Chapter Two – Adam

“I saw a car parked outside the old Hawkins place,” Jon said, as he came into the study where Adam Williams and his father were poring over the accounts and checking the price of beef at the last cattle auction. It was part of everyday life at the Williams Homestead.

OK, so it was all of Adam’s life. He shook his head. He was becoming more like his father every day. Married to the ranch, when he wanted to be married to a smart, curvy woman who could warm up his bed, and converse in a language other than ranch.

“You need to get over there,” Adam’s father, Russell, said immediately, taking his glasses off, and placing them down on his desk. The hard stare that followed contained just enough guilt to make Adam feel personally responsible for them not securing the Hawkins Ranch when the old man died. His father seemed to forget, it had never come up for sale; that the ranch and the surrounding land his father wanted hadn’t slipped through their fingers, because it had never been in their hands.

It was in the hands of Frederick Hawkins’ great-niece, and to Adam’s traitorous mind, that was where it belonged. Despite the fact she’d not been up to see the old man for several years, as far as he could recall. Not that he recalled much about her at all. He’d seen her once or twice, from a distance, when she was around thirteen or fourteen, but she’d seemed kind of aloof, a city girl, and he had no time for city girls when his heart lay here in the lush grasslands of Black Bear Ford, on the fringes of the Mistletoe Mountains.

“Dad, let her settle in before you begin hounding her,” Adam said.

“Hounding her? That parcel of land around Hawkins Ranch should be part of the Williams Homestead. You know that. I know that. And that city slicker should know that.”

“Dad, that is an old grudge your father had with old man Hawkins. Let it go,” Jon said, always the voice of calm and reason, while Adam had a somewhat fiery relationship with his father.

Maybe it had to do with being sandwiched between three brothers. As one of the middle children, Adam always figured he lived in a kind of no-man’s land, neither the baby of the family nor saddled with the responsibility of being heir to the ranch. At least, not until his older brother Jordan had joined the army, leaving the family ranch in the hands of Adam, Samuel, and Jon.

It was always assumed Jordan would come back one day and take up running of the ranch; it was what he’d been groomed for. Fate, however, had stepped in, and a helicopter accident had left Jordan unable to walk. Thinking he was doing the right thing, because in his words, what use was he to the ranch when he would never sit astride a horse again, he’d told his father it was best if Adam was the new heir.

Now, Adam wasn’t worried about the responsibility, but he sure did feel guilty at being boosted to the front of the inheritance line. His guilt at being the new heir wasn’t aimed directly toward Jordan, who had made a choice to give up his stake in the Williams Homestead. No, the guilt was aimed elsewhere, because Adam figured that since his two younger brothers, Jon and Samuel, had put just as much work into the ranch, as Adam, they should be equal partners too. Their father would never see it that way, because he had lived by the same tradition of the eldest son inheriting.

The thing was, Russell Williams had also inherited by default. The farm had belonged to his father, who had left it to Russell’s older brother, Michael. Together they had worked the farm, until Russell found his mate over in Bear Bluff. They had met by chance, while Russell was delivering some cattle that way. It had, of course, been love at first sight, and Russell had moved in with his mate.

He’d raised a family there, four strong sons, and they’d had a good life. But the hills and rich pasture of Black Bear Ford had called to him. That was when fated played one more hand. Michael died, thrown from the back of a young colt he was trying to break. With no mate, and no cubs of his own, the Williams Homestead had passed to Russell. The family moved back here: the boys were old enough to help run the ranch, and they had all taken to it. All except Jordan, the eldest of Russell’s’ sons and the sole heir, according to family tradition.

Had fate played one more trick on the Williams family when Jordan decided the army was the life for him?

Adam thought that one over, turning it around and looking at it from all sides. If he was a superstitious man, he would say that fate did not agree with the family tradition of the land passing to one sole heir. That was the reason the Hawkins Ranch meant so much to his dad. In his eyes, the ranch belonged to the family; it was a missing piece, a constant reminder of a supposed blemish on the family name.

Their father huffed, and Adam prepared for the usual speech about it being a matter of Williams’ family pride. That their grandfather had been cheated in a deal with Frederick Hawkins, and the land should be theirs. That after the Williams family had rallied around him as he become weak and frail, taking him food, tending the ranch as best they could, he should have sold the farm to them and let them join the fractured land back together.

Adam got up, not needing to hear it again. “I’ll go over and say hello.” He turned to fix his father with a stare of his own. “But only to say hello. And only because it’s the neighborly thing to do.”

“Neighbor? Should be in jail, cheating, stealing family.”

One day, Adam figured his dad would wake up and listen to himself long enough to realize he sounded just like his own father. That the grudge was in their minds. Adam and his brothers had talked it over when confronted with the facts, and decided the land had been claimed, fair and square, by Frederick Hawkins. It had been a poker game; both their grandfather and Frederick Hawkins had stakes they didn’t want to lose. Luck had fallen on Fred, and the matter should have been dropped there and then.

“Dad, one day you are going to have to let it go,” Jon said, then to Adam, he added, “Want company? You know, in case she tries to rob you of your inheritance.” Jon said it as a joke aimed at his father, but Adam winced, almost imperceptibly. His brother saw it and shrugged. “Really, I’ll come if you want.”

“No. I’ll make sure I keep my wallet tucked firmly in my pocket, and my truck keys in my hand. Just in case she tries to steal them.” He laid the sarcasm on a little strong, but this was turning into one of those days he would rather forget. It wasn’t just about having to go over and meet their new neighbor. It went a lot deeper than that.

