She kept reminding herself to be cautious and to go slow, and she kept forgetting.
“Wow! This is cool.” Diego climbed out of the Gator as soon as she stopped. She’d known he’d love it. “What’s it called?”
“The East Barn,” she said and smiled at him. “Just a detour,” she told him. “I just wanted you to see it. I love the view up here. It’s like you can see forever.”
“I can. I’m an eagle.” He stretched out his arms, flapped them and ran around the top of the hill, the grass and wildflowers slapping at his legs. “One day when Axel took me riding after school, I saw this barn and wanted to come up here, but he wouldn’t take me.”
Catalina sighed. She didn’t want to tell Diego to keep a secret from Axel, but maybe she shouldn’t have brought him. She didn’t want to anger Axel. The East Barn was his. It just seemed like such a waste to not use such a beautiful, historic structure.
But Axel had been through enough—the accident where Diego had fallen off a horse and into the rising creek over a week ago had really shaken Axel. Diego had recovered almost immediately after Axel had pulled him out, but for Axel, too many painful memories of losing Aurik in nearly the same circumstances had crashed down on him.
But shortly after he’d returned from a cattle auction, he and Cruz had become inseparable and engaged—proving a lie to August’s proclamation that Axel never did anything impulsive. But he’d also been less short with her, and Catalina hoped to build on that bridge.
“I don’t think he ever comes here,” Diego said and ‘flew’ over to the massive double doors. “I think it makes him sad.”
Why would the East Barn make Axel sad?
“Axel seems really happy now that he has you and your mom,” she said cautiously.
It really was astonishingly how quickly he and Cruz had fallen back in love. Perhaps the years apart had made them realize how much time they’d already sacrificed, and they didn’t want to waste a moment more apart.
Like me and August.
True love never died no matter how many years passed. Hopefully, she would have the same happy ending.
“This would make a beautiful wedding venue,” she murmured.
The massive double doors were locked. Maybe she could get in around back. Diego must have had the same idea because he had already run around the corner.
“Axel!” she heard him cry out happily.
Catalina rounded the building just in time to see Diego take a running jump, and somehow Axel managed to catch him and swing him up on his horse.
“We were trying to break into the East Barn,” Diego said.
Great.
“No, I’m not practicing my lock-picking skills, I promise,” she said drily. “I just wanted to see the views. It’s been years since I’ve been up here,” she said as casually as she could. “August and I used to hang out up here.”
The look Axel shot her over Diego’s head told her he wasn’t fooled.
She couldn’t help it. She grinned, and to her complete shock, he smiled back.
“August has been pushing for years to use the East Barn. He thinks I should let a bunch of tourists drive all over our land, startle the longhorns.”
“Hardly. Just a few wine events a year, and we could build a gravel road to Highway 89 from here so they wouldn’t be driving anywhere near the house, stables, or grazing pastures.”
Axel looked at the building for a long, fraught moment. When he turned back toward her, his eyes were shuttered, his expression inscrutable.
“Can I tell Catalina my big news?” Diego squirmed around in the saddle to look up at Axel with total adoration. His eyes shone like diamonds and he practically danced in the saddle.
Axel’s softening features and the smile that hovered there was so sweet and unexpected that Cat caught her breath.
“Sure, knock yourself out.”
“Axel’s gonna be my daddy,” Diego practically shouted. “He and my mom are getting married. Axel’s gonna ’dopt me, and I can call him Dad if I want.”
“Congratulations.” Catalina’s joy buzzed like champagne through her body. Diego was the sweetest kid. She loved picking him up from the school bus when Axel or one of the hands couldn’t and taking him to the winery or having him help her in the garden she was restarting near the house.
“I’ll practically be your aunt,” she said, and then wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
She was way out in front of her horse. Maybe. But she’d been thinking more and more about…well, not marrying August for fifty percent of the winery. She’d be marrying for love. But she wasn’t sure he would be. And she desperately wanted that. There. She’d admitted it.
So maybe they could get engaged. Have the whole dream.
Just the thought stole her breath and made her blood fizz again.
“You can be my aunt for real if you want,” Diego said so sweetly as if he were somehow reading her mind.
“I might take you up on that,” she said breezily, hoping Axel didn’t notice her gaffe or burst of emotion. “But now I need to head back to the house to get ready, and it looks like you already have a ride back.”
“Can I have another lasso lesson?” Diego asked Axel.
“Sure. Cutting out early today?” he asked her. “Did you call in to the boss for permission?”
Was he teasing her? Catalina stared at him, dumbfounded. Axel had always been the serious Wolf. She’d rarely seen him smile.
“It was the boss’s idea. He’s going to take me out to dinner at the Carriage House after his meeting in town with his insurance representative who’s flying in as well as a representative from city planning and a structural engineer and the contractor. We can get started on reconstruction next week if the plans get signed off.”
A real date. She didn’t say that. She’d told August she didn’t need that, but since he’d made the plans for the dinner, she’d been buzzing all day even as she tried to downplay their relationship to herself and keep it secret from others.
“Actually,” she added, looking at the time on her Apple watch, “I thought he’d be done by now.”
