A Coulter’s Christmas Proposal Read online

  Two days after seeing Eli at the cafe, Amanda woke early and left the hotel to go jogging. At barely 6:00 a.m., the sun was already gaining heat. The bright rays were warm on her arms and legs, bare below the midthigh hem of blue shorts and the straps of her white tank top. She’d pulled her long hair into a ponytail and tucked the ends through the back opening of a Yankees baseball cap, adding dark sunglasses to further protect her eyes. The business district surrounding the hotel on Main Street was quickly left behind for wide residential streets lined with tall old maple trees that stretched out their leafy green limbs to shade the sidewalks. The avenues were quiet and nearly empty, the driver of the occasional passing car waving and smiling. The first couple of times it happened, Amanda had been too startled to wave back, but after that, she responded in kind.

  Just one of the perks of living in a small town, she thought, charmed by the friendly drivers.

  Each morning since she’d arrived over a week ago, she’d jogged through the residential streets of the small town. Indian Springs was an interesting mix of turn-of-the-century Victorian homes that were beautifully preserved and stood proudly amid lush gardens edged by picket fences, and more contemporary ramblers with manicured lawns and flower beds. If there was a rundown section of Indian Springs, Amanda hadn’t found it yet.

  Forty-five minutes later she cut across the small, picturesque town park with its swing set, slide, sandbox and scattering of picnic tables near leafy maples and slowed to a walk. By the time she covered the remaining three blocks to reach the Indian Springs Café on Main Street, she was no longer breathing hard.

  She pulled open the heavy plate-glass door and stepped inside. The café was crowded and noisy with the chatter and laughter of customers seated at tables and booths. Waitresses moved quickly, slipping easily around customers and chairs as they filled orders and topped off drinks.

  “Good morning. Table or booth?”

  Amanda recognized Mariah Jones from earlier visits to the café and returned her friendly smile. “Booth, please.”

  She followed the blonde waitress as she swiftly threaded her way around tables and customers to a booth near the back of the café.

  “Here we go. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’d love some coffee and a glass of ice water,” Amanda told her, sliding into the booth and taking the vinyl-covered menu Mariah held out.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Amanda was just closing the menu when Mariah returned with water and coffee.

  “Ready to order?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Amanda watched Mariah whip a pad and pen out of the apron tied at her waist. “I’ll have the house omelet with salsa and sourdough toast and…” Her voice stopped abruptly before she blurted out, “Oh. My. That’s the most gorgeous ring I’ve ever seen.”

  Mariah flushed with pleasure, holding out her left hand to display a platinum ring set with a golden brown stone. “Thank you. Cade’s mother designed it. Eli found several rings among her things and insisted Cade have it.” She sighed, her expression dreamy. “I never imagined I’d have something so beautiful, and it’s so absolutely perfect, almost as if she’d created it specifically for me.”

  “You’re a lucky woman,” Amanda told her with all sincerity. She knew from her research that Melanie Coulter had created very few pieces of jewelry. The few that existed were highly sought after by collectors.

  “I know.” Mariah smiled mistily. “Eli gave one to Zach for Cynthia, too. We have to do something special to thank him when he gets back.”

  “Back? Has he left the ranch?” Amanda was surprised at how disappointed she was that Eli was gone. Her research would likely be completed by the end of the week and she’d be leaving Indian Springs. She might not see him again.

  “Just for a few days,” Mariah told her. “And technically speaking, he hasn’t left the Triple C. Cade says he’s riding fence for a few days, but I suspect he just wanted to take Jiggs and go camping.”

  “Oh, I see.” Amanda wasn’t sure why she felt so relieved since it still wasn’t likely she’d see Eli Coulter before she left town.

  “Mariah, order up!” The cook’s call carried over the noise in the room.

  “Oops, gotta run. I’ll be back with your omelet in a few minutes,” Mariah said quickly, turning to hurry off.

  Amanda nodded but Mariah was already gone.

