by Gerri Hill
Copyright © 2011 by Gerri Hill
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First published 2011
Editor: Anna Chinappi
Cover Designer: Linda Callaghan
ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-249-6
Other Bella Books By Gerri Hill
Artist’s Dream
Behind the Pine Curtain
Cottage, The
Coyote Sky
Dawn of Change
Devil’s Rock
Gulf Breeze
Hunter’s Way
In the Name of the Father
The Killing Room
Love Waits
No Strings
One Summer Night
Partners
The Rainbow Cedar
The Scorpion
Sierra City
The Target
Chapter One
Carson grabbed the phone without looking, knowing it would be Rebecca. She was late—as usual—and she tucked it against her shoulder as she hunted for her keycard.
“I know, I know, I’m late,” she said. “Sorry. I’m on my way.”
“Then I’m glad I caught you.”
She nearly dropped the phone at the sound of the man’s voice. She stopped in her tracks, her brain recognizing the voice before her heart allowed her to.
“Chase?” she whispered.
“Hey, sis.”
“Oh, my God. How did you find me?” She sat down heavily, her lunch date with Rebecca forgotten as her mind raced. She hadn’t heard her brother’s voice in twelve years.
“Well, you know, our lawyer found your lawyer. You really shouldn’t have kept your business with Grammy Mae’s attorneys if you didn’t want to be found.”
“I never thought anyone would look,” she said, surprised at the bitterness of her words. She’d thought that twelve years was enough to get past it.
“You ran away so fast, we didn’t think you wanted us to look.”
“Ran away?” She laughed, again the bitterness tasting strange in her mouth.
“What he did to you was wrong, Car, but it didn’t reflect what the rest of us felt. At least not me. You know that.”
“Whatever,” she mumbled childishly, both annoyed and thrilled at the shortening of her name. Chase had rarely called her by her full name.
“You need to come home now.”
“What? You call me up after twelve years and tell me to come home? No pleasantries? No how have you been? No where have you been? Nothing?”
“I know where you’ve been. Europe mostly. You have a fondness for Italy.”
“Well, the women there are really hot.”
“No doubt. I imagine now you’re back in New York.”
“You imagine wrong,” she said, glancing out her hotel window at the unobstructed view of Fisherman’s Wharf and San Francisco Bay.
“Look, you need to come home. He’s dying. He has cancer.”
“So? He’s been dead to me for a long time.”
“Cody and Chance are running the ranch into the ground, and Colt wants to turn it into a dude ranch, of all things,” he said. “I need you to come back.”
“The old man’s too sick to run the place?”
“He’s been sick for over a year, in and out of the hospital. He’s coming home tomorrow. He’s coming home to die. You need to make your peace with him, Car.”
She wanted to feel nothing. In fact, she convinced herself that the twinge of guilt she was feeling was for the ranch and not her father. She loved the ranch. She loved everything about it. Up until that final day, however.
“Please, Car. Come back. Come back home.”
Chapter Two
“Wow, even by your standards, this is really late,” Rebecca said as Carson joined her at their favorite outdoor café.
“Sorry,” she said, bending over and kissing her friend quickly on the cheek. “I got a phone call.”
Rebecca finally looked at her, her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Aptly put.” Carson took a swallow of water before continuing. “My brother.”
“Carson Cartwright, you have a brother?”
“Four of them, actually.”
Rebecca smiled and leaned her elbows on the table. “Oh, you’re always such a woman of mystery. I learn something new about you every time we talk.”
“That’s because you know nothing about me so any time I let something slip, you’re fascinated.”
“Of course. Like I said, a woman of mystery.” She leaned closer. “Why is that, Carson? Why do you keep yourself so guarded?”
“It’s a hard habit to shake,” she said, pausing as a waiter placed a bowl in front of her.
“I took the liberty of ordering,” Rebecca explained. “Crab salad.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at the waiter. She no longer had an appetite, but she picked up her fork, twisting it in her hand. “He wants me to come home.”
“Home?”
“Montana.”
“Where is Montana exactly?”
Carson rolled her eyes.
“I’m kidding, of course,” Rebecca said. “It’s somewhere north, I know that. Cows and snow?”
Carson nodded. “Mountains, forests, huge ranches. Lush green valleys. My family has a ranch there.” She sighed, picturing the ranch in the summertime, the bright green meadow against the blue sky almost too beautiful to absorb. How many days did she ride off and lay down on the carpet of green, staring up into the endless blue, thinking there was no better place on earth than right there where she was. And for a while, that was true.
“And? Why does he want you there?”
“My father is dying.”
“And she has a father too.”
“Look, I know I haven’t told you much about my past—”
“Much? Try nothing.” Rebecca pushed her salad aside. “When I met you, you were a wide-eyed nineteen-year-old lost in Manhattan. All you told me was you’d run away from home.” She shrugged. “Nothing unusual there, except you had a never-ending supply of cash. It took me two years to learn your grandmother was loaded. Now, after knowing you, what, eleven years now, you tell me your estranged family wants you to come home. To Montana.” She raised her eyebrows. “So are you going to tell me about it or what?”
