Mindy looked at the fire pit, marveling that she’d helped build it just a few days earlier. She felt like she’d been at Hilltop Ranch forever. She couldn’t imagine being back at work Monday, or even driving through Dallas to get to her apartment. Instead of trying—which made her shoulders tense and her belly ache—she let the late afternoon peace settle over her. The moment was fleeting and bittersweet, but she’d take what she could get.
“Mindy, where’d Logan get off to?” Marlene asked.
“Front porch.” She didn’t need to look over to the house to answer. “He had some invoices he needed to go over before supper. Is there something I can help you with? I’d be happy to go ask—”
“Oh no, no. Just wondering. You let him work for now so he can be free to eat later.”
Thelma poked Marlene in the side. “She’d be happy to go ask him, if you need something.”
“I’ll bet. But I don’t need anything.” Marlene shouldered her friend back, then shook her head and smiled at Mindy. “Don’t you mind us. But the two of you are very cute together. Have you set the date yet?”
Mindy’s face flushed so fast and hot she thought her skin might literally be smoking. “Uh . . .”
“Marlene,” Thelma chided. “She doesn’t have a ring.”
Oh, help me, Jesus. “We’re really just friends. I live in Dallas. It’s not . . . not that kind of deal.” She was tempted to tell them exactly what kind of deal it was. She had to get out before she blurted something about floggers and domination. “I’ll just go check on dinner.”
As she backed away then turned and ran, she could hear Thelma and Marlene chiding each other. She didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was to get away from the gossip danger zone. Even if that meant marching straight to the porch of the main house, where Logan sat on the creaky swing with a stack of papers and his laptop.
On the way she passed Chet and Diego, staggering back toward the fire pit with a galvanized tub full of ice and longnecks. They were studiously avoiding eye contact, and Chet’s jaw was clenched again. Mindy had no idea what the story was there, but she could tell there was one, and likely a doozy. She’d remembered them as good friends from way back. Diego was a masochist, she’d gleaned that much on this visit. Chet seemed like such an obvious Dom. But who knew, maybe they’d just fallen out over high school football or politics or something.
Logan spotted her on the steps and closed his laptop, stacking it on top of the papers on the bench, as she reached the porch. “Fire all ready to go?”
“Waiting for the inaugural match. And I guess for the trail ride to be over, so everybody can see. Did Lamar already radio Robert? I smelled the barbecue firing up.”
“Yep. Any chance you’d help Lamar put the horses up? That way maybe folks can get their dinner a little faster and we can get the whole fire party on before it’s full dark.”
“I don’t count as ‘folks’?” she teased. “Sure, no problem.”
“I could order you to do it.” He fake-frowned, as if he were seriously considering it, and started the swing in motion with both feet.
“Well, you know, then if I screwed up you’d have to put me over your knee in front of all those people, and the jig would be up, so it’s probably for the best if you don’t. I’ll volunteer. Just save me some ribs, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can I put you over my knee later, though?”
Mindy smiled and glanced out over the porch rail. Nobody was nearby. Probably everybody wanted to give the “lovebirds” their space. “I don’t think I have any unblemished real estate left back there, but I guess you could try.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Logan . . .” She hadn’t put her foot down last night, which was probably a mistake. Facing him again, she set her shoulders and forced herself to shut that prospect down. “I’m going back to Dallas tomorrow, and I’m going to stay in Dallas. I can’t come back here. It wouldn’t be healthy for me.”
He crossed his arms across his chest, squinting at her, and she suddenly saw the family resemblance between him and Chet.
“You said yourself you felt homesick for this place. That means it’s part of you. And this week . . . you look so at home here. Like you belong here. And you seem happy here, and miserable about going back to Dallas. For which I don’t blame you. But I don’t see how coming to a place where you feel more like yourself isn’t healthy.”
