Her Cowboy Billionaire Best Friend_A Whittaker Brothers Novel

by Liz Isaacson

  “Okay, well, go get them from Celia, and I’ll get everyone ready for the lighting.” Because then the conversation with his mother and brothers would be over. Bailey skipped away, and he said, “All right, everyone. I think we’re ready to do the tree lighting. I’m told it’s best if you stand over here.” He indicated the fireplace, which had a dozen stockings hung along it’s length and waited while everyone came over.

  He claimed Laney’s hand again as soon as she came within arm’s reach, his anxiety teeming near the top of his control. “Are we ready?” The evergreen sat in darkness, though the ornaments glinted from the overhead lights.

  “No,” Bailey said. “Get that light behind you, Mom.”

  Laney twisted and switched off the porch light while Celia flipped off the lights in the kitchen and hallway.

  “Now we’re ready,” the six-year-old announced. “Go ahead Graham.”

  He grinned and while he hadn’t been planning a speech, he stepped out of the crowd and stood in front of them. “I’m so glad we’re all here together this Christmas.” His emotions skyrocketed, and the fact that his father wasn’t there stuck in his throat.

  Several long seconds passed before he was able to continue, and he caught his mother wiping her eyes. “Dad loved the holidays, and he’d always give us a small gift on Christmas Eve. So we’ll be doing that right after this, and then Celia has dinner in the kitchen.” He surveyed the group, finding his love for each of them—even those he didn’t know well and had only met that afternoon—growing.

  “I thank God you could all travel here safely to be with us, and Andrew will say grace over the food once we’re in the dining room.” He wasn’t particularly long-winded, and he felt emotionally spent standing in front of them all. “Anyone have anything else they want to say? Mom?”

  She shook her head, a sniffle the only sound. “You did great, Graham.”

  He stepped back into his place. “All right then. I’ll turn on the lights.” He picked up the remote that controlled the outlet where he’d plugged in the tree and pushed a button. The white lights burst to life, illuminating the silver, red, green, blue, and gold bulbs and casting a magical glow on the entire room.

  Everyone ooh’ed and ahh’ed, and Laney leaned into him and sighed. “It’s beautiful.”

  The tree was beautiful, but all Graham could see was the work he and Bailey and Laney had spent on it. And he was glad he hadn’t passed the task onto someone else. That was time he’d spent with them that no one could take from him.

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and said, “I’m glad you’re here.” And while he’d invited her ages ago, he wondered if her power hadn’t gone out if they’d really be standing where they were.

  Thank you, he sent heavenward, more grateful for downed power lines in this moment than any other time.

  “Presents!” Bailey announced, and she lunged for the tree, where she’d helped him arrange the gifts that morning.

  Graham kept a tight grip on Laney’s hand as the presents were handed out. They weren’t anything special, but his father had taught him not to downplay a gift. It could be exactly what someone needed.

  “Socks,” Andrew announced after he’d ripped open his package. “These are nice, Graham.” He beamed at his brother. “Thanks.”

  Everyone got socks, and not a single person acted like they didn’t want them. Graham basked in the homey feeling permeating the huge foyer, and he saw Meg help Stockton replace his socks with the new ones he’d just gotten. The child came prancing over.

  “Look, Uncle Graham!” He held up one foot. “Mine have reindeers on them.” He looked like he’d just been given the world, and Graham scooped him up and said, “They sure do, bud. Let’s go eat.”

  Graham waved his hand above his head as he sidestepped the mess and navigated past the tree. “Time to eat. Follow me.”

  Everyone did, and he pointed out the place settings Bailey had made that afternoon while Laney had been down at the ranch with the power company. “Find your name. No switcheroos. Lots of planning went into the seating arrangements.”

  He placed Stockton on his chair and said, “I’m right next to you, bud.” But Graham didn’t sit right away. He waited until Laney entered the dining room and then he pulled out her chair for her, as she’d been assigned to his right side.

