King met his gaze, his blue eyes flecked with the black in his soul. “I’ve told you how things stand. What you do is up to you.”
Matt’s heart was racing as he whirled and strode from the room. His father knew he had him over a barrel. Matt wasn’t going anywhere, despite this setback, because he didn’t want to uproot his kids again so soon. And besides, where would he move them?
He’d headed straight to the stable, afraid of what he might do or say if he ran into one of his younger sisters before he got out of the house. Thank God Pippa had come home safe and sound so soon after he’d discovered her missing, because he already had enough worries on his plate.
Trust King to screw him! Matt didn’t give a damn about Kingdom Come. He planned to sell the ranch the instant the three hundred and sixty-five days he had to live here were done. He’d been making changes because he could see the potential here, and he’d figured he might as well spend the year increasing the value of his property.
And because he would go crazy if he didn’t have something to keep his mind off all the other disasters that had occurred to force him back home.
He set down the brush he’d been using to groom Pippa’s mount and slung his arm around the horse’s neck, leaning his cheek against the sleek hide, swallowing hard over the painful constriction in his throat, and blinking to stave off tears.
He’d made a real mess of his life.
The horse turned his head around to check on Matt, and he let go and smoothed a hand across the animal’s withers. “I’m fine, thank you very much.”
He left the stall, but he still wasn’t ready to head back to the house, so he walked in the opposite direction. The night was cold, and he zipped up his fleece and shoved his hands into the pockets.
He should have known better than to come here. He should have known King wouldn’t honor his bargain. After all, he’d lied to Matt in the past. What had made him think King wouldn’t lie to him again?
But he hadn’t had much choice. It wasn’t only Pippa’s pregnancy that had convinced him to accept King’s offer. He needed to get Nathan away from his prescription-drug-addicted mother, who was making noises like she wanted Nathan to come spend more time with her in Darwin. He wasn’t about to let that happen, especially after what had occurred the last time he’d left Nathan alone with her.
His belly churned as he recalled the moment he’d seen his small, unconscious son in a large white hospital bed. The doctors had wanted to amputate Nathan’s right leg. Irene had been so drugged up she’d been incoherent. She’d already told the doctors they could do whatever they thought was best.
He’d arrived in the nick of time and insisted that the doctors set the bones in both of his son’s legs, instead of cutting one of them off. It had been touch and go whether Nathan would ever walk again, even with crutches. Matt blamed himself every time he saw his son limp across a room. He should have known better than to trust his child with someone as irresponsible as Irene. Coming to Wyoming was a small price to pay to protect his son.
And Matt had figured he would never have a better chance to make King pay for what he’d done all those years ago. Matt’s hate had simmered for a long time, and it hadn’t taken much to make it boil over. He knew King believed he would stay the full year at Kingdom Come. After all, he’d sold his cattle station in the Northern Territory. Where else could he go to do what he loved? Ranching was in his blood. He came from a long line of Wyoming cattlemen going back more than a hundred and fifty years. But his hate for his father was far more powerful than his desire to live his life on a ranch he’d grown up loving.
There was a fourth reason he’d returned to America. He’d come to see her. The girl to whom he’d given his heart at sixteen.
Matt never let himself think too much or too long about Pippa’s mother, because he wasn’t sure he had the courage to see her after all this time. Jennie had been a widow for a year. She was finally free. So was he. But all those years ago he’d made a choice, and he wasn’t sure Jennie was going to forgive him when he finally told her the truth about what he’d done.
On the other hand, Pippa had never needed her mother more than she did now. So maybe it was time he reached out to Jennie, time he told her that she had a daughter she believed had died at birth.
Chapter 7
“CAN YOU WATCH Nathan for me today?” Pippa asked Leah, who was brewing a cup of coffee for herself, something she did every Sunday morning after she returned from church. Pippa was bubbling with excitement over seeing Devon again, and it must have shown on her face, because Leah’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing!” The last thing she needed was a suspicious aunt looking over her shoulder.
