She nodded. “You’re right. Will is supremely confident. It helps him in many ways, but sometimes it blinds him.”
“You’re so much younger. I’m surprised you were around him often.”
“I wasn’t, but we had family gatherings because my father was the darling of my grandmother.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, yes. She was wonderful to me. I’m a granddaughter, the daughter she never had. But she loved my father with all her being. He loved her, too, so we were together on holidays where Will made his presence felt. I hated being with him because when I was little, he was mean. He’d pinch me or thump me. When I’d cry, he’d deny he had done anything. He’d say I was pretending until Grandmother lectured him. With someone checking on him, he left me alone, but he was never nice, never a brother. Since she passed, he’s barely spoken to me.”
“Will is something else,” Jake said with disgust in his voice.
When they topped a hill, a tall three-story Victorian house came into view. Trees surrounded it and shaded the steeply sloped rooftops, gables, balconies and wide bay windows.
“See, Jake, it’s a beautiful old house built by the first Santerre.”
“That wasn’t the first house,” he said.
“There’s a tiny log house that was the first, but in time, this house was built. The family considers it the first real ranch house.”
She wanted Jake to see the house, meet the people who worked for her and had devoted years to her grandmother. It should be much more difficult for Jake to displace them if he knew them, rather than faceless, nameless entities.
They drove to the corral where a wiry, sandy-haired man with streaks and sideburns of gray came forward to greet her. His weathered face was tan from years in the sun.
“Jake, meet our foreman, Kirby Lenox,” she said when she stepped out of the truck and greeted Kirby. “Kirby, this is Jake Benton.”
She watched the two shake hands and Kirby size up Jake. She saw no reaction from Jake except a friendly greeting, but she suspected he was taking in everything he saw to help him make his decision about her place.
“I’ll get the horse now. It won’t take long and then you two can go on to the house,” Kirby told them.
As he backed the horse out of the trailer, Jake watched. “That’s a fine horse,” he said, looking over her bay.
“This one’s a dandy. Caitlin has a keen eye for a horse.”
“That’s because I learned from you,” she said, smiling at Kirby.
He grinned as he patted the horse. “He’s a fine one. He’s Caitlin’s favorite. Nice to meet you, Mr. Benton.”
“It’s Jake, Kirby. We’ll see each other again,” he said easily as he held the pickup door for Caitlin.
She felt as if she were walking on broken glass, treading carefully, hoping Jake would appreciate the old house and the people or at least like them even half as much as she did.
“Thanks,” she said. In minutes Jake stopped in front of the house and walked around to open her door. He took her arm in a light touch that was a blistering contact.
“Come look around,” she said, gazing with satisfaction at the porch with wooden rockers, swings, pots of blooming flowers. Lacy gingerbread spindles formed the posts and lacy curtains were pulled back inside the bay windows. Caitlin sighed, wondering how anyone could resist the house’s charm.
“This is too beautiful to bulldoze,” she said as they crossed the porch. “I don’t think a Benton has ever been in this house,” she added, knowing this was another twist in the history of the family feud.
When he didn’t answer, she became silent. The door swung open and Caitlin faced Cecilia whose big brown eyes went from her to Jake and back to Caitlin. “I’m back. Cecilia, I want you to meet Jake Benton.”
“Mr. Benton, welcome to Caitlin’s home,” Cecilia said warmly, extending her hand to Jake who smiled as he took her hand.
“Jake, this is Cecilia Mayes. I’ve told you about her,” Caitlin said, studying the two of them. Jake sounded incredibly polite, not the least a hard-hearted owner who would evict them. He towered over Cecilia who was only five feet tall, small-boned and thin. She wore a flowered cotton housedress and sandals. Her gray hair was fastened behind her head in a bun. She looked as sweet as she actually was to everyone and Caitlin loved her deeply and wanted to protect her from harm.
“I’m glad to meet you, ma’am,” Jake said politely. “Please just call me Jake.”
“Certainly,” she said. “Come in, please. We can sit in the front parlor and I hope you’ll stay for lunch with us. I told Altheda to plan for that.”
“Thank you, but I should get home before then. I can sit a minute and visit.”
“Fine,” she said.
“Cecilia, I want to take Jake to meet Altheda and show him a little of the house. Then we’ll join you in the front parlor.”
“Of course,” Cecilia said.
“I want you to see some of the inside of this house,” she told Jake when she was alone with him. “The original house is over a hundred years old. Grandmother made changes, had closets built in, added a wing, a deck and pool, an entertainment center. I’ve added an office. Even so, a lot is still the same.”
Fresh flowers from the garden were on the dining room table, visible from the wide hall when they walked through the open door. Jake’s Western boots scraped the polished plank floor. Tempting smells of baking bread wafted in the air and Caitlin was pleased by the appearance of the house.
Deep red velvet chairs circled the mahogany dining table. Cut glass and silver filled a breakfront.
“This room was off limits to me as a very small child unless I was invited to eat in here with the family. We had holiday gatherings fairly often when I was small. There won’t be any now or anytime in the future.”
“I remember our family get-togethers, tedious to mind my manners, yet fun in teasing Brittany and Gabe when they couldn’t get back at me.”
“Will did that anytime he was here. The first few times I told on him, he denied everything and I got in trouble, so I just learned to endure his mischief. Only he was mean, pinching me during the family prayer when he knew I wouldn’t yell, mean tricks he could get away with.”
“The bastard,” Jake said.
“That’s what Will called me far too often when no one else could hear him. If he got a chance, he reminded me that I was born out of wedlock and neither of my parents wanted me enough to keep me.”
She hoped she kept emotion out of her voice, but it was difficult even after all these years to be unemotional about Will’s accusations that actually were on target.
“Thank heavens for my grandmother,” Caitlin added.
“She gave you almost as much as your father could have given you. If he had taken you in, you would have had to live under the same roof as Will and you would never have known your grandmother as well as you did.”
“I’ve thought of that many times. Were I given a choice to live my life over with Dad or again with Grandmother, I would pick my life with Grandmother. It was a happy time growing up and she was loving and wonderful to me.”
“She didn’t have the same charitable attitude toward my father.”
“Definitely not. She disliked him enormously because of the beating he gave my dad.”
“Our families have a long and violent history,” Jake remarked.
“I