by Sky, JoAnn
It didn’t matter that he made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world. It didn’t matter that her stomach did cartwheels every time he was near and that she looked forward to seeing him when he wasn’t. Or that she depended on him and trusted him, despite everything. No, none of that mattered, because she wanted more than this ranch, this town.
But more than Noah?
She took a deep breath of air and a deep gulp of logic. Her life wasn’t here anymore. She’d moved on. Still, she needed to help him before she left. She owed it, not to Noah, and certainly not to her father. She owed it to JJ. That boy had wormed his way into the core of her heart. But even if the paper was accurate, the coins wouldn’t fetch enough to both save the ranch and start her business with Ricky in New York. They needed to negotiate some sort of deal with the bank…with Sam. Noah’s interruption last night had most likely scrapped any chance of that.
Grace turned at the sound of the screen door opening and a cinnamon scent wafting through the air. “I smell something wonderful,” she said as JJ scooted in with the bag of booty and placed it on the table.
“We got cinnamon buns. Surprise.” JJ took a plate from the cupboard. “Cream cheese icing and vanilla.”
Grace walked out to the porch, coffee mug in hand, and watched Noah approach. Broad shoulders, sculpted arms, hard, lean thighs outlined in his tight jeans… All body parts she’d explored last night, inch by inch. Her cheeks flushed at the memories.
Dear Lord, she wanted to do it all again.
Noah climbed the porch stairs, leaned in, and lightly touched his lips to hers. A simple act, the gentlest caress. Her mind spun.
“These taste awesome,” JJ called from the kitchen.
“Better grab a bun quick,” Noah whispered in her ear.
She forced herself not to grab his butt. He raised one brow in a playful dare. He must’ve read her mind.
JJ barged through the screen door, a cinnamon roll in each hand. “One for you, Noah. And Gracie, one for you.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“Need a refill?” Noah asked, nodding to her coffee mug. She shook her head.
Grace sat on the porch swing and bit into the warm gooeyness as Noah went into the house for a cup of coffee. Her mind was a mess. Okay, Grace, one step at a time.
Had Noah been serious about sharing custody of JJ? She hoped so, though the idea didn’t bring the solace she’d thought it would. What was Noah thinking? Why would he agree to any custody, shared or otherwise? JJ wasn’t his responsibility. But it wasn’t like she was dumping JJ here. She’d visit, of course. As often as possible. Still, Noah would be raising him alone… Unless…
How would that work if Noah was dating someone, or worse, living with someone? As long as that someone wasn’t Nessie. Or anyone else Grace knew. Or anyone very pretty. Maybe joint custody was the way to go. School in Reno, and summers in New York—maybe Christmas, too.
She was running out of time. She had to figure this out. What the heck was wrong with her?
The answer, one of them, pushed its way out the screen door with an entire cinnamon bun shoved in his mouth. He opened his mouth and showed Grace a mouthful of chewed gunk.
“Nice. Did JJ teach you that?”
Noah winked. “I taught JJ.” He sat next to her, swallowing loudly.
“If you burp, I’m going to kick you off my swing.” How was this the same guy who’d made passionate love to her all night long? Men.
“We need to talk about last night, Gracie.”
He was right, but she wasn’t ready. “I know. Not now.”
He nodded and looked out into the fields. “JJ told me about Socks,” he finally said.
“First Socks fought with Big Gray and ran off, and then the horses got rounded up. JJ wigged out. He needed you here.” I needed you here. “Where were you?” Grace took in a breath and held it. Please not Nessie’s.
“I needed time to think. I stayed at Timmy’s.”
She let out the breath. “I was worried.”
His brows furrowed, like he was trying to decide if he believed her. “JJ’s still shook up,” Noah said, changing the subject. “He wants to find Socks. He’s worried about not being here.” He glanced around the ranch and then settled his gaze back on her. “I told him that he could stay, that we’d worked it out.”
So it was a done deal, assuming the judge agreed. JJ would stay with Noah. That was good. One less decision to make. One less responsibility. But instead of relief, she felt empty. No, worse—like she had a gaping hole in her chest.
