“I cannot pay you.” Her voice was urgent and her embarrassment complete, but there was no story she could offer him other than the truth. “While we need help, there are just not enough funds to keep this ranch going at the same pace you remember.”
“I’ll be working to protect my investment, not for your payment.” Jesse put his hat back on and gave her a warning look. “If I’m partnering with your father to get this ranch back on track, I intend to see my profit at the end of this deal.”
“Of course.” She nearly breathed a sigh of relief. Jesse Greenwood’s visit was as surprising as it was welcome. He was only looking for a business deal while he was in town, and he’d chosen Breighton. “How long are you staying in Hamilton?”
“Three months, maybe. Until Loretta’s married.” He rubbed his chin, his smooth hands scratching over his new beard. The look would take some getting used to, but it fit him. “Encouraged a marriage between her and a doctor’s son, Robert. It’s a good match.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Loretta and Robert? She’d seen Jesse’s sister coming around the ranch every week to visit Preston. “But she and Preston have always made eyes at each other. Everyone in Hamilton knows that.”
He scoffed. “Ain’t no way in hell she’s marrying Preston. He’s just a cowhand. I’m going to see her into a higher station in life.”
She furrowed her brow. “A higher station?”
“She thinks she’s in love, but someday she’ll understand.” His voice was nonchalant. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but dismissive.
“She and Preston are inseparable, though.”
“Maybe it’s better if they just forget they ever knew each other.”
Evelyn drew in a sharp breath. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t remember those last words.
• • •
Loretta ran her fingers over the wooden posts of the corral. “I’m so glad you’re helping to fix up the ranch.”
Jesse surveyed Breighton’s livestock. Glancing over the number of cattle grazing in the far fields was enough to estimate the number of cattle had increased, too. More men were needed to manage such a large herd. “I’m a business partner this time, not just another ranch hand.”
“How’s Evelyn?”
Jesse shot Loretta a quick look.
His sister rolled her eyes. Her fingers stopped over the top of one of the posts, and she leaned forward against it. “Oh, don’t lie to me. You still care for her.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m just here for business.”
“There’s nothing wrong with admitting you care for her.” Loretta smoothed out the creases of her lavender wool dress. “You never stopped.”
“I never told you that.”
“No, you didn’t.” Loretta stepped away from the corral. She shifted her blond curls to one side of her head, all the while peering at him with a critical eye. “Your questions about her spoke loudly enough. ‘Is she married?’ ‘How many men court her?’ ‘Does she ever talk about me?’”
He gritted his teeth. “Nothing wrong with trying to keep up with the news in Hamilton.”
“You don’t care about anything that happens in Hamilton.” She smirked. “You came here to see her.”
He scuffed his dusty stovetop boots against the dirt. “I barely see her around the ranch anyhow.”
“Only because I’m sure you’re avoiding her. Didn’t she give you a room in the big house?” Loretta asked. She tucked a wisp of blond hair behind her ear, but her gaze wasn’t on him. Instead, she stared at the ranch hands behind him. “You’re dying to get back out there on the ranch again, aren’t you?”
He looked over his shoulder to see what captured her attention, or rather who captured it. He frowned when he realized who stared back at her. “Maybe I am. And you’re dying to talk to Preston again, aren’t you?”
Loretta averted her eyes. She dropped the lock of blond hair she’d been curling around her finger as a pink blush bloomed in her cheeks. “And maybe I am, too.”
“He’s just a ranch hand, Loretta.” Jesse tried to keep his voice even. “I’ve given you enough money to rise out of that station. Robert wants to marry you. He’s from a good family. It’s a much better match.”
She huffed and walked away toward the house. He turned around to glare at Preston and then followed her. “Loretta! Loretta, come back here.”
“No!” She spun around. He winced when he noticed her scowl. “You’ve already told me who to marry, haven’t you? I know I can’t marry Preston. But you don’t get to tell me anything else. You can’t stop me from visiting him.”
Jesse stood there as she stormed away. His sister stopped in the clearing in front of the house, where her buggy was waiting. The driver held his hand out for her, but she refused the help and climbed in herself. Without another look at Jesse, she said something to the driver and the horse and buggy began moving down the road toward Hamilton.
“You don’t have to be so hard on her, you know.”
He turned around at the voice, distracting him from the sound of the buggy wheels rolling away. The voice was soft, feminine, and dangerous.
The sleeves of her oversized blue shirt were rolled up and she wore a pair of cotton trousers underneath. A black-brimmed hat covered her head, and her hair was tucked in a neat bun in the back. Dust covered her clothes. If not for her slim shoulders and short height, Evelyn was just another cowboy helping out at the ranch.
“Seems like she’s spirited enough even when I try to scold her.” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. What was he going to do with his baby sister? He hadn’t even told her he was working at the ranch again; she’d shown up on her own. Clearly she hadn’t been here to visit him. He didn’t even want to consider what she would have told Preston if he hadn’t been here.
“Loretta is scared of disobeying you.” He couldn’t miss the fact they were less than a foot apart. He shifted in place as her honeysuckle scent filled his nostrils. “She does not need to be reminded.”
“Reminded about what?”