  Bailey already sat next to her, a look of pure delight on her face. Once everyone had taken their seats, Graham said, “Andrew, if you’re ready.”

  His brother stood and cleared his throat. In his strong, deep voice, he started, “Lord, we thank Thee for this day, for bringing us all here safely to celebrate the season of Thy birth….”

  Graham lost himself in the peacefulness of the moment, the silence of sacredness that accompanied the brief moment after Andrew said “Amen,” and everyone echoed him before the clatter of silverware on plates began and chatter about travel, jobs, and life began.

  He took one extra moment with his fork in his hand to bask in the energy in this lodge, and he wanted to have it available to him more often.

  “You okay?” Laney touched his leg under the table, and Graham pulled himself out of his introspection.

  “Yeah.” He looked at her. “Yes.” He reached for the chicken pot pie and dished himself some, then took the salad bowl from her. “You?”

  “Best I’ve been in a while.” She beamed at him and then turned to help Bailey with her food.

  And Graham felt sure those words would keep him warm though the long winter ahead.

  Chapter 13

  Laney had never had such a magical Christmas. Santa managed to find them, and she managed to kiss Graham under the mistletoe one of Eli’s friends had hung at the bottom of the stairs leading into the basement, and it was wonderful having meals provided for her. Hot water in her private bathroom. A warm, comfortable bed she didn’t have to make in the morning if she didn’t want to.

  But after that kiss on Christmas morning, she’d had a very hard time getting Graham alone. He was always surrounded by his brothers, talking and laughing. Laney learned that the four of them hadn’t been together since their father’s funeral, and she hadn’t wanted to impose on their family reunion.

  So more often than not, she found herself hanging out with Meg and the kids. On Christmas Day, when everyone had drifted to quiet spots to take naps, she wandered into Bailey’s room. All three dogs looked up, but no one came to greet her.

  “Bay? Can I talk to you for a second?”

  Bailey set down her tablet and said, “Okay.”

  “It’s about me and Graham.” She perched on the edge of the bed, praying for six-year-old words to explain an adult situation. “You like Graham, right?”

  “Yeah.” She blinked. “You like Graham too.”

  “Right.” Laney smiled at her hands which lay in her lap. “I like Graham too. The kind of like where you hold hands and kiss and stuff.” Her heart did a jig in her chest. “It’s nothing too serious yet. We haven’t even gone out.”

  “But you will go out with him.”

  “Probably, Bay, yes.”

  “So I’ll get to go to grandma’s.” She reached over and patted Barry’s head, which caused the dog to stretch out and groan.

  Laney chuckled. “Yes, Bailey, most likely. When I go out with Graham, you’ll stay with grandma so I can go alone.”

  “You told me not to be alone with boys.”

  “Right.” She tapped Bailey on the nose. “Because you’re a kid. When you’re an adult, you can make a decision for when’s a good time to be alone with a boy and when it’s not a good idea.”

  “I think you can be alone with Graham. He seems nice.”

  Laney smiled at Bailey. “He does seem that way, doesn’t he?” Bailey didn’t get the joke, and Laney stood. “Okay, go back to your ‘resting’. I’m going to go lie down too.” She went next door to her room, but she didn’t feel sleepy. She felt caged. Alone. Trapped all by herself, and while she was glad she’d been ab
le to talk to Bailey, she didn’t like lying around without anything to do.

  Perhaps Celia would have something for her to do in the kitchen, but when Laney went down there, she found the main level of the house completely deserted. A cheer came up the steps from the basement, and she faced the doorway as she contemplated going down to see what all the fuss was.

  But she hadn’t been invited, and she thought it was quiet time for a while anyway. So she went back upstairs and into her room, wishing her text to Graham didn’t go unanswered.

  By the time two more days had passed, the restlessness in her muscles—her very soul—drove her out of the lodge and down to Echo Ridge Ranch. She told only Bailey where she was going and her daughter had promised to stay out of trouble and inside the lodge.