Leah eyed the canvas bag Pippa had slung over her shoulder. “What’s in the bag?”
“A picnic lunch.” She bit back the rest of what she wanted to say. What business is it of yours where I go or what I do?
Leah leaned back against the kitchen counter, cup in hand, and said, “Couldn’t you take Nathan with you? Shouldn’t you take him? That’s the loneliest kid I’ve ever met.”
Pippa felt a spurt of guilt. Her brother was all alone at the ranch without any kids his age to play with. However, that situation was no different from his life on their cattle station in the Outback, where he’d managed to keep himself entertained and happy. She wasn’t sure why things were different here, but most of the time, Nathan seemed disinterested in—and disconnected from—what was going on around him.
She almost changed her mind and took her brother along, but her relationship with Devon was too new, too fragile, and she didn’t want Nathan spilling the beans to her father. Her dad was sure to misconstrue her relationship with Devon as something romantic. Which it definitely wasn’t, even though she felt distinctly lighthearted at the thought of seeing her friend again.
“I’ll take Nathan on a picnic tomorrow,” Pippa said. “Can you just watch him for me today?”
Leah hesitated so long Pippa thought she was going to say no. Her heart sank. She’d been looking forward to this picnic with Devon all week. She didn’t dare leave Nathan without someone to watch over him, and if Leah wouldn’t do it, she wasn’t sure what she would do. None of her other aunts were at home.
Taylor and Victoria had flown to Texas on the family jet—Taylor had piloted the plane—and Eve had left Kingdom Come as well. She’d moved in with Connor Flynn to take care of his two young children in exchange for his letting her keep her wild mustangs on his ranch. Eve had apparently rescued her wild horse band from the slaughterhouse, which raised Pippa’s opinion of her aunt quite a bit.
Eve’s sisters had freaked when it turned out Eve hadn’t just moved in with Connor—they’d gotten married! Pippa was completely confused by what her aunt had done. How could she have married one of “those awful Flynn boys” when she and her sisters supposedly hated them? Pippa couldn’t wait to ask Devon what he knew about the situation.
Of course, to do that, she needed Leah to keep an eye on Nathan for her. “Will you do it?” She almost said please, but that felt too much like begging, and she hadn’t sunk that low yet.
“Fine,” Leah said. “Be sure you tell Nathan you’re leaving. I don’t want him to think he’s being abandoned. Even if that is what you’re doing,” she muttered under her breath.
Pippa bit her tongue to stop a retort. She didn’t want to take the chance that Leah would change her mind. “I will,” she said, hurrying from the kitchen to hunt down Nathan.
She found her younger brother sitting at their grandfather’s desk. Nathan spent a surprising amount of time with King. Pippa had seen them mucking out stalls together in the barn, which was as close as Nathan was willing to get to a horse since the riding accident that had shattered the bones in both of his legs.
As she drew closer, she saw her brother was drawing on a piece of paper with her grandfather’s favorite fountain pen. “I thought Grandpa King told you he didn
’t want you in here when he wasn’t around,” she scolded. Then she saw what he was drawing.
Pippa’s stomach clenched. Nathan had drawn a picture of a stick-figure horse lying on the ground with a stick-figure child lying beside it, both of the child’s legs angled in odd directions. The child’s mouth was stretched wide in a large O, as though he were yelling. A stick figure with long, flowing hair was standing beside the horse. Nathan had drawn large, oval tears raining from the female figure’s eyes and splashing onto the ground.
Pippa frowned. “How do you know your mother was crying?” Nathan had been unconscious when he reached the hospital, and Pippa had sat by his bed with her father for several harrowing days before he awoke.
“I heard her crying.”
Pippa suppressed a gasp. “I thought the fall knocked you out. I didn’t know you were awake.”
