by Leslie North
“Why’d you come here? How come you live with us now?” he asked, pure curiosity in his voice.
“I’m here to work for a little while until I can get some things straightened out.” Like her head. And her mess of a life. “Do you think that’ll be okay?”
“Sure, only…” His voice dropped off, and his sleepy eyes looked troubled.
“Only what? What’s the matter, sugar? You don’t want me here?”
“Nope, not that,” he said, squirming in his bed. Whatever it was he was thinking, he was reluctant to say the words out loud—but he also couldn’t keep them in. She reached out and brushed the dark hair out of his eyes and off his forehead. She waited without saying a word. In her experience, sometimes silence was what a person really needed to open up.
“I think you should stay,” he said softly, his voice barely over a whisper and coming out all in a rush. “I think that would be better.”
“You do?”
“A lot better,” he said, his voice emphatic. Katie was surprised. She’d hoped to win Andy over eventually but had thought it would take longer. And yet…she thought back to sitting there at supper with Andy and Ian. If she and Ian had only spoken a dozen words at best, she’d heard Andy talk to his dad only half that much. No words between the two of them except for “use a napkin” and “brush your teeth.” All at once she knew what her purpose was for coming to this tiny, inconsequential town. If her temporary intrusion into the life of the Grant men, older and younger, could help the two of them reconnect in some way, then it would be worth it. She was glad to think she might make a difference. She’d spent the past few months feeling like she had no purpose at all.
“You know what, Andy?” she finally answered, leaning in close and squeezing his little hand in her own.
“Nope. At least I don’t think so,” he said, now more asleep than awake.
“I think everything is going to be just fine. I think the three of us are going to get along all right. While I’m here.” It was a terrible answer as far as reassurance went but Andy was still so little that it didn’t faze him one bit. While Katie watched, his eyelids slid shut a little further, a little further, and then all at once, he was dead asleep and snoring so lightly it made almost no noise. She watched him for a minute, content to sit there and look at his chest rise and fall. There was something magical about watching a child sleep when he felt really okay with the state of things. She hadn’t known that before.
She didn’t want to leave. Things would be easier if she could just sit for the rest of the night, or at least until Ian was asleep, too. But no. She had a confession to make, and she couldn’t let it wait any longer. If she was really going to make a difference, she was going to have to be completely, one hundred percent honest about herself and her not-so-pristine past. She got up and stepped out quietly, shut Andy’s door behind her, and then walked down the stairs slowly, finally feeling the accumulated fatigue of her recent days.
“Ian?” she called out softly when she was back on the first floor. “Hello?” Nothing. No answer and she didn’t think it was because he was ignoring her. A distant sound from the direction of the Grant’s barn told her that Ian was otherwise occupied. Doing something with the livestock, maybe. Katie plopped down on one of the overstuffed leather couches in the living room and let her head fall back softly. She was a city girl for sure, and that had never bothered her, but she felt foolish for not knowing what exactly it was that a rancher did at the end of the day. Or, for that matter, what it was a ranching man did, period. She sat that way, waiting, for such a long time that she started to drift off to sleep. It wasn’t until the back door banged shut and she jumped up, wide awake, that she knew she had let her guard down. She sighed, digging her nails into the palms of her hands and steeling herself for what she had to do next.
“Hey, Ian? Is that you?” she called out hesitantly.
“Course it is,” he answered from the mudroom. She swallowed hard and sat up straighter as she listened to the sound of his boots falling heavily on the old wood floor. By the time he finally rounded the corner, and she got another look at him, she was shaking with nerves.
“Did you need something, Katie?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe and looking at her from underneath the brim of his sweat-stained cowboy hat. He looked exhausted. In spite of that, she couldn’t help noticing that he was the sexiest man she had ever seen. In New York, there had been this pervasive idea that the only people who could be truly sexy came from someplace cosmopolitan. Katie might have even believed it, too, but that was before she had gotten a look at Ian Grant. Ian was sexy in an animal way, strong and fierce. He was probably the most intimidating man she had ever met, and it made the idea of telling him all of her stupid secrets even worse.
“I’m sorry,” she started, looking down at her hands laying in her lap, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Not interrupting. I just finished closing up the barns. I’m dog tired, though. Is there something I can do for you?” he asked, his eyes distant and appraising. She squirmed in her seat and immediately wished she hadn’t. Ever since he’d come down for supper, Ian had been looking at her with that same look, sort of cold and distant. She wanted to believe that it was just resentment at having her in his house; there was no doubt in Katie’s mind that her being there was all her uncle’s doing. But she got the feeling there was something he knew—something that caused him to distrust her—and the need to tell him the story herself grew even stronger.
“Look,” she started, because there was no good way to start a story like the one she had to tell, “I don’t know if you’ll want to hear it, but there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Oh yeah? That so?” he asked nonchalantly, pulling the cowboy hat off his head and wiping his brow. Her breath caught in her throat when she got a good look at him without the hat obscuring her view. His body was like something out of a movie, but his face was in its own league. It was chiseled, the bottom half covered with a five o’clock shadow that filled her stomach with butterflies. It was his eyes that really did her in. They were icy blue, which probably got the attention of every woman he crossed paths with, but there was more to them than that. There was a haunted look in those eyes and Katie thought that was something most people probably didn’t notice. While she sat there trying to work out how deep the source of that pain went, he caught her eye, frowned, and shoved his hat back on his head. He might as well have slammed a door shut in her face. She had to buy herself some time clearing her throat before she could make herself continue.
