Page 18 of Things Left Unsaid

Biting my lip, I flick another glance at the contract and all the myriad concessions we earn if the Seven Cs and the Bar 9 merge… What they gain and what we retain.

I try not to think about Clyde Korhonen’s stipulation that an heir be born of the marriage.

Once upon a time, I wanted nothing more than to be Colt’s.

To be his wife and the mother of his children.

How bittersweet life can be.

This contract presents me with everything my teenage self dreamed of having.

But here, now, the prospect of it all has my lungs feeling like they’re being compressed. My mouth is drier than the Canadian tundra. Never mind my racing heart.

I’m either going to faint or?—

“I want an expiration date.”

She jolts as those words explode out of me. “There’s no expiration date on a union such as this. We’re talking about the Bar 9!”

Good God, she won’t even concede that!

“If we have a child,” I whisper, feeling sick to my stomach despite knowing I have to do this, “then what does it matter? Everything goes to them in the end, no?”

Her gaze locks on mine and I can see her sag with relief. For all that she presented a stalwart facade, for all that she’d have argued and fought with me until the first spring showers next year, she didn’t think I’d do it.

I don’t know whether that makes me insane or not.

What Idoknow?

She’d die if I took her away from the ranch, and the bank manager’s note tells me the creditors are inches from hounding us off Bar 9 land.

She’s too old to be sheltering this kind of burden, even if she’d never admit it.

God help me but it’s my turn to step up.

I’m her oldest surviving grandchild—who else is there to do it?

“A child of your union would inherit it all,” she confirms.

“Do you think Colton would sign to agree to that?”

I don’t know why I need to lock this into place but I do.

I’m acting on instincts that are centuries old, as old as those of the original McAllisters who made their way out west and staked a claim on a patch of land that they turned into the Bar 9.

“Ensuring the Korhonen legacy is the only thing that matters to him, and they’re closer than they want to admit to the end because their numbers aren’t sustainable. But the McAllister legacy is what matters most to us too. Ensuring his ensures ours.”

“My child will inherit both ranches, then.”

“Yes.”

Having received the verbal confirmation I need, I nod. “I want it in writing,Grand-mère.”

“I have it.”

On shaky legs, she walks to the table holding the coffee tray so she can pass me another slip of paper, proof that this deal has been in the works for longer than I want to know.

But it isn’t a piece of Korhonen paperwork she shows me.

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