by Devney Perry
“No.” He looked around the room, his eyes taking it all in. “When Cash and I were little, Dad would take us camping here. Boys only. We’d go fishing at the creek. He’d build a fire and we’d have a cookout outside. I haven’t been inside in ages. Every time I come back, it seems smaller.”
Why was he telling me this? Again, I didn’t verbalize my question. Because when Easton wasn’t snapping at me or barking something condescending, I soaked up his every word. Especially if it had a thing to do with his youth.
Because his childhood was my dream.
“Do you know how to use that?” He pointed a finger at the wood stove in the corner.
“Uh . . .” I glanced around, searching the walls for a thermostat. There wasn’t one. “No. I don’t.”
“I’ll show you.”
“I can figure it out.”
“And burn down a Greer family legacy? I’m not taking that chance.” He stood and walked to the stove. “Come here.”
“Ask me nicely.”
He shot a look over his shoulder that wasn’t exactly a glare, but it wasn’t polite.
I enjoyed a warm house too much to annoy him, so I set my wine on the coffee table and joined him in a crouch by the stove. There was a small stack of wood and a basketful of newspaper beside it, along with a long-handled lighter.
Easton showed me how to use the paper and kindling to get it going, then gave me instruction on how to set the airflow. Within minutes, the fire was roaring, chasing away any of the chill in the air.
“Thanks.” I stood and went to close the windows.
I left the door open, assuming he’d leave at any minute. Then I went to unpack the cooler, stacked full of plastic containers. “She made all this in a day? It’s more food than I’ll eat alone in a month.”
Easton crossed the room, closing the front door, and joined me at the fridge. “Want some help?”
“Unpacking? No, I’ve got it.”
“No, not unpacking. Eating.”
I blinked up at him as he leaned a shoulder against the fridge. “You want to stay for dinner?”
“Mom made my favorite ham and potato casserole. She only makes it for special occasions and because you’re our guest, you got it.”
Ah. So that was why he was here. “Jealous?”
“If you’re not going to eat all this food, I’ll take that casserole off your hands.”
“Too bad. It’s mine.” And I was going to eat it first. Any meal that made Easton act remotely civil must be outstanding.
He shoved off the fridge. “Come on. Give it to me so someone who will actually appreciate it will eat it.”
“Excuse me?” I surged to my feet. “I don’t think you get to tell me what I appreciate. For a guy who has never gone hungry a day in his life, I can assure you, I appreciate each and every meal I eat.”
Easton winced and the annoyed look on his face vanished. “Sorry.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“That casserole is important.” He sighed. “To my family.”
“A casserole.”
“Yes. It was my grandmother’s recipe. My mom’s mom. She died before I was born in a house fire. Not much survived the blaze except some of her jewelry that was in a fire-safe box and a few recipe cards she kept in a metal tin. That casserole was Mom’s favorite too. The reason she only makes it for special occasions is because it’s hard for her to see my grandma’s handwriting.”
My anger vanished. “And she made it for me.”
“She made it for you. So if you’re not going to eat it and fuss over it and make sure Mom knows exactly how much you appreciate the heartache it took for her to make you that meal, then give it to me so I can.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He went to grab it from the cooler, but I slapped his hand away.
“I’m not giving it to you. But you can stay for dinner. And we can both make sure she knows how much it was appreciated.”
Not his first choice, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded.
Most of the time, I wanted to strangle Easton. But then there were moments like this one where he showed me a glimpse of the good man lurking inside that solid body. The man who would come here and suffer through a meal with a woman he couldn’t stand, just so the next day he could make sure his mother felt appreciated and that her grief had not gone unnoticed.
I glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw it was nearly five. “Are you hungry now?”
He shrugged. “I could eat.”
“Then I’ll get it started.” I went about preparing our meal, following the instruction card Liddy had taped to the casserole’s aluminum dish. While it was in the oven, I set the small table while Easton went outside to bring in some more chopped wood to set beside the stove.
“Is that always here?” I asked as he stacked the split logs. “The firewood.”
“No, I, uh . . . I brought it over yesterday.”
“You?” My jaw dropped.
“As tempting as it is to let the snow and cold chase you away, the last thing we need is a city girl freezing to death on ranch property. Goes against the sales brochure for the resort.”
I snorted. “Was that a joke? Who knew Easton Greer has a sense of humor buried beneath the snide remarks and muttered censure?”
He frowned.
Predictable, this man. “Ah, there’s the face I recognize. I was worried for a moment.”
The timer dinged on the oven before he could deliver a snarky comeback. I smiled to myself as I took dinner from the oven. Tonight’s banter felt different than our normal bickering. It was almost fun. Charged.
It felt a lot like foreplay.
Not that Easton had any notions of taking me to bed. At least, not again.
With our plates served, we sat and began the meal in silence, neither one of us doing more than shovel those first few bites.
“Wow. This is amazing.” The casserole was the definition of comfort food. It was warm and cheesy with just the right amount of salt and those blessed starchy potatoes.
“Told you,” he said, dishing his plate with seconds. “You and Kat seem to be getting along.”
