Rebecca jerked her head at Conner. “Well, he already knew, so the danger was over. And everyone was guessing that it was Billy Joe or Bobby, because we’ve been seen with them so often. No one would believe me when I said they had it all wrong.” She shrugged. “So I gave them a few details.”
“Like…”
“The father of your baby’s new in town, someone they’d never suspect, stuff like that.”
“In other words, you led them straight to Conner.”
“Would you rather have them think it was Billy Joe or Bobby?” Rebecca asked.
“No,” Conner said. Then he shoved away from the wall and left the room.
“No?” Rebecca repeated, her eyes round. “What are we supposed to make of that?”
Delaney shook her head. “I really don’t know.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WITH DELANEY and everyone else gone, the night was far too quiet as Conner sat in his study, halfheartedly flipping through the latest issue of Idaho Cattlemen. Since coming to Dundee, he’d pored through every ranching magazine he could lay hands on, trying to learn the business, trying to gain some bit of information that might help him put the Running Y in the black. But now that his grandfather had listed the ranch for sale, he no longer saw any reason to bang his head against that wall. Roy might think he was giving up too easily, but he knew his uncles. They wouldn’t be happy until they had the money from the ranch to invest in another hotel or office building or winery in California. They didn’t care that the Running Y hailed back to Clive’s roots, that it stood for something beyond profit. To them, it was all about dollars and cents. Nothing else mattered.
So why was the idea of letting go bothering him so much? With the ranch on the market, he no longer had to worry about failing. The big question—whether or not he could follow in his grandfather’s footsteps—would never be answered, and he could simply tread water until the ranch and all its problems disappeared. For whatever reason, his uncles had given him a graceful out. But somehow, taking that out made Conner feel more like a failure than if he’d kept fighting.
He tossed the magazine aside and considered calling his mother. He wanted someone to tell him there wasn’t anything more he could do, that the fate of the Running Y was out of his hands. Then maybe he could really let himself off the hook. But he knew she’d probably agree with Roy about giving up too soon, so he frowned and shoved the phone away. He couldn’t beat Stephen, Jonathan and Dwight. Not when they stood together. They’d always had too big an advantage.
“You gonna sit there all night, staring into space?” Roy said, poking his head through the doorway. He smelled as if he’d doused himself with an entire bottle of Brut cologne.
Conner blinked and focused on his foreman. “I thought you went into town with the others.”
“No, Isaiah has a date, and Grady and Ben say they’re too tired. What about you? You wanna go to the Honky Tonk?”
Conner winced at the memory of his last visit, when he’d sat alone for hours and drunk himself silly. It had hardly been a rip-roaring good time, and he hadn’t been back since. “I don’t think so. Place was dead when I was there.”
“That’s because you went in the middle of the week. No one here parties in the middle of the week. We got too much work to do. But it’s Friday night, and the Honky Tonk’s always packed on Friday night. Come see for yourself.”
“I don’t know,” Conner said. “I should really…” He let his words fade because he wasn’t sure what he should be doing anymore. Now that the ranch was passing out of his control, almost everything on his “to do” list seemed to have little point.
“Come on,” Roy said, adjusting the new hat he wore on social occasions. “It’s time you got out.”
Conner had never dreamed someone would say that to him—to his grandfather, yes, but not to him.
“Delaney will probably be there,” Roy added.
Conner shrugged as though that didn’t matter, but she was becoming such a regular fixture at the ranch that he was beginning to feel her absence whenever she was gone. Especially when she went home on the weekends….
But that was only because he couldn’t look out for her if she wasn’t around, couldn’t make sure she was taking care of herself for the baby’s sake, he decided.
“So?” Roy demanded.
“Sure,” Conner said. “Why not.”
“DON’T LOOK NOW, but Conner just walked through the door,” Rebecca said, nudging Delaney as they waited at the bar for their drinks.
“Great,” Delaney said. “I can’t escape him anywhere.”
“Why do you think he came? I’ve never seen him here before.”
Delaney frowned and allowed herself a covert glance across the room. She could easily see Roy and Conner cutting through the crowd, making their way to a table. Roy had scrubbed up and was wearing a western shirt and his dress hat, which added a few inches to his height. Conner looked more casual. He wasn’t wearing a hat, just the Wranglers that fit him so well and a thick fleece sweatshirt that he probably considered dressing down but went a long way toward accentuating his powerful shoulders and drawing female attention. Sliding a hand in one pocket, he paused to respond to someone who’d spoken to him, and when he shifted, Delaney saw it was Gloria Palmer, an old friend of hers from high school.
“He’s probably here for the same reason we are,” she said, feeling a stab of possessiveness she told herself she had no right to feel. “Just looking for a little entertainment.”
“Ignore him,” Rebecca said. “Don’t let him ruin your fun.”
Delaney accepted the soda water Rebecca handed her and pressed through the crowd until she reached the darts area in the corner, where Billy Joe and Bobby waited for them.
“I just hit a triple bull’s-eye,” Billy Joe announced, pointing at a red-tailed dart smack in the middle of the board. “See that and weep, ladies.”
“It doesn’t count,” Rebecca said with a shrug. “We haven’t started another game yet.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t count?” Billy Joe complained. “I knew we were going to start another game, so I went first.”
“There’s your problem,” Rebecca told him. “I was supposed to go first.”
“What do you think, Laney?” Billy Joe asked.