“He didn’t call?” Axel’s voice was low. “Check your messages.”
Foreboding filled her. She went to reach in her back pocket for her phone but paused.
“Be careful, Catalina.” Axel steered his horse a little closer. “You’re getting Verflucht back off the ground, and I know how hard you work and how smart you are and how talented.”
Even the praise didn’t warm the ice settling in her tummy and oozing through her veins.
“You’ll make a success of it. I know you will. But August is going to find new challenges.”
“Actually,” she said coolly, “August has decided against making any new expansions on Wolf Cowboy enterprises. He had a couple new projects that he’s finishing up, and then he’s going to hold steady and focus on Verflucht.”
“I know that’s what he intends. He told me the same thing four years ago when he showed up at the meeting with the lawyer after his birthday. He was going to live in Last Stand at the ranch, plant a vineyard and focus on wine.”
She found it hard to swallow.
“And since that day, he’s launched a distillery, restored a hundred-fifty-year-old convent into a hotel with a brewery on site and gastro-pub that gets write-ups worldwide in Portland, and another boutique hotel and concert and even a venue in Hood River, Oregon, and something else in Missoula. I’ve lost track.”
Catalina nodded even though she felt a little cold and flat inside. So much for happiness. So much for her own personal happiness bubbles. Axel hadn’t changed all that much. He could still burst her with a well-aimed prick.
“Yes, but he’s also had a couple of opportunities dangled in Boulder and Denver, and he turned them down.” She defended August.
“Talk to him, Catalina. I know you and he are—” He broke off as Diego ran back into the barn. “Close. And I know he does want to make Verflucht a highly sou
ght-after brand, and he has every confidence you can helm it. But he won’t be settling here any more than he’s settled anywhere with any one thing or anyone.”
You’re wrong.
But she didn’t say that.
“We’ve known each other for years. And I know I came on too strong about your family when you first came back and I shouldn’t have, but I want you to be prepared. August’s my brother. I know him.”
People change.
But she didn’t say that either, and she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince more—Axel or herself.
“Have fun with your lasso lesson,” she called cheerily and waved vaguely at Axel and Diego but turned quickly away and began speed walking back toward the Gator.
She heard Axel cluck at his horse. She felt the vibration in the dirt for a few steps and then she was alone on the hill. She dragged in a breath and then another. Her hand shook when she reached in her back pocket for her phone.
She had to blink several times to bring the letters and words in focus.
Cat, called away on business. Then heading to Denver. Sorry about tonight. Be in touch.
She deleted the message, not wanting to see how short it was, how impersonal, how vague. Not a phone call. Not an I’ll miss you or I love you.
No reason to rush home now. Shower. Change. Wear the dress she’d bought with Cruz’s help and advice during Cruz’s lunch break today.
She stared out at the view from the East Barn. Today, it no longer held any joy.
She was going to stay on at Verflucht.
She was going to make her career here.
She was going to enter the realm of rock star vintners known throughout the industry and around the world.
Her advice would be sought after.
She would travel internationally to wine industry events.
And maybe…just maybe, she’d send owner August Wolf a short text.
Having a fab time without you. Be in touch.
But first she was going to return to the Willamette Valley, check up on her vines and maybe hire someone to help her with some of the work and then she’d grab her belongings from storage and drive her truck back to Texas, even though the Verflucht job came with a pickup. And then she was going to move into the bunkhouse Axel was in the process of moving out of.
Axel was right about one thing. It was best to be prepared.
She had a game plan, and August Wolf was no longer a piece on her board.
*
The chartered Gulfstream G550 touched down softly at Gillespie County Airport with the waning light. His pilot, Jeff Ingram, had flown him many times, and this trip had kept them both on their toes and living out of a suitcase—although both men preferred leather duffel bags. Portland to McMinnville then on to Bellingham, Washington, and then Walla Walla to Coeur d’Alaine, Idaho, and then finally Missoula where his new project had hit snag after snag from permit delays to construction issues.
And then he’d gone to Boulder and Denver—curiosity getting the better of him. He’d been playing with the numbers and ideas on the flight home. Nate Richman—a friend from college who was spearheading a new downtown nightlife district in a former industrial part of Denver had called him for advice, and August had felt the usual pull.
He’d planned to be gone at most a few days, but that had become a week, which had quickly become two and then had slid into three.
August had left his businesses too long and he’d paid the price. Before his trip he’d been putting out fires via email, text, FaceTime and phone, but it hadn’t been enough and eventually even he knew he had to travel to use the force of his personality to get things done.
And now he couldn’t wait to get back to Cat and Verflucht. The brief updates she’d sent him hadn’t been nearly enough. No sexy texts or dirty pillow talk for Cat. Not that she’d ever been the flowery prose type, but still she acted more like a business partner than his lover and fiancée as soon as he planned out a special event so he could officially pop the most important question of his life.
He’d been carrying around the teal velvet box for the past week in his leather bomber jacket inner pocket, and he liked the feel of it—made him feel closer to Cat and a part of what they were building together.
He’d missed her. Craved her presence. Could almost feel her in his arms and taste her on his breath. So close now.