“We always did. Before I left.”
“You lived together, right? In California?”
I wasn’t sure where this curiosity was coming from, but I’d take conversation over a quiet meal. I’d eaten alone enough times in my life to prefer company, even if it was grouchy. “In a junkyard outside of Temecula.”
“When Kat told us about that, I didn’t believe her at first. Not because I thought she was dishonest. It just didn’t seem . . . I couldn’t wrap my head around it.”
“That’s because you grew up with a family in a loving home.” I’d told my story to enough people to know the reason Easton struggled to understand—he had good parents.
“There were six of you?”
“Yes. One of the kids lived in the neighborhood where I grew up. Karson. He ran away when he was sixteen, and since it seemed like a damn good idea, I left too.” After a particularly bad night at home, I’d finally had enough. “It was impulsive,” I told Easton. “I didn’t have a bag packed. There was no preparation. No stack of cash hidden underneath my mattress or a stash of extra clothes and food. One day I lived with my mother. The next day, I lived with Karson in a junkyard and slept on the dirt.”
“Jesus.” His fork was frozen midair. His eyes were filled with pity.
“Don’t do that,” I whispered. “Don’t pity me. Just believe me when I tell you that the junkyard was the better place. Running away was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
If Easton asked for more details, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to talk about it tonight. I didn’t talk about that time with anyone but Dr. Brewer, and even then, I’d stopped seeing her four years ago.
Some memories were better left in the murky corners of our minds where, if we were lucky, they’d eventually fade.
“Londyn came along after me.” I f
orced a smile as I ate another bite. “Her parents were drug addicts.”
“Katherine’s were too, right?”
I nodded. “Her mom. I don’t think she ever knew her dad. Karson was working at a car wash and met her. She was begging for change, so he brought her to the junkyard that day. Introduced us. She actually went home after that, then showed up two weeks later with a garbage bag full of clothes and a black eye.”
Easton’s hand gripped his fork so hard I worried the metal would snap. “She didn’t tell us that.”
“We don’t like to talk about it.”
“That’s fucked up,” he said. “Not that you don’t like to talk about it. The black eye.”
You have no idea. “After Katherine came two other girls. Twins. Aria and Clara lived in Londyn’s trailer park with their uncle after their parents died in a car crash. The uncle was mentally off. Creeped the hell out of me the one and only time I saw him.” The image of his beady eyes still gave me the shivers. “They came to the junkyard one day, holding hands and wearing backpacks, and that made six.”
“You were just kids. Living in the dirt.” He shook his head, his lashes lifting. When his eyes met mine, they weren’t full of pity this time. They were soft. Kind. He almost looked . . . proud. “And you just sold your company for twelve million dollars. Good for you, Gemma. Good for you.”
Whether it was his expression or the sincerity of his words, I wasn’t sure. But I wanted so badly in that moment to cry. To let Easton be nice to me and stop holding up that arm that kept everyone at a distance.
But I didn’t cry.
I didn’t lower my arm.
Instead I lifted my glass and gulped the last swallow of my wine.
Then I picked a fight.
“Do you like your job as assistant manager of the ranch?”
Chapter Eight
Easton
Assistant manager.
That woman knew exactly where my hot buttons were and just how hard to poke them.
It had been two weeks since I’d stormed out of the cabin, irritated and angry that she’d known damn well I was in charge of the ranch but had purposefully pissed me off.
If Gemma wasn’t running from people, she was shoving them away.
For the past two weeks, we’d stayed clear of one another. At least, as well as we could considering we worked together and my family had pulled Gemma into the fold.
My family loved her, especially Grandma and Mom.
After Mom’s casserole, Gemma had sent her a bouquet of two dozen roses, delivered all the way from Missoula, as a thank-you for the meals. Grandma had received a case of expensive wine the next day.
Whenever I’d come to the lodge, she’d be at the front desk with a smile waiting. Though never for me. Those smiles would vanish the second I walked through the door. But it was nice to have a cheerful face behind that desk.
For the guests.
The only reason I wasn’t using the rear entrance was because the parking lot behind the lodge was always crowded with staff rigs. My trips to the lodge had nothing to do with Gemma or her smile.
And this trip to the cabin was out of necessity, not because I hadn’t seen her in three days.
My truck bounced on the rough road. There seemed to be more bumps than normal. I made a mental note to have Granddad find Gemma an old truck to drive around since this wouldn’t be good for the Cadillac.
If that car got ruined, well, it would be a travesty to the American classic.
And Gemma was staying.
My plan had backfired—something I wouldn’t admit no matter how many times Cash had razzed me about it this week.
If she was staying, we’d have to make sure she had the right tools to survive on the ranch and in the cabin through the winter.
The leaves on the trees had mostly fallen over the past two weeks, the orange and yellow littering the ground and fading to brown. This fall had been short thanks to the cold patch that had swooped in over the past week. Every night had dropped below freezing and we weren’t even ten days into October.
Next week’s forecast was calling for snow.
I was simply glad we’d moved the cattle out of the mountains, even if Dad had gotten his way and they’d been put in the exact opposite pastures where I’d planned to have them.
