by Liz Isaacson
“You’ve finished the basement, right?” Jace shed his winter coat as Tom had a fire roaring in the hearth. “Something smells amazing.”
“Rose made chocolate pie for dessert.”
A pang of jealousy sliced through his stomach and chest with a speed Jace hadn’t thought possible. “That’s great.”
“And yes, I finished the basement over Christmas,” Tom said as he passed Jace and crossed the living room toward the kitchen. “Two bedrooms down there. You’ll be comfortable if we go build a fire right now.”
“I don’t need to stay.” Jace followed his brother. He’d wanted to stay at first. Loved spending time with Tom now that he’d returned to Montana. But suddenly the thought of existing in this happy-happy space made him anything but joyful. It only reminded him of everything he’d lost. Not all physical things either, but things like having someone to talk to, and someone to come home to, and the ability to believe in himself. He’d lost that. Lost his confidence, too. Lost a lot when Wendy left.
Rose turned from the stove. “Hey, Jace.” Warmth radiated from her as Jace stepped into her embrace.
“Hey.” He grinned at her. “Where’s Mari?”
Rose exchanged a glance with Tom. “In her room.” She spooned stew into a bowl and handed it to Jace. “We’ll eat without her tonight.”
“I can—”
“Tom,” Rose said. “She’ll be fine. She made her choice.”
Tom nodded, his mouth set in a tight line, and Jace felt like he was intruding. “I hired an interior designer today,” he said. He hadn’t planned on talking tonight. It was one of the things he loved best about eating dinner with Tom and Rose. No one pressured him to talk all the time, the way his mother did.
“Oh, yeah?” Tom sat at the dining room table with his bowl of stew. Rose placed a platter of cornbread on the table, a plate of butter, and a pitcher of punch. Jace had eaten cornbread with his chili for lunch, but in his opinion, one could never consume too much cornbread. He took two slices and slathered them with butter.
“Yeah,” he said between bites. “Belle Edmunds. Remember her?”
Tom nearly choked. “Remember her?” He glanced at Rose, who still stood at the stove scooping up her own bowl of stew. “Every man within a hundred miles remembers Belle Edmunds.”
Jace had difficulty swallowing. “Really? Why’s that?”
“Maybe because she’s drop-dead gorgeous,” Tom whispered. “And smart. And—” Rose sat at the table, her gaze as sharp as Jace’s father’s had been when he’d caught the teenaged brothers sneaking off the ranch one summer night.
“Who are you boys talkin’ about?”
“My new interior designer,” Jace said, ignoring Tom’s desperate look. “For the record, she’s not that pretty.” The lie coated his tongue and made the cornbread stick in his throat. He forced it down anyway.
“You think she’s pretty?” Rose asked Tom.
“She is.” He shrugged. “I mean, I haven’t seen her since high school, but she was pretty then.”
Jace wouldn’t describe Belle with something as mundane as pretty. Tom had gotten it right with drop-dead gorgeous. “Even if she is pretty, she wouldn’t be interested in me. Especially if she’s pretty.”
“Of course she would,” Rose said. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
Jace had a myriad of answers for that question, but he kept them all to himself. Tom and Rose had been a great support for him since Wendy abandoned him—abandoned them all—but Jace didn’t want to get into the particulars of his self-loathing.
“Not everyone is Wendy,” Tom said, the sentence barely tickling Jace’s eardrums. “In fact, there are very few women like Wendy.” Somehow his brother always knew exactly what to say, and though Jace wanted to believe him, he couldn’t quite get there. Maybe because the only two women he’d ever let into his life had disappeared without a word. Just left.
Yes, there must be something seriously wrong with Jace to make his mother leave him the way she had, to make Wendy get in her car and drive to LA instead of coming to the church to get married to him.
Something was seriously wrong. He just didn’t know what it was. Lately, he’d taken to thinking it was all him and that he’d be better off living his solitary life in the foreman’s cabin for the rest of his days.
