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“Why didn’t you bring her? Is it anyone I know?”
“This is a family Christmas,” he replied, telling her with that one short sentence that his new lover hadn’t touched him any deeper than any of the others. “Her name is Natalie VanWein.”
“Nope. I don’t know her.”
“You’re supposed to listen while I talk, not ask questions about my love life.” He drew up a hassock and sat down on it, smiling a little as he noticed that she hadn’t even opened her eyes during their conversation.
“So talk.”
“I’ve never met anyone with a clearer head for business than Reese—excepting myself, of course,” he said mockingly.
“Oh, of course.”
“Listen, don’t talk. He sees what has to be done and he does it, without regard to obstacles. He has the kind of determination that won’t give up, no matter what the odds. He’ll make a go of this ranch. He’ll fight like hell until he has it the way it used to be.”
Madelyn opened one eye. “And the point of this is?”
“I’m a businessman. He strikes me as a better risk than a lot of ventures I’ve bet on. He doesn’t have to wait to build this place up. He could accept an investor and start right now.”
“The investor, of course, being yurself.”
He nodded. “I look for a profit. He’d make one. I want to invest in it personally, without involving Cannon Companies.”
“Have you already talked to him about it?”
“I wanted to talk to you first. You’re his wife, you know him better than I do. Would he go for it, or would I be wasting my time?”
“Well, I won’t give you an opinion either way. You’re on your own. Like you said, he knows the business, so let him make up his own mind without having to consider anything I might have said either pro or con.”
“It’s your home, too.”
“I’m still learning to help, but I don’t know enough about the business of ranching to even begin to make an educated decision. And when it comes down to it, my home is based on my marriage, not where we live. We could live anywhere and I’d be content.”
He looked down at her, and a strangely tender look entered his pale eyes. “You’re really in love with him, aren’t you?”
“I have been from the beginning. I never would have married him otherwise.”
He examined her face closely, in much the same way he’d looked at her when he had first arrived, as if satisfying himself of the truth of her answer. Then he gave a brusque nod and got to his feet. “Then I’ll put the proposition to Reese and see what he thinks.”
Reese turned it down, as Madelyn had expected he would. The ranch was his; it might take longer and be a harder fight to do it on his own, but every tree and every speck of dirt on the ranch belonged to him, and he refused to risk even one square inch of it with an outside investor. Robert took the refusal in good humor, because business was business, and his emotions were never involved any more than they were with women.
Reese talked to her about it that night, lying in the darkness with her head pillowed on his shoulder. “Robert made me an offer today. If I took him as an investor, I could double the ranch’s operation, hire enough hands to work it and probably get back most of the former acreage within five years.”
“I know. He talked to me about it, too.”
He stiffened. “What did you tell him?”
“To talk to you. It’s your ranch, and you know more about running it than anyone else.”
“Would you rather I took his offer?”
“Why should I care?”
“Money,” he said succinctly.
“I’m not doing without anything.” Her voice had a warm, amused tone to it.
“You could have a lot more.”
