“Con?”
The somber note in Roy’s voice finally pierced Conner’s preoccupation. “What?” he said.
Roy handed him the phone. “It’s your mother. Clive’s had a heart attack.”
IT WAS TOO SOON. His day of reckoning had come too soon.
Conner sat on the plane, staring out the window at nothing but sky. After his mother’s call, he’d packed, headed straight to the airport in Boise and gotten on the first flight to California. They’d be landing in San Francisco, where his mother would meet him, in just another twenty minutes, but he still felt numb from the news—numb and afraid. He’d known his grandfather couldn’t live forever, that he’d die sometime. But the old “it could never happen to me” mentality had lulled him into thinking it would be later, always later.
What if the old guy didn’t make it?
Conner thought of his life and how he’d wasted so much time in empty pursuits, and was suddenly more ashamed than he’d ever been. He’d persuaded himself that he was fighting his uncles, somehow besting them by proving he could live fast and loose and get away with it, that he didn’t care about anything. But he was only playing into their hands. And now, when the important things in life seemed so apparent, he felt like a fool because he did care, deeply.
I’m coming, Grandpa. Hang on, he thought. Then he took out the magazines he’d shown Roy and stared down at them. The idea of turning part of the ranch into a resort seemed even more grandiose now. It would take millions of dollars. It would also require total control of the ranch and at least a couple of years. But Conner believed his plan could work. And he promised himself that he’d save the Running Y for his grandfather—and his baby. He’d link the past to the future if it was the last thing he did.
CONNER WAS SITTING in the breakfast room at the Napa house with his mother when he saw Stephen for the first time. They’d stopped by the hospital the night before, just after Conner had flown in, and spent several hours at Clive’s bedside. His grandfather had been in good spirits, and looked better than he’d expected, which gave Conner hope that he’d recover, but the doctors said he had a bad valve and would need surgery before they released him. Stephen had been in San José on business and hadn’t returned until late at night. To Conner’s knowledge, he hadn’t even been over to the hospital yet.
“Yee-haw! Well, if it ain’t the cowboy in the family,” Stephen said, lowering the newspaper he’d been reading as he walked.
Conner glanced down at his apparel, which was exactly what he would’ve worn out on the range, minus the heavy jacket and hat, and grinned. “That’s right.”
“Well, don’t get too comfortable in those boots. The Realtor said we should be expecting an offer on the ranch this week,” he said, and took the seat across from Vivian, where he immediately began to spread out the business section of the paper.
“That’s all you have to say?” Conner asked over the crackle. “Aren’t you going to ask about Grandfather? You know he had a heart attack yesterday.”
Stephen didn’t look up as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Marjorie’s been there.”
Stephen’s tennis-playing, social-climbing wife. “Now you have a delegate handling your familial obligations?”
“Conner, let’s not start,” his mother warned, wrapping her long fingers more tightly around her own coffee cup. But Conner wasn’t interested in backing down now. He stretched out in his chair, crossed his arms and waited for Stephen’s response.
“I’m doing what my father would want me to do,” Stephen said, setting his cup in its saucer with a clink. “Which is more than can be said for you most of the time.”
“Forever the dutiful son. Tell me, have you and your brothers broken out the will yet?”
“Conner!” Vivian said.
Stephen dropped the spoon he’d been using to dump sugar in his coffee and narrowed his eyes. “Funny you should bring up the will, since you’re the only one in danger of being cut out of it.”
Conner made a tsking noise. “And Grandfather hasn’t taken care of that yet? I can certainly see how this little heart attack would give you and your brothers a scare. What a relief to think there’s still time.”
Stephen clenched his fists as he stood, and his face went splotchy with anger. “You little bastard,” he said. “How dare you come into my house and—”
“Whoa, slow down. Grandfather’s not dead yet,” Conner said, but he didn’t bother to stand because Stephen suddenly seemed too pathetic to be considered a threat. “This house still belongs to him, and I’m still welcome in it.”
“Once we sell that ranch, you won’t be welcome anywhere,” Stephen promised.
“We’ll see about the ranch,” Conner said, and for the first time in years, he thought he detected a glimmer of fear in Stephen’s eyes.
“Why do you say that?” Stephen asked. “What’s changed?”
Conner smiled. “I have.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DELANEY LOOKED DOWN at the notes she’d taken in her assertiveness training classes, wondering if any of the techniques she’d been taught might help her now. She needed to tell Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph that Conner was the father of her baby before they heard it somewhere else. But they were still adjusting to the idea of her having a baby at all. She hated to rock the boat again so soon. Especially because she knew they’d want some definite answers—what role, exactly, did Conner plan to play in the child’s life? Would he help out financially? Take partial custody? Delaney couldn’t give them those answers because she didn’t know them herself. She wasn’t sure Conner even knew what he was going to do once the baby arrived. The ranch was up for sale. Once it left the family, would he stay in Idaho? Move back to California? She had nothing but questions, and now that Clive Armstrong had had a heart attack and open-heart surgery, things were even more up in the air.
She flipped the pancakes she was cooking for the cowboys’ breakfast, then returned to the kitchen table to read the definition of self-disclosure again, this time focusing on the last line. “A key element of successful assertiveness is the development of rejection tolerance, so that disclosure of one’s self is not as threatening as it is to someone preoccupied with the thought ‘But what will they think if I say that?’”