by Jess Bentley
“Parrish! I know you can hear me up there! I’m not going to stand out here all night for my health!”
A window in the middle of the upstairs opens, and Parrish sticks her head out. “Would you knock that off, you stubborn ass? I just put Gracie to sleep! You’re going to wake her up, along with everyone in whole damn city! Go back to the ranch house. I’m not talking to you tonight.” Then she disappears back inside and shuts the window.
I don’t know why, but this just makes me angrier, so I knock harder. I can’t explain why she brings out this instinct to be a jerk in me, but it’s intense and I’m finding it hard to control. Finally, I hear the sound of her stomping down the stairs. The door flies open, and Parrish is standing in front of me in flannel pajama pants and a Pink Floyd tee-shirt that I recognize used to be Matt’s. She fills it out better than he ever did. Her long, honey blonde hair is swept up in a braid, and she isn’t wearing any makeup. She looks beautiful, and I have to remind myself I’m annoyed.
“I told you to go away. I will talk to you tomorrow, Hawk,” she says as she starts to shut the door again. But I put my foot in front of it, blocking it from closing.
“I need you to look at these plans tonight so I can make changes if you have any. We’re supposed to meet with a contractor tomorrow and if I don’t have updated blueprints, we can’t get a proper estimate.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. “Gracie is going to have me up at five a.m. I have a phone meeting at seven. You’re telling me this can’t wait until tomorrow morning?”
“No,” I say trying to stifle my annoyance. “If you want changes, I’m going to be up all night making them as it is. Can we just get this done? Then I’m out of your hair until tomorrow.”
She scowls at me even harder, then swings the door open, turns on her heel, and stomps back up the stairs. I follow her up, awash in memories of all the times I spent in this place when I was a teenager. The dark wood and forest green walls of the living room are the same, but all of the appliances in the kitchen have been upgraded. One of the bedroom doors is closed, so I assume that must be Gracie’s room. The other door is open, and I can see the huge sleigh bed and vaulted ceilings in Parrish’s room, the room where I took more than a few girls back in the day. I have a feeling she doesn’t know that, and it’s probably for the better.
“So, feeling nostalgic for all of the cheerleaders you screwed in here?” she asks as she plops down on the giant brown sofa and picks up a steaming cup of hot tea.
Well. So much for that.
“I don’t… how do you… What?” Jesus. I can’t form a proper sentence around this woman unless it’s hostile.
“Matt told me everything. There isn’t much I don’t know about you, Hawk,” she says as she takes a sip of tea.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I answer as I sit at the small bar. “Listen, can we just go over these plans so I can get out of here? I don’t want to keep you up and I’d like to sleep at some point tonight too.”
Parrish crosses over to me, and sits down on the bar stool next to me. When her arm brushes against mine, I feel a full shiver spread through my entire body, and I have to consciously fight to keep from showing it. I spread out the first of the blue prints on the bar so she can see the exterior design.
“So, I’m using the Royal Stables at Versailles as my base of inspiration, then adding the latest in technology upgrades for all of the interior design. I think the natural wood and lighting will suit the concept and fit in well with the general design aesthetic of the rest of the ranch.”
Parrish snort laughs, and covers her face with her hand. I instinctively feel rage course through me. “What? What’s so frigging funny?”
“Have you shown these to your father, Hawk?”
I sit back, my defenses up. “No. Why?”
“He’s going to tell you they’re perfect, because I don’t think he’d tell you were doing anything wrong if you were taking a steaming crap on his dining room table. But this is insane. You want to take a royal French aesthetic and use it on Sam McCormick’s ranch? I mean, seriously? Chandeliers? I think you’ve been in Los Angeles too long, man, because you are totally out of touch with Montana.”
I feel my eyebrow furrow as I watch her survey the plans. “Oh? So what do you suggest? Some wood and hay and a thatch roof and call it a day?”
