Grace and the Cowboy
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Mary Anne Wilson
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17
CHAPTER ONE
ON A BRIGHT mid-November day, Grace Bennet stood alone by a private hangar at the airport outside of Tucson, Arizona, scanning the northern sky. Finally, a sleek private jet came into view and started its descent toward the main landing strip. As it touched down, Grace shielded her eyes with her hand to block the noon-hour sun and tried to ignore the knots in her stomach. She hadn’t seen her father, Walter Bennet, founder and CEO of the Las Vegas–based Golden Mountain Corporation, for at least six months. After her mother had passed a year ago, what had always been a tenuous link between father and daughter had almost ceased to exist.
Now her father was begrudgingly making a brief stopover on his way to Japan on corporate business. She hadn’t actually begged him to meet her prior to leaving, but she’d come close before he’d finally agreed to it. Grace needed a legitimate face-to-face moment with him, not a phone call or a video call. She needed to ask him one question that no one else could answer for her. She really needed the truth.
Walter Bennet might be a lot of things, including domineering, controlling and a bully at times, but he wasn’t a liar. He was brutally frank, never editing his words to spare anyone’s feelings, not even hers.
The plane with the glittering Golden Mountain logo on its tail section slowed and taxied over to a stop about thirty feet from where she stood. The cabin door lifted up, the steps dropped down to the tarmac, then Sawyer Bakker, her father’s executive assistant, motioned for her to come on board.
“Come on, Grace,” he shouted over the whine of the idling engines.
The man was dressed in an immaculate three-piece navy suit, and he was smiling at her. He was fifty-eight to her father’s sixty but looked ten years younger. Grace figured that might be because Sawyer was given to freely passing out genuine smiles, making up for the profound lack of warmth from her father.
“You’re going with Walter to Japan?” she asked as she took the steps up into the plane. She’d called her father Walter all of her life. He’d insisted on it. Her mother had always been Marianna. No Mommy and Daddy.
“He wants me there for the investors’ meeting in Brussels after we finalize the expansion plans in Tokyo.” He motioned her past him into the cabin. “Sorry to rush you, but we’re on a tight schedule.”
“How is he?” Grace asked in a lower voice.
“Impatient. I’d say you’re looking at a ten-minute window before he gives takeoff orders.”
“Got it,” she murmured and went farther into the eight-passenger cabin, a space that looked like a well-appointed study with its rich dark woods and leather finishes. Walter was sitting at a round table by the closed door to his sleeping quarters in the back. A crystal decanter that she knew held his special whiskey blend was to his right. Some of the amber liquid was in the glass in front of him.
Walter didn’t stand and greet his only child as she approached him but motioned her to a captain’s chair directly across the table from him. “Sit,” he said abruptly before he pointedly glanced at his wristwatch. He looked at her and his ice blue eyes narrowed. “You said you were in a hurry for this, so let’s get to it.”
He tossed back his drink while Grace took her seat, feeling as uncomfortable as she always did around him. When she finally met his gaze again, she was taken back to see how much older he looked at that moment. What had once been thick brown hair was thinning and streaked with gray. The lines at his eyes and the brackets at his mouth seemed deeper. It looked as if the last year hadn’t been kind to him. Clasping her hands in her lap, she tried to focus past a sudden sadness that came out of nowhere.
Quickly she said, “I need you to answer a question. That’s all.”
He shrugged. “If it’s not about you coming to work with me, I’m just losing time and money sitting here.”
He hadn’t changed. His time was valuable to him, and he rationed it out to the last minute. He poured more whiskey. “So, are you coming to claim your spot at the Mountain?” Walter had called his corporate headquarters in Las Vegas “the Mountain” for as long as she could remember. His eyes narrowed when she didn’t answer. “Why do I sense you’re going to disappoint me again, Grace?”
She wouldn’t be baited to go down that rabbit hole and let him control the conversation. She kept eye contact and said simply, “That’s not my plan.”
His exhale of air was a low hiss. “You really are Marianna’s daughter. She was beautiful and passed her looks down to you, along with her ability to make me miserable without even trying.”
