Her words hung in the air and for a moment Cole couldn’t bear to face either of his siblings. He’d had those thoughts before, but he hadn’t realized Alice had thought it too. He wondered if Dax had…
One glance told him the words had struck a nerve. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out that the only reason there was a nerve to be struck was because he’d thought it too.
Resentment. Anger. Bitterness.
All those nasty emotions no one ever wanted to feel when thinking about a deceased parent. Let alone both parents and a slew of grandparents and great-grandparents to boot.
When he finally lifted his head to face Alice, his heart twisted in his chest. Her lips were pressed tight and tears hovered on her lids. But the worst part was the look in her eyes—shame and guilt so intense it was a blow to the gut.
He crossed to her side, pulling her into a bear hug. She didn’t try to resist. Burying her head in his chest, he heard her murmur softly. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know, sis. I know.” But she had meant it—at least a part of her had. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d been so frustrated living here that he’d frequently taken off on his bike. Gotten out of Dodge, so to speak. But Alice hadn’t been able to escape. Even now that she’d gone off to college, she was constantly coming back home to help.
He couldn’t imagine the frustration she’d been holding back, watching her friends live carefree lives and pursue their dreams while she was beholden to the land and the home that she loved.
That was the crux of it. That was the part that made it all so bittersweet. Because she did love the Twilight Ranch. So did he. And they both knew that Dax loved it, possibly more than either of them.
Heck, James wasn’t an official Deckland and he loved it too.
This place was a home to all of them. Their mama had hung a little embroidered sign over the kitchen sink. Home is where the heart is. It was so cheesy but so true.
But as much as they all might love this place, it was killing them. Weighing on their necks like an albatross.
“All right. What do we have to do to get this place ready for guests?” Dax’s voice surprised him and Alice out of their embrace and they both turned to face him. His tone wasn’t angry, but it wasn’t happy either. He sounded… resigned. A little sad, maybe.
Alice straightened instantly. Cole was glad to see her shame replaced with hope. “Really?”
Yup, there was their little sister. Back again and in all her high-energy glory.
Her childish squeal of excitement made them both grin and the tension in the room eased considerably.
Dax held up a hand of restraint. “Now, I still think Cole has the right idea about taking this slow. Not throwing the last of our money into this until we know it’ll work.”
He kept talking but Cole stopped paying attention. His brain was temporarily buzzing in shock. Cole has the right idea… Had his brother really just admitted that he was right about something?
Alice took one look at him and his obvious shock and stifled a laugh, hitting him on his shoulder to get his attention. “Cole was just saying that to make you happy,” she tattled to Dax. “Right Cole?”
They both stared at him, waiting for him to pick a side.
“I suggested it because I knew a trial run would be easier for Dax to swallow, and—” he said loudly to interrupt Alice before she could gloat. “I also suggested it because I think it’s a good idea. From the sounds of it, this ranch doesn’t have the money to invest in building a slew of guesthouses and saunas, and whatever else you’re imagining in this guest ranch.”
Dax let out a snort of laughter and for a moment it felt like old times in the best of ways. He and Dax were on the same side for once, and even Alice seemed to be coming around.
The three of them were working together. Oh, they’d technically been working together at the ranch for years, but now they were cooperating, meeting one another halfway.
Sort of.
“I think we should do both,” Alice announced.
He had a feeling Dax was wearing the same confused look. “What do you mean?”
She crossed away from them, back to pacing as she spoke slowly, as though figuring it out as she went. “I mean…. Let’s try both.” She turned back with a smile. “I get that we can’t dump a ton of money into the place right off the bat, we’ll have to build up slowly.”
He exchanged a quick look with Dax. Okay. So far so good.
“But the guest house on the east ridge is in good shape, it just needs a little sprucing up.”
Dax raised one meaningful brow. “Sprucing up” was putting it mildly. “Who do you propose will do this sprucing?”
“I will,” she said. And then when they continued to stare, unimpressed, she added, “Okay, fine, James said he’d help me.”
Now that made more sense. Alice was good with a hammer and nails but she was a tiny slip of a thing, not exactly useful when it came to heavy lifting.
Cole watched her expression, so hopeful and so darn youthful. He felt his defenses caving. “I’ll help too.”
Dax looked at him in surprise. “I thought you wanted to help with the cattle operation.”
Cole grinned. “We both know that you’ve got it well under control. I can still help out on the range but you don’t need me here looking over your shoulder.” The silence as Dax stared at him, clearly speechless, grew too long. Neither brother would want this to get emotional even though there were plenty of emotions running high beneath the silence.
He cleared his throat, hoping his words conveyed everything he was hoping to get across. “Besides, we both know I’m no good cooped up in an office anyway.”
The silence that followed could only be described as awkward. Years’ worth of hostility and fighting reared up between them. Then Dax grinned—an honest to goodness smile that lit up his face, a rare sight during the best of times and something of a miracle at this particular moment when their family was on the brink of losing everything.