Noah covered her hand with his. “I was wrong to leave like I did, and I should have called,” he said, apparently misinterpreting the pain in her face. “I’m sorry.”
Simple. Direct. A feather knocking off her armor. She was sorry, too. About her father and his father and JJ. And the past seven years. Tell him about the coins, Grace. No, not until she knew they were the real deal, and not until she’d figured out a new plan, a how-to-make-everyone-happy plan.
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. This time, it felt like he was referring to more than the last two days.
She nodded but didn’t look up. “Me, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
By noon the next day, the necessary ranch work was done, Noah had gone to the cottage to get some work done, and Grace had put in a final hour of squaring away the dreaded boxes from the attic. Now all she needed to do was organize a yard sale. She’d also called Mr. Lincoln’s office and scheduled an appointment for the next day to discuss JJ’s new situation. She took the opportunity to ask about Sam’s coin guy, Mr. Wilds, and found he was more than legit. His firm, Carson Coins, was the most well-known rare coin company in northern Nevada. After some deliberation and internet research, Grace called and left a message for Mr. Wilds. Her phone burned her back jean pocket, waiting for a response.
Stomach growling, Grace walked through the tall grass to JJ. “Whatcha doing, honey?”
“Drawing Socks.”
Grace’s heart squeezed as she looked out into the empty field. “From memory?”
“Yeah.” His tone told her he thought the answer was obvious.
“Can I see?” She scooted next to him and leaned in. The drawing wasn’t just of Socks, it was Socks reared up, challenging Big Gray. The detail was incredible. Muscles tensed, teeth bared, manes flowing. Grace could feel the angst of the horses and the electricity in the air, the fervor of the moment.
“JJ, this is beautiful,” she whispered. Without thinking, she reached out to his writing pad and turned back a page. JJ let her. That drawing was just as detailed, just as realistic, just as powerful—the birth of Kiddo. She flipped to the preceding page. And the next. Kiddo standing for the first time. Socks watching the other horses from afar. Then another of Socks fighting Big Gray. The emotion of each page reached out and grabbed at her heart. “JJ, have you ever showed these pictures to anyone?”
“I showed Ms. Ripoli my drawings of Socks.”
“That art teacher at Goldfield?”
JJ nodded. “She said I traced them. She wouldn’t believe that I drew them from memory.” JJ poked at his head with his pointer finger. “I see the picture in here. I remember one moment, and it won’t go away until I draw it.”
Amazing. “It’s like you have a camera in your brain,” she said softly.
He glanced at her, his eyes widening, then dancing at the thought. “Yeah, I’m a photographer, too.”
“And drawing is the way you develop your photos.” Grace suddenly felt the urge to not only download her pictures onto her computer, but also to hold them in her hand. Dang, she wished she’d brought her film camera. And that she had access to a darkroom. For now, she’d have to make do with eight-by-ten prints from the drugstore’s one-hour service. She nudged JJ. “Let’s get lunch. Then I’m going to print my photos, too.”
Her phone rang. She checked the screen, recognizing the number of Mr. Wilds. “JJ, I’ll meet you in the k
itchen, okay? This is Grace,” she answered, watching JJ run back to the house.
“Ms. Harper, this is Bill Wilds. I got your message.”
“Thank you for returning my call, Mr. Wilds.”
“Please, call me Bill. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve recently acquired a collection, probably eight hundred-plus coins, from my father, who is deceased. I have an idea of what they might be worth.” Her research on the internet seemed to confirm her father’s values for the Morgan silver dollars, which could range anywhere from twenty-five to hundreds of dollars, depending on date and mint and condition. “I’d like to confirm it, and then sell them. Is that something you do?”
“Sure is. If you want to bring them in, we can go through everything. I charge one hundred dollars per hour, and it may take several hours with your eight hundred coins.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to meet at my attorney’s office and go through things there.” Mr. Lincoln would agree. Heck, he would’ve insisted had he known.