Carson looked at her affectionately, the woman who had befriended her all those years ago. Yes, she’d been wide-eyed and scared out of her mind. She didn’t recall what had possessed her to flee to New York, she only knew she wanted to be far away from home, and far away from her memories. When her grandmother died—Grammy Mae—she was as surprised as everyone else to learn she’d left her entire estate to Carson. The explanation the attorney gave her was that the ranch would be left to the boys, assuming Carson’s father would exclude her from that inheritance. Carson had dropped out of college the next week, leaving Boulder and moving into her grandmother’s house in Denver, waiting for it to sell. And it moved so quickly, she hadn’t had time to formulate a plan, no time to decide what to do or where to go. Why not New York?
“Why didn’t you ever try to sleep with me?”
Rebecca leaned back, surprise showing on her face. “Where did that question come from? I thought we were talking about your family.”
“It occurred to me that you never once even hinted that you wanted to sleep with me. Yet you had a parade of women coming and going, but never me.”
Rebecca reached
across the table and squeezed her hand. “Oh, my beautiful Carson. You were nineteen. I was already thirty-five. Yes, it would have been so easy to seduce you. And I won’t lie. The thought did cross my mind.” She smiled. “But I didn’t want to do that to you. You needed a friend.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, I taught you everything you know.”
“Yes, how not to fall in love.”
“Love is so overrated. It’s a pain in the ass. Isn’t it much more fun to enjoy sex and not have to worry about the emotional turmoil that comes with a relationship?”
“I never understood that about you,” Carson said. “You could have had any woman you wanted.”
“I did have. Many of them.”
“I meant have as in love,” she clarified. “Yet you never wanted any part of it. Why?”
“We all have our secrets, don’t we? And I believe we were discussing yours, not mine.”
Carson let it go. At first, she was simply overwhelmed by the number of women Rebecca would bring home. A different one nearly every night. And she took it all in, learning Rebecca’s skill of sex without love. Yes, she taught her well. Fortunately, she had enough emotional scars that it didn’t take much to dull her to love. No doubt Rebecca had been deeply in love once and had her heart broken. Carson, on the other hand, couldn’t relate to that part of things. Her small high school out in the middle of nowhere consisted mostly of kids from other ranches. Mostly boys, and the few girls her own age were straight. Of course, as a teenager with raging hormones, she couldn’t be choosy. She found if she kept it quiet and under the table, straight girls were more than willing to experiment. It wasn’t until she’d gone to college that she finally slept with another lesbian.
Once in New York, she quickly picked up the social skills required to mimic Rebecca, the woman who took her in and offered a place to live. She wouldn’t admit it to her, but she’d long grown weary of that life now. She often exaggerated her sexual trysts just to keep Rebecca amused and thinking that she’d raised a star pupil who followed in her footsteps. She couldn’t very well tell her that she spent most of her time alone on her frequent trips to Europe. It was simply too exhausting to keep the pace that Rebecca assumed she kept.
All of which made her question why she had agreed to meet Rebecca in San Francisco in the first place. Despite their age difference, she still couldn’t keep up with the older woman. Not when it came to parties and women. Perhaps the excuse of going home—back to Montana—would be her reprieve.
“Would you think I was crazy if I ditched you and took my brother up on his offer?”
“Crazy? Yes. You love San Francisco. You’d leave this to go be with cows?”
“Cows and sheep,” she said. “Or that’s what the ranch used to raise. And horses.” She had an image of the white stallion she used to ride. Windstorm. She purposefully hadn’t thought of him—or the ranch—in years.
“Why did you run away? Or is that a subject you still don’t want to discuss?”
Over the years, Rebecca had brought it up occasionally. Each time, Carson had chosen to ignore the question. This time was no different. But she was willing to give her something.
“I lived with my grandmother for a few months before I went off to college. She died my second year there.” At Rebecca’s raised eyebrows, she added, “University of Colorado, Boulder. Anyway, as you know, I was her sole beneficiary.” She grinned. “A kid with money. A dangerous combination.”
“Yes. Good thing you met me. Some lesser person might have taken you for everything you had.”
“That’s true.” Of course, it helped that Rebecca was a wealthy socialite in her own right. Yes, Rebecca not only showed her how to party with the ladies, she also showed her how to invest wisely. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So you’re going back? To a place you haven’t been in eleven, twelve years?”
“Twelve.”
“And you’ve had no contact with them in that time?”
“No. Not until today. Chase—he’s my twin—he said—”
“You’re a twin? God, woman, what other bombs are you going to drop on me today?” She leaned forward again, elbows braced on the table. “Carson and Chase. Nice Western names. You have three other brothers?”
“Cody, Colt and Chance.”
Rebecca laughed. “Are you serious?”
