by Evie Nichole
Cal laughed. “The city isn’t so bad. You just have to have a reason to be here. That’s all.”
“I don’t.” She felt distinctly disgruntled.
She wanted to go home. She had no desire to go back to Laredo’s fancy house and watch television or go to bed. She wanted a shower in her own shower and a pair of her snuggly pajamas. Then she’d make some tea and relax for a while.
Cal took her hand and began dragging her away from the truck. “Then, let’s go for a walk.”
“A what?” Was the man insane? Why would they go for a walk in the middle of a bunch of cement?
“Trust me.” He was walking toward a break between the buildings. “This neighborhood is really unique. I promise.”
“Fine.” She gave an exaggerated sigh of annoyance. “But you’d better deliver or I’m never going to let you suggest anything like this again. You got that, mister? You’re totally on probation.”
“Fine. I’m on probation.”
He had a hold of her hand. The walkway was so narrow that she swore she could hear his shoulders rubbing against the brick walls on either side of it. It was dark down here because each side of the path was bordered by a full-size building. Then everything started to open up, and she saw light ahead.
“How did you know this was here?” she whispered.
Cal gave her hand a squeeze. “I had an argument with one of my brothers and found this courtyard when I was trying to walk off steam.”
It was utterly and completely lost in time. The homes surrounding the rectangular space numbered maybe seven or eight. They were big and ornate. It was easy to see that quite a few of them had been subdivided into little apartments, but they were still very well kept. Jesse could not imagine what it might cost to rent one of those places. Especially with this beautiful backyard haven.
The sidewalks all met in the center of the space. There was a gazebo with a wooden latticework pavilion. Inside were benches. The outside of the beautiful feature was covered in roses. The scent of them was almost overwhelming. Jesse wondered what kind of roses they could get to bloom so prettily even in summer when there wasn’t much in the way of sunlight for very long during the day.
“Shall we stroll like old-time lovers?” He held out his arm.
Jesse put her fingers in the crook of his elbow and let him lead her on a slow and meandering path through the network of sidewalks and walkways that seemed to circle and intersect in and around the gazebo.
“Do you still think the city is horrible?” He gestured to the yellow glow of the streetlights and the twinkling white brilliance of the Christmas lights that provided light to the courtyard. “Sometimes light pollution is worth it.”
“I would disagree,” she teased. “And this would be way better with a few cows grazing in here somewhere.”
“Oh, why?” He gave her a mocking smile and leaned over to nudge her shoulder. “Because having to step around a pile of cow poo really makes for a wonderful atmosphere?”
“Okay, so you’ve got me there.” She laughed. He was right. This was not the type of experience they could have in the country. At least not at their ranches. “Maybe I need to build something like this. I could put in some paving stones, build a gazebo, and hook up some lights. No big deal. Right?”
“Would it be the same?”
She hated that he was right. Somehow, the old brick homes lent a sense of elegance and style to the experience. Those would definitely not be around if Jesse tried to recreate this bit of city magic.
“I bet you bring all the girls here,” she teased. “You give them some song and dance about city life, and then you drag them back out to the country and stick them in your dark, dreary farmhouse.”
“Wow.” He put his hand against his chest. “I’m hurt. How could you think I’d ever bring anyone but you to a place like this? Hmm?” Then he paused for a moment. “Or are you accusing me of some elaborate bait and switch game? Where I bring women here to romance them but then take them back to the farm and leave them out there to die of loneliness and isolation?”
“That isn’t really far off the mark,” Jesse murmured softly. It was odd. Something in his words had jogged loose a memory she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “My mother used to say something like that.”
“Your mother wasn’t a local.” He was nodding as he remembered. “I remember my dad and Rawling talking about that. She used to accuse Rawling of dragging her out here and leaving her to wither away.”
“She missed her family,” Jesse agreed. But there was something else. She couldn’t remember what it was, but she knew beyond doubt that there was something else. “I should have read her journals.”
“What?”
“I should have read the ones I found.” She started thinking back. “Holy cow! Was that just last night?”
“Last night, when you drove your truck home in reverse, and then you came over to my place in the middle of the night? Yes. That was just yesterday.” He seemed more amused than annoyed. That was good. Right?
“I should have read the journals. There was something in them about her being angry with my father about dragging her out to the middle of nowhere, but I can’t remember what it was.” It was starting to really bother Jesse.
“I remember wondering why you didn’t go live with your aunt and uncle after your parents died,” Cal admitted.
They were rounding another corner in the courtyard, and this time Cal headed off in a new direction. Jesse was barely paying attention to where they were going. She was too busy trying to remember. “My aunt and uncle lived up around Fort Collins. They kept telling me that they had some land and some cattle and such, but it turned out that they didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Cal looked very disturbed. “Are you saying they were lying to you?”
“I’ll always be grateful to your parents for that,” Jesse whispered. She remembered crying against Avery’s shoulder as her fourteen-year-old self tried to reconcile the fact that her own aunt had just tried to rob her blind. “They tried to get me to sign over my inheritance to them. They didn’t actually want me. It was more the money. My aunt felt like she should have been my sister’s heir because I wasn’t of age. It was complicated.”
