by Kent, Alison
She cried for her friends, not for her own loss but for what had been taken away from the two of them, their future, their family, their dreams. Their daughter. Oh, their daughter. She had no doubt their Lily had been well cared for all this time, but it broke her heart to realize a piece of Sierra still existed. How much more hurt must Angelo have felt at learning the truth. And yet all she’d done was tell him to leave his sister’s daughter alone. She hadn’t once thought about what he must be feeling. She should go to him, apologize, ask if he wanted to talk.
The sound of a whimper kept her from doing anything. She stopped crying and swiped her fingers beneath her eyes and her nose. Having lived her whole life on a sheep farm, she knew more than she cared to about predators. They stalked and killed their prey as far away as they could from humans and their scents. If a coyote or wild dog had come this close to a barn, had come inside, it was most likely sick or injured. That made it a danger, and she didn’t think her car keys would work as a weapon this time.
But the noise didn’t sound like a big animal. It sounded small, and hurt, and afraid.
It wasn’t a puppy she found peering at her from between the slats of a stall, but a full-grown dog. He just hadn’t grown very big. His coarse, curly fur was short, except around his face, where it stood up like strands of crooked straw. His eyes were huge and black, and his ears flopped forward as he cocked his head and listened to her approach. She knelt in front of him, talking to him in a soft, calming voice, her words mostly nonsensical, but doing their job as the dog wagged its tail and started on a slow, forward army crawl toward her.
And then a shadow fell over him and he scurried away. Luna wanted to turn around and come out swinging.
“What are you doing in here?” Angelo asked.
“I heard a noise.”
His boots scraped over the floor as he moved closer. “So you came inside without knowing what was here?”
“I knew it was an animal. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t hurt.”
“I repeat. So you came inside without knowing—”
“Shut up, would you?” she yelled, then more quietly, “Just shut up. I’m not stupid. I grew up on a farm, you know.” But she was sad and angry and hurting about Oscar, and she was unable to keep the mixture from bubbling up into her voice. And the dog wouldn’t think she was a horrible person, or tell her what to do, or berate her for the lies she’d told when all she’d been doing was keeping her promise to her friend.
“Okay, farm girl. Now what?”
She looked back at the dog. He’d cocked his head to the side, as if listening to the two of them argue. He didn’t seem scared, but she still feared he might be hurt. If she had a snare… but she didn’t. She could probably find a length of rope that would work. There were plenty of tools with handles she could use. But she needed food for bait.
“Go back to the house. In the fridge. Bring me the rest of my hamburger from the other night.” When a guilty look pulled at the corners of his mouth, she sighed. “Is there anything there you haven’t eaten that a dog might like?”
“If he’s hungry, I doubt he’ll be picky.”
“Just go. Find me something to feed him. I’m going to see if I can rig up a snare pole. Just in case he’s injured.” But before she could do that, the dog dropped to his belly again and began crawling toward her, scooting through the dirt on the floor, his wagging tail sweeping through layers of detritus.
She patted a hand to her thigh and said, “Come.”
The dog moved closer, stopping once he’d reached her feet and resting his chin on the toes of her boot. “Well, what a sweetie you are,” she said, leaning down to scratch the top of his head.
“Be careful,” Angelo said behind her, and she shooed him out the door, gaining her feet and walking out behind him, the dog following her, trusting her, and giving her the first reason she’d had to smile all day.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Now what?” Angelo asked an hour later, as the dog, still damp from his bath but smelling a whole lot better, settled onto the same couch cushion as Luna, as close as he could get without being in her lap.
“Francisco.”
“What?”
“That’s his name. Every school needs a mascot.”
He nearly hurt himself rolling his eyes. “And the Caffey-Gatlin Academy needs a fleabag named Francisco?”
But Luna ignored him. “I’ll take him to see the vet tomorrow. See if he’s chipped. Get him tested for the obvious things. Put up flyers.”
Angelo didn’t even want to know how much time and money she was going to spend on the mutt. “And tonight?”
“He can stay here.”
“No, he can’t.”
“In the barn then.”
“No, he can’t.”
“Angelo!”
“Neither one of us has time to dog-sit. You can take him to the farm.”
“My parents are about to have a new baby in the house. I’m not going to bring a dog home until he’s been treated for fleas and tested for heartworms—”
“Your call where he goes, but I’m not watching your dog.”
“He’s not my—” She stopped herself. And then she laughed. “He’s not my dog yet. But he is my responsibility. I rescued him. I can’t foist him off on someone else. Mitch Pepper taught me that when he convinced my father to let me keep Maya.”
“Who’s Mitch again?”
“Kaylie’s father. Ten mentioned him this afternoon.”
“And Maya… She was your dog, right?”
She nodded, smiling as if pleased he remembered. “A Chinese crested–Jack Russell mix. I found her in the ditch in front of the farm. We had two border collies and two Great Pyrs already, so Daddy made sure I understood she was my responsibility. Just like Francisco.”
“Wait a minute. Are you calling me irresponsible?”
