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Did Kane have everything? Or had Delaney gotten the ranch and that was why she’d left? My friends had asked me to consider whether Delaney was after my money. I’d argued. She’d had her own job at a marketing firm.
But I’d grown up hearing my dad rage about his oldest brother and how he’d been so greedy and pushed Dad out of the business. I’d grown up under the fallout of Dad losing everything—money, land, stability. Was that why Delaney had left and forgotten about me? For property she was too scared to lose in a divorce?
The idea didn’t fit into the picture I’d seen when I pulled into the Diamond UU. The ranch didn’t look like much. It looked like everything I’d worked hard to escape. Had she picked this place over me?
No matter what my friends thought about Delaney, I had held out hope that what she and I had wasn’t a figment of my imagination. The more I thought back to the night she left, the more I recalled a frantic gleam in her eyes. I’d been under enormous amounts of pressure and stress at that time. Was I succumbing to wishful thinking?
Had I imagined the sweet agreeable girl I’d married?
I didn’t have the whole story. I was starting to suspect that I barely had one chapter of the story. So, yeah, I would stay. I needed the annulment, but I needed answers first. Too many questions to take back home.
I got out of the car. The heat was surprising. Delaney had occasionally mentioned how cold the winters could get in North Dakota. Once she’d wistfully mentioned how much she missed the summers and being surrounded by rolling green hills instead of concrete.
I’d been happy to be surrounded by glass and concrete if it meant I didn’t have to break my will for an unforgiving, dusty and sparse landscape that was someone else’s dream. A lot of my current surroundings reminded me of Texas, only a little lusher, a richer green that threatened to turn brown and dusty in the next week if there wasn’t a good rain. The dry heat was similar to Dallas, but the buttes that jutted up in the middle of nowhere were a surprise, one that added character.
Inside the bar and grill, large windows allowed copious amounts of light to spill in. The lunchtime crowd filled most of the tables, but the bar had a few open spots.
This was nothing like the martini bars I went to with Briony and Wilson. I’d met them both in college, after I won a coveted scholarship Wilson’s dad—my boss—sponsored. Norville Truitt had taken me under his wing as if he recognized a kid who was starved for a reliable father figure, one who didn’t get lost in stale beer and rage about the unfairness of the world.
Wilson had proposed to Briony as soon as we graduated, and he and I had gone to work at his dad’s company, NT Land Agency. Most thought it stood for North Texas Land Agency, but the company was Norville Truitt’s very lucrative baby.
I waited for a hostess to show me where to go, but eventually figured the choice of seating must be as casual as the atmosphere. As I passed the empty hostess podium, a few men walked by. They were older than me, close to my dad’s age.
One drew my eye. He was about my height, an inch or two past six feet, and the shiny black cowboy boots he wore with his crisp black suit boosted him higher. His eyes crinkled at the sides like he found something his companion said humorous, but otherwise the man gave the impression he didn’t smile often.
The way his hair was cut and combed to the side reminded me of Dad. I slowed to a stop. Light-brown strands mingled with the gray. Dad had gray hair coming in on the sides of his russet hair the last time I saw him. Before Mama died, she’d forbidden him from dying it, claiming he got better with age.
Without her, he’d gotten worse.
A moment of longing tugged at my chest. When was the last time Dad looked as hale as the man looking at me with his head tipped to the side, like he found me as familiar as I found him?
This was Coal Haven, where Dad was born and raised. What were the chances? Nerves made me stand straighter, as if the first impression of my entire family rested on my shoulders.
If this was an uncle, then it sort of did.
He murmured something to the other two men in suits and veered toward me. He came to a stop and evaluated me as ruthlessly as I scrutinized him.
An unidentifiable emotion rippled through his gaze before he spoke. “Archer or Ansen?”
I had guessed correctly. Dad didn’t have many photos from his childhood, but he and his two brothers had resembled each other in them, just like my younger brother, Ansen, and I resembled each other. I didn’t know what to think. “Archer. Cameron or Bruce?”
“Cameron.” As I figured. He emanated power and displeasure, like a guy who could piss Dad off enough to leave the state and never come back. “Is Allan all right?”
My uncle barely knew who I was, much less why I was here. Of course he’d think the worst had happened to his brother. My wife had told no one about me. Cameron wouldn’t know what else would bring me to Coal Haven.
“Dad’s fine,” I lied. Dad hadn’t been fine since he’d lost the ranch and Mama died. But that was no one’s business. Definitely not an uncle who could be as bad as Dad had made him sound. “I’m here for…” Well, damn. I hadn’t expected to be in this pickle. I brushed my left thumb against the warm metal on my ring finger. I hadn’t seen much of Delaney, but I’d noticed her bare ring finger. I clenched my fist. “Personal reasons.”
Cameron’s brow ticked up, but I didn’t elaborate. “How long are you in town for?”
It was supposed to be a quick visit. Up and back. When I’d driven here, I was convinced Delaney was done with me. Why else would she leave on the most important night of my life? But after this morning and the way her mother told me I’d better sit tightuntilLaney’s good and goddamn ready to deal with you, I had no idea. “About a week.” I had planned a couple extra days after I returned to Dallas to file the paperwork and untangle Delaney’s name from mine.
The thought soured my already disgruntled mood.
His scrutiny increased. Was he dying to know my reasons? Or annoyed I was being elusive? He surprised me instead. “Would you like to meet your family?”
“My family” had a weird ring to it. Mama’s family hadn’t wanted anything to do with Dad after she died, and I couldn’t blame them. Dad hadn’t been in a good place after she was gone. He hadn’t been good company. They’d kept to themselves in El Paso while Ansen and I struggled to help Dad keep his job as ranch manager in northern Texas. And since they cut off two young kids because Dad had suffered the loss of his wife, I hadn’t wanted to see them.
It’d been me, Ansen, and Dad for years. Until I left for college. But I had more family standing right in front of me. Family I had thought about in the abstract, almost as if they were a myth.
