“You know what? I’ve been craving a big chocolate ice cream cone for hours. What do you say we stop for ice cream on the way home instead?”
Connor looked unconvinced at first, but when Piper batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands under her chin with a “Please?” the boy nodded. “Is that okay, Uncle Brady? Can we get Piper some ice cream?”
“That we can, Con.” He gave her a wink of thanks, and the moment of conspiratorial connection wrapped around her like a hug, warmth burrowing to her core. As they made their way out of the airport, Piper tried to rein in the soft emotions that tugged at her. She didn’t want to let her guard down around Brady or share private smiles that would chip away at her protective walls. Even after seven years, she was clearly still vulnerable to Brady’s lopsided grin and soft-spoken charm, and she was thankful for the buffer and distraction Connor would provide on the drive back to the ranch.
With Connor struggling valiantly to roll one of her heavy suitcases, they strolled down the long aisle of the parking deck until they reached Brady’s mud-speckled pickup truck. After Connor scrambled up onto the back seat of the extended cab F-150, he seized Piper’s hand and tugged. “Sit with me, Piper!”
“Well, I—”
“Pleeeeeease?”
The light green, puppy-dog eyes that beseeched her were impossible to turn down. She glanced at Brady, who only chuckled as he slid behind the steering wheel.
“Sure. Why not?” she said.
Closing the front door and glad for the excuse to move to the back seat, she climbed in next to Brady’s nephew, waved her hand blithely and in a nasal voice, said, “Home, James.”
Connor wrinkled his nose. “James? His name’s Brady!”
“Not when he’s our chauffeur,” she said, wagging a finger, her voice still pinched and snooty.
Connor caught on to her joke and gave a belly laugh. Mimicking her hoity-toity tone, he said, “Drive us home, James!”
Brady loosed an indelicate snort, then returned, “Righty-o, Sir Snoodlepants.”
Connor’s peals of laughter filled Piper with an odd warmth, and she couldn’t stop the giggles that bubbled up.
“Hey, Piper,” Connor asked as they backed out of the parking space, “how do you stop an elephant from charging?”
She cut a glance to Brady, whose cheek dimpled as he grinned. “I don’t know. How?”
“Take away her credit card!” Connor’s eyes lit as he delivered the punch line, and Piper found herself chuckling at the boy’s delight. She didn’t have much experience around children. Most of her friends were either unmarried or putting off starting a family while they launched their careers. Yet Brady had had fatherhood handed to him under difficult circumstances. The notion made her chest tighten. If she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that took her to Boston College, how would her life have been different? Could she and Brady have made their relationship work? Could they have been parents to—
She nipped off the thought before it fully formed. Don’t go there.
Focusing her attention on Brady’s nephew, she asked, “Do you know what an elephant’s favorite vegetable is?”
He shook his head.
“Squash!”
“Squash!” Connor repeated with another hardy laugh. “Did you hear that, Brady? Squash!”
“Afraid so, little man.”
Connor continued to entertain her with riddles as they drove out of the airport and merged onto the highway.
She mentally thanked Connor for providing an excuse not to make awkward conversation with Brady. The boy’s invitation to ride in the back seat with him also gave her the opportunity to study Brady’s profile covertly, to drink in the subtle changes in his face without him knowing.
“Do you know any more jokes?” Connor asked, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright with his amusement.
Piper scoured her memory for one of the lame riddles she and her brothers had told each other years ago. “What is black and white and red all over?”
“A zebra with a sun burn!” Connor shouted, clearly pleased with himself.
The boy’s mirth elicited an answering chuckle from her. The music of Connor’s giggles fed her soul. Laughing loosened the knots of tension that had kinked inside her the moment she spotted Brady across the airport lobby. More than that, goofing around with the little boy was a release she’d needed from the pressures and worries of her sixty-hour-a-week job and a few high-maintenance friends in Boston.