“I’m not sure how much my uncle told you about why I’m here—” she started haltingly. Her voice sounded every bit as unsure as it had when she was a little girl, and she hated it, but she couldn’t seem to make herself sound more self-assured.
“Nothing much,” he interrupted, “just that you’d fallen on hard times and needed to get your confidence back. Asked if I’d let you come to work for me here as a favor.”
“A favor. I guess that’s true. But did he tell you why?”
“No, can’t say that he did. Then again, I didn’t ask.”
“And you haven’t asked me yet, either, which I seriously appreciate. The thing is, I would like to tell you if you’re willing to hear it. I can’t promise that you’ll be happy with what I have to say.”
“I’m listening,” he answered noncommittally. His face gave away nothing. He must be a killer poker player. In a different kind of situation, she would have been impressed. Right now? Not so much.
“I don’t really have a profession now,” she started, then immediately realized her error, “I mean I’m happy to be your nanny—”
“Don’t worry about it. I think I get what you’re saying.”
“Okay, good. Sorry. All I’m meant was I used to. Have a profession. I’ve always wanted to be a chef. It was what I was on my way to becoming. I was good at it, too. I had an Instagram account with close to half a million followers, and I won thi
s television baking competition. I got a contract to write a cookbook for a major publishing house, but I made a mistake. It was a really big one.”
“People make mistakes. It happens,” he answered. Katie’s stomach churned and clenched, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from breaking out and shouting for him to tell her what he was really thinking. The whole taciturn thing was driving her crazy.
“It was bad, what I did,” she finally said, her face flushing scarlet despite all her attempts at keeping some semblance of her cool, “it was stupid, too. After I got the deal for the cookbook, I panicked.”
“Panicked why?” Ian asked without the faintest hint of emotion. Anything—reproach, sympathy, outright anger—would have been much appreciated. But he gave her nothing.
“I don’t know. It sounds stupid, trying to say it all out loud. I haven’t tried to tell this story before to anyone other than myself.”
“It’s all right. I won’t judge,” he answered in a way that made her feel like he was busy judging her already.
“I started cooking with such a clear idea of my identity as a chef, but most people aren’t interested in the kind of food I like to cook. It doesn’t get the right kind of attention, and I sort of lost faith in myself. For my Instagram account, I went for more popular recipes, and it worked—everyone loved them. But they were more of a struggle to come up with, since they weren’t what really inspired me. I was on a deadline with the cookbook, and I was incredibly blocked—I couldn’t come up with a thing. So I took recipes I found.”
“Plagiarism, you mean.” It was a statement, not a question, and it made Katie wince. She could still hear the first report of her mistake on television. Everyone was so shocked to learn what she had done. Her fans felt personally betrayed.
“Yeah,” she sighed, feeling exhausted and dangerously close to tears, “I guess that’s exactly what I mean.”
“And you lost your career over it.”
“I did indeed. Anyway, I just thought you had a right to the information. If I’m going to be living with you and your little boy, it only seems fair that you really understand who you’ve got in your home. I don’t really believe in trying to hide things anymore. Hiding things is what got me into my mess in the first place, you know?”
Ian looked at her, the perfect picture of cowboy cool, and Katie realized she was out of words. She was also completely, one hundred percent exhausted. She had no idea what Ian made of her admission, and at the moment she wasn’t sure how much she cared. Finally telling her story had taken just about everything out of her and all she wanted was to climb into her bed and go to sleep. He must have seen it in her eyes, too, because when she looked up at him again, his cowboy hat was in his hands and his eyes didn’t look quite so hard as before.
“You look exhausted, Katie. I guess you’ve had a long day,” he finally said, not unkindly.
“I won’t lie, I really have,” she agreed gratefully. She was also incredibly relieved to see that Ian Grant wasn’t completely unreachable, after all. She followed him up the stairs and down the hallway where she had recently put his son to bed. She couldn’t stop her mind from running a million miles a minute. The truth was out, and Ian hadn’t booted her through the door. Maybe that meant he was okay with letting her stay. Maybe it wasn’t so insane of her to think that she could do some good at the ranch, after all. Maybe she could really take something awful for her and turn it into something good.
She got so lost in her own thoughts, that she didn’t notice when Ian stopped walking, and she walked straight into his strong, muscular back. It had about the same effect she imagined she would get walking into a brick wall.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention!” she half whispered, half gasped. Looking up at him apologetically, she almost lost her balance and fell off of her favorite heels. Ian reached out and caught her by the arms, steadying her while she blushed scarlet.
“This is you,” he said quietly. He was looking at her intently, and she imagined that his eyes were almost glowing, they were so blue. She couldn’t help it; her eyes dropped from his down to the line of his jaw, then down to the top of his shirt. She could see the top of his chest muscles, and for just a second she could imagine what his skin would feel like underneath her fingertips. It would be hot, and if she touched it with her tongue, it would taste like salt and cedar.
