He came the rest of the way up, crossed the attic. She stood up when he got to her. “So we take it kind of slow, and careful.”
“Like normal people do,” she said.
He kissed her, like she’d been waiting for him to, and for a little while, they stood there, making out in the dusty attic, and she felt like a teenager with her first crush.
No. This was bigger. Way bigger than a crush.
And finally, he pulled away gently. “Slow and careful.”
“Within reason,” she said.
Chapter Ten
* * *
Saturday morning came far too early. She’d barely slept. There was something restless inside her, something nervous, and excited and overjoyed and terrified, all at the same time. And she knew it was all about Rob and her, and those kisses they’d shared yesterday, and her deep down certainty that she didn’t deserve him.
But she wanted to. She wanted to be the kind of woman a man like Rob could be with. Could…love, maybe.
Her fear came from wondering if she was up to the challenge.
On top of that, she was sure her sister was up to something. And it probably involved one of the McIntyres. They were the most prime hunks of eligible in town, and Kendra had wormed her way right into the middle of them. Damn, she was good.
Kiley grabbed her things and slipped through the silent hall, to the bathroom. Either she was up too early, or not quite early enough.
Quick as she could manage it, she stood under the steamy spray. As she let the hot water sooth her, she tried to sort through the cyclone of feelings swirling around inside.
Kendra was alive. She hadn’t died a horrible, painful death. Kiley was relieved and overjoyed. And yet she was furious at Kendra for deliberately letting her grieve for nearly two months.
Kendra was dangerous.
Kiley would just have to handle her. She knew Kendra, and she knew all her tricks. Their father had raised them together, side by side, and he’d taught them together, too. Just because she hadn’t taken to the trade the way Kendra had, that didn’t mean Kiley didn’t know. She knew everything.
From the moment she’d learned Kendra was alive, all Kiley had thought about was protecting her sister. But suddenly she knew with sparkling clarity that she had to protect Rob’s family and all of Big Falls from Kendra. She had to.
She got out of the shower, towel dried her hair and combed it back into a smooth ponytail. Looking into the mirror, she found herself kissing Rob again in her mind. She closed her eyes and felt his mouth on hers. The way he moved his soft, thick lips, just a little, like a caress.
She nodded to herself, and said, “I’ll fix this, Robby. I’ll find out what she’s up to and send her packing. I will. You’ll see.”
She was pretty sure she could do it and still keep her sister from being caught or arrested for faking her own death. She could do both.
She closed her eyes and thought about kissing Rob again. And then something occurred to her and she straightened her head and stared bug-eyed at herself. What if she loved him or something? And what if he found out about her life and her past and all the crap she’d done, and just bailed? That would hurt.
Her stomach in knots, she dressed in jeans, with a white tank top and a lightweight cotton shirt over it to protect her arms from slivers and the sun. When she stepped out of the bathroom, she could already hear the voices of Rob’s family, all talking at once outside the house. Trucks were coming and going, and oh, yes, she smelled coffee.
She took a deep breath, told herself to relax. This was all just part of her transformation. She’d kind of thought it would be easy, but now that seemed kind of naive. The smell of the coffee was a balm. She took it in and trotted down the stairs.
Vidalia stood in the kitchen, her long raven curls spilling out around a green bandana. She was just filling a big yellow mug with the precious brew. She had big brown doe eyes and tanned skin and she was ageless. Kiley wanted to be her when she got old.
Vidalia caught her eye, smiled brightly, and held out the mug. “I heard the shower stop. By God, you must be about ready to shoot us all, milling around here all the time like we own the place.”
Kiley smiled back and took the mug. “I never shoot anyone who gives me coffee,” she said.
“That’s why I made it. Sheer self-preservation.” She laughed, then sipped. “The guys are all out in the bigger barn already.”
Rob’s plan was to hoe the barn out and build stables for his first bunch of horses.
“I knew he wanted to get an early start. I just didn’t know how early,” she said, then she sipped gratefully. “Good coffee.”