She wanted him to be wrong. Clearly and demonstrably wrong. It infuriated her that he wasn’t. “I was happy on vacation. But I have to look at the long term. I thought, I don’t know, that I’d reinvented myself after I left here. That I was somebody new and better now. Like a swan. But from the first day back here I’ve done nothing but come smack up against the fact that I’m still just the ugly duckling. I was never the swan. So what have I been doing all this for? I feel like coming back will only remind me of that. Make me feel bad about what I’ve accomplished.”
Logan chuckled, a little puff of air that spoke of wistfulness as much as it did amusement. “Have you ever met a swan? I don’t recommend it. They’re pretty from a distance but up close they’re kind of nasty. They’ll attack anybody who tries to come into their territory. Seriously, they’re some of the bigger assholes of the bird world.” He let the forward motion of the swing propel him to a standing position, one sweeping move that brought him straight in front of her. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as he brought his hands up to her cheeks. “But more importantly, Mindy, you were never the ugly duckling.”
“I know, I know. I was the homecoming queen. But really only because of vote division. Honestly, it should have been Annalise Hernandez, but then she and Lisa Thibodeaux had that god-awful fight, and their boyfriends started smear-campaigning, and—”
“I remember, but that’s not what I meant. It’s that you always seemed to know where you belonged, and you always seemed to . . . I don’t know, be so happy when you were making other people feel happy? I guess your parents had their issues, I’m sure that was a problem at home and maybe what I saw was only you compensating for that. But as far as school or the stables, or anywhere else you showed up . . . you were always so good at getting in there, being part of the group. Helping out, organizing things, being ten places at once. You kind of made things better wherever you went. This week you’ve made things better here. You’re really good at that and you seem to enjoy it. It makes me sad to think you aren’t getting that in Dallas.” He stroked her jawline with his thumbs, pushed his fingertips into the hair behind her ears. Held her like she mattered. Like she was a precious thing he was afraid to drop.
She needed him to stop, or she was going to cry, and that wouldn’t make things better for anything. It would have been so much easier if he’d been wrong. If he’d been an asshole. She reached up and squeezed his hands, then pulled away and made fists by her thighs to keep from reaching out for him again.
“I make things better at work. I’m good at my job. I’ve worked so hard to be good at it. Too hard to let myself get turned around by a bunch of emotional stuff I don’t have time for.”
The hurt on his face echoed in her gut. But what was she supposed to do? She wasn’t wrong, she wasn’t lying. She had worked hard to get where she was. This week’s mammoth failure aside, she was good at what she did, and she had invested a huge amount of time and effort in her career. It wasn’t smart to fuck that up just to get laid, no matter how brilliantly.
“I’ll come there,” he blurted.
Mindy’s jaw literally dropped for a second before she could respond. “I had not even considered that possibility.”
“I hadn’t, either,” he admitted. “But listen, it could work. I don’t have a sub right now, you don’t have a dom, neither of us is seeing anyone outside the lifestyle, either, right? And this week was great. We’d be stupid to just let it go. We can make it work. We can make something work.”
Hope rose in her chest, seasoned with flattery and a sudden ridiculous affection
. “We . . . could try?”
“Yes!”
The trail riders chose that moment to return, the whole group shouting and waving to them en route past the house to the barn. Mindy cleared her throat as she waved back, then turned to Logan, unsure what to say or how to feel. Too soon, too sudden.
“And maybe I could drive down sometimes, too. That seems only fair. Especially if the barn was free.” She wanted to keep it on that footing, the D/s level. That seemed safer than suggesting they were trying to start up an actual . . . relationship.
Logan raised an eyebrow. “But we still get to go to the old drive-in.”
“Okay. No scary movies, though,” she bargained, sensing she’d already lost any hope of control over this thing between them. It was going wherever it was going, taking on a life of its own. “Because it’s a huge abandoned field and we’d be there, unauthorized, after dark, and that seems like an open invitation to a hatchet murderer.”
“You worry about murderers way too much.”
“Maybe you don’t worry about them enough,” she suggested, looking past him toward the barn. “I should go help Lamar.”