“That she has no choice in who she will marry.”
“And if I let her choose?” His eyes glanced at her bee-stung lips, full and slightly parted. They’d chapped from days on the ranch, but they still looked as kissable as he remembered. “She’ll choose Preston.”
“What is wrong with her choice?”
“He’s beneath her.”
Evelyn didn’t respond. She stared back at Jesse, her lips pressed together into a thin line. “A marriage is something she has to live with for the rest of her life. She should be able to choose whom she spends her valuable time with. She deserves better.”
He felt like someone had socked him in the stomach. Was that why she hadn’t married him, or anyone, for that matter? No man had been worth her time. He didn’t doubt she’d find a husband soon—some rich fella to snap her up with his blue-blooded “better.”
“Preston’s not enough for her.”
“No. She deserves to live a life with love.” She lifted her chin upward. “She does not have to live with regret.”
He grimaced. As if Evelyn could tell him how to take care of his sister. “She’ll understand when she’s older.”
“She will not.” Her voice trembled, which made him question her meaning, though she looked at him with stubborn resolve in her eyes. “She will never understand why she could not marry the one she loved.”
“Didn’t stop you,” Jesse muttered under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I said it didn’t stop you.” He narrowed his eyes. How could she suddenly vouch for Loretta? “Your father never liked me. You listened to him, just like my sister listens to me.”
“This has nothing to do with me. Loretta and I are different people.”
He suppressed the urge to groan. Her shoulders were still thrown back with an appearance of authority, but her eyes no longer seemed so sure of her words.
“Preston is just a cowboy.
Loretta deserves better. So did you.”
“Preston could make something out of himself. He could go west, like you did. Then he would be enough for Loretta.” The words tumbled out of Evelyn’s mouth, as if she couldn’t get them out fast enough. “You would let her marry him then, surely?”
Jesse was starting to wonder whether they were talking about his sister or Evelyn. “I may have wealth, but I’m still just a ranch hand at heart. So is Preston. Let’s face it—we wouldn’t work even if I became king of England. It’s about where I come from, not what I’m doing.”
Her voice was quiet. “How would you know?”
“Nothing I do will change the fact that my parents abandoned my sister and me, and nothing Preston can do will change the fact that he’s an orphan. We don’t come from the right families, Evelyn. If the doctor’s son wants to marry my sister, this is her only chance at a better life.”
“A life devoid of love is not a better life.”
He threw his hands into the air. “You don’t get it, do you?” He gritted his teeth. “Marriage is the only way Loretta can make it into a better class, a better group of people. Her sons and daughters will all come from the right family. You rich folks just don’t understand. You wouldn’t know any different.”
Anger flared in her emerald eyes and she edged two steps toward him, pointing her index finger at his chest. “I am not some sheltered, upper-class princess, Jesse. I have put more work into Breighton than anyone else here to keep it from going bankrupt!”
He remained silent. She was close enough that if he just tilted his head, his lips would brush past hers. She stood there against him, breathing heavily. The seconds ticked by. Honeysuckle overwhelmed him. Her cheeks flushed and the heat pressed against both of their bodies; her gaze relaxed more and more the longer they locked eyes. Was her heart thumping as loudly as his?
“Jesse!” one of the other ranch hands called to the cowboy. The man’s horse neighed and pawed the air for a few seconds. “We need your help. The herd’s heading the wrong way!”
Both Jesse and Evelyn stepped back as if they’d been caught doing what was real in his imagination. He cleared his throat, and nodded to the ranch hand. “I’ll be right there.” He walked away without another glance in her direction.
Years ago, he’d believed nothing was more dangerous than a solitary journey to California. He was wrong.
Resisting the fall back into Eve Lancaster’s arms would be the most perilous task of all.
• • •
The years hadn’t changed his ability to take her breath away.
There was something about watching him work that excited her, had ever since he’d arrived at her father’s ranch with his eight-year-old sister. Her father told her some boy had approached the house himself, asking for a job and explaining that his parents were dead. Eleven-year-old Evelyn thought it was awfully bold of him. She imagined him to be a masculine thirty, unspeakably rugged, and possess a wary look in his eye that had seen the world.
When she actually saw him in person, she was disappointed. He was short, skinny, and twelve. He was all awkward angles and tufts of brown hair, too-long-for-his-body scrawny arms, and a reticent disposition. But then she’d watched him work.
He proved to be their best rider and cattle herder by the age of fourteen and started leading the other ranch hands before fifteen. When the cowboys trotted out with cattle, his horse would always be the one guiding the others. Most times he would sit calmly and poised in his saddle, as Evelyn imagined a king would sit in his throne.
Then when the ranch hands gathered the herd back into the corral, he would lean forward, clucking his tongue and yelling out commands. His shoulders would be thrown back, the lean, corded muscles in his forearms prominent as he rolled up his dusty sleeves. He looked so at ease; he looked at home. There was nowhere he belonged more than on the ranch.
The years hadn’t changed him. Not really. His clothes were better quality, and the facial scruff was new, but otherwise he looked just as natural on horseback as he always did. Still the same proud stance with his shoulders back, broad chest puffed out as he commanded the herd of cattle, like not a day had passed since he left Breighton.