“Arabica beans. I ground them up fresh.”
“You brought your own coffee?”
“Coffee is sacred. I didn’t know what you had in the cupboard, so…”
“So Miz Vidalia is a coffee snob!” Kiley said. Then she held her breath and wondered if she’d gone too far.
Vidalia glared at her. Then she slapped her thigh and laughed out loud. “You got me. I am.”
“I, too, appreciate a good cup of coffee.” She took another sip of the really excellent brew. “There’s a lot of junk packed into that barn. I should get out there and help.”
“Not without a decent breakfast to shore you up. Sit down, Kiley. I’ve been wanting to have some time to get to know you better.”
Kiley saw the friendly light in Vidalia’s eyes and sat down.
“My husband tells me your sister’s in town.”
“You know?” Kiley closed her eyes, shook her head and said, “Of course you know. Bobby Joe owns the saloon, she’s staying at the saloon, hence, you know.”
“We’re not real big on keeping secrets from each other in this family,” she said. But Robby asked us not to tell anyone else that she’s in town. He didn’t tell us why.”
“I’m afraid I can’t either. She’s… she’s my sister. I need to try to help her.”
Vidalia nodded. “I understand protecting family.” Her eyes were loaded with meaning.
“Rob said…he said since we’re partners, I should consider you all family.” She spoke slowly, chose her words carefully. “And I’m honored by that. I’ve never seen a family I’d love to be a part of more. I want you to know, I intend to live up to it.”
“Do you, now?” Vidalia’s gaze sharpened, and she seemed to look her over way more thoroughly than was comfortable.
Then with a tilt of her head and an arch of her brows, she went back to the counter, grabbed a plate filled with scrambled eggs and hash browns, and set it in front of Kiley. She took a seat opposite her and slid a large, flat book across to her. “I got this for you.”
It was a Big Falls Central School Yearbook. She opened it up to a page marked with a playing card and tapped the photo.
Kiley looked down at her own face and her twin sister’s. Sixth grade and thinking everything would always be just the way it was then.
“Where did you go after that, Kiley?”
“We…we moved east. Dad…couldn’t afford to keep the place. It was never a working ranch, not in my memory anyway. My mother inherited it.”
“So your dad moved you east?”
Kiley nodded, sipped her coffee to avoid having to say more than that. Then she set her cup down. “It was really nice of the family to let my sister stay at the saloon,” she said, and mentally she was trying to figure out how to warn Vidalia without admitting that she was a criminal raised by a family of criminals.
“I was surprised you didn’t want her to stay here at the ranch,” she said. “Seeing that she grew up here.”
“Vidalia…you’re a smart woman.”
“One of the perks of age. There are precious few, but wisdom is a big one.”
She was trying to put her at ease, Kiley realized. She took a deep breath. “My sister…she’s um….”
“She’s a man-eater,” Vidalia said, matter of factly. “I went over to clean up the room, make sure she had eve
rything she needed. Met her. She might be foolin’ the boys, but she’s not foolin’ me.”
“I’m…a little worried about Jason and Joey.”
“I appreciate the warning. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
Kiley nodded. “While she’s here, we’re gonna refer to her as Kendra Jones, my cousin from back east.”
Vidalia sat back in her chair. “Is she wanted by the law?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I need to find out.”
Vidalia nodded. “What are you gonna do?”
She took a deep breath and said, “Honestly, Vidalia, I don’t know yet. But my goal is to get her out of this town. I just need to make sure she’ll be safe when she leaves.”
She lifted a forefinger. “If you need help, come to me. Don’t wait until it’s too late to prevent the damage. All right?”
“I promise.”
Vidalia searched her eyes for a minute, then reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “What’s your mobile number?” she asked.
The change of topic threw her, but after a second, she managed to spit out her digits while Vidalia tapped her phone. “There,” she said. “You’ve been added to the family’s group text lists. There’s one for just the women, and another for everyone. The guys have a men-only group, but they don’t think we know about it. Now finish up your food. We’ve got lots to do.”
