by Lisa Jackson
She was stuck here, and Cal was determined she have something. Something that would fulfill her. Something that would make her happy.
Something that will keep her here.
“I did say hello.”
“No, you didn’t. You said exactly one word, which was ‘straggler, ’ and then you stomped back here.”
“I did not stomp. That’s called a manly cowboy swagger.”
She snorted in disgust but grinned nonetheless. Then her smile died. “You know I’m going to ask her.”
“I know.” He didn’t have to like it to know.
“She’s going to say yes.”
“Of course she is. I don’t know how long she’s in town, but Lindsay would never refuse you. No matter what . . .” Which was why he hated Lindsay Tyler after six years, because he knew with everything he was that she was a good person. Pretty and good and helpful, and they belonged together.
But she’d needed more than him and this, and how could he ever forgive her for that?
The fact Sarah needed some help with graphics and whatnot for advertising the Christmas tree farm as a wedding venue had nothing to do with him. Asking for Lindsay’s art help had nothing to do with him. So, he wouldn’t stand in Sarah’s way. No matter how much he didn’t want Lindsay hovering around, even for a short period of time.
“Okay . . . Well . . .” she trailed off, then shook her head and went for the pantry. “The chocolate ones went fast.” She grabbed a cookie tin and opened it. She took two out and placed them on the table. “That’s for being a good little rancher boy.”
“Ha. Ha.” But he took his sister’s cookies, because she was a hell of a baker. Whether it was Christmas or old bad memories swirling, he found himself swayed by an unusual wave of sentimentality. “You’re really good at this. The whole entertaining thing. I’m not. I never will be. Lindsay or no. So, just ignore my manly cowboy swagger and focus on this thing you’re really good at.”
For a second she looked like she was about to cry, which horrified him enough to start edging toward the back door. But she straightened her shoulders and blinked a few times.
“You’re not that manly,” she offered gravely, before bursting into laughter as she headed back out to her waiting guests.
On a sigh, he ate the Christmas cookies and listened to the faint laughter of another family in his living room. Tylers. The whole lot of them. Up in his house and ranch for the next few days.
Christmases were never very merry around the Barton spread, but it couldn’t be worse than waking up to finding Mom or Dad gone, so he supposed he’d survive.
He’d just do everything in his power to avoid Lindsay. It shouldn’t be a problem. She couldn’t possibly want to see him any more than he wanted to see her.
So, that was settled, and he’d eaten his dinner and talked to his sister, and now he could go back to the solitude of the barn and do something that didn’t feel like a knife being shoved in his heart.
CHAPTER 2
Lindsay woke up in the twin bed of her childhood. This was the first time she’d been home in a few months, and the first time coming home knowing she was staying. She had no doubts about staying, but the view from her tiny childhood bedroom was a bit stifling. Remembering all those dreams she’d made to escape.
Dreams that turned out to be little more than mirages. Mirages that disappeared into just wanting to be home. For good.
Bleh.
She got out of bed and glanced at the time and scowled. She was supposed to be able to sleep in on Christmas vacation. She’d have to be up early all semester, and this was her last chance to just relax. But she was wide awake.
Bleh again. Still, she got up and went through the shower. She was meeting Sarah over at the Barton house at eight to discuss some mysterious thing Sarah hadn’t wanted to go into details with everyone around last night.
That gave Lindsay a few hours to kill first, so maybe she’d make breakfast for everyone. If she beat Mom or Grandma to the kitchen anyway.
But of course, Mom was already at the stove flipping pancakes while Grandma cut up strawberries and blueberries. Gavin was sitting at the table, a mug of coffee in front of him. Boone and Molly were probably still asleep, and likely Shane was already out doing chores while his soon-to-be wife and soon-to-be stepson still slept.
For a brief moment, Lindsay felt that wave of rightness she’d been chasing since she’d decided to move home. This, this was where she belonged. Home. She almost opened her mouth to tell them all she was here for good, but then her brother opened his big, obnoxious mouth.
“Just waking up, sleeping beauty?”
She scowled at him. “It’s six in the morning.”
Gavin glanced at his watch. “It’s six-forty-five. How long were you in that shower? Jeez, Linds. Didn’t you ever learn to share?”
She wanted to punch him in his already-crooked nose, but Mom tsked.
“Lindsay doesn’t live here anymore, Gav. You have to give her a break if she’s a bit out of practice.”
Lindsay didn’t scowl at her mother, but she wanted to. Doesn’t live here anymore. Being away at college didn’t mean not living here. And maybe she’d spent the past two years not coming home for the summer because she’d been working on getting all her education courses in after spending her entire bachelor’s degree on art, but . . .
Well . . .
Ugh. Her family always knew how to make her feel like an outsider. Just because she wasn’t as into horses as Molly or Boone or didn’t want to be involved with the ranch like Mom, Shane, and Gavin were. Just because she loved art and was damn good at something creative.
“Sit. Eat,” Mom ordered.
“I can’t eat with you guys. I agreed to have breakfast with Sarah.”