“Don’t be a defensive asshole, Hawk. I’m just saying, you’re not thinking about what your father wants. You’re thinking about what you want. And probably, what will get you on the cover of Fancy Ass Architect Monthly magazine. This isn’t California. And your father isn’t the King of Versailles. Maybe you should take a day and reacquaint yourself with what it means to be a McCormick. Not what it means to be Mister Big Shot Hollywood Architect. Remember what it was like to grow up here. Talk to your dad. At the end of the day, you can whatever you want, and the only say I have is when it comes to money. And don’t think I won’t put my foot down if you try to buy those chandeliers. But trust me when I say, that this,” she gestures at the plans, “is not what your father really wants.”
And with that, she stands up from the bar stool, picks up her tea, walks into the bedroom, shuts the door, and leaves me sitting at the bar.
I look down at the plans, and as much as it pains me to admit it, she’s totally right. I’m seeing everything I’ve designed through fresh eyes, and it’s ridiculous. It’s something you’d see on a ranch in NorCal, not my father’s old school horse farm in Montana. Hand-blown glass chandeliers? Wrought-iron stable gates imported from France? What the hell was I thinking?
I gather up the blueprints and run for the office, where I can spread out my materials and literally get back to the drawing board.
So much for sleeping. It’s going to be a long night.
Chapter 9
Parrish
“McCormick Ranch, can you please hold?”
The phone has been ringing off the hook all morning, and I don’t know why. Apparently, Sam isn’t answering his cell, and no one has seen Hawk since last night. Candy disappeared into town for some Charity League meeting, and Anna had to go into Helena for a supply run. It’s Gracie’s off-day, where she doesn’t go to school, so she is playing on the office floor with her blocks, as I try to clean up the mess Hawk left after apparently commandeering my office in the middle of the night. When I walked through the door with Gracie at 6:30am, my desk had been completely stripped clean, and all my stuff on the floor. There were empty cups of coffee everywhere, and the lights were still on, but Hawk was nowhere to be found.
I forgot what a slob he was.
Gracie immediately picked up the pens and started drawing on the floor, so I had to scramble to clean everything before she could go crazy re-decorating the walls with her own unique brand of art work. Then I tried to look for some sign of what Hawk had been doing all night, but all that’s left are the scattered remnants of his mess. So, rather than dwell on it, I just answer the phones, and field all of the queries that are coming in about the farm merger. By ten, I am exhausted, and it’s almost time for Gracie’s nap, so I gather her up and start to make my way out of the office and toward the carriage house, where I will work while Gracie sleeps. But as soon as I open the door, I run straight into Hawk, who is standing on the porch. I want to slap his gorgeous face.
“Hey! I was just coming to talk to you,” he says with a smile. I roll my eyes, out of habit more than desire.
“Yeah, well, I spent the morning cleaning up after you, and answering phones, and now I have to put Gracie down for her nap. So, it will have to wait.”
I intend to stomp off toward home, but Gracie reaches out toward Hawk, her chubby hands grasping out for him. Her grin is huge, and she grabs his collar, propelling herself into his arms. He looks like a deer in the headlights as he holds her, but she seems thrilled. I’m equal parts annoyed that my daughter is a traitor, and amused as his discomfort.
“Okay, well, apparently you’re coming with us
. Walk.” Hawk points to the ground.
“Can you grab those tubes and my briefcase? I can’t carry everything.”
I grumble as I pick up all his crap, and we make our way toward home. Gracie is babbling in a combination of the fifteen words she says properly and the hundred she gets in the general vicinity of, and Hawk is watching her in rapt fascination. When we get to the door, he looks at me, his eyes wide, and whispers, “Parrish, she looks so much like Matt at this age.”
“You’re two years older than he was,” I say with a sad laugh. “How do you remember him at two?”
“I remember everything about my brother. He was my best friend from the day mama brought him home. He never stopped talking, even before he knew how.”