Carson nodded. “Yep. Cartwrights. Circle C Ranch. As you said, very Western.”
Rebecca’s smile slowly faded. “So? Are you leaving me?”
Carson’s gaze left Rebecca as she stared out over the bay. “I shouldn’t, should I? I mean, what do I want there? It’s been twelve years, right?”
Rebecca again squeezed her hand. “Go if you feel you need to. If for nothing else, closure.”
“Closure? I’m not sure that applies to me. I’ve reconciled everything.”
“Have you? I guess since you can so easily talk about your past, then nothing still haunts you. My mistake.”
Carson smiled at her friend, knowing she’d hit on the truth. Yes, her past still haunted her. She could pretend all she wanted that she was happy and content with her life now, but truth was, she wasn’t. There was always something missing. She used to think it was the fact that she didn’t work, that she had no responsibilities, that she wasn’t being a productive member of society that made her feel so empty. But she traveled a lot, she shared special occasions with friends, she never lacked for companionship, so there was little time to dwell on her fate. Maybe that was one reason she constantly kept moving, kept traveling—it kept her from examining her life and questioning her very existence.
“You always could see through my armor, couldn’t you?”
“It’s funny, Carson, but the older you get the more your pain shows. When you were a brash nineteen-twenty-year-old, you had the world by the balls. You were invincible. The last few years though, you’ve had such a—I don’t know—melancholy look about you. Not really sad, exactly, but more sorrowful, depressed.” She smiled, softening her words. “Not to say you’ve been depressed. That’s not what I mean. You just—”
“I know what you mean. You’re right. I think maybe I’ve been more reflective, maybe even judging my life somewhat. It’s not always a pretty picture.”
“Which is odd. You have everything, Carson. You’re a beautiful woman, you have money and the time to spend it. You have connections all over the world. Most people would envy your life.”
“Would they? In the end, I’m still alone.”
“In the end, we’re all alone.”
Chapter Three
Kerry Elder stood back, trying politely not to eavesdrop as the brothers argued. It was obvious Colt Cartwright was the only one on board with this. As their voices got louder and more agitated, she thought it was time to intervene before she lost without ever being able to present her case. She blew out an exasperated breath and stepped forward.
“Excuse me,” she said, smiling broadly at the four men whose argument with each other strained their handsome features. Four brothers, all tall and dark, each as handsome as the next. And not a one of them wearing a wedding ring. Amazing. Of course, she could use that to her advantage. She wasn’t above flirting to get a contract. Irene Randall had taught her that. Besides, it wasn’t like she would be cheating on anyone. She hadn’t had a date in so long, she had a hard time recalling the last one. She spread her hands out, looking at each one of them. “We’re not going to get anywhere like this, guys.”
“A dude ranch? Seriously?”
“Please, can we talk about it rationally?” she suggested.
Chance, the oldest of the brothers, glared at her. “The fact that Colt contracted with you without our agreement threw rationale out the window.”
Chance and Cody seemed to be the ones most opposed to converting the ranch, Chance more so than Cody. She couldn’t decide between the two who would be an easier target for her. “I understand. And as I’ve stated, the contract is not binding.�
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“But the deposit is,” Cody reminded her.
“Yes, well, I have travel expenses and such to cover if you decide to back out.” And maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she reasoned. Starting her own business shouldn’t be this difficult. But as Cody watched her, she decided to focus on him instead of Chance. Chance appeared to have his mind made up.
“Let’s all sit down and let her explain,” Colt said. “If we can’t reach a consensus, then we’ll go a different route, but we can’t continue as we are. We’ll be bankrupt in a year.”
Finally, a voice of reason. “Yes, please allow me to present my ideas to you as a group. Colt has already heard much of them.” She motioned to the leather sofa, smiling as only two of the brothers—Chance and Cody—took her suggestion. Chase, the youngest, chose the fireplace hearth and Colt took the overstuffed chair facing his brothers. Sides had been drawn. Her job was to bring them together.
She picked up the four copies of her portfolio and handed one to each brother, pausing to smile charmingly at Cody. Colt, of course, had already seen it.
“I have worked for Randall Consultants for six years,” she started. “And I’ve been in the consulting field for ten years. I am branching off on my own, but I do have extensive experience.”
“We’d be your first client?” Cody asked, a hint of skepticism in his voice.
“Yes.” She smiled confidently. “But as I said, I have ten years experience in the consulting business.” She pointed to the folders each now held. “As you know, with the downturn in the economy, a lot of the larger ranches have been hit hard. Including yours, I’m told. The photos are from my last project. The Dry Creek Ranch in the Pryor Mountains south of Billings, converted last year.”
“Converted?”
“Dude ranch is not really the correct term,” Kerry said. “Guest ranch is the term we use now. What we did at Dry Creek, we renovated the bunkhouse to accommodate our guests, along with upgrading the bathroom facilities. They also invested in building three private cabins.”