Feeling as if she’d just experienced a Brand-McIntyre rite-of-passage, Kiley ate.
* * *
She didn’t think she’d ever worked as hard in her life as she did that day. The big barn had a lot of stuff inside. When she’d lived there, it had been deemed off limits by her dad, and though she and Kendra had sneaked out there quite often, all Kiley had ever noticed were broken boards and hulking metal pieces of rusted-out farm equipment.
By noon, Jason, Joey, Rob, and their father, Bobby Joe, had emptied every ounce of junk from that big barn. It was all in front of the building where Kiley and Vidalia sorted it into piles. More family had shown up—Vidalia’s sons-in-law. Wade had driven a big red tow-truck over, with ARMSTRONG painted on the side.
The men were all inside the barn building stalls. The smell of fresh-cut lumber filled the air, and the sounds of power tools and hammers were outshouting the birds.
Outside, she and Vidalia continued to pick through relics. Tall milk cans from days gone by, wooden crates piled full of tools, the likes of which she’d never seen before, with hand cranks and wooden handles. There was a box full of hurricane lamps, most of them with intact globes. There were old tin signs for businesses that no longer existed, Big Falls Livery & Tack. Fanny Mae’s Soda Fountain, and one that just said BLACKSMITH in block letters on an oval piece of metal with two holes in the top for hooks. “I bet Jason would like this,” Kiley said, holding the sign up. “Rob said he lives in what was once a blacksmith’s shop.”
Vidalia looked at it and smiled hugely. “He’d love it. That’s such a great idea, Kiley.”
“I’ll put it away. We can surprise him for his birthday or something.” Kiley wiped her forehead and looked around at the piles. “What are we gonna do with all the rest of this? Is the local dump still open?”
“Sure, but these things are worth some money.” Vidalia paused, too, in her work, and waved Kiley over to a shady spot underneath a gnarled old tree. “I think what you’ve got here is a windfall, hon.” She poured a glass of sweet tea from the large pitcher and handed it to Kiley. They’d set up an inverted wooden box to hold the tea and Solo cups, and two others to sit on.
“Really?” Kiley took the tea and a seat.
Vidalia filled a second cup and sat down beside her, fanning her face with a big woven fan that looked like a giant leaf. “I have a friend in antiques. Let me give him a call. Maybe he’d handle selling them for you for a small commission. Unless you want to do it yourself. You could take photos, list them online—”
“No, no, I’d be grateful for your friend’s help. I wouldn’t even know what to ask for them.”
“Good.”
“You know, there’s more stuff piled up in the small barn,” Kiley said with a nod in that direction.
Vidalia looked that way with interest. “Oh, we have to take a look.”
They worked the entire morning, and when lunchtime rolled around, Maya and the twins showed up with a car full of food.
They sat on upturned plastic buckets and old wooden crates, around a picnic table made from an old barn door laid out across a pair of saw horses. The whole family was talking, mostly all at once, and somehow it was contagious. Kiley found herself telling Rob excitedly about the barn’s treasures and Vidalia’s notion that they might be worth some bucks, and he was smiling with his whole heart as he listened.
“Speaking of bucks,” Wade said. Then he nodded toward the old car they’d pulled out of the barn. It was hooked to his tow-truck, its front end in the air like a rearing stallion. “I know the idea was to fix that baby up for you to drive, but it’s kind of a classic,” he said. “I’m wondering if you’d consider selling it to me.”
Kiley looked at Rob, then at the old, rust-colored vehicle. “Seriously?”
“It would make a great project car.”
“Are you sure you’re not just trying to help out a broke girl?” she asked with a smile. “Cause you guys have really done enough.”
Wade grinned at her. “You won’t think that after you see what I’m gonna do with it. Actually, I’ve got a ten-year-old Wrangler at the shop I’ve been trying to sell. I took it in place of cash for some work I did last year, and it’s still sitting there. Runs great, moderate mileage. How about a trade?”
She frowned and looked from Wade to Rob. “That wouldn’t be fair. The El Camino is half Rob’s.”