I feel a lump start to rise in my throat. I look at Gracie and I am struck once again by how much she looks like her daddy. But then I look up at Hawk, and his eyes are sparkling the same way Matt’s used to, and for a second, I have to suppress the urge to run off into the woods.
“Maybe you can talk to Gracie when she gets older, and tell her stories about Matt when he was younger. The other guys don’t like to talk about him, and I don’t know if they remember as much as you do. And lord knows your parents get weird when it comes to bringing him up. It would be nice if she had someone to give her that background.”
Hawk nods sadly. “I can do that. I hate that she doesn’t get to know him. He was an amazing guy.”
“And yet, you didn’t come back for the funeral.” It slips out before I can think better of it, and the second I say it, I regret and feel like a jerk. I start to apologize, but he just shakes his head.
“Don’t.”
We walk up the stairs to the apartment, and I put Gracie in her bed. She fusses for a second, and the passes straight out, like she always does. For a second, I think about hiding in Gracie’s room indefinitely, afraid of facing Hawk after what I said to him. I may have been right, but I also didn’t have the right to make him feel guilty. I finally suck up my courage and go back out, and Hawk is spreading out blueprints on the floor in front of the fireplace. I sit down next to him and take a deep breath.
“Hawk, listen…”
He shakes his head again. “Parrish, I really don’t want to do this. I’m an asshole. I know that. I made a huge mistake by not coming back for Matt’s…” he stumbles on the word, but keeps going without saying it. “I know that. And you can hold it against me forever if you want. You can tell me I’m a jerk, a shit, the worst person in the entire world. Nothing you can come up with is going to be worse than what I’ve already called myself. So, I think it would be better if we just moved on from any apologies, or attempts to pretend I’m anything other than an asshole.”
I bite my lip and nod, then start looking at the blueprints. They are completely different from what I saw yesterday. They are… perfect.
The outside of the stables look like they were constructed in the 1700s. Hawk has attached photos of vintage brick, and tin roofs, but they have huge, sliding glass windows that take up the side of the wall that faces the woods. It’s the ideal combination of the old and new, and almost exactly what I envisioned when I told Hawk to start over. But the interior… the interior is more than I ever could have imagined. Huge dark wood beams and skylights pepper the ceiling, and the brick floors are marked as heated, which will be perfect for the older horses. The stalls are stacked wood, and thin fencing lines the sides so the horses can see out. It’s elegant, modern, and high-tech: everything I asked for, and everything Sam was hoping for when he decided to start this project.
“Hawk… you did all of this in one night? How?”
He shrugs. “A lot of coffee and no sleep. Plus, you kind of shamed me into it. I didn’t want to let you, or Dad, down.”
I smile sadly at him, then run my finger over the plans, tracing the outlines of the new stalls. “Has Sam seen these?”
“Not yet. I wanted you to see them first and give me your opinion.”
I shrug as I stand up and head for the kitchen to make some tea. “I’m really just the money person. I think they’re beautiful, but all that matters to me is that we can afford it. If you can prove to me that we can afford it, I don’t see any reason to say no.”
Hawk rolls up the plans and crosses over to me. “Well, this morning I went and spoke to a supplier in town about the brick. He agreed to give us access to their vintage stock at ten percent over cost if we specifically mention their business in any stories about the stable construction. I thought that was more than fair.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “So. You are trying to sell this as a story to an architecture magazine, aren’t you?”
“It wasn’t my decision. The only way my firm would let me take a month off from actual client work was if I agreed to let the project be covered. I heard from Dennis Bradford, our managing partner, this morning, and he’s sending a reporter here next week to start covering the build, so I was hoping we could start ASAP.”
I inadvertently slam my tea mug down, then regret it because I’m afraid I’m going to wake up Gracie. But I don’t hear any noise from her bedroom, so my rage continues unchecked.
“You’re using the ranch to advance your career, Hawk. You disappeared for ten years, and when you finally come back, it’s just to earn brownie points with your boss?”