When was the last time she’d allowed herself to be silly? To laugh with the kind of carefree abandon that Connor enjoyed? Not that she didn’t share light moments with her friends and coworkers in Boston. She did. But with Connor there was no agenda, no drama. Just a little boy enjoying bad puns and simple irony.
Connor delivered the punch line of a joke she realized she’d missed as she was musing, but she groaned and grinned as if she’d been paying attention. As he started another riddle, Piper had the odd sensation of being watched. She’d experienced the prickling sensation at the back of her neck frequently over the past few months, so she knew the unsettling feeling well. Her gaze flew to the driver’s seat, and she found Brady staring at her via the rearview mirror. His gaze locked with hers, a strange, unreadable expression sculpting his face. The odd look held a note of intimacy, but also an edgy curiosity. Was it wariness? Fear? What did Brady have to fear from her? She didn’t have long to analyze his expression before his attention darted back to the road.
Connor, too, had fallen oddly quiet, eyeing them, then turning his gaze out the window and shifting restlessly in his booster seat. The boy’s brow beetled, and he said, “Uncle Brady, is this the road where Mama and Daddy died?”
Piper stilled, and a cold sorrow sliced through her.
Brady’s hand tightened around the steering wheel, and he again glanced in the rearview mirror, this time to study his nephew. “Yeah, it is.” He paused, then added, “But not this part. Their accident happened the other direction from the big city.”
“Oh,” was all Connor replied, still staring out the window.
Piper rubbed her thumb over the knuckles of her opposite hand, keeping a concerned gaze on Connor and regretting the lost conviviality. How was the boy handling the death of his parents? Knowing the challenge Brady had faced, taking custody of a newly orphaned boy while dealing with his own grief over Scott and Pam’s deaths filled her with a new respect for her longtime friend. Brady had dealt with a lot more obligations and hardships than other men his age, even when he and Piper been involved as teenagers. The loss of his mother and his father’s heavy drinking had meant he’d had to grow up fast and take on more family responsibility, especially after Scott married and moved out of town.
“Connor?” Brady said softly. “You all right, buddy?”
The boy heaved a mature-sounding sigh. “Yeah.” Then, “I miss them.”
Brady nodded. “Me, too, buddy.”
Piper tightened her fists in her lap, hurting for Connor, for Brady. Scott and Pam had only been gone nine months. Their deaths had to still be a raw and confusing subject for Connor.
After another minute or two of strained silence in the truck, Piper searched for another joke to tell, a distracting question to redirect Connor’s thoughts and lighten the mood. Or was that even the right move? Should she follow Brady’s lead and let Connor work through this moment on his own? All she knew was that her heart hurt for the little boy, and her instinct was to do something, anything, to put a smile back on his face. But what did she know about parenting?
While she was debating, Connor said, “Hey, Piper?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“What do you call a wet bear?”
She released the breath she held and flashed a warm smile at the boy. “I don’t know.”
“A drizzily bear.” He shot her a quick grin, then turned back to his windo
w, falling quiet again. “My dad told me that one.”
“That’s a good one,” she said and patted his knobby knee.
Connor twisted his mouth and wrinkled his nose. “My mom and dad died in a car accident.”
Her grip on his knee tightened. “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
“I live with Uncle Brady and Grampa now. At the Double M.”
Piper nodded. “Do you like the ranch?”
His face brightened a bit. “It smells bad ’cause of all the animal poop, but you get used to it.”
She couldn’t help but snort a chuckle at the boy’s bluntness. Having grown up on the ranch, she’d never really noticed or cared about the odors that accompanied all the animals. For her, the scents of oiled leather and freshly cut alfalfa were sweeter than roses.
“Riding horses and helping Uncle Brady with the cows is fun,” Connor added.
“Well, I’ve been away from the ranch for a lot of months, so my riding may be rusty.” She tipped her head and gave the boy a dubious frown. “Would you help me with my horse while I’m visiting this week?”