A frown appeared between his six-year-old brows. “I screamed and screamed. Mum kept saying, ‘Shush! Shush!’ but I couldn’t ’cause it hurt so much. Mum put her hand on my mouth, but she covered my nose and I couldn’t breathe and then I don’t remember anything else.”
Pippa was shocked. She’d never heard this story before. She was certain her father hadn’t heard it, either, or Irene wouldn’t have been allowed near Nathan again. Or maybe he had heard it and hadn’t wanted Pippa to realize what Irene had done. Had she really suffocated Nathan? Had she been responsible for putting him in a coma? Pippa was shaken.
She took the crude drawing from Nathan. “May I have this?”
He shrugged. “If you want it.”
“I do. Thank you.” Pippa folded the paper and stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans. “I’m going to be away from the ranch this morning, so you need to mind Leah.”
“Can I come?”
His voice sounded so hopeful that Pippa’s heart nearly broke. She picked him up out of the chair and hugged him tight. She nearly changed her plans then and there, but she couldn’t be with him every minute of every day, and she was pretty sure Leah—who had the softest heart Pippa had ever seen—wouldn’t leave him alone for long.
“Not today, mate,” she whispered in his ear. She set him down, took both of his hands in hers, and leaned over to look him in the eye. He looked back at her with an earnestness that reminded her of her father, with the same unruly lock of black hair falling over his forehead and the same striking blue eyes. “I promise I’ll spend all day with you tomorrow, and we’ll do whatever you want.”
Nathan shot her a cheeky grin. “Anything?”
Pippa grinned back. “Uh-oh. What have I agreed to?”
“Tell you tomorrow!” he said as he pulled free and scampered from the room.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
He never looked back as he hop-skipped—a gait caused by having one leg shorter than the other—from the room. “I’m going to find Leah. She’s always got biscuits! I mean cookies!” he shouted, substituting the American word for the Australian one as his booted feet thumped down the hall.
Pippa felt relieved at her brother’s youthful resilience. She pulled the drawing out of her pocket and looked at it again. She wondered if she should give it to her father. He should know what Irene had done. But what would be the point? Irene was in Australia. She could never hurt Nathan again.
Pippa stuck the drawing back in her pocket and headed for the stable. Devon was expecting her. She needed to get her horse saddled and get on the trail.
Once she was on her way, Pippa didn’t hurry. The ride through the fragrant pine forest was every bit as enjoyable as she expected her meeting with Devon to be. Besides, it gave her more time to mull over what she wanted to ask when she saw him again.
When she reached the meadow, he waved to her from the other side, a huge smile on his face. Her heart lifted as she cantered her horse the rest of the distance to the pond. “G’day!” she called out as she dismounted. He took the reins and tied her horse beside his.
“G’day to you, too,” he said as he crossed back to join her at the stone, where she’d dropped her canvas bag and was down on her knees scratching behind Wulf’s ears. Pippa laughed and ducked away as the wolf lapped at her face.
“He looks glad to see you,” Devon said. “So am I,” he added.
Pippa looked up and caught her breath as she met Devon’s gaze. She saw excitement, anticipation, and…need. She felt her heart lurch. Felt the blood surge through her veins. Felt an answering need. And reminded herself why anything more than friendship was impossible.
Be his friend. Don’t spoil it by wanting more. “I’m glad to see you, too,” she said in the friendliest voice she could muster. She stayed where she was, stroking Wulf’s fur, afraid of what would happen if she stood and closed the distance between herself and Devon.
Neither of them said anything more for a while. She waited for him to break eye contact, because she was helpless to do it herself.
“I brought a blanket,” he said at last, “so we’d have a little more room to stretch out.” He pointed to a patchwork quilt that he’d spread on a flat, grassy spot near the pond.
“What a great idea!” Pippa welcomed the chance to increase the distance between them. She stood and grabbed the canvas bag, then headed for the quilt, dropping onto her knees when she reached it. A moment later, Devon had joined her.