“Well, all right then,” he said.
Cole returned his smile. Well… all right then.
Alice interrupted by clapping her hands and then looking between the two of them with wide, excited eyes. “You guys, we’re really doing this.”
“Yes, but you still haven’t explained how you expect to do both,” Cole reminded her. “Even if you gussy up some of the existing guest houses, how do you propose to fill them?”
Dax nodded in agreement. “Al, to get the kind of well-connected guests you’re thinking of, you need to be…well….” He shrugged. “Connected.”
Her grin was so mischievous Cole had an inkling he should check his bed to make sure she didn’t slip a frog beneath the covers or something.
“But we are connected,” Alice said, her gaze never leaving Cole. Now Dax was turning to stare at him as well.
He shifted under the weight of their stares. “What are you talking about?”
Alice’s smile grew as her eyes twinkled. “Claire Geddy.”
Cole’s heart jumped at the sound of her name, which Alice had said slowly and meaningfully like her first and last name was a complete sentence.
“She’s connected,” Alice explained in a tone that was usually reserved for reasoning with toddlers. “When she was dancing for the New York City Ballet, she was invited to the soirees, she mingled with celebrities and socialites and—”
“How do you know all this?” Dax asked.
Her brows drew together in a look that said “are you crazy, old man?” Then she shrugged. “Social media.” The duh was left unsaid. Smart Girl. “It’s not like a Lulu girl goes off to make it big every day of the week around here, of course I followed her success.” Her eyes had taken on that crazy gleam again as if the thought of Claire’s success was enough to send her into ecstasy.
The pounding in Cole’s ears had grown steadily and he wasn’t sure he could hear anymore without protesting. “I don’t get it. What does Claire have to do w
ith us?”
Alice shook her head, her voice and demeanor shifting so suddenly she seemed like the eldest sibling and not the other way around. “Claire has the connections we need, and you, big brother….” She came over and wrapped an arm around his waist. “You have the connection to Claire.”
Oh good grief. This was about the other night.
An unbidden image of Claire drifting off to sleep filled his head. He shook it off. That was one night and it was over. “I have no connection to Claire,” he said.
He heard Dax’s smothered laughter beside him and refused to look his way. “I’m serious. I just helped her when her car broke down. Anyone would have done the same.”
His siblings were staring at him in surprise and he realized that perhaps he’d sounded a tad too vehement. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to get rid of the thoughts he’d been trying to avoid for the past few days.
Tempting thoughts. Delicious thoughts. Thoughts of what would happen when he saw Claire again.
He shook his head, ignoring Dax and Alice. He had to stop thinking about her, and talking about her definitely wasn’t helping.
The fact was, she would be leaving Lulu. Of course she would. She might have been born and raised in a small town, but she’d gone off to the big time. The big city, with her big career, and the big-time, successful men she likely dated.
Not only was Cole not big-time, not in any sense of the word—but he was also committed to this small town. He’d left too many times. Now he was back and he was determined to stay for good.
His family needed him and, if he was being honest, he needed them too. It had taken nearly a year of restless wandering for him to realize that the answer to whatever unknown question always made him want to flee…it wasn’t out there. It never had been.
He didn’t know if it was here, either, but he sure as heck had to try.
For all those reasons, his denial of any connection to Claire had come across too strong.
“Methinks thou dost protest too much,” Alice murmured, making Dax laugh again.
Wonderful. He lived to make his siblings laugh.
He turned to walk away but Alice stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Wait! I’m kidding. I wasn’t implying you had a romantic relationship with Claire—”
He raised his brows in disbelief. That was exactly what she had been implying and they all knew it.
She carried on anyway. “But you did save her life the other night—everyone is talking about it.”
He bit back a sigh and reminded himself that he’d chosen to come back to this small town. Unfortunately gossip was the price of admission. “What’s your point?”
“I think her point is,” Dax interjected. “Is that she owes you a favor, at the very least.”
He stared at his brother. Et tu, Brute?
Dax shrugged. “Look, I’m still not one hundred percent on board with this plan, but you’re the one who suggested we give it a trial run.”
He sputtered a bit as he tried to explain—again—that he’d suggested they take it slow. Try their hand at hosting some local events. But no one was listening to him. Alice cut him off with a wave of her hand. “We can do both. We’ll reach out to local groups, but in the meantime, you need to talk to Claire.”
Dax didn’t chime in but he didn’t come to his aid, either.
He turned his scowl from one to the other as he tried to come up with a good excuse to get out of this. He didn’t want to talk to Claire.
No, that was a lie.
He did want to talk to Claire. Too much. That was the problem.
He’d just gotten back, the temptation to run off again was still strong. The last thing he needed was to get hung up on a woman who was only going to leave. And like it or not, something in his gut told him that the closer he got to this woman, the harder it would be to watch her walk away without following.