  “Hey, Starlight.” Laney approached the horse that had helped her through some of the most trying times of her life. When Mike had left. When Laney had packed up everything he’d left behind and taken it to good will. When she’d filed for divorce.

  The black mare had always been there, just like now. She nickered, and Laney leaned into her palm against the horse’s nose. “I don’t know.” She wanted to believe that Graham wouldn’t abandon her and Bailey the way Mike had. She also wanted to believe their five-day relationship hadn’t been a fluke or some sort of fling. That he was simply preoccupied with his family.

  “But what else will he become preoccupied with?” she asked the horse. Starlight closed her eyes and opened them again, nothing else to say apparently.

  Laney spent another few minutes with the horse and then got to work. After all, all the animals needed to be fed, and Laney needed more clothes if she and Bailey were going to stay at the lodge for another five days.

  Because they’d moved the chickens into the barn, she found the beasts clucking happily in their nests. Laney worked methodically, slowly even, and got all the chores done. With no housework to do, a few hours of her day had been cleared up.

  She faced the lodge, thinking of the little house on the very edge of her property. After running inside and throwing a few more sets of clean clothes into a bag, she set off for the cabin on the fence line. The trek through the snow left her tired and wet, but when the little round building without a back door came into view, her heart lifted.

  She’d built this place with her father, and it was one of her strongest childhood memories. She’d barely been able to keep up with him as he hauled lumber and hammered nails, but she’d loved the look of him in his cowboy hat and tool belt.

  She’d handed him tools, brought him food and water, and spent hours listening to him talk about their land, the ranch, and how much he loved it. By the time she was nine years old, she loved Echo Ridge as much as he did. And since she didn’t have any brothers to work the ranch, Laney had learned all the chores by age twelve.

  Gentry, her younger sister, didn’t want anything to do with horses or hay, and that had been just fine with Laney. She’d just inherited the ranch a little too soon, as her father was taken home to heaven much too young.

  She sighed and went around to the front door, which had a few feet of snow blown against it. She brushed the offending substance away from the door jamb and kicked as much back as she could. When she finally got in, she automatically stretched for the light switch and flipped it.

  The lights came on.

  This place had electricity.

  A buzz tiptoed down her arms and along her shoulders, zinging up into her hair. She and Bailey could stay here. Though the place was small, there were two bedrooms, running water, a kitchen. She’d stockpiled several days’ worth of firewood in the lean-to off the front porch, and she and Bailey could survive just fine here.

  Her thoughts tumbled. Part of her really wanted her privacy back, though no one pressed her to spend meals with them, or get up earlier than she wanted. She was well-fed at the lodge, but her heart pinched.

  She was lonely there.

  Bailey had found a new playmate, and Meg’s every breath was dedicated to making sure Stockton was happy. Laney had no role at the lodge, and Graham didn’t seem to have time for her.

  She’d been abandoned once before. She wouldn’t put herself or Bailey through that again. And as soon as she and Bailey left the lodge, it would probably be a miracle if they saw Graham once a week.

  After all, the man worked non-stop, even during Christmastime.

  Laney turned off the light, wishing her thoughts would darken just as easily. They didn’t, and she moved over to the couch and collapsed onto it. Melting snow permeated her boots and socks, and she wanted nothing more than to take a hot bath.

  So she did, Graham never far from the center of her thoughts.

  She seriously considered staying at the cabin for the night, but she couldn’t leave Bailey up at the lodge without supervision. She wouldn’t ask Graham for his permission, so after she’d dried her hair and knotted it under her knit cap, she started up the hill toward the lodge.

  She’d stayed in the hot water longer than she should’ve, because darkness had dunked the day into nothing more than shadows and there was no trail to follow. She kept one eye on the light lifting into the air just over the hill and kept her feet moving in the right direction.

