Heir to the Ranch
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Melissa Senate
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Chapter One
Very pregnant lady here to see you and she looks spittin’ mad.
Gavin Dawson read the text from the ranch’s front-gate attendant, wondering what this could be about. He’d been on a break from romantic relationships for just over a year now, so that wasn’t it.
She must be after a different Gavin. Or Dawson. Or Gavin Dawson.
He didn’t have time for this. He was fixing a hole in a remote area of fence way out on his cousins’ dude ranch, trying not to think about the bombshell that had dropped on his head a week ago. And failing.
Then again, that was why he was here—back home in Bear Ridge, Wyoming, after years away—hiding out in a small cabin at the far end of the Dawson Family Guest Ranch. To think about it. To get his mind around the shocking news, let it sit until he could decide what to do. The branch of the family that owned this ranch—second cousins—had welcomed him with a place to stay, a horse and not too many questions. He appreciated that and them.
“Whoever she is, she must have the wrong guy,” he said to Butterscotch, the mare he’d spent hours riding this past week. The horse glanced up from where she’d been grazing by the fence he’d been repairing. He’d figured he might as well pay back his cousins’ hospitality by looking for holes and trouble spots. There were always plenty on a ranch. He’d needed to work, good, hard, old-fashioned cowboy chores. It was when he was alone in the cabin, thinking, stewing, that his gut ached.
He grabbed his phone and snapped a quick selfie, then texted: Can you ask her if I’m the guy she’s looking for?
It was a two-mile ride back to the main area of the dude ranch where the lodge and guest cabins and cafeteria were. He’d rather stay here, tightening wire and then moving along on Butterscotch.
He glanced at the photo as he sent it. Not a hint of smile. Wary, weary eyes. Hard-set jaw. Not that he’d probably looked any different a week ago; no one would call Gavin Dawson “happy-go-lucky” or “devil-may-care.” But a week ago, Gavin would have said nothing could shock him. And then whammo.
I have a direct quote, the gate attendant texted back. You tell him: Hell yes, he is.
Gavin raised an eyebrow and stared at the text. This didn’t sound good.
“I don’t know, Butterscotch,” he said, putting away his tools and slipping a foot into a stirrup. “Guess we’re gonna find out.”
On my way, he texted back. Two minutes.
He headed out toward the front gate, the cool April breeze feeling good against his face. He lifted his Stetson, letting the wind whip his hair, snap him into attention, then set it back.
As he neared the barn and stables, he waved at some of his relatives who were leading guests on horseback down the bridle path or running a workshop for kids at the petting zoo.
“Who wants to meet our new baby goats?” He could hear Maisey Dawson call out from her perch on a tree stump inside the enclosure in front of the barn.
“Meeee!” at least fifteen children shouted back, hands shooting up in the air.
Gavin had never had much exposure to kids until he’d come back to Bear Ridge. The six siblings who owned this ranch had a lot of little children among them. Between his pint-size relatives and the guests’ children, he was practically run over every time he headed from his small cabin to the cafeteria, and the joyful shriekers always made him smile. Gavin liked kids—as long as they were someone else’s.
He arrived at the welcome hut. Standing to the side of the ornate wrought iron gate with its huge D was the most pregnant woman Gavin had ever seen. Despite that, she was dressed for business—in a pale blue pantsuit with a floral scarf at her neck and fancy white cowboy boots. Her long swirly blond hair was in a clip past one shoulder.
And yes, she did look spittin’ mad. While staring straight at him.
Had he ever seen this woman before? He didn’t think so. He’d remember that face—an equal mix of angelic and fierce.
He hopped off the horse, reins in his hand. “I’m—”
“Yeah, I know who you are,” she interrupted, hands on her hips. “I’m Lily Gold.”
She waited.
Ah. He knew that name. He sighed hard.
The big blue eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that’s right. It’s me in the flesh.”
He’d been avoiding her letters, calls and texts for a week, ever since he got the news from a lawyer that he’d inherited the Wild Canyon, one of the most prosperous cattle ranches in Bear Ridge, upon the death of Harlan Mandeville. Mandeville was Gavin’s biological father—the real bastard in the equation—who hadn’t acknowledged him his entire life.
