to think about that talk yet. “Thank you for understanding.”

“I’m not sure I do.” His eyes went back to whomever he was with. “I’ve got to go, though, Lily. We can talk about this later.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she assured him, grateful to have the conversation over. “Goodbye, Eliot.”

She felt no guilt about punching the disconnect button. If he was actually with a woman, Lily was a little surprised he’d taken the call at all. But she was relieved, more than anything, to have ended things with him.

As Lily felt the weight of the engagement fall away, a new burden settled on her shoulders. Eliot was right that her grandparents were going to be upset with her. Disappointing them was something she’d avoided her whole life, and she knew without question that they would disapprove of the broken engagement. Furthermore, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her, they definitely wouldn’t be happy about how this might endanger the merger of the family businesses.

As she shut off her phone for the night, she began unpacking her suitcase. Maybe staying in Montana a little longer wasn’t such a bad idea. Just until she figured out how to handle things on the home front.

It wasn’t that she was hiding from them. Just…weighing her options for the future. Besides, she had a job to do at Mesa Falls Ranch. If things really fell apart with her family and the worst happened—if they disowned and disinherited her the way they did her mother—then Lily would need her job more than ever to pay her bills and secure her future. So right now, keeping Salazar Media intact seemed like the best use of her time.

Even if it meant facing Marcus again.

Enjoying the access to the stables at Mesa Falls Ranch, Marcus found himself on horseback for the third time in as many days. He’d attended a private boarding school where his father had taught, and horses had been an integral part of the program. Incoming freshmen bonded over a three-day trail ride, and the students’ relationship with the school’s animals grew from there. Every day at the Dowdon School, there’d been riding.

So he was comfortable enough on the Appaloosa as he filmed video footage of a team stringing a portable electric fence on a new patch of pasture for the ranch’s cattle. Besides, this excursion took him away from the main lodge, where he’d be sure to run into Lily. To hedge his bets, he’d left at dawn again, shadowing the ranch manager all day.

Coop had explained that moving the animals more frequently, to smaller patches of grass, was a key element in the green ranching model. In the years that Mesa Falls had been adhering to the practices, they’d seen a strong increase in the health of the grasslands and the wetlands. This model involved changing the grazing areas and, of course, stringing fence a whole lot more often. Marcus was filming whatever parts of the process interested him.

When his cell phone vibrated, he shut off the camera and grabbed for it fast, seeing it was a call from his brother. He’d left messages for Devon an hour ago, following up on a long email he’d sent the day before about the paperwork their father had left for them.

“Any idea what the hell kind of papers Dad would have left with a Montana ranch owner instead of giving to his lawyer?” Marcus asked, not even bothering to say hello first.

“I wish you’d come straight to the point for a change,” his brother deadpanned. “But no. I don’t have a clue. And it seems strange—even for Dad—to keep the whole thing a secret.”

“He was so careful laying out all his wishes for divvying up the property and his assets.”

Devon gave a sarcastic laugh. “He had to be, since he knows you and I don’t spend more than five minutes in a room together unless a client is involved.”

In the background of the call, there were shouts and horns honking, completely out of sync with the yellowed field surrounding Marcus, where the only sounds he heard were dry grasses rustling in the cold air and the creak of saddle leather.

“Maybe the papers pertain to his mystery business,” Marcus mused. “And we’ll finally learn something about his unidentified sources of revenue.”

Although Alonzo Salazar had taught English literature at the high school level, he’d always had a lifestyle that suggested he had a sideline, even long before he collected a paycheck with his sons’ company.

“If the will didn’t reveal anything, there’s no way some musty papers in Montana are going to contain any surprises. It’s something more sentimental. A letter to his grandkids or something.”

The idea punched him in the gut, since Marcus had zero intentions of marrying, let alone fathering children. He’d seen firsthand how fast a family could disintegrate.

“No matter.” Despite his father’s failings, Marcus hated to think he’d died disappointed. But Devon was the last person he’d share his regrets with. “At least this explains why he made us promise to come to the ranch together. Clearly it’s something he wants us both to learn at the same time.”

“I’m working on getting there, believe me,” Devon muttered. “In the meantime, can you lay off Lily? She does a hell of a job for the company, and she’s got enough on her plate without you making her feel unwelcome.”

Marcus wondered how tough the life of a pampered Newport heiress could be, but he didn’t voice that thought.

“I’m giving her a wide berth. I can’t promise I’ll do more than that.” He was doing her a favor by staying away, remembering how he’d gotten under her skin the day before. He genuinely hadn’t set out to make judgments about her or her life when they’d gotten into the discussion at the river’s edge. But he’d seen in her eyes when he’d struck a nerve.

All the more reason for him to let her be.

“While you’re at it, you could stop accusing her of spying for me. If I wanted some kind of secret updates on you, I think I’d send someone who doesn’t…stand out as much as Lily.”

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