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He breathed in the soft clove fragrance of Mia’s shampoo, and pushed the envy and pointless questions aside. There would be plenty of time to sort out his issues once Mia and Silas were safe and gone.
Chapter 10
Mia read the text message from her father and pocketed her phone while she considered her reply. She’d brought Silas outside for an early morning walk while she tried not to think about Jarvis going to share the ugliest parts of her life with his brother later today. This time, she thought the sweet request for an update on the baby was probably from Norton and not one of Regina’s tricks. She couldn’t imagine her stepmother being kind even as a ploy.
Only last month, she’d
walked with Silas through the neighborhood where she’d grown up, or through the park in town, her son in his stroller. Today she carried him in the sling, not straying too far from the remote Triple R bunkhouse, not another person in sight.
The warm sunlight painted the grassy pastures and highlighted the mountains in the distance, framed by the cloudless, blue sky. The picturesque setting made her feel like everything would eventually work out.
With a baby nearly three months old, she’d expected to be taking meetings and calls and building up a solid network for her new real-estate career by now. Instead she was still out here, hiding from her stepmother’s threats.
Although she’d used her time to keep up with properties and trends in the area, she’d had far more fun helping Jarvis with his history and search. It was an easier task because she didn’t have a stake in whatever he found. The deeds, acreage claims, and sales from Herman and Eugene’s generation were convoluted. With luck, if Jarvis found the box, those conflicting documents might be explained.
He’d absolutely won her over with his determination to keep searching, even after she’d found documents on file that Eugene and his descendants came by the property legally, negotiating back and forth with T. Ainsley. For a man who claimed he didn’t believe in family, Jarvis was going all out to prove there was merit behind his grandfather’s stories. She hoped that whatever he found would be exactly what he needed for his heart and his future in ranching.
Her phone chimed again. Another text, this time a direct request for an update on the progress on the listing. Why had her father told her he wasn’t going to talk business if he didn’t mean it? And why had she lied about working with a buyer?
“Mommy never should’ve lied,” she said to Silas. “Let this be a lesson—mommies and daddies always find out the truth.”
Daddies. Oh, how she wanted a daddy for her son someday. When she thought of Silas calling a man daddy, having a father figure to emulate, Jarvis’s face came to mind. It was ridiculous, putting that face to her fantasy, yet she couldn’t seem to remove his dark eyes, square jaw and lopsided grin from the picture.
She might’ve lied to her dad about the buyer, but she couldn’t lie to herself about Jarvis. Her heart was firmly planted in his reluctant hands and it might as well stay there for now. As long as he didn’t have any idea and she didn’t blurt out that she was in love with him, her heart would be safe enough.
She rubbed her nose to Silas’s and then faced her phone. What could she tell her dad that would appease him and not be a lie? She quickly let him know that the first offer was lower than his bare minimum. As in zero at the moment. She followed that with a query about why he was in such a hurry to liquidate the property.
Countless happy memories with her parents and later friends had been made at that house. After Regina’s intrusive entrance into her life, the country home and the surrounding property remained the site of fond moments with her dad, hosting clients and family friends.
She couldn’t imagine a reason—other than a wife who loved to shop and redecorate—why her father would need a quick influx of cash. Her hands went cold. This must be Regina’s doing. She could easily picture her stepmother hovering over his shoulder and pestering him to push her. Just to flush her out of hiding.
Would the woman never be satisfied? Of course not. Regina thrived on control, from the suits and ties her father wore to the office, to the amount he spent on his weekend golf trips, all the way down to Christmas gifts.
His reply came back that his only concern was for her and the baby. Well, that made two of them. The somewhat comforting message was trumped by the next.
You can’t be in business if you aren’t doing business.
She couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t reply.
Come on back, Mia. We’ll have lunch at the club and talk things out in person.
If only she could be sure Regina wouldn’t be there, ready to poison her salad or snatch Silas. She turned off her phone and kept walking.
Her father had been an integral part of her life. Being separated from him and keeping her son away made her heart ache. Norton, who managed fortunes during the day, had helped her with homework and even coached her youth soccer teams when she was young.
Until Regina had changed everything.
“Maybe I didn’t want to share,” she admitted to her drowsy son. “Maybe your grandpa could’ve listened to my concerns or done a better job of protecting our relationship.” And maybe they were both human. Her father, her hero, had put more stock in the sniping observations of his new wife than the daughter he supposedly treasured. Mia, frustrated, had only made things worse.
“I won’t be perfect,” she murmured, “Obviously,” she added, her gaze drifting to the mountain range in the distance. A perfect mother would surely know how to get out of this mess. “I do promise to listen, to consider what’s best for you in every decision we face.” She hoped she could keep that promise.
“It takes two people to wreck a good relationship,” she told Silas. Looking into his sweet face now, it was impossible to think of a day when they would argue, when hurtful words might fly fast and mean, undermining trust.
She wondered if the lunch invitation was worth the risk. If she went, she could talk with her dad about the house and the baby. They could walk the office space he’d recommended to her last month. They could cover everything except his wife’s cheating. The temptation to accept filled her and she was doubly grateful she’d turned off the phone.
She finished her walk with Silas, passing Jarvis’s truck. Inexplicably antsy, it was all she could do to settle the baby in his seat for the rest of his morning nap, rather than drive out to where she expected Jarvis to be searching today.
He hadn’t seemed to mind when she’d met up a time or two before, but Mia really needed to exert some force on her future. She sat down at the table and opened her laptop. Her dad made a good point. She wouldn’t have a business if she didn’t conduct business. She did have connections with people familiar with the country house. An additional advantage was her knowledge of the people most likely to have the interest as well as the means to invest in the property.