Lily Gold had been Harlan’s administrative assistant.
All the air in Gavin’s lungs had been sucked out by the lawyer’s call; the man had tracked him down three hours south in Wyoming where he’d just finished a six-month contract to turn around a failing ranch, his specialty. He’d done his job well and it had been time to go—in three weeks he had to be on the outskirts of Cheyenne for his next assignment. After the call, Gavin had booked a hotel in Cheyenne, thinking the change of scenery from wilderness to city lights would help him come to terms with the news.
It hadn’t. He’d realized he needed to be on home base, someplace familiar. Staying in Bear Ridge would allow him to drive past the Wild Canyon and see if he spontaneously combusted or just felt like hell. If he had no reaction, which was unlikely, maybe he’d even sneak his way on the ranch to check out the place on the downlow. But for the past week he hadn’t gone near the ranch.
Enough of a surprise was how he’d felt when he’d arrived in Bear Ridge. Unexpected nostalgia for his hometown, the ranch country he’d grown up in, though he and his mother had lived in a few different rentals close to town, where Annie Dawson had worked as a secretary in dull offices. He hadn’t been back since he lost her six years ago. A yearning for family—real family, not fake like Mandeville—had swelled up somehow, and he’d called his cousin Noah about staying at the ranch the Dawsons had rebuilt not too long ago. And here he was.
No closer to knowing what to do with an inheritance he didn’t want, let alone all that it called up in him.
Gut-twisting questions. Bitterness on his mother’s behalf. And yes, on his own.
The week he’d been here, Gavin had been trying to figure out what to do with the Wild Canyon. Sell it and burn the money? Only in his fantasies. But he didn’t want anything to do with it or his father’s legacy. Sell it and start his own bigger, better ranch? That sounded good. Except he’d always know the money came from Mandeville.
So he’d done nothing but brood.
And now Mandeville’s administrative assistant—very pregnant and shooting daggers at him with her bluebell-colored eyes—had come after him.
“I’m sorry to put you through the trouble of driving out here,” he said. “Especially in your...” His eyes dropped to her belly.
She glared at him. “My what? Condition? I’m fine. Know who’s not fine? All the people and livestock your silence has been holding up. Paperwork, invoices, checks all sitting unsigned, the new owner not responding to my calls or emails. So you’re coming with me, bub.” She pointed her finger at him.
“Bub?” He almost smiled. Was she from a 1940s James Cagney movie?
For just a split second, her anger was replaced by sadness, but then it was gone in a flash, the fury back.
She lifted her chin. “My father always said bub. With the finger jab. He picked it up from his father, who probably picked it up from his father.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about fathers, so...”
She stared at him. “I do know a bit of your family history, Mr. Dawson. I imagine it’s not easy to inherit property from the man who wasn’t part of your life. But inherit it you did. I’m asking you to take responsibility for the Wild Canyon so that people can get paid, invoices can go in and out, and initiatives and programs finalized.”
He might be the owner of the ranch, but he hadn’t taken ownership and didn’t intend to until he figured out what he was doing with it. “Look, I’m not prepared to—”
“No, you look,” she said, hands back on her hips. “Several people are waiting to be officially hired for various positions after being verbally promised jobs. Paperwork for the new sanctuary for rescued animals needs your signature since Harlan died before that was finalized. Six children are supposed to be given free therapeutic horseback riding lessons at the stables this week, but that’s held up too. You like making children cry, Dawson? Oh, and let me see what else. Deliveries aren’t coming. The veterinarian is pissed. My mom and gram, who run the ranch cafeteria, need their inventory order approved, and the foreman can’t do anything without your say-so. You want them to run out of beans for their prizewinning chili? The cowboys will revolt. No one knows if their jobs are secure, including me. Oh, and speaking of the foreman, he’s getting yelled at by everyone because of you. Bub.”
Oh hell.
“Let me go put Butterscotch away,” he said, giving the horse a double pat, “and I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.” He needed the breather.
“I could go into labor by then,” she said, giving her belly that same double pat.