“Yeah, I need to help Robert, so . . .”
“I’ll see you by the fire in a bit.”
They hesitated, then moved in for an awkward hug that turned into something else halfway through. Not exactly friendly anymore, but not sexy, either. Something tender and new and too good to examine right then.
Mindy stepped away first and ran off the porch after the trail riders, her heart beating like a hummingbird’s wings.
* * *
Stable duty turned out to be an easier task than she’d feared. It was cool enough outside, and it had been a slow enough ride, that none of the horses required much grooming. By sunset, she and Lamar were finished and headed back to the fire pit, where Logan greeted her with a plate of ribs and corn on the cob.
Hunger was the best sauce, not that the barbecue needed it. Like everything Robert had cooked that week, it was insanely good; the man was a genius in the kitchen and an artist over the grill.
She wondered if Logan would find more jobs for her to do before the evening was out. He seemed determined to fill every last minute of her remaining time, almost as if he could make her forget she wasn’t really a part of the Hilltop crew. Or as if he himself kept forgetting that she didn’t quite belong here.
She had trouble remembering that herself. When she’d finished her barbecue and stood by the fire pit chatting with the Jacksons, Bob made some corny joke and she laughed and caught Logan’s eye and they’d shared a smile that was pure benign conspiracy. They both knew the joke was corny, but they both liked Bob because he seemed like a nice guy. That glance of pure understanding made her feel like they were suddenly in this thing together, Mindy and Logan. Partners in crime. It was an entirely novel, intoxicating way to feel about another person, and she had no idea what to do with it.
Logan caught her by the hand when he was ready to start the fire, positioning her next to him. “Okay, let’s light this baby up. The inaugural run of the Hilltop Ranch fire pit.” He lit the long fireplace match, touched it to the bundled newspaper in a few places, then tossed it into the gathering flames and stepped back, putting his arm around Mindy’s shoulders.
Everybody clapped as the fire flickered and spread. When the applause died down, Mindy slowly slipped her arm around Logan’s waist, giving him a subtle squeeze. When he looked down at her, she smiled back and hoped her expression told him she was proud of him. It had been a good week. He might not be able to make the ranch a going concern in the long run, but everybody’d had a good time, and that was worth something.
And maybe all hope wasn’t lost, after all. There were always new ideas, new possibilities for him to try.
They could try. That was all they could do, but it seemed like enough.
The fire was really crackling when a crunch of boots on gravel caught Mindy’s attention and she glanced off toward the path that led down to the cabins and the parking lot.
A balding, silver-haired man in a dark suit was approaching the fire, his features shadowed. He scanned the small crowd, his eyes finally landing on Mindy the moment he stepped close enough for her to recognize him.
She whispered, “Oh, it’s . . .” at the same time Logan dropped his arm from her shoulders.
It was Bud Jameson.
* * *
Logan put his hand behind his back as he watched Jameson step into the ring of firelight, and he pinched himself hard. He was that convinced he must be having a nightmare.
His stomach tightened ominously around the rib dinner as Jameson reached out for Mindy, pulling her into a hug.
“How’s my girl?”
She’s not your fucking girl. Hot and pure and absolute, that was his first instinct, and he wanted to slam that truth into this asshole’s face with his fist and lay him out cold with it. Mindy didn’t reciprocate the hug; she stood stiffly and endured it, and Logan’s only impulse was to get the guy off her.
But then the truth slammed back, worse than any punch. Of course she was Bud Jameson’s girl. She had been all along. Had probably been reporting to Jameson the whole time.
Logan’s skin started crawling, and he bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep from saying the first several things that popped into his mind after that realization.
“Mr. Hill!” Bud released Mindy and turned toward Logan. Mindy just stood where her stepfather had left her, staring down at the fire like the life had been sucked out of her. Possibly because her job was done now, and she didn’t need to pretend anymore. What an exhausting fucking week it must have been for her.
Swallowing bile and barbecue sauce, Logan forced a grin and stuck his hand out to meet Bud’s. “Mr. Jameson.”