Connor sat taller and grinned. “Sure! I’m good at saddling and riding.” He glanced to his uncle, adding, “Aren’t I, Brady?”
“You are, little man. That you are.” Brady sent Connor a proud grin as he met his nephew’s gaze in the mirror. “When we get home, Grampa will have dinner waiting, so I want you to go straight back to the house and wash up. Okay?”
“Y’sir.”
Home. Piper turned her attention to the scenery passing outside her window. She’d been so absorbed in Connor that she’d not realized how close they were getting to the Double M. The beef-cattle ranch had been in her family for three generations. She’d grown up around muddy boots, bleating calves and horse tails swishing away flies. Her parents and brothers still lived on and worked the ranch, and someday she’d inherit one third of the Double M.
But was the ranch still her home? She’d been gone seven years. Seven eventful years. She’d done a lot of growing up since she left the Double M. She’d earned her degree in finance, gotten her first nine-to-five job with a finance company, set herself up in an apartment that she’d decorated to her taste.
And she’d made the toughest decisions of her life to give birth to, then give away, Brady’s baby.
She swallowed hard and pressed her hand to her stomach. The memory always caused a guilty roil in her gut. She’d made the best decision she could as a scared eighteen-year-old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t constantly second-guess herself.
As Brady took an unexpected exit from the interstate, Piper glanced up, confused. “Where are you going?”
He angled his head toward her. “Ice cream. Remember?”
Connor sat taller, and his face brightened. “Yay! I’m gonna get chocolate, too, Piper!”
“One scoop, buddy. And you have to promise to eat your vegetables at dinner,” Brady said, one eyebrow arched.
She shook her head slightly. When had Brady turned into such a...a...parent?
The answer came to her, and her stomach curled in on itself. She really had no appetite for ice cream. No desire to extend the awkwardness between her and Brady. She only wanted to get to the ranch and decompress after her flight, unwind the tension that had coiled in her the instant she’d spotted Brady. But she’d be damned if she’d be party to disappointing Connor, a boy whose world had been so thoroughly devastated in recent months. For Connor’s sake, she’d paste on a smile, eat a chocolate ice cream cone and endure a few more taut minutes playing nice with the one man who still had the power to break her heart.
* * *
Ken didn’t recognize the cowboy who’d met Piper at the airport. Nor did he know anything about the little boy. The guy wasn’t one of her brothers. He’d seen the pictures of them she had on her desk at the office...and stored in her laptop. Irritation crawled through him. He didn’t like the idea that Piper had people in her life that he didn’t have at least a little information on.
Whoever the guy was, Piper had seemed startled to see him. She’d been cool and standoffish at first, but when that klutz with his big duffel had knocked her into the cowboy, he had been quick to catch her, slow to release her. Piper and the cowboy had shared a look that hinted at a history together. A history that might not be completely in the past. Something hot and not-yet smothered.
Hatred had burned his gut, and he’d wanted to charge across the airport and grab the randy cowboy by the throat. He’d vibrated with the urge to tear up the mystery rancher and leave no question that Piper was his.
But doing so would blow his cover, would mean leaving the concealed post he’d staked out ahead of Piper’s arrival. It was too soon to let her know he was here, that he’d come to Colorado to be with her, to prove to her that they belonged together.
Now, from the rental car he’d had waiting in the short-term parking lot since his arrival two hours ahead of Piper, he followed the cowboy’s pickup truck from a cautious distance, across the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where crops, pastures and farms dotted the landscape.
Not wanting to be noticed, he hung back when the truck left the interstate, waited impatiently while they stopped for ice cream, then continued following from a distance as they headed northeast on a state road. He managed to keep Piper and the cowboy in sight until they turned in at a gravel driveway. Ken slowed as he drove past the rutted road the pickup had taken and studied a crude, stripped-log entry arch. Hanging from the top of the arch, a sun-aged wooden sign greeted people with Welcome to the Double M.