“That’s fine, too, Ms. Harper. Just have your attorney call me and we’ll set up a mutually convenient time.”
Grace agreed, then called Mr. Lincoln. In fact, he assured her they’d take care of it for her so she wouldn’t have to spend the better part of a day watching someone else catalogue the coins. She committed to dropping off the collection to him that afternoon. An hour later, she and JJ were at the Stop-n-Gas, making a copy of the two-page list on the Xerox machine. Grace smelled Nessie’s nauseating perfume before she heard her.
“Didn’t think you’d still be here, girlfriend. Hey, JJ.” Nessie tousled his hair. He pulled back. “Getting things wrapped up at the ranch, Gracie?”
Grace forced a smile over her gritted teeth. “That was a great party on Sunday, Nessie.” She collected the papers on the copy machine.
“Thank Noah. Lord only knows what I’d do without him.” Nessie smacked her over-lipsticked lips. “What are you guys doing?” Nessie eyed her papers.
“Tying up loose ends. Ready, JJ?” Grace motioned JJ away from the copier, away from Nessie. “See you, Nessie,” she called over her shoulder.
“Oh, Gracie. I think you forgot something.” It was Nessie’s gotcha tone as much as her words that made Grace cringe as she turned toward her former best friend. Nessie stood there, copier lid lifted, piece of paper in hand.
It was the second sheet Grace had copied. The page with the total dollar amount of the coin collection.
“Thanks.” Grace snatched the paper from her nemesis’s hands and shuffled JJ out the door. That woman was the devil incarnate.
Hours later, after picking up the one-hour photos she’d ordered and dropping the coins and a copy of the summary at Mr. Lincoln’s office, Grace sat at the kitchen table with her photos and had almost wiped from her mind the unfortunate encounter with Nessie. The one-hour job was amateur. She’d have to work on the clarity and color, then print larger photos when she got back to New York. She spread the photos on the table, sorted them, and listened through the screen door as Noah drilled JJ on the rules of grilling. Rule Number One: never leave the grill. Rule Number Two… JJ quickly lost interest before learning it, thereby violating Rule Number One. She smiled and watched as Noah ran after him, laughing, grill spatula in hand.
What was going to happen after dinner? She’d managed to get through the entire day without talking about last night. But Noah would press the issue after dinner. He’d want to know where things stood between them.
Unless they got distracted.
It wouldn’t take much. She was distracted right now, watching him through the screen door, back at the hot grill, flipping burgers. His T-shirt stretched tautly over his shoulders, and every move of every muscle was outlined. She much preferred those shoulders without a shirt. Her palms tingled. She wanted to rub her hands from his shoulders to his chest, then down to his stomach and lower.
She fanned herself with the photo envelope. It was like she was the one standing in front of the grill. She dragged her attention back to the photos.
…
Noah walked in with a plateful of burgers. Burned burgers. He was usually a master at the grill, but he couldn’t concentrate thanks to an unexpected visit from Nessie earlier that afternoon. Though it was more of a drive-by than a visit. She came, dropped her bomb, and left. Damn if that woman didn’t have a way of complicating an already complicated situation.
The number Nessie had seen on Gracie’s paper would get the property current. Noah’s bit of savings could keep them going for a while after that, though that wouldn’t leave much of anything for the new server his company sorely needed. His business was picking up. He needed to expand if he was going to make enough money to support himself and JJ.
But first things first. He needed to get that foreclosure noose off his neck, and George’s coin collection would do it. So why hadn’t George sold them himself?
Noah watched Gracie working at the table, laying out her photos. Should he bring up the coins? He wanted her to. But she hadn’t yet. Maybe she wouldn’t. And he was mad. Mad that she’d kept the collection from him, was lying to him. He squeezed his eyes shut. He shouldn’t judge her. He’d lied, too. Maybe she had a reason for not mentioning it to him yet. Maybe he needed to give her space.
Maybe he needed to show her the same trust he asked of her.