He felt his eyes widen and tried not to stare at her enormous midsection. He held up a finger and darted into the welcome hut to ask the attendant to have someone ride Butterscotch back to the stables.
“You’ll get used to me,” Lily said as he rejoined her. “I get things done.”
She wasn’t kidding.
“You’re not really gonna go into labor any minute—are you?” he asked.
She smiled. “I could.”
He swallowed and trailed behind her to her red pickup.
But she wouldn’t, right?
Lily had come after Gavin Dawson herself because most people wouldn’t refuse a woman who was nine months pregnant. After he’d ignored all forms of communication from her this past week, she’d done some research on him, this stranger who was her new boss, the new owner of the Wild Canyon, but there wasn’t much, so she’d had to go digging deep.
No immediate family. Staying at the popular guest ranch owned by second cousins, six siblings everyone in Bear Ridge knew, including her. That was how she’d found out, through basic gossip in a small town, that Gavin Dawson, “Annie’s kid, who’d been away for years,” was staying at the Dawson Family Guest Ranch.
He’d been working on ranches since he was a teenager. Traveled across Wyoming as an in-demand ranch consultant. His reputation was impeccable—she’d called and asked, pretending to be looking for references. The most recent place he’d worked at had referred to him as their executive cowboy/wrangler, which had managed to make her smile. The Three Hendersons Ranch, owned by triplet brothers in their fifties, had said he’d turned their operation and them completely around—from the breeding end to the employees to how the brothers dealt with vendors. The ranch was out of the red, morale boosted, and the ranch and the triplets’ relationships with one another on solid ground.
Lily had breathed a huge sigh of relief at the information. It meant he had expertise not just with horses and cattle but with the business of horses and cattle—not to mention people—and that had been all she needed to know. Gavin Dawson wouldn’t be just some lucky cowboy plucked off one ranch and put in charge of the place she loved more than anything. The Wild Canyon was her everything. Home. Job. Her family worked there. Her future and her baby’s future was the Wild Canyon Ranch. Gavin Dawson would know what he was doing, and what he didn’t, he’d learn fast.
She’d thanked her lucky stars at what she’d learned about his background, told herself the man just needed a face-to-face explanation of why he was needed at the ranch, then got in her pickup and went to get him.
That had gotten a chuckle and a “that’s Lily for ya” from her mom and grandmother, who’d waved as she’d driven away in her red pickup, telling her to call when she arrived and/or at the first sign of a contraction, just so they wouldn’t worry. On the drive over to the Dawson Family Guest Ranch, she’d actually been a little nervous that her well-hidden anxiety over her mission would send her into labor, and she’d give birth alone on the side of the road. Everything depended on getting Gavin Dawson to the Wild Canyon.
Now here he was, sitting right next to her in her truck.
Yeah, she got things done. Often at a cost to herself.
“I’ve got a question for you,” she said, sliding a glance at him. Did he have to be so good-looking? His hair was a sexy mess, tousled, dark and thick under his Stetson, and he was at least six-two with serious muscles. Intense green eyes but with a twinkle, which gave her hope that he wouldn’t be too difficult to deal with. She liked his shirt, a dark green Henley to match the eyes. And his jeans. And his dark brown work boots.
Her hormones were doing a number on her.
“Shoot. Not literally,” he added with a smile and a bit of a drawl like he was Matthew McConaughey.
All week she had literally wanted to shoot him. “Why didn’t you jump to claim the multimillion-dollar ranch you inherited?” she asked. Executive cowboy—who probably earned a small fortune as a ranching consultant—or not. “As I said, I know a little about your family history, that Harlan wasn’t a part of your life at all. But why would you sit on the inheritance?”
“Well, that’s probably the easiest question I’ve ever been asked besides my name.”
She raised an eyebrow. How could it be? Given what she did know.
“Why would I want anything to do with anything of Harlan Mandeville’s?” he said, bitterness landing on the name. “He shirked his responsibility to my mother and never acknowledged me as his child.”
She did know about that, a little, what Harlan had chosen to share in those final weeks. Her question might have been easy for him to answer, but the answer itself was anything but.
“When my mom told him she was pregnant,” he continued, “want to know what he said?”