“It’ll be fair enough if you let me drive it from time to time,” Rob said. “I’ve seen this Wrangler. Take the deal.”
She smiled at him, and her heart got all bouncy and happy again. “Okay, I’ll take the deal.”
“Sweet,” Wade said. He reached across the table to shake on it.
“We need to hoe out that smaller barn next,” Rob said.
“Vidalia and I are gonna poke around in there after lunch.”
“What are your plans for the smaller barn?” Bobby Joe asked.
“It’ll be a haunted house in the fall,” Kiley said. “Next year I’m gonna grow pumpkins and a corn maze. This year we’ll have to settle for the spook house and hayrides. We just have time to get it ready, too. And if the antiques sell like Vidalia thinks they will, I’ll have some money to fund it.” She glanced Rob’s way. “With my half, I mean.”
Bobby Joe sent Rob a loaded look. Rob held up a hand. “I know, Dad. I know.” Then he said, “Kiley, I can’t take half the proceeds from the antiques.”
“Why not? They’re half yours.”
“May I say something?” Bobby Joe asked.
Joey said, “Since when do you ask first, Dad?”
“Since never.” He set down a big yellow ear of sweet corn and said, “Robert, imagine for a moment you make a great success of this horse ranch of yours.”
“He’s absolutely going to,” Vidalia said.
“I have no doubt. So let’s say you do. You raise beautiful thoroughbreds.”
“Quarter Horses,” Rob corrected.
“One day you get married.” Every single one of them looked at Kiley when he said that, and she felt heat flood her face. But Bobby Joe kept right on talking. “And you have a son. And you raise him up, and you work together on the ranch. By your side, he learns how to run it, how to raise horses. And then one day, you decide you want to retire. And you say to him, ‘son, this beautiful place, this business I’ve built with my own two hands, it’s all yours now.’ And he says to you, ‘No, thanks. I don’t want it.’”
Rob picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth.
“You’d be hurt, that’s what,” Vidalia said. “Cut right to the quick. You’d feel like your life’s work had bee
n judged and found lacking. You’d feel like the gift you worked so hard to give your son had been rejected, thrown right back in your face. And you would bleed, Robby. You would bleed just the way your father bleeds when you refuse to use the resources he worked so hard to provide for you. You act like his wealth is something dirty.”
“It’s not like that. Dad, come on, you know it’s not like that.”
“I do. I know. You just want to make it on your own.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m just starting to wonder what I did it all for. Was my life’s work a waste of time? You won’t touch a dime. Jason is pretty much doing the same,” he added with a look at his eldest son.
“I’ll take their shares,” Joey said, grinning.
Everyone rolled their eyes at him. He just shrugged and took another bite of his hot dog.
Rob pushed his plate away and he looked at Kiley. “What do you think about all this?”
She blinked at him, shocked to her core that he’d want to know her opinion on it. “I understand how you feel, Rob. I kind of chose to reject my dad’s line of work too.” She shrugged then. “I understand how you feel too, Mr. McIntyre.”
“Bobby Joe,” the man corrected.
“Bobby Joe. But really, I don’t know why it has to be such a big problem. The solution’s obvious enough to me.”
Everyone stopped eating. They were riveted, even Joey set down the final two inches of his hot dog bun.
“Well, spit it out girl. Don’t keep us in suspense,” Vidalia said.
“Yes, spit it out, girl,” Rob repeated.
She smiled at him, because he’d used Vidalia’s exact inflection. “Use the money your dad put aside for you like a loan. Get yourself up and running, and then when the ranch starts showing a profit, pay it all back with interest. Sock it away someplace and then later, when that someday comes and you have a kid, you can pass it and all the guilt that goes with it right on to him. Or her. And if they do the same, and their kids do the same, your whole family will always have access to a fortune to fund all their dreams and projects, forever and ever. Amen.” She took a drink from the beer on the table and set it down. “It’s not rocket science.”
Oklahoma Moonshine (The McIntyre Men #1) Page 12