Chapter 3

3

T ex got up and left the row where he'd moved to hopefully convey to Abby that his family's farm meant a great deal to him. She obviously hadn't gotten the message. That, or she hadn't cared.

He sat in the back while the room emptied and Abby went to talk to the auctioneer. She spoke in a quiet voice, but he didn't, so Tex clearly heard him say, "Yes, we can handle the transaction in the conference room."

So she'd be paying for the ranch right now. "Cash auction," he murmured to himself. He texted Bryce quickly, telling him he hadn't gotten the ranch and they'd start looking for another house the moment he got back to the house they were renting.

A dose of sadness hit him after he sent the text, and he looked up to see Abby checking around her as if she expected someone to be there listening—and she didn't want them to overhear her.

Something wasn't right. Tex had seen that look on her face before, and it wasn't a good look. He stood and walked up to the podium too. The auctioneer closed his folder and said, "Come with me."

"Is everything okay?" Tex asked, startling Abby. The auctioneer turned and left without answering Tex, but Abby looked at him with wide, nervous eyes. "What's goin' on?"

"Nothing," she said, sliding a mask over her true feelings. Sort of. She'd never been great at hiding how she felt, and that hadn't changed much over the last couple of decades.

He started to smile and stopped himself just in time. That would only fuel the angry fire he found brewing in her eyes, and he didn't need that. He didn't know what to say, and he simply remained quiet while he studied her and tried to figure out what the problem was.

She rolled her neck, her eyes falling closed. "My brother is going to kill me."

"Is he?" Tex asked. Wade was a couple of years older than her, and she was a year behind Tex. "Why?"

She wiped her hand through her auburn hair and glared at him. "You're really nosy, you know that?"

"It's small-town Coral Canyon," he said, rocking back on his heels and tucking his hands in his pockets. "Everyone's nosy."

She cocked her hip and folded her arms. "You've lived here for less than twenty-four hours. You don't get to claim the town."

"I'm not claiming the town," he argued. "Though I did grow up here."

"You left."

"Everyone leaves," he said, spreading his arms wide. He wasn't going to be blamed for leaving Coral Canyon. "You left. For years and years. Last I heard, you were working the library system in Chicago, for crying out loud." His chest heaved, and he wasn't even sure why. Maybe because her hair held strands of gold in it. Her hazel eyes cut through him, and Tex actually liked it.

He was sick, that was for sure. He hadn't expected his life to be so crazy here in Coral Canyon, and here he was, trying to buy his dad's previous ranch and battling his attraction to his old girlfriend from high school.

"Miss Ingalls," the auctioneer said. "My manager says we can't do a loan. It's cash or nothing."

Abby waved both hands at him, her gaze going from arrogantly angry to panicked in less than three seconds. Tex started to chuckle, realizing what the problem was.

"You don't have enough cash for the ranch," he said. "Do you?"

Abby glared at him, but he wasn't going to be the one who backed down this time. He'd let her stare him out of a smile yesterday, but today's wasn't going anywhere.

He maintained his eye contact and raised his eyebrows. Finally, Abby said, "Fine. I don't exactly have all of the cash."

"How much do you have?"

She coughed as she said it, and Tex tipped his head back and laughed. "I'm not sure what you said, but it wasn't even six digits."

Abby swatted at his chest and said, "Stop it. Don't you have some boxes to unpack or something?"

He danced away from her, laughing. "No," he said. "I've got all day. No job. No obligations. Nothing." He grinned at her, trying not to be so pleased.

She did the folding-arms thing again. "And I suppose you've got plenty of money. Big-city cowboy music star sails into his hometown and buys up all the land."

"Not all the land," Tex said. "Just my family's land ." He leaned closer to her, hoping to drive home his point. "One of us should've bought it ten years ago when Daddy was selling."

Abby blinked, clearly getting the point.

"Miss Ingalls," the auctioneer barked.

She flinched as she lurched toward him, then looked back to Tex. "Come in with me," she said in a rush. "Maybe we can buy it together."

"Together?" he asked, but she was already striding away with those long legs of hers.

Tex really had no choice but to follow her, and he did with a prayer of, "Lord, some help here would be fantastic," falling from his lips.

