Back at the Ranch

by Em Ashcroft

“So is yours,” the prince said. “I went to university here. You?”

  “This is my breed partner.” Renaud indicated Blade. “I’ve spent as much time here in Texas as if have in France.”

  “Don’t you miss it?”

  Renaud shook his head. “I visit occasionally.” He sounded tight, as if the prince had asked something that concerned him. “If I want to hear French, I can always go to New Orleans. A kind of French, anyway.”

  The deflection worked, and they talked about the Big Easy for a few minutes until the prince went to rejoin his bride and claim his dance.

  “We’ll ensure they get away, and then we’ll leave,” Blade told them. “We have business.”

  “And I need to talk to my sister,” she added. “I tried her before, but she must have turned off her phone. And she wasn’t in her room.”

  “She’ll be in the bridal suite,” Renaud reminded her.

  “She took it?”

  Smiling, Renaud nodded. “She said she wouldn’t let the absence of the groom stop her. They’d paid for it—” He grimaced.

  “I decided to tell her afterward.” Thea hung her head, but Blade tucked his finger under her chin and forced it back up.

  “Not your fault,” he said firmly. “All this is going to be fine.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she dashed them away angrily. “We have to catch him.”

  Renaud handed her a glass. “Drink this. Half an hour, bébé, then we’ll handle the situation. I’ve put a hold on all your cards and your account, and your bank knows that what happened to you was fraudulent. You’ll get your money back.”

  She swallowed. “I might not.”

  She refused to explain herself until they had seen the happy trio off to their honeymoon. They caught the helicopter with no problem, but on the way back into the hotel, Thea almost ran into her sister.

  Ladonna peered over Thea’s shoulder. “Was that…”

  Thea answered her without hesitation. “No. Just another guest, only Renaud wanted to make sure he caught the ’copter.”

  At the edge of her vision, she caught sight of Renaud exchanging a glance with Blade and heard their voices in her head. She can’t know.

  I know. Replying to them was as easy as speaking. “Who did you think it was?”

  “The prince. You know, the one all that gossip was about last week. Somebody saw him in New York, or they thought they did.”

  “Maybe. That means he’s in New York, right?”

  “Riiiight.” Ladonna stared outside again, but the helicopter had gone. “Hmm.”

  She needed something else to occupy her mind. Thea would provide it. “The guys tell me you’re in the honeymoon suite.”

  “Yes, and it’s gorgeous. Come and see?” She gave the men a smile. “I asked Andie to come in with me. That means we can cut one room. You see, I am thinking of economies. And when I asked for you at reception, they said you weren’t in your room.”

  “We’ve been crossing paths.”

  “So come up now. Bring your friends.” Ladonna’s cheeky wink to Blade and Renaud had them raising their brows, but they followed Ladonna when she linked her arm with Thea’s and took her to the public elevators.

  Although the elevator was crowded, Ladonna had no problem with asking Thea, “Been getting busy, have you?”

  Thea hated when her sister spoke so blatantly about their private business, but on the other hand, she wasn’t ashamed. Just not as obvious. “We need to talk,” she said, feeling Renaud stiffen at her back.

  The elevator doors opened, and Ladonna led the way, chattering all the time. “The other girls are leaving today. They’ve got jobs to go back to, but I have somewhere else to be.”

  “Where?” Thea asked, but she knew. Her heart sank. Ladonna would probably have to give up her dream vacation. Chester had probably failed to pay for that, too.

  “The Bahamas, of course. I guess I can find a cabana boy to keep me company.” Another wink.

  Was Ladonna trying too hard to hide her heartbreak? She had to be, but Thea found her the same bright, perky woman she always was.

  This room was gorgeous, if a bit OTT for Thea’s taste. Ivory and palest pink, the bed was a Cinderella dream, and Thea wondered how Chester would have taken to it. She was beginning to suspect he didn’t ever plan to see it.

  But why had he asked her to run away with him? Because he’d spotted the difference between the sisters and the constant friction. He’d played them off each other right from the start.

