by Tina Leonard
No. There was nothing going on between them.
But he wished there was—and cursed himself for complicating his life when he’d known he had a thousand reasons not to do it.
Thing was, Chelsea was pretty irresistible. He’d known that the moment he’d met her. The peek at her topless breasts had been the tipping point. There’d been no way he could have passed up knowing how those breasts tasted, how her lips tasted, how she would feel underneath him.
Right now, he was pretty much damned. Because it was obvious from everything about her that Chelsea wasn’t going to let him near her again—ever.
* * *
“WHY DO YOU THINK DAD doesn’t like Aunt Kendall?” Cat asked, as Chelsea helped her feed her birds. Cat wore pink pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, looking very much like a little girl as she prepared Curly and Mo for the night.
“I don’t know,” Chelsea said. “You’d have to ask your father.”
“She seems nice. Fun.”
Chelsea watched the teen go into her bathroom to wash her hands, then get into bed. She pulled the sheet over Cat and sat on the mattress next to her. “So you’ll take me shopping for boots?”
Cat smiled. “Maybe your mom’ll come with us. I like her. I have a grandmother, but she’s not like your mom. My grandmother is more…careful.”
Chelsea brushed Cat’s one side of long hair away from her face. “I know she must love you very much.”
“I don’t know.” Cat looked toward the window, where the moon hung crescent-shaped in the dark sky. “She never says she does. Her and my mom don’t get along all that well. Grandma has a lot of money and she thinks my mom is wasting her opportunities.”
Chelsea tried to smile. “Families have different dynamics.”
“What does that mean?” Cat asked.
“It means that people act certain ways because of different experiences they’ve had. They don’t always say what they mean, or do what they wish they’d do. I know your family loves you a lot.” Chelsea patted her arm. “You’re a special girl, Cat.”
Cat looked at her. “I think I’d like for Aunt Kendall to take me to a hair salon like she offered.”
“If she can’t, you could go with me and Mum,” Chelsea said, “if your father said you could.”
Cat thought for a minute. “I’m thinking about taking some of my piercings out.”
“Are you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Chelsea nodded and rose. “Good night, Cat.”
“’Night. I hope you get some writing done. Sometimes I can hear you tapping on your keyboard at night and it puts me to sleep.”
Chelsea smiled. “I’ll try, for that reason alone.”
But when she went into her room, she stared at her laptop, not sure where she was going. The flood of words had dried up. Glancing out the window into the darkness, she saw lights on in the ramshackle barn. Gage was probably working. She knew his sister had left some time ago, but he hadn’t come back to the house. He hadn’t seemed happy with his sister showing up unexpectedly.
It felt as if he had gone inside himself, into an unreachable place.
Chelsea shivered and looked down at her notes. Tempest had just walked away from everything, both painful and joyous, in her life. Chelsea wondered if she could do that, and decided she couldn’t. Although we did leave Ireland, Mum and me, to find a better place.
And we don’t want to go back.
She wrote a note to herself to call and check up on the paperwork she needed to become a legal resident. It had been a few months since she’d applied, and she hadn’t heard anything.
If she wasn’t granted a green card by August, she’d have to leave the country. She wouldn’t even be able to go back to Colorado with Gage to twist Ms. Smithers’s arm about the peacocks. As much as Cat loved her new lovebirds, she’d probably get real excited over peacocks. Chelsea thought about the girl, wishing she’d had better answers for her. Yet it wasn’t her place, and that was hard, too. She’d never wanted children, or at least hadn’t thought a lot about having them. But Cat, and her father, somehow managed to worm themselves inside her heart with their hard-edged-but-vulnerable personalities. It was as if they wore their hearts on their sleeves, yet were fiercely afraid of giving them away.
I completely understand that.
She wasn’t in a place to give hers away, either.
* * *
“GAGE!”
