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His laugh was raw and bitter. “Let me tell you a secret. If and when I inherit this place, I’m going to sell every goddamned acre of it! I hate cattle—the way they bellow, the way they stink, and the way they always seem to shit right where you’re about to put your feet. I hate getting my hands dirty, and I get motion sickness on a horse. These days there are big syndicates that buy up ranches and run them like a business. They’ll snap this place right up and give me the cash, or make me a silent partner who collects income and never has to show up.”
“And what will you do then?” Rose asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
“I’ll invest the money and go into politics. I’ve already got an internship lined up this fall in Washington, DC. Once that’s done—”
The clang of the dinner bell ended the conversation. Rose allowed Garn to escort her into the dining room. She still didn’t like the young man, but at least she understood him better. He was unhappy and insecure and wanted a different life than the one fate and birth had thrust on him.
Even that didn’t excuse the way he’d treated her at the creek, though. If their paths crossed again, she would do her best to tolerate the young man. But she would never feel at ease with Garn Prescott.
Ferg and a thin, graying man in a blue suit were standing by the cabinet in the corner, having a drink. As they took their places at one end of the long table, Ferg introduced the stranger as Cantwell Sutherland, the Prescott family lawyer.
“Miss Landro.” Sutherland greeted her with a coldly formal handshake. “Ferg, here, has been telling me your story.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Sutherland.” Rose assumed that Ferg had left out the part where she’d killed his father—which would be tantamount to an admission that he’d lied when he’d accused Bull.
“Sit down. We can talk about it while we eat,” Ferg said.
There were just four of them at the table, eating from plain, white china plates on a rumpled cloth. The cook, who walked with a limp and looked like an aging cowboy, brought in a platter of leathery roast beef, along with lumpy mashed potatoes, canned peas, and watered-down gravy. It wasn’t the best, but Rose had eaten worse, and she was starved. She made a good show of filling and emptying her plate. Garn watched her in amused silence, smiling as if he’d heard a secret joke.
Between bites, a sanitized version of how she’d lost her property to Bull had emerged. Sutherland had listened with mild interest, maybe because it didn’t involve his making a handsome fee.
“So, did you ever see the deed to your grandfather’s property, Miss Landro?” he asked.
“No,” Rose said. “My grandpa was pretty secretive. He kept it locked away and hidden, even from me. But he told me he’d made out the deed so the land would go to me. All I had to do was sign the transferred deed and register it at the county office. But after he died, Bull got his hands on the deed, altered it somehow, and filed it under his own name. I never even saw it.”
“And there’s no copy in the recorder’s office.”
“No. I asked.”
“Then it seems to me . . .” Sutherland spoke slowly, as if pondering each phrase. “It seems that what you need to do is get the court to subpoena the original deed from Mr. Tyler and hire an expert to determine how it was altered. With that done, you could take the evidence to court and make your claim.”
Rose felt as if she were shrinking in her chair. She was already out of her depth. “How much would that cost?” she asked.
“I’d have to do some checking. But I could make an estimate and get back to you.”
Rose knew what that meant. The cost, for her, would amount to a small fortune, more than she could ever hope to pay. And asking Ferg to loan her that amount would surely involve giving him a lien on the land—which would be like bargaining away her soul. She saw the smile on Ferg’s face—a smile that fled as soon as he realized she was looking at him. Yes, he was thinking the same thing. This was a trap.
“Can’t I base my claim on the fact that I’m my grandfather’s only living descendant?” she asked the lawyer.
“Can you prove it, Miss Landro?”
Rose’s heart dropped. She’d never given a thought to the question. But her grandfather was dead and buried. So was her mother, who was his estranged daughter. She’d managed to keep her birth certificate, but everything in the way of photos, letters, and other evidence had been lost after her mother’s death, when the state had placed Rose in a foster home.
She knew beyond doubt that she was the granddaughter of Cletus McAdoo. But as far as anyone else was concerned, she might as well be nothing more than a runaway orphan who’d found her way to his shack and been taken in by the old hermit.
Just one person had spoken with the old man and could bear witness that he’d believed her to be his granddaughter. Unfortunately, that person was Bull Tyler.
“Can you prove the blood relationship, Miss Landro?” the lawyer asked again.
Rose shook her head. At least she understood her options. But none of them were good. “Let me think about this. If I need your help I’ll let Mr. Prescott know.”
Not much chance of that, she thought as the cook hobbled in with squares of dry-looking yellow cake. Her appetite gone, she washed down bites of dessert with sips of sour lemonade. If she chose to pursue a suit against Bull, she would have to mortgage her land to Ferg Prescott—a mortgage she could never hope to pay off. Looking across the table at Ferg’s smug face, she realized that was what he’d had in mind all along.
* * *
At the next lull in the conversation, she excused herself, thanked her host and the lawyer, and made her escape.
As she crossed the porch, her eyes probed the darkness, seeking one tall figure, one rugged face. But Tanner was nowhere in sight. Time to stop playing the fool, Rose chided herself. Tanner had better things to do than hang around keeping an eye on her. She’d be smart to forget about him and look out for herself.