The silence lay heavy between them. Pippa was aware they were sitting on a blanket together, and that it wouldn’t take much effort for him to have her flat on her back. What astonished her, what made her question herself, was the knowledge that she would have welcomed the weight of his body on her own.
Are you crazy? What are you thinking? Didn’t you learn anything from your experience with Tim?
Pippa reminded herself that she hardly knew Devon Flynn. What if his behavior was all an act? What if this friendship was some bizarre Flynn trick to get back at the Grayhawks through her?
“I wish I knew more about you,” she murmured.
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you want to do with your life?”
He laughed. “That’s a pretty big question. Right now I’m happy running my ranch. How about you?”
“I worked gentling horses in Australia. I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do here.” Be a mother and then…
“I’ve got a stud you could help me with. He was abused. Doesn’t trust anyone.”
“I’d love to help. I mean if you don’t mind.” She would jump at the chance to have something useful to do in the months leading up to her baby’s birth.
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. When can you come see him?”
“I’m responsible for watching my younger brother, so—”
“Bring him along,” Devon said.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I like kids. I plan to have a few of my own someday.”
Pippa felt her heart sink. A few of my own someday. Not someone else’s. And not right now. Which shouldn’t matter, if all she wanted from Devon Flynn was friendship.
“Do you do all the ranch work yourself?” she asked.
He nodded. “I hire a couple of hands during the roundup. Otherwise, I’m on my own. I like it that way.”
Pippa struggled to keep the worried frown off her face. He lived alone and liked it that way? How did a woman fit into that intentionally solitary life? “Don’t you get lonely?”
He shot her a lopsided smile, the one she found so attractive. “I’m hardly alone. There’s Wulf, for a start.” The wolf lifted his head from his paws and looked at Devon when he heard his name.
Pippa shivered as Devon stroked the wolf’s fur, imagining his hands on her.
“There’s also an abandoned fawn, a porcupine with a wounded foot, and a rabbit with a bitten-off ear.”
Pippa laughed. “You have a menagerie.”
He nodded. “I’m careful not to interact with them, and I reintroduce them to the wild as soon as they’re healed. The specific animals change,
but there seems to be a never-ending number of wounded beasts that need help.”
“Are you a vet?”
“Nope. I do basic first aid and provide a safe place where they can heal. If it’s something really serious, I contact the vet in town.”
“How do you find all these animals?”
He looked sheepish. “I’ve gotten kind of a reputation—it started back when I was a kid—for taking in strays. So people bring me wild things in trouble.”
Wild things in trouble. Was that how Devon saw her? Was it sympathy he felt when he looked at her? Did he see her as a “stray”? Was that why he’d agreed to be her friend?
Pippa realized that Devon’s sympathy or empathy or whatever you wanted to call it might be part of what she felt when she was with him. But that wasn’t the only thing. Desire was a part of it, too. She’d seen it in his eyes and felt it when he’d held her in his arms the night he’d comforted her.
So if he preferred being alone, what did he want from her? Most likely what her former lover had wanted. Sex. And he was clever enough to lower her defenses by pretending to be her friend.
Pippa sighed inwardly. She’d found out what she needed to know. Now she just had to resist the lures Devon had set out to trap her into repeating her past mistake. She would keep him at arm’s distance and make it clear that she wasn’t available for anything except friendship—assuming he was willing to continue the relationship once he realized sex was off the table.
Pippa opened the canvas bag she’d brought and began pulling out the picnic she’d put together. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” he replied. “What did you bring?”
“Ham sandwiches.”
He looked dismayed.
Pippa giggled, then said, “Gotcha! It’s fried chicken, of course.” She made up a plate of food and handed it to Devon, who took it and sat cross-legged with the plate in his lap.
“This is delicious,” he said through a mouthful of chicken.
“Thank you. I wanted to ask if you have any idea what’s going on between your brother Connor and my aunt Eve. I thought Grayhawks and Flynns hated each other. Why on earth would they get married?”
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