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“It’s not.”You are. Somehow.“Plus, the one time we talked on the phone, your voice sounded pretty rough-and-tumble.”
“Like a woman who’d been through a lot?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Well, I had a nasty cold when we talked. If my voice was scratchy, that’s why.”
“So you haven’t been through a lot?” He didn’t want to pry, but he was genuinely curious to know more, especially about whoever had once owned that bourbon collection.
“I’ve been through plenty.” She sipped from her mug again. “But we’ve all been through the wringer in one way or another, haven’t we?”
Heath’s breath hitched in his chest as her words rang clear in his head. If only she knew how strongly that statement resonated with him. It was like having someone shine a light on his soul.
Ruby was well aware she was deflecting by saying that everyone had gone through hard times, but it was her instinct to keep her memories and her pain to herself, especially as those things related to her fiancé, Lucas. She didn’t know Heath very well, and although she’d had nearly three years to process the loss of her fiancé, she liked to keep the anguish from bubbling up to the surface when she was around other people. It was easier that way. But that didn’t mean she wanted to skirt all serious subject matter with Heath. She wanted to know more about what he’d been through. Everything people in Royal said about him wasn’t holding true for her. He didn’t seem vindictive. He seemed like a strong man hiding his vulnerability. Those two things werenotthe same.
“Do you want to tell me about your mom and sister?” she finally asked. “They’re at the heart of this dispute over the oil rights, aren’t they?”
Heath rolled the bourbon around in his glass, studying the liquid and drawing attention to his hands, which were admittedly amazing, a perfect marriage of strength and grace. “What do you want to know?”
Ruby was surprised he was so willing to share. She shrugged and sat back in her seat. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, so tell me everything.”
Once again, his vision was trained on what was in his glass and not on her. She didn’t know him well, but she could tell that the gears in his head were turning. She wanted desperately to know what he was thinking, making her hope just as hard that he would spill at least a few of the secrets he must be keeping tucked away in his mind.
“My dad died when my twin brother, Nolan, and I were far too young to understand the magnitude of losing him. My mom had always been a melancholy person, but after he died, the sadness she went through was profound. And it never went away. It was very hard.”
“I’m sorry. I lost my mom when I was seven. I know how difficult it is to lose a parent, especially when you’re too young to process it. The older you get, the farther away they are. And you question your memories of them all the time.”
He nodded and looked over at her. “That’s so true. All of it.” He drew in a deep breath—so deep that it made his shoulders rise up near his ears. “And for me, I have so many memories of wondering if I was somehow responsible for my mother’s sadness. Like it was up to me to make her happy. I don’t know where I got that idea from, but it was always with me. A sense of responsibility. It was always there. Maybe I got that from my dad. From the time I could walk, I followed him, learning everything it took to keep the ranch running. Our half sister, Ashley, had to step up, practically became a mom to Nolan and me. We were always fighting her on it. We thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves, but she was five years older. She knew more than we did. Either way, we all had to grow up quickly. Our dad had run the ranch, so I took over and was determined not to fail him or my mom. Nolan tried to help for a while, but his interests were elsewhere.”
Ruby was taken aback by the idea of Heath and his siblings trying to tackle such a monumental job. “How did you manage?”
“Our dad had some great ranch hands who all stayed on out of a sense of duty to our mom. I always sensed that they knew she’d been through a lot. It wasn’t until recently that I figured out that her sadness went well beyond losing our dad. It was because of the way the Grandin family had treated her and Ashley.”
“Ashley being half Grandin, right?”
“Yes. Her dad was Daniel Grandin. He had a fling with my mom when she was young and then took off. He lives over in France now. He claims he never knew Mom was pregnant. His father, Victor Grandin Sr., knew and wanted it kept a secret. By all accounts, my mother really struggled when Ashley was a baby. She was broke and all on her own. And then there were the Grandins, without a care in the world, sitting on their piles of money.”
Ruby was starting to appreciate where Heath’s bitterness came from. “How did the Lattimores get involved?”
“Those two families have been thick as thieves for generations. Augustus Lattimore and Victor John Grandin were best friends, and their properties are adjacent to each other. Now that you’ve told me about the date on the old survey, I believe the rotten bastards conspired to buy off my mom with the phony oil rights so she’d never tell anyone Ashley was half Grandin. They were deathly afraid my mom would talk and tarnish the Grandin name, which would have negatively impacted their family fortune, which then would have trickled down to the Lattimores. Rich people like their friends to be rich, too. They figured a worthless piece of paper was enough to shut my mother up.”
“You’d think they would have worried about her claiming the rights. Eventually their lies would have caught up with them.”
“I think they knew that she didn’t have the strength or resources to do anything about it, so she’d never find out they tricked her.”
“Augustus Lattimore is still alive, isn’t he?” Ruby had heard people in town talk about him. Apparently his health was declining, but he had to be in his nineties, so that was no big surprise. “Can’t someone ask him?”
Heath shook his head. “Both families clammed up as soon as I discovered the paperwork for the oil rights in my mother’s effects and started looking into it. That’s part of why I asked my brother, Nolan, to come back to Royal. To help me try to crack the case of those two families. But that opened up a whole new can of worms.”
“In what way?”
He sighed. “Nolan had left Royal when he was eighteen. He was tired of feeling responsible for so much. But that left me here, taking care of the ranch and my mom and helping Ashley. A lot of resentment has built up between us, and it’s getting better, but we’ve still got a ways to go. He came back to Royal to help, but then he fell in love with Chelsea Grandin, and now they’re married. So of course he thinks I should drop the whole thing. But I’m not ready to do that. I still feel like I need to make things right for my mom and Ashley.”
“What about Daniel Grandin? Ashley’s father? Have you met him or talked to him?”
“No. The family has closed ranks and won’t let me anywhere near him.” He ran his hand through his hair, seeming frustrated again. “Basically, I have a whole lot of questions and not enough definitive answers. I know people see me as a bitter villain, but all I’m trying to do is get some justice for my mom and sister. I know they’re gone, but it’s hard for me to let it go. Sometimes I feel haunted by the whole situation. By them.” His voice quaked as it trailed off. He avoided looking at Ruby, seeming embarrassed by the show of emotion.
“When did your mom and sister pass away?”