“Are you feeling irresponsible?”
“Have I ever told you that I don’t like dogs?”
“Who doesn’t like dogs?”
“I don’t like dogs.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She shook her head. “That’s just crazy talk. Dogs are man’s best friend.”
“Not this man.”
“As grumpy as you are, I’m surprised you have any friends at all,” she said, leaving him to wonder what she’d think if she knew how few he had, how hard it had been to care about friendships when his family had cut him off. Hard enough to live with having failed as a brother and a son. No sense tempting fate and failing elsewhere.
Then he wondered whether his boss counted, his boss’s wife, their two sons who were in and out of the shop as they handled the business side of the business. And… that was about it. He rented a small house in the town where he lived, and he supposed he was friends, or at least friendly, with the waitress at the diner where he ate breakfast every day. With the short-order cook whose biscuits were the best he’d ever had, and that included those at Malina’s.
He worked long hours, never setting an alarm because he was an early riser, heading into the shop when it was still dark. And he stayed late because there was always work to keep him busy, and he had nowhere else to be. No one to go home to. No family to drop by on and catch up with his life.
“Angelo?”
“Sorry. Was trying to come up with a list of names I could count as friends.” And wondering what it said that he was sitting with and drawn to the woman who’d caused his family to disown him.
“I don’t have many either. Kaylie, Ten Keller’s fiancée, is my best. She’s actually the closest one I’ve had since Sierra. Seems I’m only capable of having one at a time,” she said, grimacing.
“What about Ten? And Will? They don’t count?”
“As casual friends, sure. That’s not what Kaylie is. Or what Sierra was.”
“Or what the mutt’s supposed to be?”
“Sometimes a dog is a better listener than anyone.”
; “Yeah, but you can’t take Frank here to Malina’s.”
That brought a smile to her mouth, a smile that faded too quickly and had him wondering whether she was thinking back to the morning they’d gone to breakfast. The morning she’d told him about getting so completely lost in her work she ended up needing bandages. The morning he’d been a jerk because he hadn’t known what to do with that kiss and the lingering burn.
It haunted him still. He woke in the middle of the night with his heart pounding, feeling Luna’s hands on his back, turning into her arms, only to find he was alone in the house where he’d always been alone, ignored, in the way, left to fend because he’d proved himself responsible. Looking forward to Luna’s visits because she paid attention to him. And if that wasn’t desperately pathetic…
So it surprised him when what she said was, “I guess it’s too late for us.”
Tread carefully, Caffey. Do not be dumb. “To be friends?”
She nodded. “Seems the least we could do. For Sierra.”
“Hmm. I thought all the time you’ve been spending here was because you wanted to be something more.” He didn’t know why he’d said it. It was such a stupid thing to say, to even be considering. Especially when things between them had become less contentious.
He waited, thinking he must’ve gone too far, but finally, she looked up, her hand stilling on the mutt’s head. The mutt on the cushion between them, keeping them apart. “We were too young, you know. Back then. You and me. Oscar and Sierra. All of us sneaking around.”
“You three maybe. I was eighteen.” He watched Luna stroke the dog, watched the dog shiver between them, thought back to her hands on his skin.
“And that made you old enough?”
“It made me horny enough.”
“Were you ashamed of me? Being with the girl from the sheep farm when you could have had anyone?”
“No, Luna. I wanted the girl from the sheep farm.”
The room, already dark, took on a new closeness, the light from the kitchen the only illumination on the first floor where they waited… for supper, for another box or two to be packed. For bed. Luna’s eyes glowed, a deep brown of coffee and chocolate and caramel, her hair so rich and black, glossy even in the feeble light.
Her smile began slowly, just a tip at both corners of her mouth, then broader, reaching her eyes, shining there. “We fought a lot, you know. For two people who spent as much time as we did in bed.”
“There’s a fine line between love and hate.” Crap. That was not what he’d meant to say. “Not that what either of us felt was love—”
“Oh, I know,” she rushed to say, and he wasn’t sure her letting him off the hook was what he’d wanted to hear. But it was the smart thing for both of them; until he learned the things he’d come here for, he had to keep his current involvement with her to this. Whatever this was. Friendship, he supposed.
Yeah. He could be friends with Luna Meadows. And with the admission came the strangest sense of lightness, of freedom, one he’d take time later to examine. Right now, he was hungry. He had boxes to pack. And he probably needed to make a run for dog food. Who would’ve thought?
DAY THREE
THURSDAY
It is better to spend one day contemplating the birth and death of all things than a hundred years never contemplating beginnings and endings.
—Buddha
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
What do you think?” Luna asked, raising the grate on the loft’s freight elevator. Breathing deeply, she swore she could still smell the bales of cotton that had been stored here while awaiting shipment to East Coast textile mills more than a hundred and forty years ago.
“Are you kidding me? This is incredible. And it is so, so you,” Kaylie said, stepping into the huge open space on the top level of the four-story warehouse. The floor was rough concrete, the room bare except for the six support beams that almost symmetrically divided the area into three sections.
