"Yours?" was all that Bella managed to get out.
Edward nodded and sighed, running his hand tiredly over his face. "Guess I should start at the beginning, huh?"
Bella just sat quietly, waiting for him to continue, his treasured possessions including the toy horse and the photos resting on her lap.
"My mother's family, the Wards, owned the property that is the Bar None and part of what is the Big E today. My father's family owned the rest of what is the Big E now. Spoons Valley was even smaller then than it is now. Actually their families were some of the first to settle the area. They grew up together and would play together, right here under this tree as a matter of fact, or at least that's what my momma used to tell me."
He reached over and plucked the picture of his parents off her lap and looked at it a moment before he continued.
"Both their families built successful ranches and by the time they got married they had some of the biggest cattle operations in the west. Pa always said there was a lot of jealousy when he and momma finally got married, mostly because people knew how powerful they were going to be. See, my father's mother died giving birth to him and though my grandfather got remarried to a widow that had one son, he never had any other children of his own. My momma and my Aunt Esme were the only two children that my other grandparents ever had and though they left the ranch to both of them, my father bought out Aunt Esme's share, gave her more than it was worth, but that's just the way he was. Aunt Esme never really wanted to live out here on the ranch anyway."
He sighed and started to put away the things he'd removed from the tin, though he hadn't shown her what was in the small pouch at the bottom of the container.
"So, by the time that my parents had me they were probably some of the biggest land owners out west, if not the biggest. They didn't care about that though. Both of them loved this land and life here on the ranch. The way of life, the land itself, those were the things that really mattered to them. It was never about the power or the money."
He closed the tin, ran his fingers over the lid before he reached out and stuck it back under the root system of the tree.
"My parents said they always wanted a big family, but unfortunately momma couldn't have anymore after me. They were happy though. They built a family with the workers, including Carmen and Eleazar who started working here when I was about ten or so."
He took a deep shaky breath before he continued, "We were happy, you know? No major problems. I mean, there were small things, but there always are. Then, when I was seventeen, pa fell off a horse and was killed when his head hit a rock. We didn't find him for a couple of days since we thought he was out working on the range. We only went looking after he didn't come home." He cleared the catch in his throat. "Momma never got over it and she died a few months later. Uncle C said her heart was already weak, but I think it just slowly stopped beating after she lost my father."
Bella quietly reached out and held his hand when she heard the pain in his voice, feeling a dull ache in her own chest as she held back tears. She could tell by the way he spoke of them that he really loved his parents.
He looked at her and squeezed her hand a bit. "So, everything came to me. The land, the money, the cattle, all of it."
She nodded and waited for him to continue, knowing that this wasn't easy for him.
"Carmen and Eleazar tried to keep me in line, but, well, I was seventeen, stubborn, and angry. The thought that I might end up alone never really occurred to me, but I suppose it never does when you're young. So I left, leaving everything behind and tried to forget about it all the way many men do. I took to the bottle, gambling…women…" Now he was refusing to meet her gaze, obviously ashamed. "It wasn't long before I had squandered everything away. All of it. Mallory had been itching to get his hands on the land ever since my parents were alive and he saw my foolishness as a golden opportunity to buy up as much as he could. I sold it to pay off debts thinking I could at least keep the rest, but before long the bank had a lien on that too. I kept thinking I could win it back but just ended up digging myself in even deeper and by the time I came back to Spoons Valley to try and see if I could salvage anything, well, it was too late."
A single tear made a trail down the side of his face as it escaped the corner of his eye and he took another unsteady breath.
"I kept getting drunker and drunker, thinking how disappointed my folks would've been of me and I kinda lost my head. That's when I met your brother. He helped me out and though he had intended to settle further west he bought the rest of the land from the bank after hearing me talk about how I didn't want Mallory to get his hands on any more of it. Angered Mallory off to no end."
He gave her a sad, crooked smile. "I could tell that your brother was a good man. He knew from the start that he was going to need help so he hired me right on the spot and brought Eleazar and Carmen on board. He's never really treated us like we work for him and considers us equals, which I'm grateful for, but I still can't forget that he's the boss because I was a fool."
Sighing he looked down at his and Bella's hands joined together, wondering if she would run now that she knew the truth of how sinful his past had been. He expected her to pull her hand from his at any moment and run off, so he was surprised when she rested her fingers under his chin and lifted his face up so he could look at her.
He couldn't help but hold his breath at the compassion and love he saw shining in her eyes as she smiled softly at him and whispered, "That isn't who you are anymore, Edward. We all make mistakes in life. You've shown me your heart and I know that you're a good, decent man and that's why I love you."
At hearing those words he held his breath for a moment, stunned and he whispered, hope in his tone, "You…you love me."
She blushed brightly and as she worried her lower lip with her teeth she nodded. Now she was the one wondering if she had scared him off.
His gaze stayed on hers for a while, his green eyes shining intently, and then instead of saying anything, he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her with an intensity that he had never shown in their kisses before.