He paused long enough to search for GPS coordinates with his phone, planning to use satellite images to scope out the terrain tonight from his motel room. He had a cell signal, but it was mediocre at best. He grunted his disgust. Why would anyone in their right mind want to live out here in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of smelly cows? He could give Piper so much more than this!
He shook his head. No, not could...he would give Piper more. He would show her their destinies were locked, intertwined. He would save her from this dirt hole in the middle of Nothing, Colorado. He’d even take her away from Boston, if needed. They’d find a place where no one could find them, no one could distract her, no one could interfere with his plans for the future with Piper. His Piper. His soul mate.
He’d make it happen. And just like he’d eliminated Ron Sandburg, he’d get rid of anything or anyone who stood in his way.
Chapter 2
A menagerie of people, dogs and horses filled the ranch yard as Brady pulled to a stop near her parents’ house. Her mother was the first to reach her as she clambered from the back seat of Brady’s truck, and Melissa McCall wrapped Piper into a tight hug, while Ace and Checkers, the family’s blue heelers, circled happily with their tails thumping against her legs. Brady silently unloaded her suitcases and climbed back on the front seat without a word.
Her brothers appeared from the stable and took turns lifting Piper off the ground as they greeted her with bear hugs.
“Your dad is out in the north pasture, but he texted me to say he’d seen you arrive and would be in soon,” her mother said.
Piper nodded and watched Brady drive his truck to the foreman’s house across the ranch yard, where he’d lived with his father his whole life. He parked under a large tree and helped Connor out.
The little boy gave a wave to her, which she returned, before he ran inside with an awkward six-year-old’s gait.
“That Connor is such a sweet kid,” her mother said, putting an arm around Piper’s shoulders and walking her into the house. Zane and Josh each grabbed a suitcase and followed.
Piper swung her backpack onto the bed she’d slept in for eighteen years, then cast a gaze around her childhood bedroom. Her mother had changed little about the decor since Piper had left for college seven years earlier, and the familiar pink-and-gray ch
evron pattern of the curtains, the 4-H ribbons and high-school rodeo trophies on her bookshelf, and the ragged stuffed rabbit, nestled with the throw pillows on her bed, flooded her with a nostalgia that tugged in her chest.
“Jeez, Piper, did you leave anything in Boston? You’re only gonna be here a week. You needed two suitcases for seven days?” Josh griped as he tossed her suitcase onto the bed next to the backpack.
“Plus a backpack,” Zane added as he brought her second piece of luggage into the room and dropped it on the floor at the foot of her dresser.
“Hey, careful with that! My laptop’s in there,” she said, frowning at Zane. “And yes, I need two suitcases. I brought work clothes and boots for helping in the stable or pens, nicer things for dinner or going to town, and dressy stuff, shoes and makeup for Mom and Dad’s party.”
Josh snorted and shook his head. “Whatever. Glad I’m not a girl. I like to travel light.”
“Is travel light code for not change your underwear?” she said with a smirk.
Josh faked a belly laugh. “Oh, sister dear, you are a riot!” She play-punched his arm, and Josh caught her wrist, pulling her into another bear hug. “It’s good to have you and your hundred-pound luggage home again, Pipsqueak.”
She hugged him back, then turned to give Zane a similar squeeze. “I missed you two lugs.”
“Of course, you did,” Josh replied, ruffling her hair, which he knew good and well she hated.
Though her brothers were technically identical twins, each had developed a look that matched their individual personalities. Zane, the oldest by three minutes, was also the studious and more responsible one. He kept his raven hair cut short and his square jaw clean-shaven. He’d made marginally better grades than Josh or Piper, primarily because he’d applied himself more diligently.
She yanked away from Josh’s manhandling and scowled at him. “Jerk.” She knocked his black Stetson off his head, a retaliation which she knew would irritate him, and gave him a triumphant grin.
Rancher's Deadly Reunion Page 3