“Because I’m vacant? And naked?”
“No, silly. Because you’re an artist, and this place is a palette waiting for you to weave your magic.”
“Very clever, you are, with the weaving instead of the painting.”
But Kaylie was already halfway across the room, making her way to the long stretch of windows. She reached for the handle to one and rolled it open. The warm Hill Country breeze fluttered through, and she breathed it in, filling her lungs, smiling.
“If I didn’t love my house so much, and hadn’t just spent a ridiculous fortune putting it back together after the fire, I would be raising all kinds of money to buy this place.” She closed her eyes, dropped her head back. “Open windows on both ends and you’ll never need a fan. And the light is incredible. How can you stand not living here already? And there’s even enough room if you decided you want to share the place. With a roommate. Or, you know, a man.”
A blush stole up Luna’s neck as she realized Angelo was the only man who came to mind. Not any of the men she’d dated casually over the years. Not any of those she’d dated seriously. Not even Will Bowman, whom she’d thought at one time she’d like to know better.
“Who is it?”
“What?” She glanced at Kaylie and frowned.
“The look on your face. What’s his name?”
Luna sighed, walking the length of the loft as if she’d find a sensible answer along the way. She’d been living at home with her parents for twenty-eight years. She hadn’t gone to college. She’d learned her trade while confined to her bed with a broken hip in high school. Once her scarf line had taken off with the first celebrity sighting, one from the Austin boutique draped artfully around Cameron Diaz’s shoulders, she’d refused to give but just a handful of interviews, avoiding TV spots like the plague.
At heart, she was a small-town girl, and she’d lucked into a lucrative profession. And she’d done so without having to beat the streets and hawk her wares. But no matter how many men she’d dated, she’d had eyes for no one but Angelo Caffey since seeing him for the very first time.
How did she even function in the real world with so little real-world experience?
How could she possibly trust what she felt for him? How would she ever know if her feelings for him were for him, or if they were tied to the loss of his sister? She wanted desperately to believe that last night had been a turning point. That they had moved beyond the anger and reached a place where they could talk about the past, grieve what they’d lost. Explore what they’d both buried because the time had never been right.
“Luna? Is something wrong?”
“I think I’m in love,” she said, swept away as a flood of emotions crashed over her, stunned her, left her struggling to breathe. “I think I have been for years.”
“What?” Kaylie reached out, took hold of Luna’s arm, and pulled her around. “What are you talking about? Who are you in love with?”
“Angelo Caffey.”
“From the house, Angelo? Your friend’s brother, Angelo?”
Luna nodded. “I met Sierra when we were both freshmen at the St. Thomas Preparatory School. Angelo went to Hope Springs High, but I actually met him the same day. He came to school to pick her up, and I came this close to punching his lights out.”
With a shocked laugh, Kaylie let her go. “I need to hear this story. And as much as I’d love hearing it over a margarita, I need to hear it now.”
“There’s not a lot to it. Sierra and I were both waiting for our rides in front of the school. We were getting to know each other. I was telling her about a dog I’d had. We were fifteen and in private school. And not the cool Gossip Girl TV show kind of school. We were dorks,” she said, rolling her eyes when Kaylie chuckled. “Anyway, Angelo drove up and honked. Sierra and I were talking, so she didn’t move, staying to hear what I was saying. He honked again. I got up and walked to his car and, hypocrite that I am, yelled at him to stop yelling. He shoved the door open and got out, and was about to lay into me.”
“B
ut you didn’t let him.”
“I don’t have siblings, so I’m the last person to understand the dynamics. But the way he was talking to Sierra just burned me up. I got close enough to jab my finger into his chest, and I kept yelling, until all of a sudden I realized he was breathing hard. And his chest was this solid wall of young football player muscle. And my chest was mush. I fell completely. Right there. Just like that.”
“But you never dated?”
“I wouldn’t call what we did dating,” she said, and Kaylie aahed knowingly. “I spent a lot of time at Sierra’s house. I loved all the noise. She had two sisters and three brothers. Angelo was the oldest. But we were never friends, he and I. And I always had to get in the last word.”
“Sounds like you were meant to be together from day one.”
“I don’t know. How can I know?” She was so very frustrated with wanting to. “We were so young back then. But now that he’s here—”
“He’s not a boy any longer.”
Luna nodded. “He came to clear out the house before we tear it down. Or that had been the plan. Now we may not tear it down. Will suggested building onto it, using the house for the staff, and I ran the idea by Ten… which I’m sure you already know.”
“He mentioned it, yes. And I think it’s a perfect idea. But then you know how I feel about renovating structures, especially ones full of history. It sounds like this one holds a lot for you.”
“It does. Which makes it hard to know what to do. I don’t want to spend time in those rooms and see Angelo, or relive memories of him being there, every time I turn a corner. I know how I feel, and I know he’s not indifferent to me. But it’s so hard to know where all the tension is coming from. We’re in the house together, looking through all the things that are still there, and memories are everywhere, making me sad. But I try to hide it because I know he’s got to be feeling even worse.”