  The dreamy look on Mariah’s face when she’d stared at her engagement ring was exactly like the expression Amanda’s older sister, Lindsey, had worn when she displayed her engagement ring. Lindsey and Tom had been married for three years now and had a one-year-old daughter. Sometimes, Amanda mused, Lindsey had that same adoring look in her eyes when she looked at Tom or their daughter, Emma.

  Amanda herself had never been engaged, but she recognized the connection between the promise of the ring and the love Lindsey felt for her small family. Clearly, Mariah felt the same about her fiancé.

  Amanda was awed at the visual artistry of Melanie Coulter’s work. The ring was one of a kind and stunningly beautiful.

  And Mariah said Cynthia has one, too, Amanda thought with amazement.

  She’d heard rumors that the Coulter brothers faced the possibility of losing the Triple C to inheritance taxes. Contrary to those rumors, if Melanie Coulter had left a collection of her art at the ranch, the brothers might be very rich men, indeed.

  She’d give anything to see inside the studio on the ranch where Melanie had worked.

  But that would never happen, she thought with a sigh. Eli had told her so, in no uncertain terms.

  Much as she hated to abandon her plan, she clearly had to give up her hope that Melanie Coulter’s sons would cooperate with her work on the biography of their mother. Instead, she’d have to be satisfied with interviewing the residents of Indian Springs.

  She glanced at her watch. She had an appointment with ninety-year-old Helen Cousins at 10:00 a.m. By the time she ate breakfast and returned to the hotel, showered and changed, then drove to the Cousins’ ranch some ten miles from town, she calculated, it would be nearly ten.

  A half hour later she left the café and walked briskly back to her hotel, determined to concentrate her energy and time on interviewing the local ranchers and townspeople who had known Melanie and Joseph Coulter personally.

  She was just as determined to stop thinking about Eli Coulter. She was spending way too much time daydreaming about him.

  But the memory of warm green eyes and an irresistible smile continued to pop into her mind at unexpected moments, surprising her and distracting her from whatever she was doing. Eli Coulter was never far from her thoughts.

  Chapter Four

  While Amanda was occupied with interviewing members of the Indian Springs ranching community over the next three days, Eli was riding the Triple C fence line and sleeping under the stars.

  The long hours with only Jiggs for company gave him plenty of time to consider options for dealing with his mother’s legacy.

  That he had a legacy still seemed improbable. He couldn’t understand why his father had given him Melanie’s studio with its tools and what were surely her last, irreplaceable pieces of art. If the possibility had ever occurred to him, he would have bet Joseph would have burned the studio to the ground before he’d let Eli set foot in it.

  What had happened to Joseph in the years after Eli and his brothers left the Triple C?

  He could find no rational answers to the puzzle that was his father, and at last, he pushed the questions aside to focus on how best to use his mother’s last work to save the Triple C.

  The solution came to him while he was repairing a line of barbed-wire fence, the sun beating down and sweat dampening the back of his T-shirt. He pondered the idea, considering it from all angles, thinking of all the negatives, while he worked on the fence. He thought about it some more, dissecting it piece by piece, considering the potential pitfalls, while he boiled coffee and heated rabbit stew over a campfire. And he lay
awake long after dark, staring up at the glitter of stars hanging like jewels in the black night sky. Until at last, satisfied that it could work, he tipped his hat down over his face, pulled the sleeping bag up to his chin and went to sleep.

  The next morning he broke camp before daybreak, saddled Jiggs and headed home. By 9:00 a.m. he’d turned Jiggs loose in the corral next to the barn and located Cade and Zach in the ranch house office.

  “Hey, Eli,” Cade greeted him when he stepped into the room. “When did you get back?”

  “Just now.” Eli hung his hat on the rack of deer antlers on the wall to the left of the door and took a seat, stretching his legs out and crossing his booted feet.

  “You look like hell,” Zach said with a grin. “Did you fix the fence above Ten Flats?”

  “Thanks, and yeah, I fixed the fence.”

  “Good. That means I don’t have to,” Zach told him.