The conference room couldn't hold him and Abby, not without some sort of nuclear explosion in the next ten minutes. Tex prayed this transaction would be finished long before then as he sat at the tiny table with her. She looked at him, but he chose to focus on the paperwork in front of him.

He hadn't bought a house for a while, but the amount of paperwork in front of the auctioneer was enough to tell Tex this wouldn't be done in ten minutes.

"You're co-buying?" he asked.

"I can do it if it's not cash only," Abby said. "But, well…I don't have one-hundred-fifty thousand in cash." She twisted her hands together once and then sat on them. Tex swallowed his chuckle, because he'd seen her do that during difficult history tests too, and once while trying to explain to her daddy why she and Tex were in the barn so early in the morning.

He grinned at that memory, and Abby kicked him under the table. "Ow," he said, the word flying from his mouth. "What'd you do that for?"

"He just asked you how much you'd be paying."

He searched her face, telling himself not to zone out inside memories from the past. It was extremely obvious that the two of them wouldn't be recreating any of them, and he'd do best to not even conjure them up.

"I think half," he said, turning back to the auctioneer. "That way, it's fifty-fifty."

"I can pay eighty," she blurted out. "He should only have to pay seventy."

"I can put all of it down now," Tex said, throwing the words at Abby. "Cash. Right now." He reached into his back pocket as if he'd have that much money in his wallet. He wouldn't, but he could get it. He hadn't even called Otis or Trace to talk about them going in on the ranch with him. He'd spent the evening researching the housing market in Coral Canyon, ordering pizza for him and his son, talking to Bryce about possibly living on the farm where he'd grown up, and obsessing over how high to bid.

Abby glared his face down to wax, and Tex sighed. "If you pay up everything you have, how are you going to invest in fixing up the house and land?"

"I—" She cut off when she realized he'd made a good point.

He didn't give her a so-there look. He simply switched his attention back to the auctioneer, whose name he'd missed while he'd reminisced privately inside his own mind. "She can do half. I'll do the other half. Seventy-five each."

"That only leaves me with five grand to pay for renovations," she said.

"I get to live on the ranch with my son," he said, turning back to her. Every piece of this complicated puzzle fell into place in Tex's mind. "Rent-free. We'll fix things up in exchange for that. You can file for the water rights. Put your horses on the land. Whatever you wanted it for."

"I wanted it so I could control who I live next door to." She raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow at him, and Tex wouldn't be male if he didn't notice and appreciate her beauty. Oh, yes, Abigail Ingalls was downright gorgeous, and she'd worn the perfect makeup today to prove it.

"Perfect," he said, though she didn't want to live next door to him. "You got yourself some great neighbors." He did smile then, which only made her scoff, roll her eyes, and look up to the corner of the room.

Tex focused on the auctioneer. "If she can't pay, shouldn't it go to me?:

"Wait a second," she said, her hand landing on his arm. "I won."

"But you can't pay." He looked back at the auctioneer. "Shouldn't I get it for one-forty-five? Or even eighty-one thousand? She can't pay more than eighty, and she bid over that." A lot over that, and Tex got reminded of Abby's pride and stubbornness.

"Half each," she blurted out before the auctioneer could say anything. "He gets to live there rent-free, and we'll discuss fixing it up together."

"Sir," he said, his voice calm and controlled. "Ma'am. I don't care what you two do with the land. I just need the one-fifty in cash so we can start signing these papers."

Tex appraised him. He wasn't going to give Tex the property for eighty-one thousand, or even five grand less. Bankers.

"Right," Tex said, shaking his head and deciding not to fight this battle. "Let me call my son."

"I'll be right back," Abby said, and she got up and left the room before Tex could pull his phone from his pocket.

Half an hour later, the auctioneer had his money, and all the documents had been signed. He tucked them away into his briefcase, pushed their copy toward them, and surveyed the two of them. "Good luck," he said before he left, and Tex thought that was a fair assessment of the situation.

He looked at Abby. She gazed back at him, that familiar fire licking through her expression. Tex wanted to get burned by it so badly, but he didn't lean forward. Giving someone with a flame thrower more fuel was never wise.

"I get to live in the house and on the land, with Bryce, for free," Tex said. "We'll get all the utilities back on and in our name. I'll pay all the bills. We'll get the house and yard back in amazing shape."

