After the waitress left, Amber crossed her arms and leaned toward him. Her usually full lips were clasped together in a thin, white line, but her eyes were the greenest of green, like emeralds. Her shoulder-length hair had various shades of blond, and she wasn’t loaded with makeup, but those emerald eyes began to narrow.
This wasn’t going to be good.
“Luke, have you been home lately?”
“If you follow the PBR, you know I haven’t. Every weekend, there’s another event. I’m on the tour and close to winning the season. If you’re worried about us seeing my father, we got him a cell phone and call him a lot. He knows that I can’t be around much. The same with my brothers.”
“Isn’t there a summer break coming up soon?”
“Yep. After Billings, Montana, this weekend.”
“As you recently told me, you are only three hours from home.”
“I know, but I might as well be in Alaska. I have way too many things I have to do right now and the week after Billings.”
“You’d better change your plans and the sooner the better,” Amber said.
“Why, what’s going on?”
She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, unfolded it and handed it to him. “It’s a copy. Your ranch is going up for auction for back taxes in two weeks.”
He scanned the letter. “Dammit!”
“Big Dan didn’t tell you?” she asked.
“Of course not. My father doesn’t care about the ranch. Not since my mother died.” Looking at the letter again, he shook his head. “And that’s when my father stopped paying taxes. I know he doesn’t give a hoot about the ranch anymore, but I thought he was at least keeping up with the taxes. We’ve been sending him money...”
He shrugged.
“It’s easy to see that Big Dan hasn’t been putting money into the ranch, Luke. It’s been a mess since Hurricane Daphne. Your outbuildings are falling down, the main barn’s roof has a hole in it, and the handful of stock your father didn’t sell is scattered to the wind. Your neighbors and former workers took them in and have been taking care of them. The homestead’s portico is hanging on by one post and some windows are blown out. My brothers boarded them up.”
A plan was already formulating in his mind but he had to get Jesse and Reed, his brothers, involved. The Beaumont Ranch had been part of their heritage since the late nineteenth century land rush in Oklahoma. Old Pierre Beaumont might have been a “Sooner,” someone who jumped the whistle too soon, but he’d plopped his wagon on acres of prime cattle and horse land. Throughout the decades, his descendants had added a total of twenty-thousand acres to the original homestead.
“I promise that I’ll get home in two weeks, and take care of things,” he said.
“That’ll be cutting it close, but you’ll make the auction.”
“You mean I can’t buy it back before then? I could send a check.”
“It’s too late for that.” She shook her head. “And that’d have to be one big check.”
“Did my father get notices?”
“Of course he did. I happen to know that Connie McBride, who runs the tax department, personally delivered several notices to him.”
He took a long draw of his beer. “This is just getting worse and worse by the second. But you drove all that way, watched the bull riding, stood in my autographing line. Why did you put yourself out? I mean, we’ve barely seen each other since high school. Why are you helping us?”
“Because the Beaumont Ranch employs a good chunk of the town, and the town is suffering, Luke. The homestead used to be a tourist attraction, which added to our economy. It’s on the list of national historic places, for heaven’s sake. Now the high school kids are using it for partying at night.”
“I didn’t know, but thanks for telling me.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Amber held up a hand to stop him. “Hang on, there’s more. Much more, and it gets way worse.”
Luke had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. What could be worse? Any adrenaline left over from his win was quickly vanishing.
“You might not know, but I’m a sergeant with the Beaumont County Sheriff’s Department. I arrested your father three times.”
“Arrested Big Dan? Three times?” His voice grew loud then he lowered it. “What the hell did he do?”
“Bar fights. Big Dan is turning into the town drunk, Luke. And he’s a shadow of his former self,” Amber said softly. “He’s wasting away. But with any luck, his probation officer, Matty Matthews, and inpatient rehab will help him.”
He tapped his fingers on the table to get rid of some nervous energy. “I know Matty. We were in junior rodeo together. But probation? And inpatient rehab?” Luke sat back in his chair. “I can’t picture my father being successful at either.”
“I’ll tell you more about it when you come home. I really should be leaving soon. I have an early shift in the morning.”
“Listen, Amber.” Luke sighed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but, truth be told, I’ve been avoiding going home. In that way, I’m a lot like my father. And sometimes I feel like I’ve lost both parents. So I threw myself into bull riding to forget everything.”
Amber made a move to put her hand over his, but clearly changed her mind at the last minute and took a sip of her ginger ale instead.
“I really should get going, Luke.”
“Thanks for making it a point to tell me everything. I really appreciate it. So will my brothers. If we lost the ranch, well...it’d be a tough blow. Let me walk you to your car.”
They walked to the lot near the arena in silence. “Here is mine.” She pointed. “The red Honda SUV.”
He waited as she opened the door. “Well, see you at home, Luke.”
“Give me a week after Billings. I’ll get right on a plane and will land at the auction.”
She smiled.
It didn’t seem like Amber smiled often; she was very serious. Then again, she’d had some very serious things to tell him.
He’d opened up to her and couldn’t figure out why. He’d never told anyone what he’d just told her.
But Amber had changed. In high school, she was quiet and had ten-foot walls around her that only the brave—or stupid—would approach. She hadn’t had many friends, mostly due to her family’s moonshining activities and rumors of them selling hot car parts. The fact that she lived in a fairly dilapidated house surrounded by a junkyard made her the brunt of even more hurtful comments.
He’d always quelled those kind of jokes, because he’d seen the sadness in her eyes, the tightness of her lips. He’d seen her hurry away for the protection of a dark corner, and then he’d seen her cry.
Why hadn’t he done more to stop the jokes? Instead, he’d only succeeded in his classmates not joking about her in front of him, but he knew that it still occurred.
He should have done more back then to help her, and now Amber had given him the biggest gift of his life by telling him about his ranch.
“See you at home, Luke.”
He took her hand and couldn’t decide whether to shake it or kiss the back of it. So he pulled her toward him in a hug and kissed her forehead.
He heard her slight gasp and he smiled.
She