Page 70 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

“Which is your right,” I said.

“William.” She sounded irritated now. “You’re a nice guy. A good man. Smart. Successful. Wealthy. Any woman in her right mind would want to be with you. Dad is a monster. You’re not.”

I’d never considered myself a monster, but part of that was because I’d never put myself in the position to discover if I was one. And I wasn’t willing to experiment with someone else’s emotions to figure it out.

Our parents weren’t an ideal example of a happy couple. In fact, I’m not sure they’d ever been happy together. My mother had joined the relationship for the money, and my father had married her because she was from a good family and was willing and able to sire an heir.

Did they work well together? Sometimes.

Had there ever been love between them?

Maybe, at some point, but certainly not for the past twenty years.

How could there be when my father always had a mistress on the side and didn’t care what my mother did with her life outside of their social obligations?

As a child, I’d thought my dad was the only monster in the relationship. I’d once found my mother pleading for him to pay more attention to her because she missed him. When he’d told her that she could leave, but if she did, she wouldn’t get anything, she’d decided that her lifestyle was more important than her happiness.

I’d been raised by selfish, entitled people, and I’d always wondered if the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

I found myself squeezing my phone harder than I needed to. This topic had been under my skin for days, and I still couldn’t rid myself of it. “Courtney, I have to go.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Please call if you need help with anything for Harris Inc.”

“Fine, but you have to promise me that if you do something you think is like Dad that you’ll call me, so I can show you that you’re wrong.”

“You know I won’t,” I said.

“Then I’ll track you down.”

She didn’t really have time to do that, but if she put her mind to it, I had no doubt that she could. “Goodbye, Courtney. Have a good week.”

“You’re nothing like Dad.”

I hung up on her.

Frank, who was standing nearby waiting for me to start up the four-wheeler, cocked his head to the side.

“What?” I asked.

He licked his chops and then turned toward the nearby field.

“Right, we’d better get going.” I revved the engine to life and was surprised that the feel of the machine beneath me was now familiar and comfortable. I’d been here less than a week, and I already wanted to stay.

But would it be the same without Brooke?

I banished that thought from my mind and headed toward the barn.

Brooke and I had used the horses for the first time the day before. She claimed it was faster to get around the ranch on the four-wheelers but that the horses needed exercise.

None of her animals compared to my Bert, but Betsy and I had come to an easy arrangement. She would do anything I asked as long as I brought her treats and slipped her extra oats. I’d borrowed an apple from the hotel.

Brooke’s four-wheeler was already outside the barn when I arrived. Frank had run behind me, enjoying the morning air and terrorizing the sheep along the fence. The other two dogs were at the far end of the property with Christopher and Brandon, and Patrick was in town to get a few things, so Frank and I were alone with Brooke today.

Frank walked right into the barn and went for the water trough where Betsy and another brown and black quarter horse named Jake were drinking. Both horses flicked their ears at Frank, but he’d easily won them over during his first visit to the barn.

Brooke already had the horses saddled and was leaning one shoulder against a post looking at something on her phone.

---