Heck, he had the feeling that he’d follow her like a puppy now, if given half a chance.
But to turn down this simple request seemed churlish, especially since he was the one to tell Dax that they needed to give this plan a shot. All his sister was asking was that he talk to her. One conversation.
Besides, he’d been wanting to check in on her and see how she was feeling….
“So?” Alice asked. “You’ll do it? You’ll talk to Claire about helping us?”
He let out a sigh. There was no way he could say no when she was looking at him like that, all big pleading eyes and hopeful expectation. “Fine. I’ll call the bar and see when she’s working next.”
Alice’s face brightened with a smile. “No need. I know exactly where she is right now.”
He stared at his sister in shock as Dax asked, “You do?”
Alice pulled on his arm, leading him toward the front door. “Of course,” she called back. “I have my sources.”
Chapter Nine
The gymnasium at the town’s high school was just as small—as smelled just as bad—as Claire remembered. It was barely big enough to fit the basketball team, which was lining up to practice their free throws, let alone the basketball team and a ballet class.
Of course, she doubted even Ellen expected so many little girls would show up. Claire had anticipated a small handful. June and maybe a few of her friends.
There were twenty little girls under the age of ten currently vying for a space along the wall to practice their plies.
Ellen stood next to her, arms folded as she scowled over at the basketball coach, Frank Hayward. Frank had been two years behind them in school—he’d been in Dax’s class, though why she felt compelled to mentally connect everything to Cole was beyond her.
It was like, ever since the other night—known in her mind as the night, because that’s how it felt. Between her wayward mind and the gossips in town, it was the night of the freakin’ century. But ever since then she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Cole. If her mother or her customers didn’t manage to throw his name into conversation, which they did without rest, then her own brain was contriving ways to think of him. Like right now. What did it matter that Cole’s brother was in Frank’s class? All that mattered was that he was hogging the space that Ellen had worked so hard to acquire.
“I swear, I told him twenty times that they needed to be out on time today.”
Claire patted her arm. “I believe you.” Her friend had been saying the same thing since they’d walked in and discovered that Frank and his team were still here.
Frank glanced in their direction, his handsome face equally fierce as he met Ellen’s glare head on.
Brave man. If Claire were in his shoes, she would have withered beneath that frightening mom-look in a heartbeat. Ellen had always been a bit of a mama bear when it came to her friends and family so she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that when it came to her daughter and her friends, she’d go to bat at the smallest slight.
And accidentally staying over his allotted time limit at the gym? That was more than a small slight in Ellen’s eyes.
Not that Claire could blame her, she wasn’t exactly pleased by this situation either. She still had her doubts about teaching ballet, but if she was going to do it, she wanted to do it right. She watched little June with her mother’s trademark red curls do a truly horrific plie that would have made her instructors cringe.
But Claire grinned. She remembered when she looked like that. Clinging to the wall and trying to mimic her dance teacher in the wildly ambitious hope that one day she might get to be Clara in a real live performance of The Nutcracker. She never had been able to score the role of Clara, but she’d gotten to be a sugar plum fairy and that had been a dream come true.
“I’m going to go over there and tell him if he doesn’t wrap up soon….” Ellen never finished her threat, apparently too eager to tell Frank off to stand still and finish her sentence. Or maybe she didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t leave. Because really, what recourse did she have?
Claire shook her
head, laughing softly as she watched her friend stomp over to the coach, who stood straighter as she approached. She turned back to her students and let out a little squeak of surprise at the sight of a handsome biker leaning against the doorframe of the gym entrance.
He was there. Holy cow, what was he doing here?
Looking handsome and dangerous as ever in that black leather jacket, which she now knew smelled heavenly, the leather scent mixed with that some sort of soap and something else. Something manly and comforting and… perfect. If she could bottle that scent, she would.
With a start she realized that she was staring. But then, so was he. He was hovering in the doorway watching her as if she might shoo him away.
The girls had finished their exercise and were getting restless, talking amongst themselves. Claire knew she had another lesson in mind but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what it was. So instead she turned to them with a big smile. “Great job, girls. Time for a little water break and then back to work.”
Her class dissolved into giggles and chatter as they ran over to the water fountain. Luckily Ellen was heading back their way, looking flushed and none too pleased by whatever had gone on between her and the coach.
Cole was heading her way, his hands shoved in his pocket as he lazily strolled in her direction. As if he always hung out at the high school gymnasium on a Tuesday afternoon. She glanced over at Ellen, willing her friend to come join them so she wasn’t alone with him.
Which was silly. She had nothing to fear from Cole. It wasn’t like he’d ever hurt her, and it wasn’t his fault if he was intimidatingly sexy. But Ellen either didn’t get her telepathic SOS or she ignored it, because she turned toward the little girls and went over to them, overseeing their break.
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