the will that morning, and Jimmy had left her a very respectable amount of money, without leaving his daughters wanting. He always said that he was land rich, and cash poor. He sank all his profits back into the ranch, which was how he had grown it into such a lucrative operation, with Juliette’s help, managing the money he made. She was smart about it, and had worked as an accountant in France. The same principles applied, although the ranch was a new experience for her. But she had given Jimmy solid advice that had served him well.
In addition to the money he had left her, he had given her the use of his house on the ranch for as long as she wished to live there. It was a handsome gift. She had family in France, but had made her life in the States with him, and hadn’t gone home in years. Her home on the ranch was secure, unless Kate sold it, which she was free to do, but she had no desire to sell. She wanted to preserve the empire her father built. And she had never wanted to live anywhere else.
“What are you going to do about your mother? Are you going to contact her?” Juliette asked, curious, lighting a cigarette. Occasionally, her brother still sent her the brand she had smoked in France. They were pungent and seemed a part of her, along with the subtle, musky perfume she wore.
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Gemma wants to see her. Caroline doesn’t. I haven’t made my mind up. The idea that we still have a mother is a major shock. There has to be a good reason why Dad never told us. He wouldn’t have lied to us if there wasn’t. And she gave us up.”
“He wouldn’t want the competition,” Juliette said in her soft voice. She knew him well. “Perhaps he wanted you to himself.” He was a selfish man and she knew it, but loved him anyway. She had no illusions about him, and loved him as he was, which was the strength of their relationship. She made no excuses for him, to the world, or to herself. Jimmy always had to be in control. Kate knew it too. It was at the root of Gemma’s battles with him. She refused to let him control her. So did Caroline, but she had tiptoed away. Gemma regularly slammed the door in her father’s face and stopped talking to him, and it only made him love her more, for the sheer guts of it. They were cut from the same cloth. Kate always tried to find a peaceful compromise, and gave in to him more often than she liked. But now she had the ranch to run the way she wanted. She hadn’t figured out what that meant yet, and for the moment, there was nothing she wanted to change, except maybe to enlarge their livestock auctions, which Juliette had been suggesting for several years. It was one of the biggest moneymakers in their business, and people came from all over the state, and as far away as Wyoming, Montana, and Texas. Kate had a lot to deal with now, without her father making all the decisions. It was both exciting and frightening. She hadn’t thought his time would come so soon. No one had expected it, and Juliette hadn’t either.
“What do you think you’re going to do now?” Kate asked her, although none of them had had time to figure it out yet.
“Maybe I’ll go to visit my brother this summer. I haven’t been back to France in ten years. It would be nice to see him.” Their parents were gone, and he owned the family home she had grown up in. He used it in the summer. She felt no deep attachment to it anymore, except that it was familiar. Her brother was a judge in Paris, his children were grown, and he was divorced, and had suggested that she come over now that Jimmy was gone. He had never been interested in her roots in France, had never visited, and had engulfed her in his life on the ranch. He hardly ever went to see Gemma in L.A. either, nor Caroline in Marin at all. His life was here, and so was Kate’s. Tucked in the Santa Ynez Valley. It was easy to forget that there was a broader world. To Jimmy, this was the world, the only one that mattered