Recommitted to that goal, despite Belle’s reappearance in his life, Jace was able to finish dinner with his brother and return to his lonely, isolated cabin.
3
Annoyance ripped through Jace as he drove into Gold Valley for the second time in as many days. Church yesterday had been a solemn affair, as one of the town’s longtime residents had passed away on Friday. Jace had returned to the ranch more depressed than when he’d left.
He really hoped he wouldn’t be repeating that today. Belle had insisted they meet at her office to begin picking out paint colors and flooring and window treatments. He didn’t even know what a window treatment was. Why couldn’t she just say curtains?
He pulled his truck into a lot filled with shiny sedans with letters for names. He couldn’t fathom how they stayed so clean with all the snow, salt, and muck. His truck stood out like a sore thumb, and he vowed never to agree to meet at her office again.
In fact, he’d been toying with an idea since his dinner with Tom. Jace didn’t have to personally oversee the renovation. He just had to make sure it got done right. He could assign someone else to do the legwork, check the numbers, all of it. Landon was the obvious choice, as he knew both Jace and Gloria well enough to make intelligent decisions.
When the elevator spit him out on the fifth floor, Jace wanted to get right back inside and flee. The floor opened up to a large space filled with desks—and people. People wearing expensive suits and talking in low voices as they fingered fabrics. People leaning over computer screens together and pointing at things as decisions were made.
He took one step backward, prepared to flee. Landon would be handling the interior design from now on. That way, Jace could get back to doing what he knew how to do: ranching.
“Hey, you made it.” Belle swept into his personal space and handed him a four-inch binder. “We’ll start with flooring and paint today. That will really determine the rest of the textiles anyway.” She didn’t stop moving or talking, leaving him to follow in her wake as she carved a path through the bodies and desks to one near the wall. Thankfully, the nearest people sat about fifteen feet away.
Jace didn’t understand his panic. He’d been in crowds before—church yesterday had been a complete circus. He’d been grateful, actually, because then he got lost in the chaos and didn’t have to talk to anyone.
But here, now, the walls pressed too close, way too close, and the people spoke so loud, so loud. Too much noise. His heart slammed against his breastbone, seeking release. Sweat broke out under the band of his hat. His chest tightened, the way it had when he’d attempted to go to college ten years ago.
He hadn’t been able to handle the pressure then, and it felt twice as heavy right now.
Eventually, he found Belle staring at him, her phone pressed to her ear. Worry rode in the depths of her eyes, and tension tightened her mouth. He heard her say, “Panic attack?” and then, “What should I do, Tom?”
Jace took a big breath—or tried to. It felt like he was trying to suck air through a straw. He held up his hand like he just needed one more moment and closed his eyes.
He definitely wouldn’t be returning to this office. In fact, if he never saw Belle again, that would be just fine by him.
Belle kept Tom on the line for a few more minutes, asking him questions the man wouldn’t answer. He just kept saying, “It’ll pass, and then Jace’ll tell you everything.” She finally hung up, but Jace still hadn’t fully recovered.
His skin looked waxy and gray—her first indication that something was wrong. When he started gasping for air, she’d wanted to call 9-1-1. But when she went to dial, her fingers found his brother’s number and called
him instead.
She gave Jace silence and space while the color seeped back into his face, while his chest rose and fell evenly, while he wiped the sweat from his forehead. Belle felt like throwing up. What had caused Jace—a seemingly strong, healthy, smart man—to have a panic attack? When did he start having those? And why?
Her curiosity and compassion fully piqued, Belle simply watched him. She should probably have an attack of her own—if he found out the firm wasn’t really a firm at all, but a conglomerate that allowed independent designers access to cheaper suppliers and discounted materials, he’d be furious.
They wouldn’t back her if she messed up. They took a percentage of her commission in exchange for office space and access to tradesmen and wholesalers. Her job was to bring in new accounts so the conglomerate continued to make money. The seven-hundred-fifty-thousand price-tag at Horseshoe Home had been the largest account so far this month, and she couldn’t lose it.