“Oh, call me Bud, call me Bud. Nice little hideaway you got here. Hope you don’t mind my party-crashing.” Jameson chuckled, looking around at the guests, who seemed puzzled by the visitor but willing enough to be charmed. “I was having dinner with a friend down in town and thought I’d stop by and check on Mindy. See how the vacation went.”
Mindy turned around as though she realized some interaction would be appropriate. “Fine until now,” she muttered, staring off toward the house.
It was obvious she couldn’t wait to get away. Logan didn’t blame her. He couldn’t wait for her to get away, either.
“Oh, now,” Jameson dismissed her. His folksy charm grated on Logan’s nerves.
Robert and Diego started passing out marshmallows and long sticks, diverting the rest of the group’s attention away from the tense scene playing out between Logan and Mindy and this new, too-friendly stranger. Chet shot Logan a questioning glance, but accepted a shrug-off—though he frowned and immediately fell into an equally tense conversation with Ethan.
Something pricked at Logan’s mind—the fact that Jameson had even bothered with making a flimsy excuse for being in the neighborhood. “Dinner with a friend down in town?”
“Sure. Derek Larch.”
The name sounded familiar . . . Oh. “My loan officer.”
Jameson nodded, then shook his head with a heavy sigh. “You know, that boy has too much on his plate right now. And I told him, you know Derek, I’ve been in this business a long time. And when you have a heavy load, sometimes the only thing you can do is to pass along some of your riskier ventures.” He lowered his voice, so the guests couldn’t overhear, though he kept the same jovial tone. “Like bank loans you’re afraid might be defaulted on, because the business concern doesn’t seem too sound, and the proprietors have already been in for several talks about extending payment periods.”
“No,” Mindy said.
Bud patted her arm. “Pumpkin, you’ve given this one a really good shot, and frankly done more than I could’ve ever asked for, but it’s time for you to go roast some marshmallows and leave this to Pop and Mr. Hill to hash out. And text your mother, she’d like to hear from you.”
Mindy’s upper lip
flexed, and the skin around her eyes went taut as she stared at her stepfather. She swallowed, and raised her balled fists to the level of her waist before lowering them along with her eyes.
In that few seconds, Logan would not have been surprised if Mindy had plucked one of the marshmallow sticks from the stack and skewered Bud Jameson in the heart with it. Then puked on his corpse, because she looked as ready to hurl as Logan felt. But then Logan remembered Mindy’s role in all this. She might not like her stepfather, that much was clear, but the woman obviously knew which side her bread was buttered on.
Mindy exhaled, trembling with whatever emotion gripped her. When she spoke again, her voice was a rasp, a scoured whisper without hope. “I wasn’t talking to you, Bud.” Then she lifted her eyes to Logan’s. “I didn’t do this.”
He couldn’t answer her. His brain and mouth and heart didn’t have enough organization to get out a coherent thought. After a moment she spun and walked away. Down the gravel path. Out of sight between the trees. Probably to her cabin. Possibly only to gather her bags and leave right that instant.
Now was not the time he could think about that.
“Sometime in the next few weeks, I propose we have a sit-down,” Jameson said, pivoting slightly to take in the people, the fire, the silhouetted hills, the last scraps of red at the edge of the darkened sky. Everything Logan held dear and was probably about to lose. “We can still do this the easy way. I can make you a rich man. Trust me, sport, it’s better than the hard way. You are not cut out for the hard way. And neither is that poor fella down at your pissant bank. You can keep what you have and enjoy it with some wells on it. Or I will own all this and I will fucking destroy you in the process.”
“You—”
Jameson turned around and held up a hand. “Part of the easy way includes me pretending not to care whether you’ve been fucking my damn stepdaughter.”
Enough. Logan closed his eyes, shook his head. He only had one more question in him. Anything else he’d have to deal with tomorrow. “Did she call you and tell you to come here after she’d softened me up enough? Was that the plan all along?”
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