  Events were catching up with her, and her mind was clicking back into action. Chester’s defection had stunned her, and then the discovery she’d made that morning had added to that. But she couldn’t stay numb forever. “Have you checked your bank account today?”

  Ladonna raised a carefully penciled brow. “Why?” She dusted off Thea’s answer with a careless brush of her hand. “It doesn’t matter. Yes, I did. I made sure the bank knew I’d be away for the next couple of weeks.”

  Thea glanced at the men then back at her sister, who sauntered over to the refrigerator. “Drink?”

  “Water,” she said, and the men refused.

  Settled at the seating area by the window, Thea told her sister everything. “Chester didn’t just race for the border. He cleaned out the company, as well. And me.”

  Ladonna sat very still. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re broke. He took all the money with him.”

  Ladonna still didn’t move. Was she going into shock? Silence reigned, one that Thea didn’t care to break. Blade moved closer to her, placing his hand on the back of her chair.

  “So,” Ladonna said brightly, “what do we do now? Have you checked?”

  Thea kept her temper with an effort. “Yes. And we’ve called the bank and stopped any further leakage.”

  “Right.”

  “I flew to the border yesterday,” Blade said, “but I didn’t find him. He won’t get across legally, though.”

  “Okay. What a mess.”

  What had happened with Ladonna? Was she with the program? “Do you understand, sis? Chester has absconded with all the company funds, plus the contents of my personal account and overdrawn me to the max. He must have planned this.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he planned it.” Ladonna gave a scornful snort. “He wasn’t clever enough to do that. You know what I think?” Leaning forward, she jabbed a finger at Thea. “It was you. Whatever you said to him when he came to you the night before the wedding drove him away.”

  “He asked me to run away with him! He’d already decided to jilt you.”

  “And you didn’t come to tell me?”

  Thea swallowed. The truth was she couldn’t face another of her sister’s bridezilla tantrums. “I thought he’d gotten cold feet. I never imagined he’d run off the way he did.” Carefully she unfurled her hand, which had clenched into a fist.

  “Well, you should have told me. You know he’d dump me, and you said nothing? Maybe if you’d come to me we could have stopped him doing this.”

  That was true. But no, no it wasn’t. Another rapid reassessment gave her more insight. Ladonna always did this, turned anything that went wrong against herself, even if it was at Thea’s expense. “You were obsessed with your wedding. How could I get any sense out of you? I couldn’t bear another tantrum. I was worn out.”

  Ladonna flicked a glance up at Blade, her mouth turning in disdain. “Or you were too busy with your new boyfriends.” She addressed Blade. “How about it? I bet she fell into your arms, huh? Nobody’s shown her that kind of attention before. If you hadn’t turned her head, she might have been thinking straight.”

  Did she expect Blade to beg for her forgiveness? Not a fucking chance. But then, she didn’t know Blade other than the affable host.

  “I’ve never known her to do anything else,” Blade said, his voice even deeper than usual. Thea didn’t need to read him to know he was angry, but unlike Ladonna, Blade was a grownup.

  Renaud ste
pped up on her other side, like another bodyguard. “Thea is taking this well. What do you propose to do about this situation, Ladonna? You owe Goldclaw Ranch a lot of money, don’t forget.”

  Ladonna opened her mouth then closed it, obviously rethinking whatever she was going to say.

  The sun chose that moment to come out. It had hidden behind the clouds for most of the day. Now it streamed through the window and across the vacant bed, as if reminding them of the absent groom.

  “We can think about that when I get back from The Bahamas,” Ladonna said eventually. “You stopped any more money going out? Then tomorrow, get on to the bank and let’s see if we can do anything about reclaiming the money. It won’t get any worse in a week.”

  “Two weeks,” Thea reminded her. “And it could.”

  Ladonna gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It won’t. If I have all this to deal with, I need a break.”

  “What about Thea?” Blade burst out. “Didn’t you think to ask her to go with you?”

