Page 4 of Want You Back

“Make him proud,” I whispered, throat too thick to think about another bite. I shoved my basket away. My father was impossible to please, but my mom had been proud of my grades, hanging my report cards on the fridge.

“Yeah.” Colt’s voice had taken on a husky edge too. “You wanna play some more of the game?”

“Reckon we could.” I couldn’t say as I’d had a real friend before. Oh, I’d played with kids whose folks feared my parents or owed them a favor. Been invited to birthday parties because it was expected, not because I was wanted. Colt made me feel wanted, like he had nothing better to do than to kill his afternoon playing arcade games with me. I sure as heck wasn’t going to turn him down.

Chapter3

Maverick

Now

“You can’t sell.”My father’s lawyer was a dour-faced ancient man who was unmoved by my question of how fast we could get the ball rolling on a sale. Mr. Ernest, who had not offered a first name, sat across from my older sister and me at the large wooden table in the ranch house’s formal dining room, wrinkled hands folded on a stack of crisp white papers bound with shiny metal clips.

“Why not?” I’d arrived late, already out of sorts from my encounter with Colt Jennings, and I was in no mood to be thwarted from my mission to rid myself of this unwanted responsibility as fast as possible. Colt’s plea to not sell echoed in my brain, making my stomach clench. There had been a time when I would have done anything to earn a smile from that rugged, too-serious face, but that time had long passed. Now, I simply wanted the hell out of Lovelorn, Colorado.

“The terms of the will and the trust are clear.” Mr. Ernest passed a packet of papers to Faith and me. “You both have to reside here at least one year before any sale of the ranch and assets.”

“That can’t be legal.” Over her years as a Houston-based society wife, Faith had cultivated a soft, cultured voice. Not moving to read the papers, she drummed a petal-pink nail against the packet. “No one informed us about the formation of any trust.”

“Like Dad would have called a family meeting.” I snorted at the very thought. I couldn’t say I was shocked that he’d attempted to hogtie my and Faith’s ability to sell. The ranch came first. Always.

“You can, of course, choose to fight the will and the terms of the trust.” For someone so skeletal, Mr. Ernest had a surprisingly stern voice. “Probate can often take years to sort itself out, longer if there are multiple challenges.”

“So you’re saying we’re stuck here either way?” Faith toyed with her gold necklace. “For a whole year?”

“You are welcome to obtain your own counsel and consider all your available options,” Mr. Ernest said stiffly, aloof expression revealing confidence his firm’s documents would withstand challenge.

“I’m still paying off my latest divorce.” Faith groaned. She shifted on the hard wooden chair, no padding for Melvin Lovelorn’s guests. “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. It’s why I need a sale. I’ve already fielded calls from several development groups.”Developers.Colt’s worst fears come true, yet likely our best chance of a big sale. Not many could afford the asking price for this many acres outright. Faith turned her gaze in my direction. “I can’t afford a mountain of legal bills.”

“Don’t look at me.” I held up my hands. “Divorced, currently unemployed, and not inclined to fight a losing battle.” I’d spent years building my reputation in the hotel industry, only for one failed marriage and a disaster of a renovation reality TV show to turn it all into worthless dust. “You know our father. He didn’t do things by half-measures. The trust will likely hold up. That’s just our luck.”

I hadn’t checked the date on the paperwork, but I had no doubt my father had spent years planning for this very moment. He wasn’t the type to leave a loophole. Unfinished chores were the worst of sins in Melvin Lovelorn’s book.

“So you’re suggesting we just…what?” Faith gave an aristocratic sniff in my direction, highlighted blonde hair bouncing like the punctuation mark to her disgust. “Give in? Spend a year here?”

“Not give in. But we could start the clock ticking.” I couldn’t say that I’d spent years in worse places, but I’d spent years on other soul-sucking projects. I was, at heart, a pragmatist. For all my impatient nature, I’d learned the art of waiting to reach goals. Also, being at the ranch without my father couldn’t be any worse than growing up here with him. I could rattle the phones about new projects from here as easily as from my LA condo. “It’s summer. Hannah has no school anyway. What if we take a few weeks and consult some experts on how expensive it would be to fight the provision?”

While I wasn’t about to fork over what little remained of my savings, it wouldn’t hurt to investigate exactly how ironclad this will was. And unlike me, Faith was a fighter. If there was room to argue, she’d find it.

“You sound like you actually want to stay.” Head tilting, Faith studied me through horrified eyes.

“Trust me, I want to sell as much as you do.” I gestured around the room. The formal dining room, with all its dark woods and somber paintings, had always freaked me out as a kid. “I hate this place. Stuck in the small town we escaped for a whole year sounds like misery to me too, but what alternative do we have?” I turned back toward Mr. Ernest. “Who does the ranch pass to if we don’t agree?”

“Ah.” Mr. Ernest held up a spindly index finger as if scoring a point. “Your father was insistent that the ranch stay in Lovelorn hands. If you don’t agree to the terms, a distant cousin has been discovered in New York. Quentin Lovelorn, the third.”

“We’re not the last Lovelorns?” Faith visibly recoiled, pushing her chair away from the table with the force of her objection. “I hate him already.”

“Me too,” I readily agreed. “And this is why we need to at least consider complying. I’m not letting our inheritance—or Hannah’s—go to someone we’ve never heard of.”

My sister could be insufferable at times, but she’d given me my niece, who had one of the sweetest dispositions ever. Neither Faith nor I particularly deserved to inherit the ranch, but Hannah deserved all that was good in the world and a secure future.

“God.” Faith gazed skyward at the paneled ceiling before standing and stalking to the built-in corner liquor cabinet. “I need a drink.”

“Are you sure?—”

“Maverick.” Faith whirled at me before I could finish the question. “I’m a grown woman who needs a drink.”

“I thought you did Dry January?” I’d been beyond relieved when she’d announced her newfound sobriety at the start of the year.

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