Page 5 of River Legacy
“Daddy, don’t you think you should call my fiancé by his first name? It’s Ryder.” She turned to smile at him, but only for an instant before she turned back to her father. “I was so bored in my room I had to come down.” The waiter appeared, and she ordered a margarita.
Ryder figured this was good, they could end the duplicity together. But before he could speak, she said, “Now, tell me what you two been talking about.”
“You, of course,” Forester said as he looked from her to Ryder. “We were just about to talk about your future.”
Victoria had gotten downstairs as quickly as possible. Knowing her father, she’d figured she could find him in the nearest bar. As she walked in, shewouldn’t have been surprised to see her cowboy long gone and Claude sitting next to his boss, leering at her.
The fact that her father and Ryder were still talking at all came as a shock. Maybe more unlikely, her father was smiling. Had Ryder already told him that he wasn’t her fiancé? What else could have put her father in such a jovial mood?
“My future?” She shot a suspicious look at Ryder. Maybe he had already told her father the truth. In that case, Wen must be relieved. She tried to see Ryder through her father’s eyes. Another handsome man after her money? Or, after seeing the Stafford Ranch online, had her father now looked past Ryder’s collar-length curly blond hair that her fingers itched to run through... straight to the ranch?
Ryder was a man who either didn’t have time to worry about a haircut or he didn’t care. Both things her father would normally have found lacking. This cowboy was nothing like Claude Duvall, thank heavens, but that probably wouldn’t be a plus according to Wendell Forester. Ryder didn’t sit behind a desk. Anyone could see that, from his tanned rugged looks to the way his shirt fit those shoulders and his jeans hugged his behind perfectly before running down the length of his long legs to a pair of worn but clean boots.
She suspected Ryder also wasn’t the kind to sayyesto her father.
Ryder started to speak as her father’s cell phone chirped. After a quick look at the screen, her fatherwas on his feet, saying, “Sorry, I’m going to leave you lovebirds to enjoy your drinks without me.” He drained his bourbon and put down his glass. “I have some calls to make.” He looked at Ryder, smiled and with a tip of his head said, “I’ll see you both at dinner. Six sharp.” With that he was gone.
Victoria turned to make sure her father had left the bar before she looked at Ryder and demanded, “What was that about? Did you tell him about us?”
Ryder swore under his breath. The man hadn’t given him a chance before Victoria had interrupted them. “There is nous,” he reminded her as he picked up his untouched beer and took a single gulp before putting it down. He had a long drive ahead of him.
“Then, what was that I just witnessed between the two of you?”
He sighed. “The reason I was at the airport today was because I had business with your father. That business is completed.” He pulled the packet of keys that Forester had given him from his shirt pocket and dropped them on the table. “Please give those to your father and tell himthanks, but no thanks. Now, if you will kindly move and let me out of this booth, I’m going back to the ranch.”
“Can we discuss this first?” From her determined expression, he decided not to make her move. Instead, he slid around the booth until he was across from her and about to stand up and leave when she reached across and grabbed his arm. “Wait, you can’t just leave. Please, stay the weekend as myfiancé. That’s all I ask. You’ll be saving my life. You met Claude Duvall. You can’t leave me here with him and my father to gang up on me. I mean it,” she said and lowered her voice to a whisper as she leaned toward him. “I’ll pay anything.”
Ryder jerked his arm free with a shake of his head and leaned across the table toward her, keeping his voice down. “That’s the problem with you Foresters. You think you can buy anything you want. Sorry, but neither of you can buy me.”
In a matter of seconds, he would have been gone, headed home after he’d said what he had to say to the wealthy developer—and his daughter.
But as he started to rise, he saw Claude snatch Victoria’s drink off the server’s tray and make a beeline for them. Something about the cocky way the man approached warned Ryder things were about to get ugly fast.
“Leaving so soon?” he said to Ryder with a sneer. He turned to Victoria. “I figured you’d need this after your father broke your so-called engagement to this cowboy,” Claude said as he set down the margarita in front of her. “Another boyfriend sent down the road. So embarrassing. Aren’t you getting tired of dragging losers home for your father to reject?”
“You have no idea,” Victoria said and took a sip of her drink as she shot Ryder a look he could easily decipher.Please help me.
The man was an arrogant jerk, no doubt about it, but Ryder wasn’t going to get into it with him. Thiswasn’t his rodeo, and this wasn’t his bull. He rose, planning not to say a word, just leave, but Claude stepped in front of him.
“I knew it wouldn’t take long, but this time Wen broke all of his earlier records getting rid of the worst of the ones his daughter had dragged home like the alley cat she is,” Claude said. “Wish I hadn’t missed it. Bet it wasnasty.” He laughed. “Wendell Forester would never let his precious daughter marry a cowboy, especially one like you who can’t afford a haircut or a new pair of boots.”
Thinking the man had run out of sarcastic remarks, Ryder again tried to step past him because Claude was looking for a fight and he wasn’t going to oblige him. Unfortunately, Claude refused to move, and Victoria had slipped from the booth, shooting to her feet to confront the man. They were attracting an audience from the bar.
“You owe my fiancé an apology,” Victoria demanded, shooting fire from those green eyes as she looked from Claude to Ryder. Claude got the icy stare, Ryder got the and-you-would-leave-me-with-this-jackass? look.
Before he could move, she’d turned back to her father’s handpicked son-in-law, grabbed her drink and thrown the contents in Claude’s face.
Ryder swore under his breath, resigned that he wasn’t getting out of here without a fight. He had really wanted to leave without slugging Claude and having to spend the night in jail. He could feel the other patrons all looking in their direction as well asthe waitstaff. Everyone seemed to tense as if waiting with alarm to see what happened next.
Claude was sputtering furiously and trying to save his expensive suit with the bar napkin Wendell had left on the table as he now stood between Ryder and Victoria, still blocking the rancher’s exit. “You’re no more her fiancé than I am,” Claude said raising his voice. “Count yourself lucky that you’re not really marrying this bit—”
Victoria slapped Claude with a roundhouse smack that reverberated through the bar. The man looked ready to hit her back until tears filled her eyes and she covered her face with her hands, her body racking with silent sobs.
Still determined that this wasn’t going to turn into a knock-down, drag-out bar brawl, Ryder realized Victoria was right. He couldn’t just walk away now and leave her with this man. “Vicky, I think it’s time to get out of here,” he said and reached around Claude for her hand. As she grabbed his, she pulled him away from Claude, who looked furious. “Tell your boss thanks for the dinner invitation and the room, but I’m going to pass. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Moving past him, the two of them headed for the nearest exit. Neither said anything until they were outside on the sidewalk. The moment the doors closed behind them, Victoria burst into laughter, making him realize that she hadn’t been crying at all. “That was wonderful. Did you see Claude’s face?”
Ryder had already been mentally kicking himself.He’d let that arrogant fool get to him—just as he’d let this woman catch him up in her drama. He couldn’t keep doing this, not even to piss off Claude.
