She kissed me slow and sweet, tasting like champagne and chocolate and everything I could ever need. My hands slid down her waist into her back pockets, and she rocked her hips against me, sending a jolt of need through me.
“Do you ever wonder what things would be like if that day never happened? If our dads had never shown up?”
“Please don’t bring up our fathers while you’re grinding on top of me.” She giggled and stilled. “But yeah, I do sometimes.”
“That day was terrible,” she said softly, resting her head in the crook of my neck. “I think that was my first real heartbreak.”
I ran a hand along her back, watching the sunset. “I sometimes wonder if my dad would’ve been different had that merger happened. Less jaded. Less hard on us kids.” If hewould’ve been an actual father to me and not the distant, judgmental man he had been.
“My dad said it was your grandfather’s fault,” she said.
“Mount said the same thing about yours. He said someone told my grandfather that yours was going to push mine out of the land deal, so he bought it up before he could. All the money my family had was on the line, so he couldn't risk losing it all.”
She sat up then, frowning. “That’s not what mine said. My dad said my grandfather hadn’t seen it coming, that yours blindsided him. That he was relying on the merger because my family was practically broke.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it. Golden Bridle is on the up, Circle M is doin’ just fine.”
“Yeah,” she said, giving me a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “All in the past.”
“My grandfather kept a bottle of wine he had bought to celebrate when the merger closed. We should open it. I bet it’s good. It’s been sitting in the basement for damn near fifty years.”
Her head tilted, and the setting sun backlit her hair just right, making it look red like pomegranates. “Are you sure?”
I stood and held a hand out for her. “Yeah, let’s go get it.”
There weren’t a lot of bottles of wine on the wine rack anymore; my grandmother was the one who drank and collected them, so the collection had dwindled significantly over the years. But I had always been told as a kid to never touch the bottle on the top rack to the far left. Being told not to do something as a kid naturally made me want to all the more, but by the time I could reach it, I’d forgotten about it.
But now, I finally got to and I couldn’t think of a better reason for it. Sharing it with Claire felt somewhat full circle, considering we were the two heirs of the ranches that were supposed to come together. It felt oddly significant, as if makinga declaration to leave the past behind. To not let this one thing from so long ago haunt our families anymore.
When I slid it out of the wooden rack, a piece of paper fell to the ground, its edges worn and yellowed.
“What’s that?” Claire asked, picking it up. She squinted at the paper. “It’s too dark to read it down here.”
Back upstairs, she turned the kitchen lights on, reading it over. Her eyes got wider with every line. “What is it?” I asked, coming behind her.
“Beau…it’s the merger. A handwritten contract for it.” She looked up at me, stunned.
17
Claire
“What do you mean it’s the merger?” Beau took the worn paper from my hands.
He read it over, face tense. “Upon the acquisition of Lot WC-1836-55 for $300,000, ownership shall be split evenly between Beaumont A. McLeod and Thomas E. Hayes, with all profits and operational responsibilities shared jointly by the owning parties.”
He set the paper down, staring at it like it was a grenade. “Holy shit. It’ssigned, Claire.”
“No way.” I took the paper back, finding two signatures at the bottom that were clearly our grandfathers’. “Does that mean this whole time the ranches have been one mega ranch?”
If that were the case, all of that when we were kids, all our fathers’ hostility, would have been for nothing, and I didn’t know how I’d feel if that were the case.
“Don’t think so. If it never got filed, then they couldn’t be.”
“Maybe it was just something for between them. Not official, but symbolic.”
Beau’s brows furrowed as he braced his hands on the counter. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Look at this.” I pointed at one of the bottom paragraphs. “The land parcel is to remain in the McLeod and Hayes families in perpetuity, with succession rights passed only to direct heirs. No portion of the land may be sold, divided, or transferred without the mutual, written consent of both families.”