If she just stared at him long enough, she could pretend the years of separation had never occurred. She was still that same fifteen-year-old girl holding a torch for her cowboy, admiring him through the window.
It was only when he looked up on his way to the corral now that he noticed Evelyn. She turned her head away from the glass window, cheeks flushed. This was what, the third time he’d caught her staring at him?
She groaned inwardly. That wasn’t even counting their encounter after Loretta left. She’d been so angry at him for pigeonholing her with the title of rich folks. She didn’t think the rich folks he referred to developed calluses and blisters from working all day under the sun.
Half of her anger had clouded over when she realized how close she stood to him. His mouth had been so close to hers. Evelyn’s fingertips brushed her lips at the memory. Just a foolish desire, hoping he would have kissed her. Why kiss the girl who caused you to hightail it all the way to California?
All she’d imagined at sixteen was meeting someone wealthy and supporting her father’s ranch. Pursue a career of her own, maybe, which would still be possible by a rich man taking care of the ranch. Jesse didn’t have a penny to his name back then. Her stomach twisted. Funny how things changed.
How could she have been so foolish? She wasn’t even Anne Elliot from Persuasion. At least the main character had been persuaded by a mentor; Evelyn had made the decision by herself. She swallowed hard. But she had been so sure she was making the right decision. It was the rational decision.
Evelyn looked down again at the stack of financial documents in her hand. Thinking about him could wait. The papers couldn’t. She strolled into her father’s bedroom.
He was still lying down, but his eyes were open and focused when he heard someone enter the room. “Evelyn? Come closer.” He beckoned her to sit down, but his voice still sounded feeble. “Doctor tells me I’m slowly getting better.”
“Just rest, Father. The ranch is in good hands.” She pursed her lips. “I made this month’s payment to the bank. Jesse’s contribution has certainly helped.”
Her father nodded. Mr. Lancaster hadn’t been in a position to refuse his help either. All she had to do was show him the numbers and he’d nearly started another coughing fit until she informed him Jesse was willing to pay back the rest of the loans.
Her father sighed. “Not excited at the idea of sharing profits with a former ranch hand, but Breighton must be saved.”
“He is not just a ranch hand, Father.” His words echoed in her mind. Her father was wrong; he needed to already recognize him as more than a cowboy. “Jesse is your business partner right now.”
“For now, that is.” He waved his hand to dismiss the topic. “How are the cowboys taking the wage cuts? No serious complaints, I hope?”
“About the wages, Father . . . the cuts may not be enough. Another ranch hand has to go. I calculated the numbers, and if we want to start operating at a profit within the next two months, those wages are going to have go back into investing in the ranch. Jesse’s technically working for free, so he can cover the extra work.” She handed the documents to him. Her father gazed out the window, where the ranch hands were taking out the cattle to graze on the pastures.
“I’ve got to get better soon and head out there to work with the boys.”
“No, you have to rest here. Working out there is only going to prolong your illness.”
“What illness? I’m as fit as a fiddle!” As if to prove a point, Mr. Lancaster attempted to sit up, and promptly began wheezing. Evelyn laid him back down again. He settled back against the pillow with a frown on his face.
“I told you not to worry about the ranch. I am already helping out.”
“But you’re wasting such a good education. You said you wou
ld be a doctor, a lawyer . . .”
“They were dreams, Father.” Her heart ached at the reminder. The ranch had fallen into financial trouble so quickly after she’d decided to continue studying at an academy. A decision didn’t always lead to a future. Further education was out of the question once her father admitted he couldn’t run Breighton alone. But she’d made the choice to stay. “Breighton is my home, too. I care about this place just as much as you do. Now rest. The documents are here for you to read when you feel well enough.”
She took the materials from his hand and placed them on the nightstand. Evelyn smoothed out the bottom of her blue dress she’d worn for today. She only wore it these days when she was going into town or seeing her father. Dresses had no place in a corral.
But as long as she was wearing an outfit that didn’t shock the townsfolk, she might as well run some errands. The ranch needed more horseshoes, and the blacksmith wasn’t going to come to her. She passed through the doorway of her father’s room and headed toward her own. After grabbing the payment for the blacksmith and stuffing it into her reticule, she passed by the water basin next to her bed. Vanity got the better of her. She stepped back, crouched down, and took one last look at her reflection.
She’d tried her best not to let ranch life make her let go of her appearance, but long days on horseback hadn’t done anything to smooth her weathered skin or keep her darkened complexion fair. Her suntanned, chapped skin looked nearly nothing like the girl who’d returned from an East Coast female seminary. Evelyn smiled at the water’s image. No, but her face looked better than she ever imagined it could. It spoke of hard work.
She moved down the hallway, her small boots clipping against the polished wooden flooring. Swinging open the porch door, she adjusted her reticule again. Right as she stepped through the doorway, her shoulder slammed into someone.
Jesse stood in the doorway, coming from the porch side. He turned to his right to get past her, just as she turned to her left to get past him and they ran into each other again. His familiar scent filled her senses and caused every inch of her skin to feel on fire. Her heart raced against her ribcage, hyper aware of his presence.
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