So she’d signed her name on his contract and promised herself she wouldn’t deliver anything but exactly what he wanted. Then questions would never be asked. The sticky point of the firm would never be known.
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it. The woman from the hotel. Her fingers itched to take the call, and Jace still hadn’t opened his eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said as quietly as she could. She swiped open the call as she stepped away. “Tilly, good to hear from you.”
“We loved your portfolio, Belle. When can you come meet with us?”
“How about this afternoon?” She glanced back to the still frozen Jace. Would they be finished by lunchtime?
“One o’clock would work. Check-in is at three, and we can work until then.”
“One o’clock it is.” She hoped her smile had infused the words, because by the time she turned back to her desk, it had vanished.
So had Jace.
4
Belle felt like she’d been kicked by a horse. And she knew the feeling, because her treasured Strawberry Shortcake, a red-haired mare, had once kicked her in the chest when she’d gotten spooked.
She glanced around, frantically trying to find him among the groups lingering in the office. She caught sight of his black cowboy hat just as the elevator doors closed behind him. Leaping into action, she hurried toward the stairs. For perhaps the first time in her life, she thanked the Lord for her height, because it meant she never wore heels. And certainly she could beat an elevator down five flights of steps in her ballet flats.
Okay, she totally couldn’t. By the time she burst into the lobby, panting and with her hair plastered to her face, a couple of people were loading into the already-empty elevator. Her gaze flew to the exit, where she saw Jace adjusting his hat and zipping his coat.
“Jace!”
He heard her; she saw those powerful shoulders flinch; but he didn’t turn back. Just pushed open the door and stepped through it. Cursing the fact that she’d left her coat upstairs, Belle hustled after him.
“Jace, I know you can hear me. Where are you going?”
“Back to the ranch.” His stride didn’t slow or shorten.
She ran to catch him, nearly going down on a slick patch of ice on the sidewalk. She reached him as he arrived at his truck. “We haven’t done anything yet.”
He pierced her with a dark-eyed glare. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m gonna have Landon handle the reno.” He got in his truck and started it. If she didn’t want to get hit, she had no choice but to fall back and let him go.
She fumed as she stomped back up to her desk. Didn’t he understand what was at stake for her?
Of course he doesn’t, she thought. How could he?
Just like she didn’t know why he had panic attacks. She didn’t want to talk about her failures in California and she suspected Jace had a few secrets in his past too. She couldn’t fault him for that.
Once inside the warmth of the building, she called Landon. Of course he didn’t answer. He never did during the day. Jace probably had some asinine policy about cell phone usage while shoveling out horse stalls. Didn’t he know the world ran on cell phones these days?
She hung up without leaving a message. Jace hadn’t talked to Landon yet. Belle’s chest felt hollow and tight. She needed Horseshoe Home’s account. She couldn’t lose it because of Jace’s baggage or whatever had caused him to freeze up at her desk.
She dialed him, surprised when he picked up after only one ring. “Let’s go get something to eat,” she said before he could do anything but say, “Hello.”
“My treat. No samples. I just want to find out what style you want. We’ll just talk.” She held her breath after her rushed sentence. In the background, she heard air blowing and the low warble of the radio. At least he hadn’t hung up.
“I only have until one o’clock,” she continued.
“You want to talk to me for four hours?”
“No.” Her mind spun. “Just…however long it takes to eat. Where do you want to go?” She’d be lucky if she could force down more than water, but she pressed her lips together. Now was not the time for her tongue to get in her way.
“Bear Paw Café,” he said, and the line went dead.
Belle stared at the phone in her hand, unsure if she should throw it to the floor and watch it shatter into a million pieces or calmly slide it into her skirt pocket. She could return to her desk and prep for her meeting with Tilly. Forget about Jace Lovell and how frustrated he made her. She headed for the elevator, still debating with herself.