“Are those your photos?” He came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. He probably smelled like ground beef. She smelled of lavender and cherry—and she was wearing her cherry lip gloss. Totally edible.
“The photos are mine. The drawings—”
“Are JJ’s.” He bent in, to see the drawings or to get closer to her, he wasn’t sure. He brushed his nose to her hair and inhaled. Not just lavender, and not just cherry. Coconut, too. He reached for one of the drawings, and his fingers brushed hers. A buzz of electricity jolted from his fingers to his feet.
Her hand quivered, but she didn’t move away. He wanted to turn her around, strip her naked, and have his way with her, right there, right now—an encore to last night. He was fairly certain she’d be willing, maybe even eager. She must have felt the jolt when they touched. It was always there, an electricity, a magnetism between them. A physical need—maybe chemical, too—raw, addicting, uncontrollable. But he didn’t want just those feelings driving her decisions.
He focused back on the drawings. “Hey, these match.” Well, not exactly match. Gracie had sorted JJ’s drawings amongst her photos. They created a storyboard of Socks and the band, alternating photo—drawing—photo—drawing. “This is amazing.”
“And it’s not just the horses.” Her voice trembled with excitement. “Look at the ones with Kiddo.” She pulled over a separate stack of sorted photos and drawings, a timeline of Kiddo’s birth, and spread them on top of the horse pictures.
“I want to bring these to New York.” She swiveled in the seat and faced Noah. “With JJ’s and your agreement, of course. I think I can sell these.” Her eyes sparkled, and her voice bubbled with enthusiasm. “In fact, I know I can.”
A chill ran up his spine and down his arms, freezing him in place. “And then what? You stay in New York?”
Her body tensed. “That’s… New York is where I live, Noah, it’s where I belong.”
“What about”—last night—“JJ?”
“I thought we decided—”
“I know what we decided.” He pushed himself away from the table. He’d said he would take JJ, and he meant it. He wouldn’t use JJ to guilt her into staying. And why the hell should he have to? Last night, he’d broken down the barrier between them, the one he’d laid the foundation for seven years ago. She’d asked him to kiss her, for Christ’s sake. “I just thought you’d…after… I don’t know.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “What about…” Us. He couldn’t say it. Because she clearly didn’t feel it. He needed her to want this, him, them. On her own. As much as he did. And she didn’t.
Or wou
ldn’t. She wouldn’t let herself want him. She wouldn’t let him in, wouldn’t trust him. Not even with simpler things like money and coins. So why would he expect her to trust him with her heart and her dreams? “What about the coins, Gracie?” He couldn’t curb the roughness in his voice. Maybe he didn’t want to.
“How—?”
“Nessie stopped by earlier.”
Gracie stared at her hands in her lap. “I’m not sure what I have, yet.”
He wanted to believe that was all it was, but there was something more. He could tell by how she guarded her eyes, avoiding his gaze. “What else?”
She turned back to the table and collected the photos and drawings. “That, and I didn’t think it’d be enough.”
The hair on the back of his neck pricked up. She knew how much was needed for the ranch. She also knew how much this place meant to JJ, to him. And he refused to believe it didn’t mean anything to her. “Enough for what?”
She stopped shuffling the papers and stood but didn’t face him. “Enough for both of us. I want you to keep the ranch, and I want to help you do it. But I need a new start, too.” She took a deep breath, turned her head just slightly over her shoulder toward him. “On my own.”
He watched those three little words barrel toward him. In another second, they’d knock him on his ass. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. “And that’s just the way you like it.” He leaned into her, watched her pupils dilate. “Doesn’t that get lonely?”
Her lips parted, as if to respond. But no words came out. She stared at him, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure. She licked her lips.
To hell with whether it was love or lust or chemistry or kryptonite. He swooped in, covered her mouth with his, and drank her in. He thought she would push him away. Instead she pulled him closer, offered him more.
He took it at first, deepening the kiss, his tongue probing, tasting. It was good. She was good. But it could be better. He did care whether it was love or lust. He needed to take it slow, make it mean something.