  “Did you ride all the way in from Ten Flats this morning?” Cade asked.

  Eli nodded. “I left before daybreak.”

  “I hope you gave Jiggs some oats when you got back,” Cade said dryly. “That’s a long ride.”

  “Not for Jiggs,” Eli told him.

  “He’s tough,” Cade agreed, a touch of pride and affection in his tone. “Did you have breakfast?”

  “Just water and jerky. I wanted to get home.”

  “Did you?” Cade pushed a mug and the carafe of coffee across the desktop. He waited until Eli took his first sip. “You ready to tell us what’s up?”

  Eli took another drink of coffee. “I have a plan.”

  “Good. What is it?” Zach sat forward on the leather sofa.

  “It involves using Amanda Blake.”

  “Oh, hell,” Cade groaned.

  “Hold on. Just hear me out.” Eli swallowed another mouthful of coffee. “As I see it, this is the situation. To raise the maximum amount of money from the sculptures Mom left, I need to choose a limited number—let’s say ten or twelve, or maybe as many as twenty—and find a gallery in New York that will agree to a showing followed by an auction. Collectors will be excited that a dozen or more previously unknown sculptures by Melanie Coulter are available. The fact that no one has seen them before will generate a lot of buzz.”

  “People will be interested in them even though some of them aren’t finished?” Cade asked.

  Eli nodded. “I think so. Quite a few pieces are complete and even those that are only partially finished are still unmistakably Mom’s work.”

  “How will you find a gallery?” Zach asked. “Are you planning on using your agent and the place in San Francisco that sells your work?”

  “I can certainly start with my agent and he may have some ideas, but I want the auction held at a gallery in New York.” Eli looked at his brothers. “Which brings us to the other half of my plan.”

  Cade’s eyes narrowed. “Why is the alarm bell in my head ringing?”

  “Probably because you aren’t going to like what I’m about to suggest,” Eli said with a wry grin. “But hear me out, okay?”

  Cade and Zach both nodded.

  “I think we can kill two birds with one stone. Because of her work at the magazine, Amanda Blake probably knows most of the movers and shakers in New York’s art community. And like I told you earlier, her sister is married to the owner of the most prestigious gallery in the city. I suggest we make her an offer. She hooks us up with her brother-in-law and gets him to guarantee a showing within, say, two months. In return, we give her limited—very limited,” he stressed, “access to some personal info about Mom. We can let Amanda read a few of her journals, look at some of the family photographs taken when we were kids, that kind of stuff. Nothing after Mom died. And she has to sign a binding contract that bans her from printing anything about any of us after the date of Mom’s death.”

  “Would she do that?” Zach asked, dubious.

  “She will if she wants access to Mom’s things,” Eli said grimly. “I’m guessing the chance to claim on the book jacket that we consented to give her access to personal, private family artifacts is worth a lot to her.”

  “I suppose it could work,” Cade said slowly. “How long would she be around? And who’s going to watch her?”

  “I’ll have to spend time in the studio, getting Mom’s work ready for the gallery. We can limit Amanda’s access to the studio and only during the hours I’m there.”

  “She’s going to know you’re watching her,” Zach said.

  Eli shrugged. “I plan to tell her up front just what the deal is. I don’t trust reporters and I’ve got no cause to think she’s any different. But I’m not worried about letting her sit at a table in Mom’s studio, looking at Mom’s photos and reading a handful of daily journals, while I’m sitting a few feet away. What harm can she do?”

  “If she’s willing to sign a contract agreeing not to write about anything following the date of Mom’s death, and you’re willing to keep an eye on her, I guess the trade-off for her connections to get Mom’s sculptures sold sounds good.” Zach looked at Cade. “What do you think?”

  “I’m not crazy about any plan that encourages a stranger to snoop into family business but given the situation…” Cade shrugged. “It’s as good a plan as any. In fact, it’s the only plan at the moment.”

  “I think it can work,” Eli told them. “And if you two agree, I’ll shower and head into town to talk to Amanda.”