  Ladonna broke into shocked laughter. “Thea? She’s never liked the sun. She always runs from it. Never goes to the tanning salon. Besides, somebody’s got to stay at home and mind things. She can go on vacation after me. Thea likes museums and libraries, you know?”

  “It appears you’ve thought of everything.” Renaud moved to between the sisters, prowling to her side of the table.

  “It’s not just that.” Thea watched as Ladonna tried to turn everything around. Prove that she was the worst affected of them all, but she was beginning to suspect she was not. When Chester had left her for her sister, Thea had been heartbroken, but not surprised. Thea always got the men she wanted. But had she really wanted Chester, or did she want to humiliate Thea? Again?

  Thea had bested Ladonna all through school, but Ladonna ran with the cool girls, pretended not to care that Thea was carrying all the honors.

  If she was a proper sister, she’d want you to be happy. Blade sounded grim. Thea glanced up at him, and his expression softened. He moved his hand to the back of her chair to her shoulder, pressing warmly. Don’t let her win.

  I won’t. She couldn’t begin to say how valuable she found his support, and Renaud’s, but they would have made no difference to what she decided now. “You’re right. I like museums and libraries, and you like beaches and fun. Let’s call it a day, Ladonna. When you get back from vacation, let’s do something else. Separately.”

  Ladonna shocked laughter rang around the suite as her pink-lipsticked mouth turned in a sneer. “You wouldn’t last long without me in the wedding business. Chester and I brought all the trade to you. You can’t just set up an office and wait for people to come, you know. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to make this a success.”

  “You asked me to skip getting my doctorate and work with you. It was your idea.”

  “And you said yes,” Ladonna said reasonably, leaning back and examining her nails. She shot a glance at Renaud, now standing by her chair, smiling winsomely. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement about the bill here.” She winked.

  Renaud’s haughty expression showed every nuance of his upbringing and his status. He stared at her, his blue eyes as cold as Thea had ever seen them. “I’m sure we can. We could demand immediate repayment.”

  “Oh, I thought my sister was working on that.”

  Renaud’s gaze turned to below zero. “No. She is working on keeping your heads above water.”

  Ladonna tried raising a brow and tilting her head in the come-hither expression that had brought men running before. It didn’t work. “Maybe she needs some help.”

  “Maybe she does. But not from you. She has just made that clear, and I will stand witness to that.”

  Even Ladonna couldn’t ignore that snub. Huffing, she turned her shoulder and turned back to Thea. “You can’t want to stay with these two. They’re using you, you know that? I’ve been talking to the staff, and these two latch onto any good-looking woman who comes through those doors. Not to mention them tearing you to pieces as you sleep.”

  Blade’s low growl sounded more tiger-like than human. He was close to the edge.

  Thea put her hand over his, where it lay on her shoulder. “I’m here because I choose to be.” She knew they had no future, but she’d take what was on offer and walk away with her head high. She had nothing to be ashamed of. “And their tigers are beautiful. Not tame, because tigers are never tame.” She left the last remark hanging there, a warning to Ladonna.

  With a swish of silk, she got to her feet and turned to Blade. “I’m ready to leave now.” She glanced over her shoulder at Ladonna. She could thank her sister for teaching her that gesture.

  “Hey, that’s a gorgeous dress. Do you feel like loaning it to me? And the evening gown you wore last night. Remember, you said you’d lend it?”

  Before today, Thea might have let Ladonna “borrow” the dresses to keep her quiet. But she had no reason to do that any longer. “No,” she said simply, reaching for Blade’s hand.

  Renaud strode ahead to open the door for her, and they left.

  “Have a good vacation,” he said to Ladonna.

  “Oh, I will,” she assured him. But she didn’t sound as sure as before.

  Chapter Eleven

  “How did two parents produce such…different sisters?” Blade demanded when they’d reached the privacy of their apartment. Ladonna was spiteful and cruel. Her lack of interest in the state of the company she had founded shocked him. At first he’d thought she was putting a brave face on things. Fuck, he’d thought he’d seen some of Thea in her, but Ladonna had destroyed that part of her, too.