Actually, Lily knew that too. Harlan had hid his terminal illness from everyone, but when he finally told her how sick he was, that he only had a month to go, he told her about his regrets too. Including how he’d treated Annie Dawson.
“He said he’d had a vasectomy and disconnected the call.” He shook his head. “A lie, obviously, since I’m sitting right here. When I think about him, I think about that.”
She glanced at him again, noting the bitter edge in his deep voice. “What if I told you that when he knew his time was coming, he’d expressed his regrets about how he’d acted?”
The strong arms crossed over his chest. “I’d say he was afraid he wouldn’t be allowed beyond the pearly gates.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But he didn’t talk about that. I knew Harlan. I’d never quite seen that expression on his face before. Pure unadulterated painful regret.”
“Sorry, Lily, but I’m not buying it. I respect people who take care of their regrets when there’s time to make it count. When I was four or five and would ask my mother where my father was, she’d tell me I did have a daddy but that he wasn’t a good person and we would make our way in life and we’d be fine.”
Lily had actually grappled with that when Harlan had told her about the child he’d pretended didn’t exist. She’d been floored to learn about the existence of Gavin Dawson, Harlan Mandeville’s flesh and blood. Could you be a good person and do that? She’d worked for Harlan for ten years and had only known him as kind and generous. Tough, yes, but always fair.
She’d asked him straight-out while he’d sat in the padded recliner she’d had moved into the stables, his favorite place, a wool blanket around his frail frame. Did you have a vasectomy before you met Annie Dawson?
It had taken Harlan a full day to answer that question. No, he said. It was a lie. A lie I’ve been thinking about a lot these days.
That he’d left the Wild Canyon to Gavin Dawson, seemingly a total stranger to Harlan Mandeville, shocked everyone but her. The whispers had flown around the ranch, particularly Who is Dawson to him?
“Your mother sounded like an amazing woman,” she said. “Strong. Independent. I know it had to be hard raising a baby alone.”
“As I grew up, I asked her why she hadn’t gone after him for child support, insisted on a paternity test and all that. She said he’d just lie and pay off a doctor to make up a phony vasectomy report and that it wasn’t worth trying to go after him.” He glanced at her. “She worked two jobs—one weekdays, one weekends—to raise me while Harlan Mandeville sat on his throne at the Wild Canyon. I have no doubt he’s in hell right now.”
She gasped. “Gavin Dawson, you take that back.”
“Take it back? The truth?”
She lifted her chin but could feel it wobble. Dammit. She did want to think of Harlan in heaven, that his acknowledgment of his wrongdoing, his regret, meant he’d been accepted in.
“The Harlan who ended that call with your mother and the man I knew don’t line up,” she said. “At all, Gavin. Harlan was so considerate of people, a great boss to me and the ranch employees, and very generous.”
Gavin let out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to my mother worrying over bills. Tell that to the kid who grew up fatherless and with nothing when he had a rich daddy who pretended he didn’t exist. Think about how that might make a kid feel.”
She knew it had to be painful. She could imagine Gavin at five, at ten, at fifteen wondering about Harlan Mandeville, worrying that he wasn’t enough for his own father to want him in his life. She couldn’t reconcile the man who’d turned his back on Gavin and his mother with the Harlan Mandeville who’d been so good to her and her family. A man who’d agreed to fund her idea for a sanctuary for old and rescued animals. For the free therapeutic horseback riding lessons. He’d paid for a ranch hand’s father’s dental surgery. Instead of firing a cowboy who’d needed bailing out of jail, he’d asked Lily to research a program for him to get his life back on track and promised him a job if he stuck with it. The guy had.
“I just know he deeply regretted his actions where you’re concerned,” Lily said, turning onto the road that would lead to the ranch. “Lack of actions, I should say. He left you the Wild Canyon, after all.”
He frowned. “I don’t want to talk about Harlan Mandeville.”
As he turned to glare out the side window, she figured she’d leave him to his thoughts. He was 100 percent right about his feelings about Harlan; of course he was. She had no business trying to tell him Harlan was a good man when that made no sense to Gavin. How could it?
The important thing was getting the ranch in full operating mode.