He cursed and looked down from the barn roof, seeing that Kendall had returned. Hadn’t disappeared yesterday as he’d hoped she might. The sun was high and hot in the New Mexico afternoon, and pulling off roof shingles was no fun task. Had to be done, though, at least in this really worn section. It was sagging, and rain would come in. Once they brought horses out to the ranch, the barn would need to be secure. He was of the mind that the whole barn needed to come down so he could start over with a technologically advanced structure, but Jonas had assigned him the Peacock Chase and then dashed off before Gage could corner him with the plans he’d developed.
People had to quit interrupting his job.
“What?” he barked down at his sister.
She waved at him to come down off the roof. He complied, but wasn’t pleased.
“Chelsea said I’d find you out here, but I didn’t expect to see you on a roof risking your neck,” Kendall complained. “Can’t you hire people to do that for you?”
He looked at his shiny sister in her tall heels and a dynamite sky-blue suit. “There’s plenty of work to go around if you want to get up there with me.”
“Very funny.” She shot him an annoyed look and followed him inside, where a large standing fan blew around the dusty barn air. She waved a hand at the dust motes, which did little to clear them. “Gage, we have to talk about Cat.”
“Why?” He wiped off some sweat with a bandanna and waited for his sister to start in about beauty treatments or clothes or something.
“Because she’s our only heir,” Cat said.
Gage blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You might not be interested in Gil Phillips, Inc., but you’re still part of the business,” Kendall said. “Therefore, even if you didn’t want your share, it would go to Kendall. And as she’s a minor, Leslie would then be her financial guardian.” Kendall stopped for a moment to let that sink in. “I’m sure you’d agree with me that Leslie wouldn’t be the most suitable guardian for Cat’s trust.”
No. She wouldn’t be. Gage frowned.
“It’s millions,” Kendall reminded him. “Many millions. You need to do some serious thinking and get the paperwork moving. As much as you want to ignore that you’re part of Gil Phillips, Inc., you’re one-fourth of it. And Cat would one day inherit the whole thing, unless Shaman and Xav and I married and had families, which none of us seem inclined to do. You were the only one who put your heart before everything else.”
It was a shock to consider this, as he’d never considered it before. He’d been focusing on the fundamental fact that he had a daughter, not that she’d be heiress to millions. If Leslie knew, things would get complicated fast. She’d always harped on the fact that his family appeared to have money, money that he seemed more than happy to live without, because he was.
Leslie had resented the hell out of that. Hence her telling Cat how itinerant and lazy he was.
Vast wealth could corrupt, in the wrong hands. Cat was delicate, fragile, unsure of her place in the world.
“Damn, Kendall,” he said.
“Everybody hates the voice of reason,” she said cheerfully.
“Mum wants to know if you guys want lunch.” Chelsea walked into the barn, fresh and sunny in a tight pair of faded jeans, leather clogs and a white, fluttery top. Gage got hot just looking at her. He wished Kendall would disappear so he could get close enough to Chelsea to maybe catch a whiff of her fragrance, perhaps try to melt her wall of reserve.
A guy could dream.
Neither was likely to happen, ei
ther Kendall disappearing or Chelsea letting him sneak her out of that gauzy top. He wondered what color her bra was, then glanced away when he realized she was blushing.
Okay, he was pretty much telegraphing that he wanted to rip her clothes off right in this barn and take her until the sun went down.
“Mum and I saw your car, Kendall. Mum says she’s planning to try her hand at an eggplant parmigiana tonight, and that you should stay for dinner, if you can.” She gave Gage a glance that barely touched him. “It looks like you both could use a glass of tea.”
Gage got up, brushed off his jeans. “Come on, Kendall. You might as well get inside where it’s cooler so you can harangue me some more.”
Chelsea walked ahead, obviously trying not to intrude on their brother-sister time. He gazed at her butt, following the bounce-bounce of her side-to-side curves with pleasure.
With animal focus.
“Goodness, bro,” Kendall said, “does she know about this thing you’ve got for her?”
“No,” Gage said. “And it’s going to stay that way.”
“Sure it is,” Kendall said, “because every time she gets near you, you tear off her clothes with your eyes. I thought women were like ships in the night for you, going by in the dark with no visible name.”