We’d argued. He’d won.
Yesterday, I’d been so frustrated I’d spent my day working alone.
A plume of smoke rose above the patch of pine trees, and as I rounded the last corner of the road, the cabin came into view and I saw Gemma outside, her arms loaded with wood. The sound of my diesel caught her ears and she stopped, watching me pull into the space beside her Cadillac.
“Hey,” I said as I hopped out.
“Hi.” She gave me a small smile and disappeared inside. When she came back out to the porch, she brushed at the flecks of bark that had stuck to her sweater.
This one was olive, the same as the first day she’d arrived nearly a month ago. She looked pretty and relaxed, standing there in the doorway to the cabin. Her hair was up in a ponytail that flowed over her shoulder in loose waves.
Breathe, East. She’s just a beautiful woman.
“What’s up?” she asked.
I cleared my throat and jerked my chin to the bed of the truck. “I’ve got a load of wood for you.”
“Thanks. I was starting to run low.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, shivering at a gust of wind. “It’s been cold.”
“This should last you a couple of weeks.”
“Let me grab my coat and I’ll help.”
“All right.” Maybe the chivalrous thing to do would be unload the half cord myself. But I’d grown up with grandparents who’d worked side by side their entire lives. My parents too. And Gemma wasn’t the type who’d sit by and idly watch someone else work.
I dug another pair of leather gloves from the jockey box of my truck and laid them on the tailgate for her. Then I started hauling loads to the metal rack Granddad had welded together fifty-some years ago.
Gemma joined right in, not saying much as we crossed paths. Every time I walked to the truck, she walked away from it with wood in her arms. Then I’d load up and we’d do the reverse.
It meant with every trip, we’d share an awkward glance, so I pushed harder, trying to change the timing. But the faster I pushed, she pushed. No matter how quickly I walked or loaded, she was keeping pace.
No one could accuse Gemma of slacking.
When the split logs we could reach from the ground were stacked, I nodded for Gemma to climb in. “Why don’t you hop in the back and push the wood toward the tailgate.”
“Okay.” One of those long legs lifted and in a swift motion she was up.
That should not have been a sexy move but my dick jerked. Her legs, encased in faded jeans, were at eye level. When she bent, I had the perfect view of her ass and my palms twitched, wanting to squeeze her curves and mold them to mine. Fuck. This was the reason I’d been avoiding her for two weeks. Because every night when I went home, I had to jack off in the shower to the image of her legs wrapped around my hips and my greedy hands on her body.
Gemma and I argued. We were at each other’s throats, and it was because if we didn’t fight this attraction, if we gave in . . . we’d be doomed.
I dropped my gaze and focused on the job at hand, refusing to look at her until the work was done.
When the last log was stacked, she hopped down and I slammed the tailgate closed.
“Thanks.” She removed the gloves I’d lent her and handed them over.
“No problem.”
“How long did it take to cut and split all that?”
I shrugged. “A few hours.”
This was what I’d done yesterday when I’d escaped to work alone.
“I appreciate it,” she said.
“I know.” Gemma, unlike a lot of people with her substantial wealth, appreciated effort from others. I waved and walked to my truck door, openin
g it up and was about to get in when she stopped me.
“Easton?”
“Yeah?”
“Want to stay for dinner?”
If I stayed, we’d probably get in a fight. It would be smarter to decline—I had work to do, and I’d already planned to stop by the lodge and grab dinner. Instead, I tossed the gloves into the truck and slammed the door. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t about the food.
It was Gemma.
She dropped her chin, hiding her smile as she walked past me and into the cabin.
I followed, toeing off my boots beside her shoes inside the door, then went to the fireplace to add another log. “Is it staying warm enough in here at night?”
“It’s been great. Very cozy.” She went to the fridge. “Beer, water or chocolate milk?”
Chocolate milk was a staple in my diet but I saw she had a glass of wine poured. “Beer, please.”
She took out an amber bottle and twisted off the top, bringing it over for me in the living room. Then she returned to the kitchen where she’d been in the middle of chopping when I’d arrived. “We’re having spaghetti.”
“Want some help?”
“No, I’m good. This is easy.”
I took a seat on the couch and looked around the room. It was the same cabin I’d known my whole life, the same furniture, but there was something different about it. It was cozier and more . . . intimate. Maybe that was because the wind was blowing outside, rustling the trees, and in here, there was the crackle of a fire, the scent of garlic and onions, and a beautiful woman standing in the kitchen, sipping wine and making us a meal.
It was impossible not to watch her as she moved. To appreciate the sway of her hips and the way her ponytail swished across the middle of her back. A lock of hair kept falling from where she’d tucked it behind her ear, and anytime she’d glance my way, there was a rosy flush to her cheeks.
She was bewitching. She pulled me into an alternate universe where there was just us.
“So you went from here to Boston, right?” I asked, needing to make some conversation before I did something hasty like get off this couch to kiss her in the kitchen. I didn’t need to taste Gemma’s lips. I had once and they’d been sweet and destructive, like a poisoned apple. So I’d keep my ass on this couch until it was time to leave.