Luke reached across the table and put his hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry, Maddie. You didn’t deserve that.”
Madeline was taken aback by his empathy. It was impossible to explain the wild range of emotions her absent father had brought up in her this last week. All her life, really. The emptiness, the hopelessness, the never-ending girlish hope that he would come and save her from her life, and the crushing disappointment when he never did. All of that welled in her now, and Madeline glanced blindly at her plate.
Luke’s hand slid away from hers. “Buffalo is always tougher than beef,” he said. When Madeline looked up, he gestured to her plate. “Buffalo is tougher than beef. And honestly, this place?” He glanced around and shook his head. “I’d stick to something a little simpler, if you know what I mean.”
“Good advice,” she said, grateful that he had changed the subject. She sipped liberally from her wine and eyed the bread on the table, her belly not satisfied with the few bites of steak she’d managed to chop off.
“I like you, Maddie. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot at the ranch, so let’s start over. This is what I’ve learned about you,” he said, and held up his hand. “You’ve got some guy in the wings,” he said, folding over a finger.
“I didn’t say that,” she protested.
“I know,” he said, with a wink. “You’re an only child. Until today, that is. You take on ugly houses and losing soccer teams.”
“That about sums it up,” she said laughingly. “Okay. Is it just you here in Pine River?”
“Wow,” Luke said, settling back in his chair. “You just jump right in with both feet, don’t you?”
“You did!” she exclaimed.
“That was different,” he said laughingly. “No significant other. I have a dad and a brother. My mom died a couple of years ago. What else?”
What else? Things she would never ask. Such as where he’d gone to school, what he did in his spare time, how many women had he slept with…
“Aren’t you going back to Denver?” she asked.
His smile seemed to dim a little. “It’s not that easy for me.”
“Why not? You have a job, too. You have the houses you’ve started, your partnership—”
“I also have a father who has no place to live.”
Madeline gasped. “What? No one said anything about anyone being homeless.”
“I don’t mean that,” he said with a wave of his hand. “He’s rented a little house here in town. What I mean is that this has all been pretty tough on my dad and my brother, and they can’t live in that little house forever.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Don’t feel bad, she cautioned herself. They taught you that in negotiation school first thing—take the emotion out of it. “I’m really sorry that all of this has happened to your dad.”
“Thank you. You know my great grandfather bought that place? He came here from Tennessee and raised a family there. Then my grandfather took over and raised his family, and then my dad, and now there is my brother and me to carry on the family legacy. My mother died there.”
Yep. Madeline felt sorry for Luke. She could see how much the ranch meant to him, how much it hurt him now. How lovely, she thought, to have a home to feel that way about.
“My father made a stupid boneheaded mistake, there is no denying it,” he sighed. “I’ll be honest, Maddie—I am hoping you can see why it’s so important to us to correct that mistake.”
Madeline nodded. “I do understand. It must be very difficult for you.”
“More than I can actually convey,” he said. He leaned forward, his gaze locking on hers, his voice soft. “And I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that it’s even harder because you… well, you get it, right?”
Madeline’s belly did a queer little flip. “Get what?”
“Well, like you said, you didn’t know Grant. You didn’t know about this ranch. It makes it a little harder since it’s been in my family for generations.”
It clicked then. Things started to make sense to Madeline. She got it—she got why he’d sat down. Why he’d pretended to be interested in her, allowing her to believe that he wasn’t one of those guys, that he was genuine. And the whole time, he’d been setting her up, just as she’d initially suspected. Oh yeah, she got it. He thought that since Madeline didn’t know her father, didn’t know about this ranch, hadn’t done anything to warrant the inheritance, then therefore she didn’t deserve it. While he, on the other hand, had suffered his father’s horrible lapse of judgment and did deserve it.
He must have sensed that she was not onboard because he quickly said, “Listen, I don’t mean that like it sounds—”
“You don’t?”
“Look, I’m not exactly practiced at this sort of thing, okay? I just think we ought to be able to work this out.”