Madeline snorted. Her mother had never kept anything from her, not even the things she should have kept from her. It made Madeline angry with herself and with these women that she suddenly felt guilty, as if she should have known Grant. That not knowing her father should feel like a failure as a daughter and a human being. “Let’s just agree that you are both better acquainted and leave it at that.”
“More than I wanted to be, that’s for sure,” Emma said, and moved deeper into the living room, her skirt swinging jauntily around her knees.
It occurred to Madeline in a moment of sheer insanity that she’d never had a skirt swing around her knees like that. Even her skirts were controlled.
“Emma, don’t say that,” Libby chided her as she followed her into the living room and took a seat on the couch.
“It’s true,” Emma said as she sat next to Libby. “It’s not like he was a good father, Libby, you of all people should acknowledge that. Don’t worry, Madeline. You didn’t miss out on much.”
Madeline wondered why Libby of all people should acknowledge that he was a lousy father.
“Emma!” Libby cried, and glanced sheepishly at Madeline. “He was an okay dad. I don’t know what Emma’s problem is, but he wasn’t that bad.” She looked at Emma again. “I know you didn’t like him, but he was still your dad.”
“If that’s what you want to call him,” Emma muttered.
“Could you, just once, be nice?” Libby demanded.
“What, like you?” Emma said casually. “So people can take advantage of me?”
Libby gasped and gaped at her sister.
Emma groaned and held up her hands. “Sorry.”
“That was mean,” Libby muttered.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry, Libby.”
Madeline wanted to run. Endless questions were one thing, but conflict was the worst. Conflict was messy. People said things that they could never take back—she’d heard her mother say enough to know. Madeline didn’t understand what Emma had meant, but judging from Libby’s face, Emma couldn’t take it back.
And yet, Libby only sighed and sank back against the couch. “Well, I guess I knew Dad the best then,” she said crisply to Madeline.
Best, how? Had Grant Tyler taken Libby skiing, or to a father-daughter dance? Had he attended her soccer games and waited up for her when she came in from a date? And why did Emma say she knew him more than she’d wanted? What had he done to earn her disdain?
But the questions stuck in Madeline’s throat. She wasn’t certain she wanted to hear the answers—they wouldn’t change anything. She was still the one he had never bothered to know, and Madeline would still feel awkward and out of place here. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to agree on what was to be done and go home to her ordered world where her so-called father did not exist. Where she didn’t have sisters and no one argued around her.
“Maybe we should discuss what to do with the inheritance,” Madeline suggested.
“Jump right to it,” Emma said.
“We are going to discuss it,” Libby said. “Just as soon as Jackson gets here, which should be any minute.” She suddenly hopped up and went to the window to peer out.
“Right,” Madeline said, and opened her briefcase. She pulled out a file folder.
“What’s that?” Emma asked.
Madeline opened the file. “I jotted down some notes and ideas about how to proceed.”
Emma frowned. “Proceed with what?”
Madeline glanced up; she was sitting much lower than Emma and scooched to the edge of her chair. “With the disposition of the ranch.”
Libby whirled around so quickly that she startled Madeline. “What do you mean?”
Was it not obvious? “Well… to sell it,” she said.
Libby’s mouth dropped open.
“You are jumping to a very presumptuous conclusion, Madeline,” Emma said calmly. “What makes you think we want to sell?”
Oh no. No, no, no. “Jackson said you live in California, Emma. I’m in Orlando. And Libby, I… it’s so far out here.”
“I don’t care, I don’t want to sell,” Libby said. “I want to live here. I want to make something of it. We could make this into something huge. We have an incredible opportunity here.”
That was crazy, full-on crazy. There was nothing they could do with this place in the middle of nowhere. “Make it into what, exactly?” Madeline asked as politely as she could.
“Exactly like this,” Libby said, gesturing to the windows. “Most people would be very happy to have landed in a spot as gorgeous as this.”
“Oh my God, I knew it,” Emma said, and stood up. “I want a drink.”
“Okay,” Libby said, watching Emma move across the room. “What do you want, Emma?”
“I don’t know what I want,” Emma said with a shrug. “But it will take more than a letter from Jackson Crane and meeting a supposed sister for the first time for me to decide what I want.” She tossed a wry smile over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. “Maybe we should turn it into a spa.”
“Spas are very hard to get off the ground and become successful,” Madeline said.