“Kendall,” Gage said, “it’s not like that.”
“Sure it’s not,” she said, going to greet Ms. Myers with a smile.
Gage’s gaze went straight to his daughter to make certain she was all right—she was grinning and was wearing her new boots—and then his gaze ricocheted to Chelsea, who was lining up sandwiches on plates. He felt himself smile with pleasure at the sight of her and get hard, all at once.
Okay, it was just like that.
But he had it under control.
Chapter Ten
“So who is this Tempest chick, anyway?” Cat asked, following Chelsea into her room. Chelsea didn’t want to be downstairs with Gage and Kendall. Her mum had laid out some goodies and disappeared for a walk, and Chelsea figured now was as good a time as any to try to get her heroine off the cliff.
She turned to look at Cat. “Have you been reading my work again?”
The teen shrugged. “There’s nothing to read. So no, I haven’t.”
Chelsea sank onto the bed and looked at her. “You and I have to discuss boundaries.”
“Yeah, I know.” Cat sighed and sat on the window ledge. The breeze stirred the tree outside ever so slightly. It was another hot day in New Mexico, but Chelsea had the window open. “I hear that all the time.”
“You do?” Chelsea was curious about the girl’s approach to making herself at home in people’s lives.
“Sure. Boundaries are something I generally don’t have a problem with, except when I get bored. I guess I just want to know if you’re ever going to write anything. It’s been days,” she complained.
Chelsea shook her head. “You haven’t been here that long. I have written a little.”
“At this rate, you’ll make your deadline, like, never.”
Chelsea winced. “Thanks for reminding me. So anyway, other people’s stuff is off-limits. Okay?”
Cat sighed. “Okay. I guess the book your mom got me from the library is more interesting, anyway. I just wonder about Tempest, you know? She’s more current. Although Little Women is pretty interesting,” Cat said, brightening. “I’m a modern-day Jo.”
“Maybe so.” Chelsea smiled. “Maybe you should write Tempest’s story.”
Cat stared at her. “Me? Write?”
“Sure. Why not?” She could see the bright young girl taking up writing, with her imagination and quick mind. It could give her an outlet she needed.
“Maybe.” Cat sounded doubtful. “The old lady says next I’m going to read some Shakespeare. She’s got a huge list I’ve got to read this summer, which is boooring. But I hate to let her down because she gave me the birds.” Cat didn’t look too worried about her reading list. “I probably don’t have time to write stories. Sounds like school. This isn’t Dark Diablo Summer School for Young Girls, you know.” Cat glared, but it was one of her softer glares.
“No. It’s not.” Chelsea smiled. “I’m going to get you a spiral notebook so you can write about your experiences this summer. Like a journal. That way, you can practice.”
“Maybe.” Cat sniffed. “Do you like my dad?”
Chelsea stiffened, caught off guard. “He’s nice.”
“Sometimes.” Cat looked at her scraggly nails. Chelsea thought she might have been biting them. “Yeah, he’s nice. I just don’t want you to think so.”
“What do you mean?”
Cat’s eyes went round with focus. “I don’t like Larry. Not one bit. I want my mom and my dad to get back together, so we can be a real family.”
“Oh. I see.” Chelsea wasn’t exactly surprised by Cat’s dream. Any girl might feel the same way. She sighed. “You need to talk to your dad about that, sweetie.”
“But you won’t like him?” Cat’s face was earnest.
“No. I won’t like him,” Chelsea said softly. Of course she liked Gage, but she got what Cat was asking: please leave the field open for my dad and mom.
And Chelsea had to do just that.
“I guess I’ll go find your mom,” Cat said, wandering from the room. “Make sure she didn’t get lost. Old people do that sometimes, you know.”
Chelsea shook her head—Moira wouldn’t get “lost”—but was glad Cat felt she needed to look out for her. It spoke to the teen’s depth of heart, and that reassured Chelsea. Cat was in a difficult spot, and Chelsea completely understood that the girl would feel possessive of her new father, the prince of her dreams coming to rescue her from a fate—and stepfather—she didn’t want.