  The house finally came into view, just beyond Graham’s outbuildings. The path became easier, and she wondered if he had heated sidewalks his were so clear. Pausing, she drank in the sight of the lodge, with several of the back windows lit from within. It was the perfect country retreat, and she felt a measure of gratitude that she’d been allowed a few days at Whiskey Mountain Lodge.

  She burst into the mudroom to a wall of warmth, thank goodness. Though she’d just had a bath, a chill had seeped into her very bones on the trek here from the cabin. Bootsteps sounded—angry bootsteps—and Graham appeared from the kitchen.

  “There you are.” He didn’t seem happy about it.

  “Here I am.” She shrugged out of her coat, glad when Graham stepped forward to help her with one offending sleeve that wouldn’t slide down.

  “I’ve been worried about you.” He spoke in a low voice and edged even tighter into her personal space.

  “I’m fine.” She bent to untie her boots.

  “I didn’t ask if you were okay.”

  She finally got the courage to look into his eyes. A storm swirled in his, and she couldn’t tell if it was fueled by frustration or desire. His hand came up and drifted down the side of her face, barely touching her and yet branding her all the same.

  “You never answered any of my texts.”

  “I didn’t get any.” She swallowed, the words about the electricity at the cabin springing to the back of her throat.

  “Where were you?”

  “The ranch.”

  “You get my texts down there.” He tilted his head, clearly trying to hear or see something she hadn’t said or showed him. “Laney?”

  She wanted to spill her guts to him. Pour out her loneliness and ask him to spend time with her while she was here. Selfishness pulled through her before she could say anything too damaging, and she cleared her throat.

  “I went out walking.” She indicated the wet bottoms of her jeans, where water had seeped almost all the way to her knees. “Maybe I lost reception.” As if proving her point, her cell phone chimed three, four, five, six times in rapid succession. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the messages. “Here they are now.”

  She flashed the phone in his direction but he didn’t even glance at it. “Laney, I can tell something’s different.”

  Looking into his eyes, her entire past flashed through her mind. Had she said enough to Mike before he left? If she’d tried harder, would he have stayed?

  “I feel left out,” she blurted without giving herself a chance to censor her words. “Your family is here, and I get this is a special time for you, and….” She exhaled and pulled her hat off. She unknotted her hair and let it fall over her shoulders. “I’m not trying to be selfish, but I fe
el…I’m lonely. Even here, with all of you. I don’t fit.”

  “Of course you do.” Graham gathered her into his arms, and she definitely fit there. She took a deep drag of his T-shirt, which held the scent of his cologne and his fabric softener.

  “I don’t want to be left behind,” she said so quietly she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. She pushed away from him and strengthened her resolve. “I’ve lived through a man leaving me for something he deemed better, and I won’t do it again. I won’t allow Bailey to go through that.”

  Graham blinked at her, the confusion racing through his eyes somewhat comforting. “I’m not abandoning anything. I live here.” He gestured back toward the kitchen. “My brothers and I have been talking about making this lodge into what it was meant to be. Andrew has degrees and experience in marketing and public relations. Eli runs the biggest resort in Bora Bora. Beau already handles all the legalities for Springside Energy, and he said he’d look into what we have to do to make this place a legal lodge again.”

  Laney had no idea why he was telling her this, but she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt at the relationships he had with his brothers. Gentry hadn’t sent a card or gift this Christmas either, though Laney continued to send small things to her for her birthday and other special events. Her sister was off living in California or New York. Laney wasn’t exactly sure.

  “That’s great,” she said, trying to make her voice light. But Graham was as smart as he was handsome, and he heard the forced measure of nonchalance in her tone.

  “I’m just saying I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He backed up another step, and Laney hated the distance—physical and emotional—between them. “Are you going to read those texts?” He indicated her phone, and she looked at it.

  Bailey said you went down to the ranch. Wondering if you wanted to go to dinner tonight.

  Meg said she can watch Bailey, no problem.

  I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to.