Jon might have been ribbing him about his inheritance, but it hit him in a tender spot, right in the pool of guilt he felt since Jordan’s announcement. Although, the way their father behaved, Adam would likely be an old man himself by the time it passed to him.

Adam might stand to inherit the ranch when his father died, or became too frail to run it; however, that would have to be frail of mind, not body. Adam was sure his father would find some way of getting around the acreage—even if he lost all arms and legs, he wasn’t going to do the sensible thing, like Jordan had. The man held on to the ranch as if it were his last breath. He’d lost it once to his brother, and now that it was in his hands, he was keeping it.

“Hi there, Adam. Why do you look as if a storm is brewing in that head of yours?” a voice called.

“Mom, I’m OK. No storm, I promise you,” Adam answered. His mom had a sixth sense for whatever her boys were thinking.

“Come on, I know that look. You’re not upset about Jordan visiting, are you?” she asked, tilting her head slightly as she did when she was observing her sons. Sometimes that tilt was joined by a smile, and sometimes raised eyebrows, depending on what exactly her boys were up to. Right now, it was joined by a look of understanding. “You know he wants you to have the farm.”

“I know. But it still doesn’t sit right. It didn’t when he first announced it, and now he has the use of his legs again, and a mate who will give him children. Well, in my mind, the Homestead is still his by right,” Adam said.

“Jordan doesn’t see his life here. And he knows you do,” his mom said, reassuring Adam that he wasn’t stealing the farm out from under his older brother, who was a war hero and the true heir to the vast, sprawling ranch known as Williams Homestead. How did Adam compete with a man like that?

“And Jon and Samuel see their lives here too,” Adam reminded her. “We all grew up knowing Jordan would take over, as the eldest. Doesn’t mean we don’t love the place, and have worked hard while he was away to keep it going and make it prosperous. Now he’s decided to give up his birthright… I don’t know, it just feels wrong for me to be the sole heir.”

“Eldest always inherits. And since Jordan is coming to officially sign that away, it’s right it falls to you,” she said. “That is the family tradition.”

Adam kissed his mom on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

“Adam, family means a lot to your father, and that means family traditions too.”

“I know, but sometimes I wish we could all stop living in the past.”

“I’m not sure that’s fair,” Adam’s mom replied.

“It probably isn’t,” Adam said. He was heading for the door, but stopped, turning around and facing her, wanting to get the real issue off his chest. “I’m going over to meet the Hawkins heir. If I inherit this ranch, will I have to spend the rest of my life trying to devise a plan or scheme to part her from her property?”

His mom burst out laughing. “Hell, has your father been on about that again?”

“Jon said he saw a car there, so we presume she’s moved in,” Adam said sourly. “I’m not sure if I’m the welcoming party, or if I’m supposed to try to harass her on behalf of the family.”

“You go welcome her.” His mom pointed a finger at him. “But before you go, come get an apple pie to take as a homecoming gift. You can sit and share it with her. Poor girl most likely needs something to help her get over the condition of that place.”

“So you don’t agree with dad and this never-ending fixation with merging the Hawkins Ranch with the Homestead?” Adam asked.

“Lord, no.” She was back in the kitchen, and Adam followed her into what they all knew was her domain. You didn’t come in here and mess up the order of Mrs. William’s kitchen, everyone knew that, from his dad down to the hired hands who came in for supper when they were working late on the summer evenings.

“Why does it mean so much to him?” Adam asked. “It’s such a small acreage compared to what we have here.”

His mom frowned, studying Adam once more, and then said, “You know that your grandpa was a proud man. He wanted to make the ranch whole, and that piece of land cuts off the lower meadows from the upper pasture. It belonged to his brother before Mr. Hawkins. The story I heard was that your grandpa’s brother, Al, was given it as a … I don’t know, as some kind of recompense for not inheriting the ranch. Your grandfather tried to make things right, just as you want to.”

“I know that much,” Adam said. “I know that Al lost it in a poker game, and that caused a rift between the brothers.”

“Well. The truth is, I think the rift was there before Al gambled it away.”

“Before?” Adam asked, studying his mom’s expression. As much as she liked to read other people, she was a master at keeping her own thoughts completely hidden. This time was no exception.

“Before he lost it, yes.” She took a fresh apple pie off the counter, one of a batch of seven she had baked, ready to freeze. “Here, you take this, go meet our new neighbor, and think on what I said. Tradition is tradition, but if you don’t hold with tradition, there is no one who will stop you from changing it. Just make sure you understand why you want to change it.”

With those cryptic words in his head, Adam took the warm pie, placed it on the seat of his truck, and drove carefully down to the Hawkins Ranch. He had intended to shift into his bear and run down there, but a bear was not good at carrying apple pie. He smiled, feeling the bear within him get up and sniff the air.

A bear sure does like eating one, his bear reminded him.

“Let’s keep you out of sight for now,” Adam said. “Learning her new neighbors are out to gain her property is one thing. Learning they also happen to be bear shifters is another.”

It would be one way to scare her away, his bear said.

Now you are sounding like our father, Adam answered.

And that’s a bad thing? his bear asked.

Let’s make our minds up when we meet her, Adam answered.

Agreed, his bear replied.

Might be the only thing any of them agreed on for a few days, with the arrival of a new neighbor, and his brother, Jordan, due tomorrow with his new wife.

Adam felt a pang of jealousy. He’d surely swap inheriting the ranch for a mate. Jordan had gotten lucky, Adam hoped he realized just how lucky.