Page 23 of River Legacy
“I’ve lived in a large city my whole life. I had no reason to learn to drive.”
Ryder looked at his brother. “I’ll teach her how to drive the truck, and you can throw out the bales, Brand, since this was your idea.” He thought Brand would know what was coming and try to get out of it.
But instead, he grinned and called Ryder’s bluff. A novice behind the wheel of a big truck learning to drive a stick shift would be one hell of a bumpy ride, but Brand deserved it for siccing their sisters on him.
Once in the truck, with Victoria behind the wheel and Brand on the flatbed with the pile of hay bales, Ryder said, “It’s easy. See those pedals? The left one is the clutch, the middle one is the break, and the far-right one is the gas.” He put down his window and yelled back to Brand. “Better hang on!”
Victoria pushed in the clutch, started the truck and, at his instruction, gave the truck some gas asshe eased up on the clutch. The truck jumped, and Brand let out a cry in the back.
“This is going to be a lot more fun than I thought,” Ryder said after checking to make sure his brother hadn’t been injured. “Try again,” he said to Victoria. “A little gas and a little less clutch all at the same time.”
Charlotte Stafford had been waiting for the text from her lawyer. He’d picked up CJ who was now settled into the apartment she’d rented for him in Miles City. That was a relief, she thought, knowing that CJ would be upset that she hadn’t picked him up herself. For years, he’d been her favorite child, the one she doted on, the one she knew she’d help ruin.
In the past, she would have been waiting for him outside the jail. She would have coddled him and assured him that she would take care of everything. But she was no longer that woman. What he did now was up to him, she told herself, her thoughts and worries elsewhere.
All morning, she’d had a feeling she couldn’t shake that she needed to see Tilly. She wasn’t looking forward to her daughter’s reaction at seeing her again after the way she’d left things with her. She’d missed most of Tilly’s pregnancy.
But now she was home. CJ wasn’t the only reason she’d come home. She had fences to mend with all her children, especially Tilly and Oakley.
Her return had caused a stir. Just as her disappearance had. Charlotte knew there would be even more talk now that she was back and had gotten her oldest son out of not just jail but a prison sentence. Let them talk, she thought as she drove toward the McKenna Ranch. She saw the looks on the faces of people who saw her drive by. They were surprised she’d come back. Most thought she didn’t have the courage to ever show her face here again. The rest thought she’d died.
Were they really that foolish that they thought they’d seen the last of her? She owned a huge ranch with her family next to the Powder River. And she wasn’t the kind of woman who, even after being knocked down, wouldn’t get up again.
If anything, she was surprised that she’d stayed away for so long. She’d lent her house to the McKennas after theirs had burned to the ground. She’d escaped a prison sentence herself before she’d left town without a word of explanation.
Rumors had run rampant. Her friend Elaine had kept her informed in the time she was gone. “She’s sick,” one wife of a rancher had been overhead saying at the general store. “Mayo Clinic, I heard. It’s bad.”
“I heard she checked herself into rehab for alcohol abuse,” another said. “I would have been driven to drink too if I had son like CJ.”
“With her kind of money, I’d bet if she checked herself in anywhere it would be a five-star hotel or a spa,” another offered. “She’ll be back looking so great that Holden McKenna won’t be able to resisther. That’s what she really wants. To ruin that man’s life even more.”
But another argued, “I doubt that woman even knows what she wants.”
Charlotte would have found the conversations amusing except she did know what she wanted, what she had secretly always wanted. She just wasn’t sure she could have it since she’d spent so many years denying it. She pushed thoughts of Holden McKenna away and thought of her children instead. Maybe later she would entertain the idea of again being with the man she loved. Right now, she was worried about Tilly, she thought as she turned into the McKenna Ranch where her oldest daughter lived.
She wasn’t sure what kind of reception she would get—if her daughter even opened the door to her.
Not that she could blame Tilly.
Charlotte had played favorites with her children and was now paying the price. As her son CJ would have said, she’d bet on the wrong horse when she’d put so much of her love and hope into him.
She parked and hurried to the door, feeling a sense of urgency she couldn’t explain. After ringing the bell twice, she began to worry that she was too late. Maybe Tilly had been taken to the hospital to deliver her baby already. Maybe she’d missed the pregnancyandthe delivery.
Charlotte heard a sound inside the house. A moment later, Tilly opened the door, her hand going to her hugely protruding stomach as tears filled her eyes.
“You haven’t had the baby yet,” Charlotte said with relief. For a moment, the way her oldest daughter was looking at her, she thought Tilly would tell her to go away. When she didn’t immediately, Charlotte held out hope that maybe the past could be forgotten. That Tilly could forgive her for missing so many of the important events in her life because of some overblown feud between her and Holden McKenna.
So many regrets rushed over her in that instant. She felt so foolish that she’d fought Tilly marrying Cooper McKenna. How could she explain how hard it was to see the man that she had loved all those years ago, Holden McKenna, walking her daughter down the aisle to marry his son? She hadn’t been able to breathe, the pain threatening to kill her with jealousy. That should have been her and Holden up there at the altar all those years ago.
Now because of her foolishness, she’d almost missed the birth of her first grandchild. She would never have forgiven herself if she had. She could see in her daughter’s green eyes, so like her own, that Tilly wouldn’t forgive her either.
“What are you doing here?” Tilly said in a whisper, tears spilling from her eyes.
“I couldn’t miss the birth of my grandchild,” Charlotte said. Her throat had gone dry, her heart a cramping ache in her chest. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I’m so sorry about everything. I had this feeling that you were going to have the baby today. I had to tell you before—”
She stopped as her daughter’s face crumbled, and took a step, falling into her mother’s arms. Charlotte closed her arms around her child, something she hadn’t done in years. Her body trembled with her own unshed tears as she rocked Tilly, letting her daughter weep.
Suddenly Tilly pulled back, her expression one of surprise. They both looked to the floor as the liquid that ran down her daughter’s legs began to pool at her feet. Tilly began to cry harder in huge gasping sobs. “I’m finally having this baby.”