“I’m sorry.” Cal leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That’s not right.”
“No. But a lot of times it happens to be the way things work.”
They walked in silence for a long time. Finally, their path took them up toward the gazebo. It sat a few steps above the level of the courtyard. The climbing vines and roses made it seem rather private and almost insulated from the world.
Once they went up the two steps and the wood surface creaked beneath their feet, Cal paused beneath the cluster of Christmas lights hanging in the middle of the domed ceiling.
“I wonder if they put mistletoe in here during the Christmas season,” he mused.
Jesse snorted and gave his shoulder a punch with her fist. “You’re acting weird,” she told him. “What is wrong with you?”
“Maybe I’m just feeling soft inside.” Was he defensive? Or was he just trying to explain himself. She could not decide.
Then he put his hands on her upper arms. The warmth of his grip was delicious. She loved the way his hands felt. The strength in them was perfect. It reminded her that this man, only a few hours before, had a hold of a rope so that he could dally it around his saddle to tug livestock across a field. He was real. He was everything she had ever wanted and so much more.
The atmosphere was incredible. She felt the heightened sensation of it deep in her soul. Her breathing was ragged, and her heart was hammering against her chest. She could not resist the urge to step just a little closer to him. She stared up over his broad chest and noticed that his pectorals were moving as he breathed in and out in a steady rhythm.
He was taller than she by several inches. His dark hair was tumbling over his forehead. She reached up and gently touched it. Hesitant at first, she be
came bolder when he did not protest. She gently pushed it away from his face. The silky stuff sifted through her fingers and made them tingle.
He moved one hand from her upper arm to her cheek. His palm cupped her face, and the pad of his thumb gently brushed over her lower lip. Her breath stuck in her throat. Was he going to kiss her? It had been a thousand years since she had first imagined such a thing. She’d been so young at the time that she could not have begun to think about what that would feel like for real.
His face drew closer to hers. She did not dare to move. She didn’t want anything to destroy the moment. It had been so many years in the making—in the waiting. She felt his breath whisper across her cheek. His warm masculine scent grew stronger. The spiciness of it made something hot and tight take up residence low in her gut.
When his lips lightly brushed hers, she almost sighed with the acute relief that immediately set in. His arms slid lightly around her body. She felt him press against her. She slipped her arms around his waist and splayed her hands across the warm, muscular expanse of his back.
He tasted divine. Nothing had ever felt or seemed so right. There was no pressure and no sense of urgency or desperation. She could feel the depth of his feeling for her instead, and it made her light-headed with joy. His lips moved against hers. The lazy exploration of his kiss was a revelation. She had waited a lifetime for this moment and was in no hurry for it to end. He put gentle pressure on her lower lip and then followed it up with another long, lingering kiss that made her toes curl in her boots.
Finally, he broke away, and the two of them stood there gasping in the near darkness. The sparkling lights above them seemed to glow brighter with each passing second. Jesse stared up into his dear face and gently touched the familiar blade of his nose. All Hernandez men looked essentially alike, but Cal had always been different. His face was etched with more character. It was as if responsibility had worn lines into his cheeks and jaw that made him seem like an old movie cowboy who never failed to sweep in and save the day despite all of the drama going on around him.
“I think it’s time to go get some sleep,” he whispered. “I’m beat. How about you?”
She sighed. “I suppose I’ll sleep. I’m still a little horrified by the idea of spending the night in Laredo’s mansion. He’s not being exactly friendly at the moment.”
“He’s convinced of something that isn’t true and does not make sense,” Cal said with a sigh. “You have to understand how my brother’s mind works. He has a certain set of evidence. And you can’t deny that there are certain events that seem to suggest that you are my father’s daughter.”
“I suppose,” she allowed. “But is he just missing all the rest of them?”
“They don’t fit.” Cal chuckled to himself before lacing his fingers with hers and leading the way down off the gazebo steps. “Laredo has a surprising ability to ignore or discard anything that doesn’t fit. Call it his charm, I suppose, but in reality, it’s just that he can’t allow things into his thoughts that he cannot explain. He’s very black and white.”
“And red all over,” she joked. “Since he’s going to feel like a total idiot when the truth comes out and he’s standing there scratching his head trying to decide where he dropped the ball.”
“You’re looking forward to that!” Cal accused.
They were now heading down the narrow pathway toward the diner parking lot where they’d left Cal’s truck. Jesse didn’t figure she needed to hide how she felt about this whole thing. “Laredo is a little big for his britches sometimes. That’s all. I can’t help it if I’m going to relish the moment the entire family finds out that my mother wasn’t as bad as everyone thought she was. That’s all.”
“I suppose that’s fair.” He used the remote to unlock the truck and opened her door. “Now. Can we go spend a quick night at Laredo’s mansion”—he rolled his eyes and used exaggerated air quotes—“without you freaking out on me?”