As they reached the double bronze gates to the Wild Canyon, she waved ahead at Kyle in their own version of the welcome hut, and the gates swung open.
“How long have you been working here?” Gavin asked.
“Ten years.”
She felt his gaze on her.
“Ten years? You look all of twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-eight. I lost my dad to a car accident when I was eighteen, and my parents had always struggled financially, so I needed to get a decent-paying full-time job to help my mom. I saw an ad for an assistant to the administrative assistant at the Wild Canyon. And a few years later, when Harlan’s admin retired, I was promoted into that role.”
“So you have your own assistant too?” he asked.
“Nah. I don’t need one. I’m super organized, which is half the job. Harlan added the assistant salary to my new salary, since he figured I’d be doing the work of two people.” Another example of his generosity.
Gavin seemed to be registering that but didn’t say anything. He was now looking around. The drive up to the ranch house where the offices were was breathtaking and would ensnare even the biggest city slicker with its wild beauty. Land and sky was all you saw for a quarter mile, then the ornate stables, which Harlan had gone all out on. He’d wanted to be able to see the stables from his office and the master bedroom.
The house came into view, a sprawling luxury log mansion. She still couldn’t believe she lived here—in an attached two-bedroom apartment in the same luxe post-and-beam style as the house. When she told Harlan that she was pregnant and that the father had disappeared on her a while back, he’d offered her the place. The apartment had always been reserved for the foreman, but he now had four little kids and had moved off the property. Lily’s commute to work had gone from a twenty-minute drive with her mother and grandmother to a two-minute walk. Harlan had offered to add bedrooms for her family, but her mom and gram liked their small house in town, walking distance to the coffee shop and library. Suddenly she wondered if Gavin would start charging her rent. Or ask her to move.
She pulled up in front of the house and put the truck in Park with a satisfying click. She’d done it. She’d brought the new owner back with her. Now she just had to keep the conversation on the ranch, on what she—it—needed from him, and all should go well.
No more talk about his father.
She opened up her door, and Gavin was out and around the side of the truck to hold it for her before she could blink. A gentleman—that should work in her favor too. “The ranch is more than—”
“I’ve done my research,” he said. “I know the basics of the operation. Acreage. Head of cattle. Horses. Number of employees.”
Also promising. Unless he was planning on selling the Wild Canyon, which would put her in a panic and leave many of the employees off-kilter.
She wiggled her way out of the truck, no easy feat for a couple of months now. He kind of held out his hands toward her, instinctively, she knew, to catch her if she wobbled.
Yes, a gentleman. Cared about others. This all might go better than she expected. In fact, it gave her an idea. A little pushy on her part, but the right thing for the ranch and maybe even Gavin Dawson. She’d excuse herself for a moment once they were inside and make a pleading call to Harlan’s attorney.
“The thing most folks here want to know is if their jobs are secure,” she said, glancing at him, then looking out toward the pastures. Sometimes eye contact was needed and sometimes you had to give someone a little space. “Including me,” she went on. “Everyone’s nervous that the new owner is gonna want to bring in his own people or not know their histories and personal relationships with Harlan.”
The strong arms crossed over his chest. “How nice that he had so many personal relationships with everyone but his own child.” He let out a breath and hung his head back.
Lily felt that anxious clenching of her chest as she had a flash of her child asking her where his daddy was. She’d had seven and a half months, ever since she found out she was pregnant, to come up with an answer that didn’t break her heart, but she hadn’t hit it on yet.
When I was four or five and would ask my mother where my father was, she’d tell me I did have a daddy but that he wasn’t a good person and we would make our way in life and we’d be fine.
Lily didn’t even know if her baby’s father was a decent person. She’d gotten sweet-talked by a good-looking guy she’d met at a rodeo corn dog stand, and she’d fallen for everything he’d said, which he’d likely said to different women every weekend. She was a smart, capable person, never been anyone’s fool, and she let herself get taken by a man who’d really just wanted one thing: a girlfriend for the weekend while he was in town to see the rodeo with a zillion other people. He had a very common name, and trying to track him down had gotten her nowhere, even with her excellent internet skills. At night, when she’d lie in bed and couldn’t sleep, she’d imagine finally finding him.