She stood at her desk, her mind circling, circling. Finally, she reached for her coat, slipped it on, and headed downstairs to the parking lot.
Jace sipped black coffee in the corner booth at the Bear Paw Café. He saw Belle enter and glance around. Her gaze swept right over him, making his heart clench at the same time his stomach revolted against the hot liquid he’d consumed.
He hadn’t been able to pinpoint why being in her office had caused him to panic, but he knew someone as smart and savvy as Belle would require an explanation. He’d swerved into the café’s parking lot while on the phone with her, and then he’d immediately called Tom. After being reassured that Tom hadn’t told Belle anything, Jace had gone inside and asked for the corner booth. This late on a Monday morning in the dead of winter, it hadn’t been hard to get.
Finally, the hostess pointed toward him in the corner and he lifted his hand to acknowledge that Belle should come over. She glided toward him with all the grace of a beauty queen, another fact that made Jace wilt.
“I won’t lie. I’m surprised you’re here.” Belle slid into the booth and unceremoniously deposited her purse next to her on the seat. “I was gonna be so mad if you’d told me to come here and then you’d skipped town.” Her green eyes blazed, and Jace only hated himself a little bit for enjoying getting her fired up.
He wanted to snap back at her with something witty and charmingly cruel. But all that came out of his mouth was, “Sorry, Belle.”
She studied him, her eyes narrowing the teensiest bit. He squirmed and ducked his head to give himself some protection with his cowboy hat. “Stop that.”
“Just tryin’ to figure you out.”
“Look who’s talkin’ like a cowboy now.” He glanced up and quirked a smile at her. “And I don’t need to be figured out.” Although, if someone would try, he’d want it to be Belle. He nearly slopped hot coffee on his hand with this thought, so he set the mug down. “You wanna eat?” He flagged down the waitress.
Belle ordered coffee and the Western omelet. Jace opted for the French toast with hashbrowns, and the waitress left them alone again. Words crowded the back of his throat.
“My fiancé left me at the altar seven months ago,” he blurted out. “Sometimes I…I don’t do well in situations and places I can’t control.” At least that was what the psychiatrist had told him. Jace wasn’t sure if that was why he’d panicked in Belle’s office or not, but the explanation appeased her.
Made
her sympathetic, even. Her eyes glittered now, this time with compassion. “I’m so sorry, Jace.” Her hands came across the table and touched his for a heartbeat. She yanked them back like she’d been singed by his skin, and he ducked his head again.
He’d definitely been burned by her touch. The heat of it traveled through his arms, across his shoulders, and down into his gut. The silence descending on them felt tangible, thick, terrible.
He cleared his throat. “I’m doin’ okay these days.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Most days. Today’s just not one of them.”
She’d leaned way back in the booth, positioning herself as far from him as she could get. “But you’re okay here?”
He glanced away, out the window. The bright sun on the snow nearly blinded him. “I like the corner booth.”
Several moments passed in silence. “You’re a mystery,” she finally said. The waitress brought her coffee and she stirred cream and sugar into it while she watched him. “So, tell me what you’re looking for in the cowboy cabins.”
Jace seized onto the easy topic, though he wished he had someone like Belle he could confess to, spill his secrets to, speak with about the ghosts that haunted him. She hadn’t seemed judgmental of Wendy abandoning him on their wedding day. Maybe—
“Did I lose you again?” Belle leaned forward and peered at him.
“You shouldn’t wear so much makeup,” he said. “Can’t see your freckles.”
She fell back again like he’d punched her. She blinked, and her mouth opened, but she only said, “You like freckles?”
“A face is sort of a waste without them.” He lifted his coffee to his lips, wondering what he was saying. How had this conversation gone so badly, so quickly? He forced himself to focus. “The cowboys need updated appliances and carpet that’s easy to take care of but can weather a lot of boot traffic. They need neutral colors on the walls and comfortable, sturdy furniture. They work really hard for long hours. Their cabin should be an escape from that.”