  Thea shrugged. “When we were kids, we went in different directions. I worked hard at school and earned a spot at a good university. Ladonna hung with the in-crowd, the girls who always had great makeup and clothes but didn’t bother paying attention at lessons. Thinking back, she wanted to make a place for herself.”

  “That’s fair enough.” Renaud stripped off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. “But not when she does it at your expense.”

  Thea plopped down on the nearest sofa, gazing at the view outside. It calmed her, reminded her of the world continuing, whatever she did. “She was one of the cool kids. But I didn’t care because I’d found what I needed. Then our parents disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Blade halted and stared. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  Thea tried to explain. “Well, it felt that way. One Friday they were here, and the next, the car spun off the road. They’d gone away for a short break just after Ladonna left school. They were supposed to come back on the Monday, but they never did. Just a stupid accident, nobody to blame. And suddenly Ladonna and I were alone. It was us against the world. We had the house, and Ladonna went out to work. She got a great job at a Fifth Avenue dress store, and I finished my degree. Then we came up with the wedding business. I wanted to do my doctorate, but I couldn’t afford it.” She shrugged off the remembrance of the pain she’d experienced that day. “I thought the business would be a way for me to make enough money to go back to school. It was working, too, until this weekend. Until Chester.”

  “And how did you meet him?” Renaud went through to the kitchen, and she followed, Blade coming after. She took a seat at the table in the corner as the familiar smell of coffee filled the air.

  “At a nightclub.” A smile twitched at her lips. “Ladonna had dragged me along. I was sitting at a table when Chester asked me to dance. Then he asked me to dinner. He flattered me, but I was ready for it. For the first time ever I met someone who preferred me to my sister.” When Blade opened his mouth to speak, she raised a hand. She wanted to finish her thought. “It was true, but then Ladonna wanted him. I thought our cozy family dinners were great. Ladonna had another man in tow back then, so she didn’t turn her attention to Chester until she discovered who he was. Or so it seemed at the time. He could be really persuasive. Maybe he wanted both of us, but when I found out he was cheating on me with
my sister, I dropped him. But then he asked Ladonna to marry him.”

  There, she’d said it, gotten her pathetic story out and not cried. Strangely, she didn’t want to cry. She didn’t care that her sister had taken that piece of shit from her. And Ladonna had set out to do it. “I think it was the challenge. She wanted to see if she could. Well, she could and did.”

  “Leaving you on your own and out of the clique again.” Renaud sat next to her and tucked her under his arm. She leaned into him, savoring his hard, warm strength.

  “I got on with working. We did well with Chester, better than we were doing on our own.” She sighed. “If we’d just carried on for a while, we could have made a real success. I wanted to make my college fund and leave Ladonna and Chester the business.”

  Gently, Blade put a steaming mug of coffee in front of her, served just the way she liked it. “You look after me so well.” She curved her hands around the white pottery and took a reinvigorating sip.

  “We want to carry on doing that for a little while longer.” Blade sat on her other side. With these men to support her, she felt safe and cared for. But she’d better watch out. Nobody had cared for her like that since she was a kid, and she’d learned the hard way to be self-sufficient.

  “But I have to go home, even if Ladonna isn’t coming with me.”

  “No you don’t.” Renaud hugged her close. “Think about it. When we get Chester back—and we will get him back—you’ll need to be close. We’ll prosecute him for non-payment of the bill here, to keep him until your bank has itself sorted out.”

  “Oh, yes, that would be great!” But she had something else to tell them. “I don’t think I’ll be as lucky.” She swallowed. “I was so stupid. I let Chester have my card and my PIN. He needed some money for…it doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t even remember. “But it was only fifty bucks, and I had the flu. He came back with the card, and I didn’t think anything of it. That was while we were together.”

  Renaud groaned. “He sounds more and more like a con man. He probably duped your card then and kept it for a better time. Fucking bastard.” He paused. “But you’ll get your money back. I’m sure of that.”