"What do I get out of it?" she asked. "I paid seventy-five thousand dollars for it, and not so you could live there rent-free."

"You get sweat equity without having to lift a finger," he said. "I paid half too, sweetheart. I'll be doing all the work, paying all the bills, and funding it all. You don't have to do a single thing." He got to his feet to leave. He wasn't going to debate this with her, not right now. He had his family ranch to get to and assess more fully than he had yesterday before she'd run him off the land.

"Equity is only good if we sell it later," she said, scrambling after him. "How long are you going to live there?"

"I don't know," he said. "At least a year until Bryce graduates." He didn't have to tell her he still owed his record label an album. She didn't get to know what his life on tour looked like. She wasn't his friend, and he hadn't been her boyfriend for twenty years now.

She caught up to him, and they walked side-by-side toward the steps that led down to the first level of the library. "You have to run everything by me," she said, panting.

"No, I don't," he said, pausing on the landing. "Abigail, think of yourself as a silent investor." Emphasis on silent , he added in his head. "Bryce and I will do everything. You don't even have to fund us. You paid an initial investment—which you didn't have to do, by the way. You went nuts in that auction and way overbid yourself, as well as the property."

She glared, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths. Tex felt the same way inside, but he could hide it better. "Investors supply money to the people making things happen. I don't have to run anything by you, because I'm going to be funding the improvements, repairs, and renovations. You get to sleep easy at night knowing I'm not going to tear the house down and build a community of high-rise condominiums."

He started down the steps again, done with this conversation. He tried to channel Mav and Blaze simultaneously, because Mav wouldn't give in on crucial points but he'd be kind about it, and Blaze was the happy-go-lucky type that would agree to things just to end the conversation. Right now, Tex needed both of those qualities, because Abby hadn't changed since high school.

She still wanted supreme control of everything around her. She probably got up in the morning and did the same things in the same order, just like she had back then. Getting her to sneak out into the barn before school so he could kiss her had nearly put her in the hospital, for crying out loud.

His memory tickled again, more news of hospitals and injuries, and the irritation with Abby faded even further. At the bottom of the steps, he paused again and adjusted his cowboy hat as she came down the last couple of stairs. "I'm real sorry about Wade," he said. "I didn't know he'd been injured overseas."

Abby's chin came up, and those eyes…. Those eyes said so much Tex suspected she would never say out loud. She adored her brother, but she didn't need Tex's pity. She found him attractive, but she'd never admit it. She didn't want to agree to his terms about the ranch, but she would, because she had no real legs to stand on.

"Good to see you, Abby," Tex said, tipping his hat. Then he strode out of the library and over to his truck, where Bryce waited on his phone.

"I have to go, Jen. My dad's back." Bryce ended the call, hope etched in every line on his face. "So? Did you really get it? We can live there?"

Tex put the truck in reverse and ignored Abby as she stood on the front steps of the library. "I got half of it," he said. "But yes, we can live there."

"Good," Bryce said with a sigh.

"It's not nice," Tex said, the outline of the keys he'd gotten from the auctioneer suddenly burning a hole in his jeans. "You saw it yesterday, right? We'll be lucky if it's not full of raccoons."

Bryce laughed and said, "Anything's better than that rental, Dad. I think I swallowed four spiders last night while I was sleeping." He shuddered, and Tex did the same.

"I can't guarantee that won't be the case again tonight," he said. "But bright side—we hardly unpacked any of our boxes, so moving again won't be too bad." He turned to go out to the east side of town. "Let's swing by and see what we're really dealing with, so we can buy groceries and furniture today if we need to."

"This is exciting," Bryce said, shifting in his seat. "A real summer adventure."

"Yeah," Tex said, thinking of Abby and the adventures he'd like to have with her this summer. One look at his son reminded him of what this summer was going to be. Time spent together. Rest and relaxation. Writing songs together.

He couldn't wait to tell his brothers what he'd done, and a quiet vein of excitement and adventure stole through Tex too. This was going to be a great bonding experience for him and Bryce—and hey, maybe he'd get to have a second chance with the girl he'd once gone with in high school too.

The possibilities suddenly seemed endless, and Tex grinned into the summer sunshine as he drove toward the two-hundred acre ranch he now owned half of.