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“No,” he admitted. “What would I do there? My brothers and I own the ranch. It’s not just my livelihood, it’s the only thing I’m good at, the only thing I’ve been trained to do.”
She loosened her seat belt so she could turn slightly toward him. “Exactly.”
“I’d hate to ask you to give up the diner. But if it came down to that, I’d be able to take care of you.” He knew how much she loved her business, but he had to at least try to convince her to fight for what they could have together.
“As kind as it is that you’d be willing to do that, I doubt I’d be satisfied lettinganyonetake care of me,” she said.
“What if I helped you open another diner—in Coyote Canyon? Or I guess I could sell my part of the ranch to my brothers, and we could go somewhere else, like Billings or Bozeman, where we could buy more land. The only problem with that is success in ranching is a matter of scale. We’d have to work extra-hard just to get to where I’m at now. It would be much more of a struggle if we went out on our own.”
“If we moved to Bozeman or Billings, I’d still have to leave the diner,” she said.
“True, but you wouldn’t have to be around Charlie or Averil.”
“They don’t seem like a good enough reason to make you sell your interest in the ranch.”
He was impressed with how reasonable she was being. But he almost wished she’d said, “Okay, let’s go to Bozeman.” At least then they’d be making plans to stay together. As it was, he felt as though she was standing on one side of a wide canyon, and he was standing on the other. “So...would you ever consider coming back to Coyote Canyon?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “If I could open a dessert diner in Coyote Canyon, I might. But it doesn’t have nearly the population of Seattle. Who knows if it’d take off the way the first one did? Or if I’d have the money to get it going to begin with?”
“Wouldn’t Paul have to buy you out?”
“He doesn’t have the cash to pay me what it’s worth.”
“I have some money saved. I could help with the start-up costs and he could pay you monthly.”
She slipped a hand around the arm he had slung over the steering wheel and kissed his biceps. “That’s very generous of you, but I couldn’t let you take that risk. And Paul could just as easily get spiteful and make it so difficult to separate our interests that we’d end up destroying what we’ve created. Then he and I would both have nothing.”
Brant frowned as he watched the dashes in the middle of the road rush toward them. “You really think he’d do that? Even though it’s not in his best interest, either?”
“I couldn’t tell you. You never truly know people until you try to break up with them—even if it’s only a business partnership.”
Brant pictured the man who’d come storming toward him when he’d been trying to fix the screen door. Talulah could be right. Sometimes jealousy caused people to do terrible things, and there was no question that Paul was jealous. The way he’d acted this morning when he called Talulah served as further proof. “That doesn’t give me a lot to offer you,” he said and knew in that moment he needed to prepare himself for goodbye.
“Oh boy.”
Talulah had fallen asleep before they could get back to Coyote Canyon, but hearing Brant say that woke her up. “What is it?”
His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “I’m pretty sure Charlie’s behind us.”
A shot of adrenaline chased her grogginess away, and she ducked down in her seat. “We’re back in Coyote Canyon?”
“Just rolled in.”
“And he’s following us?”
“He was stopped at the light on Main when I came through. I think he saw my truck and turned to come after me.”
“You’re kidding...”
“No. Hard to tell from headlights alone, but...that’s got to be him. I know he saw me. And he’ll see you if you don’t stay down.”
Being careful not to let her head pop up above the seat, she unsnapped her seat belt and slid into the passenger-side foot well of Brant’s truck. “What’s he doing now?”
“Coming up alongside,” he said as they stopped at the only other light in town. “Be quiet. He’s motioning for me to roll down my window.”
She burrowed even lower. Brant’s truck was higher than Charlie’s SUV, and it was dark out, but she had no idea if Charlie had already caught a glimpse of another person inside the truck.
“Hey,” Charlie said.