  “I’m in,” Zach said with decision.

  “I wish we didn’t have to do it, but…I’m in, too,” Cade told him.

  Eli nodded abruptly and rose to stride to the door. “I’ll let you know what she says.”

  He left the office, the sound of his boots on the wooden floor echoing down the hall.

  For a moment, Cade and Zach stared silently at the empty doorway.

  “I hope to hell he knows what he’s doing,” Zach said softly.

  “So do I.” Cade’s voice was grim.

  Upstairs, Eli showered, shaved, pulled on clean jeans, boots and a white T-shirt, and then drove to Indian Springs. The town had two motels and a small hotel and he got lucky when he tried the hotel first.

  The young woman behind the desk rang Amanda’s room for him. He couldn’t hear what Amanda said to the clerk, but the clerk advised him to wait.

  It had probably only been a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour.

  Just as he was about to give up, he heard footsteps behind him.

  “Mr. Coulter.” Amanda’s voice was reserved; her expression wary.

  She’s probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here, he thought.

  Eli flicked a quick glance over her. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail and the ends looked damp. She was dressed in a narrow blue skirt and a white short-sleeved top, with dark blue earrings at her ears and blue-and-white bangles on her wrists. She looked cool and comfortable, right down to her bare feet, with toenails tipped in bright red polish visible in her sandals.

  He realized he was staring and, given what she was wearing, he suspected she had been about to go out.

  “Ms. Blake,” he said, acknowledging her greeting. “Is this a bad time?”

  Thick lashes lowered and lifted slowly as she blinked, clearly caught off guard by his question.

  “That depends,” she told him, hazel eyes apprehensive behind her narrow-framed glasses. “A bad time for what?”

  “To have a talk.” He gestured at her clothes. “If you’re on your way somewhere, I can come back later.”

  She glanced down, smoothing her palm over the dark blue material at the curve of her hip. “I’m meeting the town librarian for lunch later. My treat, to say thank you for her help while I’ve been researching Indian Springs history. But that’s not for another hour or two.” She stepped back. “We can talk in my room.”

  Eli followed her upstairs and into her room. The bed was neatly made, a pair of dark blue heeled sandals sat on the carpet next to the nightstand. The air was fragrant with the f
loral scent of shampoo and soap. A small round table sat in front of the window, one of its two chairs pushed back and a laptop open atop the pale wood surface.

  Behind him, Amanda closed the door before brushing past him to walk to the table. “We can sit here, if you’d like.”

  Eli followed her, holding her chair as she slipped into it before he settled into the other seat.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked, lifting a white carafe and pouring.

  “No, thanks.” He took off his Stetson and set it on the tabletop.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I have some,” she told him. “I haven’t had my daily quota of caffeine yet this morning.”

  “Not at all.” Now that he was here, Eli wasn’t sure exactly how to start this conversation.

  She eyed him over the rim of the cup as she sipped, her gaze cautious but layered with curiosity. “So,” she said. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”

  Eli decided to be blunt.

  “I have a proposal,” he said without preliminaries. “One that would allow you to have access to some of my mom’s personal information for your book.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened and she lowered her cup to its saucer. “That would be wonderful,” she said before her expression turned skeptical. “What do I have to do in return? Kill somebody?”

  “No.” A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. The New York girl was funny—and smart to be suspicious of his motives. “But you have to agree not to write anything about our family subsequent to Mom’s death. And you have to get your brother-in-law to agree to an exhibit and auction of Melanie Coulter originals at his gallery.”

  Clearly surprised and intrigued, she curled her fingers over the chair’s seat, gripping the edge on either side of her thighs. Her body leaned forward as if she were anchored only by her hold on the chair. “Are you selling the sculpture I saw in the Lodge, the one of the running mustangs that hangs on the wall behind the registration desk? Because if so, you don’t need an exhibit. I’m sure I could give you a list of collectors that would be anxious to bid in a private auction.”