Oh hi, I’m that woman you ghosted after our whirlwind weekend—I thought we had something special but... Anyhoo, I’m pregnant and...
She could imagine his blank stare, then how he’d bolt.
“What am I going to tell my child?” she whispered, blinking away the tears threatening to fall. As she realized she’d actually said that aloud, she could feel her face flush.
His expression softened, his gaze going straight to her left hand. To the empty third finger. “I was curious about the lack of ring.”
“I got ghosted after a whirlwind weekend.”
He tilted his head. “So the guy doesn’t even know he’s about to be a father?”
She shook her head. “Couldn’t find him. I tried. And I’ll have nothing for my son to go on. It’s not like he can post an ad on Craigslist. ‘Eighteen years ago, you were waiting for a corn dog at the Bear Ridge Rodeo when a blonde wearing a white tank top managed to squirt mustard on herself. You bought her a rodeo T-shirt to change into and you spent the whole day together, then the night. Same the next day and night. Then you disappeared, no note, nothing. Like she didn’t matter, like none of it meant anything.’” She shook her head. “I hate when I’m an idiot.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself about that,” he said. “I doubt there’s a person alive who hasn’t been blindsided.”
“You?” she asked, suddenly very curious. Did he have a girlfriend? A serious one?
“So bad that a year ago I swore off romantic relationships. Still going strong on that one.”
“Don’t you get lonely?” she asked. “I do, and I have a wonderful best friend and a mother and grandmother, who call or text me every twenty minutes. My phone should ping any second now.”
He looked out into the distance. “I like my work. It’s enough.”
She brightened at that. “The work you’ll do here is basically the same. Except you don’t have to actually turn this place around. It’s thriving. You just have to manage it. Keep it humming and growing.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
She didn’t like the sound of that.
She felt her shoulders slump and tried to inject her usual take-charge, can-do attitude, but it was nowhere to be found right now. “For someone who loves order and control, everything about my life is up in the air. Including the most important thing of all—being this baby’s mother. I’ll bet your mother would have great advice for me.”
Ugh, why was she being so...honest with this man? Talking his ear off about her personal life. He was her new boss, first of all. And second, he might seem like a gentleman who opened car doors and rushed to catch pregnant ladies, but who knew what he was going to do. Gavin Dawson’s decisions about the ranch would affect her and her family.
“She probably would,” he said. “But you know what, Lily? I’m thirty years old. I’m fine. Everything a kid needs to know and feel to go to bed feeling happy and safe, I knew and felt. Yes, I had questions about my father. But I was raised by a strong, smart, independent mother who loved me, took care of me and instilled her values in me. You’ll raise your son the same way. The woman who got me to come here with her is a woman who can do anything.”
He reached for her hand and gave it something of a squeeze.
Huh. She actually felt better. Lifted up a bit. “You’re different than I thought you’d be,” she said. “Nicer, for one, given how you ignored me for a week.”
He smiled. “When is the baby due?”
“Two weeks to the day.” Her left hand went instinctively to her belly.
“Got a name picked out?” he asked, surprising her again.
“Micah. After my father. Now, there was the dad of all dads.”
“Well, you’ll just follow his example,” he said with a firm nod. “What he did as a dad you’ll do as a mom. Then Micah Gold gets the best of both worlds.”
That was a kind thing to say. She hadn’t been expecting this—the kindness.
Combined with his face and long, muscular body, that kindness would have her talking too much. She had to watch herself around a guy like this.
“Well, let me show you your office,” she said, heading up the wide steps to the porch.
She could feel him trailing her, his presence overwhelming even outside.
We’re going to be all right, she said silently to her son, whom she’d be meeting in just fourteen days, give or take a few. For her baby, her home, her future, for the employees counting on the new owner not making any changes except welcome ones, she’d do whatever she could to convince Gavin not to sell—and especially not to some stranger or corporation. He had a family connection to the Wild Canyon whether he saw it that way or not. A history, a past he could finally dig into. He could make peace with the memory of Harlan Mandeville, which he clearly needed. It would be win-win for everyone.
If only Gavin Dawson would see it her way.