Her parents had met when Marianna had been a top international runway model, and Walter had already made a name for himself and a lot of money in his business ventures. Grace had inherited her mother’s height at five-ten, the same ebony black hair and striking violet eyes. But her mother had drawn attention wherever she went and loved it immensely. Grace hated being noticed unless she wanted to be. She hadn’t been born to be a model, not any more than she’d been born to take over her father’s empire when the time came.
“Marianna was always beautiful,” she half whispered.
“She never looked like some thrift store reject,” Walter said before he downed his drink.
Her outfit—a gold silk blouse, black leather pants and black wedge sandals—had been a real find in the consignment shop she ran with her former college roommate near their apartment in Tucson. She liked the style and the fact she hadn’t had to spend a week’s pay for it. Walter would have preferred she wear sharp business suits—the female version of his style—with her hair styled in a short bob and brushed sleekly back from her face. She’d never dressed like that and preferred to wear her natural curls loose, falling just past her shoulders from a center part. She didn’t respond to his critique.
“There was just one Marianna,” Walter finally murmured as he stared down at the now empty glass in his hand.
Grace felt her throat tightening, thinking about her mother. Taking a breath, she swallowed hard, then tried to steer their conversation back on track. “The question I need answered is—”
He abruptly cut her off. “Is this where you ask for money?”
She looked right at him. “No. I don’t need your money.”
His sarcasm grew sharper. “Did some guy with tattoos and a Harley get you in some trouble, and you need a lawyer?”
“What? No,” she said more sharply than she’d meant to. “I’m here about a letter I received from an attorney in Wyoming.”
That caught his interest. “Was it a job offer?”
“No,” she said again. “I have a job I’m happy with.”
“Of course you are. Who wouldn’t want to spend their life selling used clothes and coffee after getting an expensive degree in business and marketing?” He sat back, looking so in control that it made Grace feel slightly nauseous. She braced herself for what she knew was coming in his attempt to intimidate her. He didn’t disappoint.
“Obviously you don’t appreciate the life my work has made possible for you. I’ve indulged you at every step, letting you take your time settling down, leaving it up to you to tell me when you were ready to become part of the company. You’re going to be twenty-seven years old in a few months. I was twenty-one when I bought into my first investment. You’ve had a lot of time to do nothing except indulge your need to be some ridiculous free spirit.”
His words hurt, but she tried to at least give the appearance that they didn’t. “I did what you asked me to do, including carrying a 4.0 GPA all throughout college. While doing that, I was working, and I haven’t asked for anything from you since my freshman year.” Her tone became more defensive than she’d wanted it to be, so she made herself finish as evenly as she could. “I have friends and a life that I like in Tucson. That’s all that matters to me right now.”
“Do you want me to applaud you?” He chuckled roughly. “You’re a fool, Grace.”
She’d had enough, and she’d end this now on her terms. She got right to the point. “The letter from the attorney in Wyoming was about him settling the will of a man from a small town in the northern part of the state. I was named as his sole heir.”
Walter looked surprised. “Who is this guy?”
This was it, and she spoke carefully to get it out before he cut her off. “Martin Roberts. His will says I’m his niece. All I want from you is to tell me if this Martin Roberts really was my uncle.”
Her father’s expression hardened. The only sound in the cabin was the muted whine of the plane’s engines idling until he said, “Martin Roberts used to be Martin Robert Bennet, my older brother.”
She hardly knew how to process what he’d admitted so easily. “Your...your brother? I had an uncle and you never told me about him. Why?”
That brought a scoffing exhale from Walter. “Martin was a waste and not worth anything.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Now you know. Forget about that letter and a man who doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”
Grace was stunned. “Your brother—my uncle—is dead.”
He shook his head. “He’s been dead to me for almost thirty years. You contact the attorney for a full monetary assessment of the inheritance. No, don’t bother with that. I’ll make this all go away. Leave it to me.”