“What?” she asked, shaking her head imperceptibly to clear it of thoughts she shouldn’t be having about her boss.
“This is your room,” he said patiently, the start of a smirk at both corners of his mouth. God, she must look like a total moron. If she wanted to make him more confident in having her around, even for a short while, this was not the way to go about it.
“Oh! Sorry. I guess I’m a little more tired than I thought. Thank you for showing me to my room. For letting me stay here too, I guess. I know it probably wasn’t your first choice, but I’ll do my best for you while I’m here. For both of you, I mean.”
“Don’t mention it. If you need anything, I’ll be in the next room.”
He turned around, opened the door directly beside hers, and left her standing in the hallway. It took her a couple seconds to recover. When she realized that her room and Ian’s were right next to one another because it was where Andy’s room was, she felt like a complete idiot. She tried to ignore the small seconds where she’d thought that maybe there was more significance to their close proximity than that. Even more importantly, she tried to ignore the fact that, for just a little bit, she had imagined what that other reason might feel like. Thinking along those lines wasn’t going to get her anywhere good. She wasn’t staying, which meant she didn’t need to get close to anyone at the Grant house, either son or father.
5
Ian was up before the sun hit the sky, same as every other day of the week. He liked the feeling of having the world to himself for a while before it got overcrowded with other people and all their bullshit. He spent the first hours of the morning in the barn, getting everything up and running. Time passed differently when he was working like this. No distractions, no noise outside of his control. Many mornings, he didn’t notice when the light outside went from dark to bright. This was one of those mornings, and he was mildly surprised when the barn door opened behind him and he heard happy, albeit tired, voices. He stood and stretched with his hands on the small of his back and breathed in deeply. The whole place smelled sweet, like hay and fresh milk, and for the moment he felt mighty fine.
“Bro, what’s the deal, here? You decide to move into the barn completely and just forget to tell me?” Jonah called from the open door. Ian squinted into the too-bright sun lighting his brother from behind and saw that Jonah wasn’t alone. There was Andy standing uncertainty by his side, using the toe of one scuffed sneaker to dig a hole in the dirt.
“No deal, Jonah, just getting a jump on the day. You should give it a try sometime, see where it gets you,” Ian countered easily. The banter was ages old and just as soothing as a familiar old record spinning in the background. Jonah laughed, ruffled Andy’s hair, and nudged the boy forward.
“I’ve been hanging with my man Andy, here, which is better than up and at it any day. Sadly, he’s informed me that he’s got some chores to do this morning as well, so, you know, here we are.”
“That’s right, Dad, isn’t it?” Andy asked anxiously. Ian hated that sound, the anxiety in his kid’s voice. It started him thinking about all of the things he must have screwed up to have his kid feel that way when he talked to him.
“Yeah, buddy,” Ian said, careful to keep his self-driven irritation out of his voice, “that’s right. Wanna tell Uncle Jonah what you do?”
“Sure!” Andy said happily, his face lighting up when he turned to look at Jonah, “Wanna see?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting to see this all my life, boy! Hop to it!”
“I do lots of things, really, lots. I do the most important things. I give the food to the horses a
nd stuff. And the cats. You have to feed the cats, or they get up to no good.” Andy finished the statement proudly, his chest puffed up with self-importance and Jonah nodded appreciatively, one hand held discreetly over his mouth to hide his grin.
“Jonah, you mind helping out with something? Seeing as you’re already out here,” Ian called over his shoulder once Andy was good and focused on his tasks.
“Oh,” Jonah said, rolling his eyes dramatically, “I get it. Lure me out here with promises of some quality family time and then put me to work. You sure are a hard bastard, aren’t ya?”
“Hey, brother! Language!” Ian chided, nodding his head towards Andy, who was busy rolling around with the kittens.
“Come off it; he’s not paying attention to us. We’re the boring grownups now, remember?”
“Sure, but still. Bad habit. Now, are you going to help me out or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, you know I am. All you gotta do is ask.”
“Check out the horses, will you? Just give ‘em a good looking over, so I know where we stand.”
Jonah nodded, headed towards my recently acquired American Quarter Horses, which as Andy would be quick to tell are also the state horse of Texas, and got to work. The three of them worked together silently then, falling easily into the rhythms of their tasks. It was the kind of harmony that was hard to achieve, and glancing at his brother and his son, Ian realized he was content. There were still plenty of problems to contend with; things with Andy were far from settled, for starters, and now he had the nanny to contend with. Still, for a good hour or so they worked and wanted to do nothing else. It was exactly the kind of morning Ian always hoped for and rarely had. It wasn’t often that Andy spent so much time in the barn with his dad. They probably would have gone right on working that way, too, if it hadn’t been for that one little task nagging at him in the back of Ian’s head. He still needed to talk to Andy about the Strawberry Fest, and he wasn’t sure the boy was going to be happy with the hand he’d been dealt. He stood up, hands on his back for a good stretch, and cleared his throat loud enough to catch both Andy and Jonah’s attention.