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Caleb went into the house. Something smelled good, but there was no sign of Lucy. There was a note addressed to Isaiah on the table. He picked it up and read it out loud.
“Thanks so much for letting me stay until the generator at the B&B was fixed. I left you two batches of cookies in the pantry, and there are pork ribs slow roasting in the oven for dinner.”
He looked over at Caleb. “What happened?”
“I screwed up.”
“I can see that. What are you going to do about it?”
Caleb held his dad’s gaze. “I’ve got a call with my board at midday. Can I get back to you after that?”
“Sure,” Isaiah said as he helped himself to a cookie and offered the tin to Chip. “But if you care about her, don’t waste too much time letting her know.”
Caleb went into his bedroom and closed the door. Without Lucy’s presence the space felt cold and empty. She was the heart of him now and without her he was nothing. His cell buzzed and he accepted the call.
“Hey, it’s Chase Morgan. What’s going on?”
Caleb took a deep breath. “I want out.”
“Of what, exactly?”
“Everything.”
“Caleb . . . you’re just panicking because you’re in the position most startups dream about.” Chase sounded soothing. “I’ve seen it a hundred times. The new VC wouldn’t have decided to invest in you unless they thought you would succeed—just like me and the rest of the board did when we first met you all those years ago.”
“I don’t want any of it. I want to come home and work with my dad on the ranch.”
There was a long silence. “You mean you want out ofeverything?”
“Yeah.” Caleb’s heart was beating hard enough to burst.
“Okay, Caleb, listen up. Promise me you won’t do anything drastic until I’ve talked to the rest of the board,” Chase said. “There’s a lot to this decision, you know that. I want to make sure we explore every possibility before you walk away with nothing.”
“I wouldn’t have nothing. I’d still inherit an awesome ranch.”
And maybe win the woman of his dreams, but Chase didn’t need to know that.
“I understand.” Chase paused. “But promise you’ll wait until I get back to you. I think you owe me that.”
Aware that if it hadn’t been for Chase and his fellow VC angels, he wouldn’t have gotten his start at all, Caleb agreed. He’d barely ended the call before his cell started ringing again, and he answered it.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Chase.”
“I’ve no idea who the hell Chase is, Caleb, but my name’s Dan, and I’m having some serious thoughts about what you’ve been up to since I left town.”
Caleb sighed. “What do you want, Dan?”
“This is going to sound weird. Mom tried to call Lucy at the B&B, but she’s not answering her phone, so she called Auntie Linda to check in on her, and Linda said Bernie said Lucy had gone to stay with you at the ranch because her power was out, or something.”
“She was here last night.”
“Great. You take good care of her, now,” Dan said. “I’ll tell Mom to stop fussing.”
“Hold up, Lucy went home today.”
“So, the power must be back on.”
“Not that I’ve heard. She said she was waiting on the generator guy to come out, but I don’t think that was true.” Caleb paused. Seeing as he was pissing everyone off today, he might as well include his best friend. “She got mad at me for suggesting she should move to Seattle.”