Walter was throwing out orders that he expected her to follow without question, and for most of her life, she had done as he’d told her to do. But after she’d left to go to college, she’d realized she was capable of making her own decisions. “No, this is my inheritance and I’ll handle it.”
It seemed to take a second for her answer to sink in with him. When it did, he didn’t explode. She remembered his rules for winning: Get your adversary angry and when they get emotional and start yelling, you keep control and make them look like a fool, then you win. He stared at her, holding eye contact, another tip he’d given her: Never look away. “I’m offering to help so you don’t get tangled up with some yahoo who calls himself an attorney.”
“I have what I came for, so I’ll leave and let you go to Tokyo,” she said. She wasn’t going to play his game.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice tight. “Uncle or not, Martin was a no-good born loser.”
“But he was your brother,” she allowed herself to say.
“It was his choice to walk away and give up the Bennet name.” He smiled at her, a totally humorless expression that he used to keep an adversary off balance. It only made her more determined to not back down. “In hindsight, it was probably the only good thing Martin ever did, to get out of here and leave us alone.”
Grace flinched inside, and she had to fight to keep her tone calm when she responded. “He’s dead, Walter, and I never even knew he existed. How could you keep that from me?”
“It wasn’t any of your business,” he said without hesitation as if that justified and explained everything.
“He was part of my family, and I deserved to know him. Why did he walk away? What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.” His single word was hard and flat.
Grace almost sagged from the weight of sadness she felt. “I can’t believe you don’t care your own brother died.”
He shrugged. “Martin’s whole life was a mess and it’s over. We won’t talk about this again. Ever. I’ll make it go away. Am I making myself clear?”
What was clear to her was Martin Roberts had been her uncle. He’d been family, and his own brother didn’t care about what happened to him. She’d stepped inside the corporate jet expecting one of two possible outcomes: either the attorney had the wrong person, or by some twist of fate, the man really had been her uncle. Maybe she’d been naive enough to think that she and Walter could share the shock and grief of his loss if the attorney had been right.
“Yes, I understand,” she murmured. But she wouldn’t agree to anything with him. Her world had changed. Instead of what Walter wanted, she would go to the place her uncle had called home, and she’d find out the truth for herself.
She stood abruptly to end the meeting. “You can bill me for your time, Walter. I’ll leave you to mourn Uncle Martin.” She turned away as Sawyer appeared from the cockpit and went to raise the door and lower the stairs for her.
Before she could get outside, her father called after her, “I don’t need you to tell me to mourn anyone. You call the attorney, or, trust me, I will!”
She looked back at him. “Don’t you dare. It’s not your business.”
For a moment she thought he was going to break his own rules and yell at her, but he didn’t. He kept his voice level, but he spoke slowly, enunciating each word clearly. “Listen to me—if you decide to head out to the Wild West, you are on your own.” A smugness entered his tone. “You’d probably fit right in at some run-down motel in some jerkwater town in the middle of nowhere.”
She bit her lip hard to keep from saying something that would only make things worse. She settled for, “Whatever it is, it’s my life and my choice. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
He waved her away with a dismissive motion of his big hand. “Go and do whatever you want to do, but if you fall on your face, I won’t help you get up. If you need money, get a second job. See how that works out for you.”
Grace knew if she left then, she’d pay a price. Maybe banishment from Walter Bennet’s world. If so, she’d pay it. “Go to Japan. I’m heading to Wyoming!” she called back to him as she took the first step down.
He threw out one last verbal volley. “Regrettably, it looks as if you’ve inherited some of Martin’s stupidity.”
She didn’t look back this time as she hurried down onto the tarmac and over to where she’d been allowed to park by the hangar. She tried to let go of a wild mixture of pain, anger and disbelief as she slipped behind the steering wheel of her old green Jeep. She didn’t drive away immediately but stayed to watch the corporate jet taxi back onto the main runway. When its wheels lifted off the ground and the plane climbed into the heavens, she finally felt as if she could breathe again.
It was done. She was going alone to Wyoming to see where her uncle had lived and find out all she could about a man she’d never heard of until two days ago, a man she’d never be able to meet.