“Is that what all of this was about?” She made a face at him and climbed into the passenger seat. “Maybe I should be all moody more often if it gets me a good dinner and a walk in the park.”
“Don’t get any ideas.” But he winked and shut the door, and she could not help the explosion of butterflies in her belly that made her feel like this was the best moment she’d had in a very long time.
Chapter Sixteen
“Okay, I’m trying to be objective here.” Jesse spun a slow circle in the foyer of Laredo’s home. “But this place is seriously ridiculous.”
Cal could not disagree with her. The opulence of Laredo’s Denver home had been the subject of many a conversation within the family over the last several years. It wasn’t just the upscale nature of the neighborhood, the luxurious architecture, or the sheer magnitude of the furnishings either. The atmosphere inside this house was just—well, the only word that came to mind was expensive.
Jesse wrinkled her nose. “I still can’t believe that Laredo honestly bought this place just because he thought it would make Helena happy.”
“Why not?” Cal moved through the foyer and into the main living area. It boasted enormous floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a deck complete with a spa. “You can’t tell me you’ve never heard of a man trying to buy a woman happiness before.”
“True.” She peeked into the kitchen and snorted. “You know. The more I look at this place, the more I’m convinced that it isn’t actually about how expensive it is or how luxurious it seems. Maybe all of this is actually normal city crap and the reason it looks like the Four Seasons to us is that we’ve been living in ancient renovated and re-renovated farmhouses for the last decade or more.”
Cal laughed. “You could be right.”
Actually, she could very much be right. The contrast between his faded and peeling kitchen wallpaper and this pristine paint job was extreme. Factor in the fresh chromed appliances and the airy vaulted ceilings, and perhaps that was where most of the perceived luxury came from.
“I don’t think my place has even had a fresh coat of paint inside or out since I was in high school,” Cal mused. “I swear when my mother finally got Dad to move to the city, she basically just packed a bag and ran. They bought a beautiful new home with good views of the front range and then had an interior designer pack the place full of furniture and baubles.”
“That’s how it works.” Jesse was busy pulling open the fridge. “Damn. There’s absolutely nothing in here. Nothing! Met was living here, right? Shouldn’t there at least be beer?”
Cal headed for the couch and flopped down on the overstuffed leather cushions. They felt like clouds. “My brother is sober now. Remember?”
“Right.” She snorted at that notion, and he wondered if she believed it or not. He’d had a tough time with that one himself. “Daphne has somehow miraculously taken away his pain, has she?”
“Actually, I think she’s got him going to Darren’s physical therapist and doing CrossFit.” Cal reached for the remote control. “Hey! There’s television here in the city! We could watch sports!”
He flipped on the television and suddenly saw an enormous photograph of Joe Hernandez on the screen. “…millionaire rancher and a fixture on the social scene here in Denver, Joseph Hernandez has died at the age of fifty-nine years old.”
Jesse sank down onto an overstuffed chair just beside Cal’s spot on the couch. The news story went on a bit about the current state of affairs with the livestock board and spoke a little too much about the long-standing feud between Captain Paul Weatherby of the Denver Police Department and Flying W and Joe Hernandez.
“Why do they like that part of the story?” Jesse wondered out loud.
Cal shrugged. He had never really thought about it. “I don’t know. It’s just always been that way.”
“But that’s stupid. Don’t you think?” She wasn’t going to let this go. That much was obvious. She turned in her seat and held her hands out in a gesture that almost seemed like supplication. “They’re all f
ocusing on some hypothetical feud that nobody knows the beginning of. Do you remember your dad always hating Weatherby? Did the Flying W always try to undercut and undermine the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company? When did it start?”
“I believe the two ranches have always been in competition.” Cal frowned as he thought back as far as he could remember. “I think I heard my grandfather talking about that. Think all the way back to the first government land leases. The Weatherbys always claimed that the Hernandez family got theirs because of some special treatment.”
“They probably did,” Jesse snorted. “I wouldn’t put it past your ancestors to have known someone in the assayer’s office or something.”
“Maybe.” Cal couldn’t really argue with that. “But that was just the way things were done back then. You know?”
“Okay. So, let’s say that’s true. It still doesn’t have to include the ugliness between your dad and Paul. That seems personal.” Jesse was insistent. He could see it on her face. He knew her well enough to know when she’d gotten an idea in her head that wasn’t going to go away.
Cal sat up. “All right.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. His brain was too tired for this crap. His father had died today right in front of him, for shit’s sake. He should be in a bar drinking whiskey and pretending that nothing mattered. “Let’s say that you’re right. Let’s say that Dad and Paul have a personal gripe with each other. About what? What would cause that kind of thing to last for so damn long unless it was just family crap?”
The blood drained from Jesse’s face. She looked sick. Cal was starting to get a little concerned when she managed to suck in a ragged breath. “A woman,” she whispered. “Men fight like that when a woman is involved. You know they do. It’s the oldest story in the books.”