He looks at me with his mouth open, like I’m insane. “How could you think that, Parrish?”
“Because it’s true. Because you show up here, and the first thing you do after sending everyone into a state emotional upheaval is bring in some photographer who can make you look like a hero, bringing the hick farm into the twenty-first century. So, on top of sending everything into chaos, now some stranger is going to be here, forcing everyone to walk on eggshells. This is garbage, Hawk.”
He continues to stare at me, confused, like he has no idea what I’m talking about. And I have no interest in further explaining to him why I’m angry.
“Just take the blueprints to your father. I can’t talk to you anymore right now.”
Hawk is smart enough not to push me. He gathers up his things and walks out without another word, leaving me with my tea, and my anger, to figure out how I am going to survive the next month without ripping him limb from limb.
I spent the rest of the day in the stables, grooming the horses and cleaning out the stalls. I even told Anna to take the night off so I could have some space, so she took Gracie out for dinner to give me quiet. When it comes down to it, the only place I can think, or calm down, is in the stables. And Moonfire seems to know that I need peace, so she nuzzles me while I brush out her mane. It’s only when I hear footsteps crunching on the hay behind me that myself stomach starts to knot up again.
“The stables are closed,” I call out behind me, not caring who it is.
“This isn’t a store or a restaurant. Unless the horses pack their bags and leave, the stables never really close.”
Hawk’s voice sends a shiver through me, and I have to remind myself not to take out my prickling anger on Moonfire’s mane.
“Go away, Hawk. I’m busy.”
Hawk walks up to Moonfire and gives her an affectionate slap on the haunches.
“I can’t believe this old girl is still here.”
“Yeah, well, your father knows I love her, and every so often, he does a good thing. What do you want, Hawk? I’m really not in the mood to…”
“I’m sorry, Parrish.”
I turn to him, unable to hide the surprise on my face. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words before in my life. Well, say them and actually make me believe you mean them, anyway.”
“I guess I’m like my father in that way. Once a year, I do something decent. And this is it. I’m sorry. For everything. For making you think I’m just here to capitalize on the ranch. For disappearing. For not coming back any of the times I should have. I know I’m an asshole and I’ve made mistakes but I want to try to make it right. Can you ever forgive me?
”
He takes a step toward me, and I take a step back, but I don’t know why. I want him to get away from me, to leave me alone, to leave for good and never come back. But when he kisses me, I lose my desire to fight him off, as much as I hate him. If I hate him… Is it hate that I feel? I don’t even know anymore as his lips press against mine. But then some semblance of common sense comes back. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep getting sucked in, and getting hurt, and repeating this cycle while he’s here, when he’s only going to leave again.
It takes all of my strength, but I push him away. He looks shocked, and hurt, but I can’t let myself care.
“Please, Hawk. Just go. I can’t do this. Not again.”
He nods. “If that’s what you want, Parrish.”
“It’s what I want.”
He walks out of the stable, and a tear falls down my cheek as I think, it’s not what I want. But it’s what I need.
Chapter 10
Hawk
I lay in my bed, the same bed I slept in every night when I was kid, and I stare up at the ceiling, my mind racing. Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep letting myself fall into her arms? Parrish isn’t the girl I slept with all those years after too many beers. She’s my brother’s wife. My best friend. Matt was the guy I turned to whenever things got shitty. He was the only person in the world who understood why I am the way I am. And now, I feel like I’m betraying him. I stayed away because I didn’t want to make things complicated for him and Parrish, and now? I’m only making things worse. Matt is gone, and I can’t bring him back, but he will never really be gone. He’s everywhere, taking up every inch of space on the ranch. His spirit wanders around behind me with every step I take, and I would never want it any other way. But at the same time, it makes me feel like an ever bigger asshole every time I look at Parrish and think about how sexy, how beautiful, she is. Every time I touch her. Every time we…