Chelsea sighed and sat at her computer, finally coming to a major decision.
She was going to start the book over from the beginning. And she wasn’t coming out of this room until she’d finished her rough draft.
No more temptations—of any kind.
* * *
AFTER KENDALL LEFT, finally heading back to Hell’s Colony, Gage breathed a sigh of relief. He had a lot to think about, not the least of which was everything his sister had talked about.
“Hey,” Cat said, walking into the barn.
“Hey.” Gage grinned at his child. She’d taken out a piercing or two, unless he was miscounting. Maybe being here for the summer was a good thing—for him and for her.
“Why didn’t Aunt Kendall stay for dinner?”
“Because Aunt Kendall is a busy lady.”
Cat sniffed. “She’s pretty.”
“Yes.” Gage shrugged. “So are you.”
“Yeah, but not like that.” Cat’s eyes went round.
Gage laughed. “It costs a lot of money to look like Aunt Kendall, honey. I’m not sure you’d want to sit in a chair for as long as it takes to achieve that.”
“She said she’d take me.”
He smiled and waved at Cat to follow him as he carried some old horse blankets out to the trash. They were so worn that they were useless. The trash pile was growing. “She’d be happy to take you to the salon.”
“Do you think Chelsea is pretty?” his daughter asked.
Gage looked at her. “Sure. Why not?”
Cat stared at him. “You don’t like her, do you?”
He sank onto an old metal chair. “Of course I like her. She’s a nice lady.”
“She’s nice,” Cat allowed, “but not for a stepmother.”
“Oh,” he said. “You’re not in the market for a stepmother.”
Cat shook her head.
He sighed. “Honey, that’s the last thing you have to worry about.”
“Good. Because,” she said, scuffing the toe of her boot in the dirt on the barn floor, “I want you and Mom to get back together.”
“I’m sorry, Cat,” Gage said quietly. “That’s not something either your mom or I would want.”
She shrugged. “We’d
be a family.”
“But not a happy one.”
“I hate Larry!” Tears spilled from Cat’s eyes suddenly, surprising Gage. “I’ve done everything I can to run him off, make him not like Mom, but he still comes around. I’m not supposed to knock on the bedroom door when he’s there.” Cat sniffled, rubbing tears off her face with the palm of her hand.
“Hey,” Chelsea said, hesitating when she walked in and saw Cat was crying. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. I was going into town to get a printer and some paper, and I thought I’d take Cat with me,” she said, backing away with a stricken look.
“It’s all right,” Gage said.
“Talk about not respecting boundaries,” Cat said, sniffling some more. Gage handed her his bandanna and waved for Chelsea to stay.
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” Chelsea insisted. “I won’t be leaving for town for five or ten minutes. Cat, honey, if you want to get some ice cream, just…just let me know.”
She disappeared and Gage tucked his daughter into a hug. “Listen, you don’t have to like Larry. But if your mom likes him, it may be something you have to deal with. For now. He’s not mean to you, is he?”
“No,” Cat said. “He’s just ugly and dumb, and I don’t want him to be my father.”
“Okay.” Gage held her close. “Listen, you’re probably too old to need another dad, okay? You’ve got me, and that’s the way it is.” He resolved to make certain that Leslie understood he intended to play a vital role in Cat’s life—and if he had to utilize Kendall’s scorched-earth policy when dealing with Leslie, then he would.
Cat was not going to get caught in the cross fire. Leslie’s drama would just have to take a backseat to their daughter’s needs.
“I never thought about being too old to need a stepdad,” Cat said, cheering up. “I figured it was just something I’d get stuck with.”
“I’m not saying don’t be nice to Larry.” Gage swallowed, and tugged his daughter’s hair lightly. “Sometimes we have to be nice to people we don’t like. But summers you can be with me, if you want, and in five years, you’ll be at college, anyway. That’s the practical way to look at things. Practical is good.”