He pressed his thumbs on his eyebrows, hoping to alleviate some of the headache that had nagged him over the past couple of days and had built exponentially over the flight home.
Once he was holding Cat—looking into her familiar green-gray eyes, he’d feel better. He’d feel home.
“When are you going to buy one of these beauties and make an honest pilot out of me?” Jeff teased once he parked the plane and powered down for the night.
“I’m actually thinking about it,” August mused, looking out the window and seeing a shiny new Ram Big Horn pickup truck custom-painted a Malbec red waiting beside the hangar. He’d bought it for Cat. And for Verflucht.
Red. Axel would hate it, but even that didn’t make him smile. He wanted to get home to Cat. Hold her. Maybe wash off some of the travel and distance with a late-night swim in the pool. He could probably catch the family just finishing dinner, but first he had to drop Jeff off at a hotel. Probably buy him dinner or a beer.
He glanced at his watch. Damn. The time just kept getting away from him.
But he wasn’t coming back home empty-handed.
Like he’d done so many times over the past week, he reached into his pocket for the velvet box and flipped open the lid. He loved the austere simplicity of the platinum band with three round embedded diamonds. And he’d bought her a plain band for her wedding ring with an eternity symbol engraved. He’d also jumped ahead and had an eternity band designed with diamonds and peridot because the green reminded him of her eyes, and it was her birthstone. The jeweler also told him peridot was a crystal of positive power that brought peace to relationships.
He wanted that, but he also wanted Cat’s fire.
There’d been more information, but August had been focused on picking the right stone combination and caught up in imagining how they would glint on Cat’s fingers in the clear light of the Hill Country morning sun.
He wanted to give them to her tonight. He wanted to marry her tomorrow. He wished he’d already applied for the license. He wanted to get started on their life now. And he definitely didn’t want to be apart nearly three endless weeks again.
“You can just drop me off at the hotel,” Jeff said after he’d done a final check and talked to the ground crew. “I know you’re anxious to get home to your lady. You’ve been edgy as…as…I don’t know, but she must be special because I’ve been flying you around for four years now, and I’ve never seen you so agitated by each delay.”
“Thanks.”
August was grateful. He knew he wouldn’t be much company until he had a chance to get home to Cat.
Smiling, he got in the truck. The dealership had left the key under the seat where they’d promised. He pushed the ignition. The low, deep rumble sounded about right. He was Texas again. He was ranch. He was home.
He dropped Jeff off at the hotel, pointed out the Last Stand Saloon, and even offered to buy him a beer, but Jeff laughed and waved him off. August drove to the ranch, keeping to the speed limit but barely. Last thing he needed was a Shane Highwater delay. Each mile that unrolled amped up his excitement and tension. He hadn’t called today. He hadn’t wanted to promise he’d come unless he was certain.
The gates to the ranch swung open after he punched in the code and he waited impatiently, not wanting to risk scraping any of the paint before he had a chance to give the truck to Cat. He’d put it in her name, not Verflucht’s. He wished he could give it to her clean, but living on a ranch with most of the roads dirt and gravel, that was never going to happen. Although as he headed up hill and took the right fork toward the house, there was a lot less dust than usual.
Spring rains. Fantastic for the grapes and the grass for the cattle, but a few of the creeks on the ranch—offshoots from the Pedernales River—sometimes flash flooded with devastating consequences. He shook off the memory. He was about the future, his and Cat’s—not the past.
He parked next to Axel’s black monster truck. He shouldered his duffel and headed around to the back of the house.
The slider was cracked open to get some of the night breeze. Cruz, Axel and Diego were playing a board game he didn’t recognize.
“Oh, hey, I didn’t know you were going to be home tonight.” Cruz looked up and smiled. “Are you hungry? I can warm some dinner up for you. We made some flatbread pizzas with a bunch of leftover ingredients that you wouldn’t imagine would work together.”
“No thanks,” he said. He was too keyed up to eat and had been all day. He felt like he’d been running on adrenaline for days. The crash was coming soon, but as long as he was in Cat’s arms when it happened, he was good.
He looked around the clean kitchen and then at the three of them together. So cozy, but definitely missing someone.
“Cat called it a night already?” It wasn’t even eight.
Maybe she’d wanted to give the new family some alone time. His eyes kept getting drawn to the glimmering diamond on Cruz’s finger. It was beautiful and elegant and suited her, but August knew Cat would prefer something more understated that didn’t scream “taken” from across the room.
“No idea,” Axel said.
“What do you mean?” He looked down the wide hall that led to his wing, surprised that Cat hadn’t already come out to greet him. She used to run to him and jump in his arms and wrap her legs around his waist. Probably not cool with Diego around so much.
“She practically packed up my things to boot me out of the bunkhouse faster,” Axel said, rolling his two die. “Said you’d promised her that the job came with a room, and she took mine. Not that I fancy it anymore.” He smiled at Cruz, who smiled back.
“What?” His brother’s words didn’t register. August just kept staring at Axel like somehow his words would rearrange themselves to make sense.
A Bride for the Texas Cowboy Page 18