A few long strides brought him right in front of her.
Maddie held her ground.
“Let me tell you something, City Girl. I’ve known since I was fourteen years old that my father didn’t give a damn about me, that the only person who ever meant anything to him was my mother. He beat the hell out of my brother and then tried to have him arrested for murder, then crawled up inside his grief and didn’t care what happened to anyone on this ranch.
“My mother was a good woman. The very best. She lived her life to love people. Her legacy was that love, and Sam perverted everything she stood for. But I survived. It made me a stronger person.”
He leaned closer, and Maddie met his gaze without flinching, seeing within those blue eyes pain of a magnitude she’d never in her life experienced.
“There’s nothing you can tell me that’s going to hurt me. I quit letting Sam Gallagher hurt me years ago. He drove my brother so far underground I’ve never been able to find him, and he didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye before he died. You think a letter will bother me?”
He looked up at the ceiling then, his voice harsh with grief. “Well, to hell with you, Sam Gallagher—you hear me, wherever you are? You’re gone and I’m here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll spend one more minute caring.”
Then he looked down at Maddie. “So you just tell me what he could have said that would give me a second’s pause. I don’t think you know me well enough to know what I can take.” His eyes turned cold, colder than the light from a distant star and every bit as lonely.
“Boone…” She placed her hand on his muscular forearm. The contact shocked them both—she could see it in the quick flare in his eyes, could feel it all the way down her spine. “It’s not anything like what you’re thinking, but it won’t make you feel any better.”
A muscle jumped in his rock-hard jaw. He pulled his arm away, and Maddie felt the loss.
In a voice deceptively soft, he asked, “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
So be it. “All right.” Maddie wished she’d stayed out on the porch, but she met his squarely. “He said that he was afraid to find Dalton or to tell Jenny that Dalton was alive.”
Boone’s hard expression didn’t flicker. “Why would he be afraid?”
Maddie swallowed. “Because your mother loved my father first, and Sam was afraid he would lose her.”
Boone still didn’t move, and his gaze never wavered. Behind him, Vondell sucked in a gasp of disbelief.
His voice betrayed nothing of his feelings. “I’d like to read the letter.”
“Are you sure?”
Boone’s laugh was short and rusty. “Yeah.” But his eyes told a different story. “I’m sure.”
“Boone, I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”
“Just get the letter, Maddie.”
She traded sympathetic glances with Vondell, then ran up to her room and got Sam’s letter. Back in the kitchen, she handed it to Boone. She stayed quiet, though she could have recited every word after all the hours she’d spent trying to decide if any of it was real.
Dear Maddie Rose,
I was hoping we’d get to meet, but the doc says it’s not likely. In any case, my lawyer will be contacting you with this letter and the provisions of my will. You don’t know me, but my name is Sam Gallagher, and your father was once my best friend. I wronged your father, Maddie Rose, but it’s too late to make it right with him, so I’m giving you the house that should have been his.
It probably comes as a surprise to hear that I’m leaving you a ranch house in Texas. This house belonged to your grandmother Rose and was the place where your father grew up. It should have been his when Rose died, but by then everyone believed he was dead. I bought it from Rose’s estate, not knowing until a few years later that Dalton was alive.
That’s why I’m leaving it to you, Maddie—because I should have looked for Dalton then, and I didn’t. You see, my Jenny loved Dalton first, and I was afraid I’d lose her. I know she only married me because Dalton was gone. By the time I found out he was alive, we had our two boys, Mitch and Boone, and we’d built a good life together. But there was always this sadness in Jenny, and I knew it was because she lost Dalton.
A few years after I bought this place, my Jenny passed away. I never got over her, never loved another woman. Gallagher men love only once, you see. But I should have trusted Jenny and told her about Dalton. I’d like to believe she would have stayed with me, but I couldn’t take the chance.
If you don’t want the place, that’s fine. The land will go to my sons, regardless, but it won’t go down easy with Boone, especially, for you to have the house. But give yourself a chance to love the place as your daddy did. I’m making it a condition that you stay in the house for thirty days before you make up your mind. It might take a while to grow on you.