“At the Bartons’?” Mom asked, and though no one outside their family would have heard the censure in her tone, Lindsay could read it. Mom did not approve.
“It’s a business breakfast. I’m sure Cal will be out working if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“He’s had it rough.”
Twist that guilt knife, Deb Tyler. “And I’m part of that rough?” Mom sighed. “I’m just asking you to be careful, sweetheart. Hearts are a little more tender around Christmas.”
And I’m a trampler of hearts. That’s what her mother thought of her. The one who’d insisted on leaving. The one who’d broken Cal Barton’s heart right along with her mother’s. Lindsay knew that’s how her family saw her. Careless and a little selfish.
Why are you coming home to that, then?
Lindsay blew out a breath as she headed out of the kitchen. She wasn’t going to sit around for a pissing match with Gavin. Maybe her heart was a little tender around Christmas, too. Especially when more and more she realized how little her family respected her.
When she’d finally grown up and learned to respect herself. Humph.
She pulled on her coat and shoved her feet into her boots before stepping outside. She’d take a walk. Remind herself why she’d come home. Not for Mom or Gavin or anyone else. Just for herself. Twenty-four years old and she had some work to do to prove to her family she wasn’t still the little baby. She’d done all her growing up away from them, so now she had to show them. It would take time to prove it.
Proving didn’t mean sniping with Gavin or arguing with her mother. So, she needed to find some self-control.
She stomped out onto the porch and hugged herself against the cold. The world was white and vast and the tension inside of her immediately loosened. Oh, she’d always, always loved this view. Loved winters at home.
She still hadn’t untangled how she could have this much love for it and had still wanted to escape, to see what else was out there. Eighteen years old and she’d loved this place, but she’d never dreamed of actually making it home.
“But now you are, and that’s what matters.”
“Talking to yourself? Don’t you remember what Miss Perdue told you about that?”
Lindsay glared over her shoulder at her brother Boone. Of the three Tyler men, he was the closest in age to her—only two years older. Shane and Gavin were a respective eight and six years older, and since their father had died when she’d been a toddler, the two older brothers had been more like adult, supervisory figures.
But Boone had been a kid with her, wild too. He’d left Gracely to join the rodeo, and so they often fell into the same irresponsible pool of Tylers who didn’t do what they were supposed to.
“Can I ask you something, Boone?”
“If I said no it wouldn’t stop you.”
She sighed heavily. “Why’d you come home?”
Boone adjusted the hat on his head, squinting at the mountain-laden horizon. “Didn’t have much choice. Can’t rodeo when you’ve gotten the piss shattered out of you by a bull.”
“But you’re still here.”
Boone gave her a sideways glance. “If you’re asking for the deep, heartfelt reason I’m home, I don’t have one for you. I came home because I didn’t have a choice. I’ve stayed home for the same reason.”
She laid her hand on her brother’s forearm. “You absolutely have a choice.” It was the one thing she’d finally learned out there on her own.
She had a choice. No matter how her family treated her like the baby or how running into Cal last night still vibrated through her. She could have chosen to chase art, could have chosen to settle anywhere but Colorado, but she hadn’t wanted to.
She’d come home because that’s what she’d wanted, what she’d chosen. So, she couldn’t get her nose bent out of shape if Mom or Gavin said something dismissive or Cal looked at her with blank eyes.
All that mattered was that she was home. To build the life she wanted. Make the choice she needed to.
“I think you should find a reason, Boone. A reason to stay, or a reason to go. But either way, you have a choice.”
“That so?”
She nodded sharply. “Very, very so.”
* * *
Cal drained the last drops of coffee out of his thermos. The sun was had risen over the mountains in the distance, but a few low, flat clouds held that tinge of pink of sunrise. A good morning, he decided, willing himself to feel it.
His cattle were weathering the hard winter. The neat rows of Christmas trees sparkled with overnight snow in the distance. They’d had a good season, with a few days left to go, and Sarah’s little wedding location side business was promising to pad their savings a bit. Sorely needed after Dad had taken off.
Cal sucked in a deep, icy breath and willed himself to find a little levity. Sarah only had him, which meant he needed to find some Christmas cheer. Somewhere.
Except when he marched back to the house intent on filling up his thermos and maybe grabbing a bite to eat that was more than the protein bar he’d had upon waking, there was Lindsay’s car rolling up the drive.
Cal tried to remind himself of levity and Christmas and bullshit, but all he could think about was the nerve of this woman. Coming to his house again. He’d wanted to tell Sarah to conduct her business with Lindsay elsewhere, but that had seemed a little cruel when he spent so much time out of the house.
Lindsay just had to show up when he was in search of coffee. Since she’d already ruined his life once, he wasn’t about to let her get in between him and coffee. He kept marching.
Unfortunately, the back door was broken, which meant Cal had to go around the front. Which meant meeting her on the porch again. This time in daylight. No Christmas lights to hide how much he didn’t want her here.
“Morning, Cal,” she offered. Even her voice hadn’t changed. He could hear every morning, Cal she’d ever greeted him with. And some pieces of all those feelings of contentment and love fluttered through him like ghosts he couldn’t eradicate.
