Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“Didn’t say I was giving it to you, boy.” His eyes had narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “Said you’d get the first chance to buy it before anybody starts cutting it into pieces.”
“You planning on going somewhere?”
“Eventually. That’s how dying works.” He had lifted one shoulder before returning his attention to the fence. “You offer what it’s worth if the time comes, and Jack decides whether to sell. That’s the deal.”
I had agreed because arguing with Otis once his mind was made up usually accomplished nothing except giving him entertainment. Somewhere along the way, I had built an image of Jack as the city-raised grandson Otis occasionally mentioned without much detail. All I knew was that Jack lived somewhere north, had spent summers at the ranch as a kid, and apparently occupied enough space in Otis’s plans to inherit the land he had protected for decades.
The surgery lasted several hours, but Otis survived it. Reaper told me the surgeons had stopped the bleeding and relieved the pressure, although the next twenty-four hours would determine how much function Otis recovered. I waited through most of the night, but he remained unconscious, and the intensive-care staff wouldn’t allow anyone beyond immediate family into the room.
His daughter and son-in-law arrived from San Jose before dawn with fear stretched tightly across both their faces. His daughter looked exhausted and pale, her hands trembling as she clasped mine between hers and thanked me for checking on him, while her husband gripped my shoulder hard enough to show how close he was to losing control. Their gratitude was genuine, and neither of them pretended they would have found Otis in time if I hadn’t gone looking for him.
“You saved my father’s life,” his daughter had sniffled, tears gathering along her lower lashes before she blinked them back. “I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”
“Reaper and the surgeons saved him. I only found him.”
“Because you cared enough to notice he was missing.” Her mouth quivered before she pressed her lips together, and the effort she made to remain composed told me exactly where Otis’s stubbornness had gone. “That matters more than you know.”
They decided that once Otis was stable enough to travel, they would move him to a rehabilitation facility in San Jose, where he could be close to them and the rest of his family. I understood the decision even though every instinct in me insisted he belonged in Sable Canyon. But he was their father, and they wanted him somewhere they could take care of him without driving hundreds of miles every week. So I gave his daughter my number, told her Otis had asked me to contact Jack about the ranch, and made her promise to call if either of them needed anything.
I never got to speak to Otis again. He remained heavily sedated through the first days of recovery, then his family transferred him north as soon as the doctors believed he could survive the move. His daughter sent me brief updates for the first few weeks, telling me he was awake for short periods and beginning therapy, but the messages eventually stopped, and I assumed caring for him had consumed whatever time and energy she possessed.
Five weeks after the stroke, a certified packet arrived at the Rook Holdings office addressed to me from an estate attorney in San Jose. Judge intercepted it as he did every legal document that came through the company, then walked into my office with his jaw set and the envelope held flat against his palm.
Otis had died three days earlier. According to Judge, the packet contained formal notification, a copy of the will, and paperwork regarding a specific bequest Otis had left to me, but I never unfolded a single page. I handed the entire thing back and told him to deal with whatever needed handling because seeing Otis’s intentions reduced to numbered clauses and notarized signatures wouldn’t change the fact that the man himself was gone.
The only property Otis left me outright was Blue, an aging blue roan gelding we had gentled together when I was sixteen, along with the battered stock saddle I had used during every summer I worked at the ranch. Blue was twenty-two now, but he still recognized my whistle when Hawkeye and I went to collect him. The old horse shoved his muzzle against my chest and released a low breath that warmed the front of my shirt, and I had stood in Otis’s barn with one hand buried in Blue’s mane while grief tried to close around my throat hard enough to choke me.
Judge handled the transfer, estate correspondence, and every document that required a response. He told me the ranch passed to Jack exactly as Otis had intended, and that probate would need to clear before any sale could occur. I didn’t ask for more details because the arrangement itself had never been complicated. Jack inherited the ranch, and if he didn’t want the work, expense, and isolation that came with it, I would receive the first opportunity to purchase it at a fair price.