Buck frowned. Ellie just had to rub it in that he hadn’t had a close relationship with his own mother. He felt guilty enough without her adding her opinion on the matter.
“It was only when she became ill,” Ellie continued, “that Mama Esther needed special care.”
“She couldn’t be out on her own,” Larry added in a businesslike monotone, that Buck thought might have carried just a hint of a judgmental quality to it.
What was it with everyone today? They couldn’t just mind their own business?
“Why didn’t I know about any of this?” Buck demanded, feeling repeated sharp-edged stabs of guilt with every word Ellie and Larry said.
“Again, Buck, your mother wanted to tell you in person,” Ellie reiterated. “And everything happened so fast, with the illness and all. We were all completely focused on Mama Esther. Everything else had to wait.”
“Someone should have called me,” Buck ground out through clenched teeth. “I should have known.”
“You’re right,” Ellie agreed softly, though still with an edge to her tone. “Someone should have called you. I should have called you. But it was against Mama Esther’s wishes for me to do so, and I simply couldn’t bring myself to deceive her in any way, not even for you.”
Buck groaned. From the clipped way she spoke, barely holding back her emotions, he knew she meant especially not for him. “No property, then.”
The money Mama had received from the sale of the assets had no doubt gone to cover her medical expenses—maybe even a Christian charity or two, knowing his mother. Buck saw his dream of owning a horse ranch floating right out the window, but he was more heartbroken by the fact that he hadn’t been there for his mother when she needed him. She hadn’t even told him she was ill.
And all because of his pride.
“Actually,” Larry interceded, breaking into Buck’s thoughts, “that isn’t precisely true. You do own property, Buck, just not the ranch you grew up on.”
“What?” Buck thought he might be squawking again, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been more bewildered in his life, and on top of the roiling emotions he was feeling, the mental turmoil was almost more than one man could endure.
Guilt piled on guilt for the way he had treated his mother.
For the way he had treated Ellie.
“Your mother used the money from the sale of your childhood home to invest in another property—a working ranch,” Larry explained.
A working ranch?
Buck straightened a little at that news. He was the owner of a working ranch?
Except that it didn’t make any sense. Keeping Buck’s childhood home a working ranch had been the subject of his argument with his mother twenty years ago. If Mama had yielded, wouldn’t it have been for her own son?
Although after the way he’d acted, he guessed he wouldn’t blame his mother for writing him off. Still. The pieces didn’t fit together to make any kind of clear picture. “My mother wasn’t interested in working our ranch, and she certainly wouldn’t have been capable of working a new one.”
Larry nodded gravely. “That is true. Your mother never worked the new holdings herself. At the moment, the ranch is, er, being leased out to another party.”
“I see,” Buck said, a plan beginning to form in his mind. This wasn’t so bad. Having tenants currently leasing the ranch wouldn’t make his dream impossible—just a little bit more of a hassle. The end result would be no different than his original plan—sell the ranch, take the money and run.
“So there are people renting my place,” Buck asked, fighting hard to keep the excitement from showing, not wanting to look callous in front of Ellie.
“In effect,” Larry answered, flashing a brief, troubled glance at Ellie, which Buck did not miss.
What were they were keeping between themselves?
Whatever it was, it was clearly deeply bothering both of them, and neither of them would make eye contact with Buck, though he switched his questioning gaze back and forth between the two of them several times. Ellie pushed herself off the table and began pacing in back of Buck’s chair.
“So I’ll just give the renters a realistic notice, or offer to sell to them, if they want. In any case, I can sell that property,” said Buck. “I don’t want to be unreasonable about it, but I have things I need to do elsewhere. How quickly do you think you can wrap this up, Larry?”
“Well, there’s the matter of contacting Ferrell’s real estate firm, if you want to sell,” Larry hedged, his gaze noticeably shifting away from Buck’s.
“What do you mean, if I want to sell?” Buck demanded, leaning forward on his arms until the back of the chair bit into his skin. “I just told you that’s exactly what I want to do. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Yes. Er, no. There are…” Larry hesitated, once again glancing in Ellie’s direction. “Extenuating circumstances that may affect your decision to sell.”
Buck could not imagine an extenuating circumstance that would make him change his mind on this, but he shrugged and nodded for Larry to continue.
Larry blew out a breath and rushed on, his words falling on top of each other in his haste to spit the sentence out. “What you need to understand, Buck, is that you are currently sitting on the property in question. Quite literally.”
It took Buck a moment to absorb Larry’s meaning, but then his eyes widened and he whistled his surprise, just before his racing heart took a nosedive into his stomach. “Mama bought this ranch? Ellie’s ranch?”
Ellie cleared her throat and went back to leaning on the table, where she’d been earlier. She brushed a nervous hand over her long black hair, and her gaze darted randomly around the room. She looked everywhere but straight at Buck and took her time before speaking. “Technically, Buck, it’s your ranch.”
Buck needed a minute to ingest all the information that had just been thrown at him. Mama had sold his childhood home to buy Ellie’s ranch.
But why?
Nothing made sense anymore.
And where had his mother lived after the sale of their family home? Buck decided that was the first and most important question to be answered, so he stammered out an inquiry. “Wh-where did Mama live, then?”
“Why, with me, of course,” Ellie answered immediately, her smile wavering as her gaze got distant and her eyes luminescent with moisture.
“Ellie was the one who cared for your mother during her last days,” Larry added gently.
Buck rubbed a hand against his jaw, which was starting to prickle with a day’s growth of beard. “I don’t know what to say.” He shook his head. “I—I guess thank you would be in order,” he said, nodding his head in Ellie’s direction. “I really had no idea. None at all.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Ellie snapped and then took a deep breath in an apparent attempt to calm herself, though, from the flush on her face, Buck didn’t think it was working. “No one expected you to, Buck,” Ellie continued. “As we already indicated, Mama Esther wanted it to be this way. I’m sure she had her reasons.”
Buck’s mind was racing. Ellie rented this ranch—this Christian therapy ranch, which Buck had personally thought was just a fancy term for a tourist trap—from his mother. And Mama had lived with Ellie. Ellie, not Buck, had been the one to care for his mother during her illness.
Here.
Right where he was sitting.
He