He grunted.
“I’m meeting Sarah. For breakfast. For . . . business.”
“I’m aware.”
She smiled tightly, but the fact she would smile at him was really damn grating.
“We don’t have to be friendly.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“I’m just saying, we don’t have to chitchat or smile at each other. We can just not.”
Her mouth was still hanging open, but since he didn’t want to continue having this conversation, he brushed passed her and went for the door.
“Cal.”
He didn’t stop, because what else was there to say? He didn’t want to continue to be on the end of her stilted smiles when this was a few days of annoyance before he could go back to his normal life.
“Cal Frederick Barton, don’t you dare walk through that door.”
He turned, slowly, very, very slowly. “Did you just middle name me?” he demanded, his voice low as he tried to control the anger spiking through him.
She stood on his porch, her hands on her hips and a familiar frustration snapping in her big blue eyes. Familiar, and that only pissed him off more.
He’d listened to her complain about Gracely or school. He’d soothed her as she’d ranted about how her family treated her like a brainless baby. He had done all that while trying to understand the exact same frustration that flashed in her eyes now, and he didn’t want to be reminded of how stupid he had been.
“You can’t just . . .” She heaved a sigh. “We should be able to have a polite conversation. We’re going to run into each other.”
“For a few days. A few days we don’t have to have polite conversation,” he said firmly.
Her eyebrows drew together and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as though struggling with some important thought.
Which reminded him of things he really, really didn’t want to remember.
“It won’t just be for a few days,” she finally said, her voice quiet but sure. Oh, how he remembered that surety in her.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’m staying in Gracely. For good.”
“You . . . can’t. . . .” She couldn’t. She . . . She couldn’t stay. That was the whole entire reason she’d upended his life. Because she couldn’t stay. Because not Gracely, not the Barton or Tyler ranch, not him could be enough to keep her here. She’d made that decision. She couldn’t take it back after six years.
“I am. I am staying, and I think—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. Do not finish that sentence. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you’re back for some supposed long period of time. We will not be spending any time together.”
“I’m not your mother.”
He took a step toward her, wanting to intimidate her right off his porch, his land. But she didn’t budge. Even after he took another step, towering above her with what had to be a god-awful expression on his face, she just lifted that stubborn chin.
Why wasn’t anything about her different?
“Don’t you dare, ever, bring up my mother to me. Don’t you dare assume to know why I don’t want to be around you, and don’t you dare think you’re going to fit yourself back into my life. Sarah wants your temporary help with some business, and that’s fine. But that’s got nothing to do with me. None of you has anything to do with me. Ever again.”
“I don’t know why you’re so angry. It’s been so long.”
For a brief second he thought about telling her. That no matter how he’d tried to get over her, the women he’d dated had just been pale comparisons. That she haunted him no matter how desperately he tried to exorcise her. That she’d put the final nail in the coffin of his being able to trust anyone with anything. He couldn’t even trust his sister to stick around.
It wasn’t all her fault, but he wasn’t too keen on forgiving his parents, either, so why would he forgive her? Why would he want anything to do with her?
“Stay away from me, Lindsay. That’s a demand, not a request, since you apparently haven’t gotten any brighter with age.”
She balled her fist and hit it against his
chest. It didn’t hurt, per se, but he did take a step back.
“And you apparently turned into a giant asshole,” she retorted, all her frustration and confusion turning to straight rage.
Good. It matched his. It lit something inside of him he didn’t want to analyze. He wanted to dive into it. Anger felt so much better than wallowing.
“Well, just another reason to stay the hell away from me.”
“Oh, but I haven’t changed at all, which means I’m going to stick to you like glue just to piss you off.”
Cal laughed bitterly. “Oh, darlin’, you can try.”
“Save your ‘darlin’s’ for someone who’s afraid of you, Cal. But I know you. All your secrets. All your insecurities. Every last inch of you. I can make it hurt real good.”
She was probably right, but that only meant he knew the same things about her, and he could make it hurt, too. “That how you want to spend your life, Lindsay? Turning the knife in someone you already stabbed.”
“I didn’t do it to you, Cal. Breaking up with you was for me.”
“Yeah, Lindsay Tyler, center of the universe.”
“I guess I’d rather be selfish than the victim of everyone else not loving you quite enough.”
Ouch. Yeah, she knew his weaknesses. “We all make our choices. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my choice is to work for a living, not doodle.”
“Is it your choice? Or was it just what you got stuck with because you couldn’t do anything else?”
“Lindsay.”
It was Sarah’s voice and Cal didn’t miss the fact they both winced at it.
Lindsay opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn’t seem to get any words out.
Which meant Cal had to fix this. Not for Lindsay, but for Sarah. “Don’t worry about it, Sarah. We were just reminiscing about old times. I’m going to fill up my thermos and be out of your hair.” He clenched his teeth together. He didn’t want to apologize. He certainly didn’t mean it, but he’d swallow some pride for his sister. She was the only one he’d do it for.