“Hello, Elyse. It’s good to see you.”
She didn’t believe that any more than he did. She looked like she wanted to be somewhere else. A world away. Like she had been for a decade.
“It’s good to see you, too, Brett,” she said, her jaw tight. “How have you been?”
Fine. Excellent. Divorced. How about you?
“Good,” he replied instead. “Busy. You.”
“Same,” she said and took a couple of steps into the kitchen.
Brett looked her over as discreetly as he could. She was curvier than he remembered. More…womanly. A flicker of something uncurled in his stomach and he quickly pushed the feeling aside.
Out of the question, McCrane.
They were ancient history. She was pure city-girl now. And he was pure country. She was a lawyer. He was a cane farmer. Oil and water didn’t mix. She’d told him as much a decade earlier.
“Have you seen your dad?” he asked, ignoring the heat climbing up his neck.
She nodded. “Yes. I see he still thinks the sun shines out of you.”
It was a mild dig, but he knew Elyse had always been a little irritated by the fact he’d continued to have a good relationship with her father. Even after they’d broken up and she’d left town, Frank Prescott had still maintained a strong presence in his life. Frank knew how he’d struggled trying to help raise Rick when their mother had been injured in a car accident when Brett was twenty-one. Their father had been killed when Rick was a baby, forcing Brett to grow up early and help keep the farm going. Frank had been a rock and Brett would always been grateful for the other man’s kindness and unfailing support. Especially now that Frank had his own troubles.
“How long are you staying?” he asked.
She shrugged lightly. “I’m not sure. A few days. Enough time to make sure B.J. is settled.”
Brett’s spine straightened. “I’m sure Rick will make sure she’s okay.”
He believed in his brother. Rick might be young, but he knew his brother would eventually do the right thing. Rick had a lot of integrity and believed in the value of family as much as Brett did.
She moved around the table. “So…I hear you got divorced?”
His mouth twitched. Elyse had always had a way of getting straight the point of things. “Yes. Three years ago.”
“You weren’t married long.”
“A little over a year,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said and nodded. “I know how important family is to you.”
She did know. He’d told her often enough. There was a time when Elyse Prescott had known him better than anyone. “What about you…weren’t you engaged to someone from your law firm?”
“I was for a time. It didn’t work out, so thankfully we called off our engagement before we made it to the altar.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, echoing the words she’d said to him moments before.
Her mouth twisted in a way he remembered. A mouth he’d once kissed many times.
“You know,” she said quietly. “This is a whole lot more civil than I imagined our first meeting would be after so long.”
“You’ve been thinking about me, have you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not at all.”
Silence suddenly stretched between them like frayed elastic. Of course she hadn’t been thinking about him. About them. They were done. Dusted. As over as any two people could be. She’d walked out, she’d left him and Denary the afternoon he’d dropped to his knee and proposed marriage. And she hadn’t been back until now.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, flipping the subject.
She looked at the plate and smiled. “Actually, yes. But it looks as though you’ve made enough to feed an army.”
He shrugged. “Rick always eats when he’s nervous.”
“He’s nervous?”
“My brother just learned he’s a dad and is meeting his baby son for the first time,” Brett reminded her. “I’d say that gives him good cause to be nervous.”
Elyse nodded. “Of course. But I saw them out on the porch just now and he seemed to be coping okay.”
“He has to cope, right?”
Brett wasn’t about to tell Elyse he’d spent hours talking with Rick about his responsibilities toward Billy-Jean and the baby the moment B.J. had called his brother and told him the news. Not that Rick wanted to bail. He was just surprised. And rightly so. When B.J. had left for her trip there was no mention of a baby. At the time it had simply looked like history was repeating itself and another Prescott woman was desperate to get away from Denary and a relationship with a McCrane.
“I guess he does,” she said quietly. “It’s all happened so fast. B.J. turned up on my doorstep three days ago with a baby in her arms. As soon as I knew Rick hadn’t been told, I got her to call him.”
He knew that. Rick had said as much. He also knew Elyse had a lot of influence over her younger sister. “Billy-Jean has always listened to you.”
Elyse’s shoulders pushed back immediately. It was a dig. And she knew immediately what he meant. “I didn’t encourage her to take a gap year, Brett. That was her idea.”
“But you paid for it, right?”
“She’s my sister,” she replied. “Of course I did.”
Brett came around the counter. “Did you know she was dating Rick at the time?”
“Yes.”
It was all he needed to hear. Clearly Elyse didn’t want her sister getting serious and settling for a life as a cane farmer’s wife. Yeah…history did have a way of repeating itself.
“I guess this time you didn’t get what you wanted.”
Her back straightened. She was mad. Well, too damned bad. He had a right to say what was on his mind. Hell, she hadn’t given him a chance ten years ago.
“Despite what you think,” she said, her voice tight. “I’m not responsible for every crazy thing that goes wrong with this family. I didn’t force my sister to keep her pregnancy a secret from Rick…she made that decision on her own.”
“You can keep telling yourself that, Elyse, if it makes you feel better. But we both know exactly how you feel about this town, this farm, and anyone whose surname is McCrane.”
Elyse clenched her jaw. Five minutes in a room with Brett and they were in the middle of an argument.
What else could I expect?
He clearly hadn’t forgiven her. And he also clearly blamed her for the situation with her sister and his brother.
“So, this conversation isn’t about B.J. and Rick, is it Brett. It’s about you and me?”
“You and me?” he echoed the words with more sarcasm than she thought he possessed.
She crossed her arms. “And the fact that you still hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” he said quietly. “Hate requires a certain level of energy and…commitment. And I got you out of my system a long time ago, Elyse.”
Her stomach constricted. The disregard in his voice spoke volumes. “You mean when you married Amanda Hawkins?”
“Mandy had nothing to do with it.”
Mandy.
Elyse had forgotten how he’d always called her friend that. Amanda had been her friend. Her best friend for a time. Until Amanda’s wealthy parents had sent her off to boarding school for the last two years of school. Elyse had lost contact with her once she left Denary and it wasn’t until several years later that she heard Amanda had returned to town and then married Brett.
She shrugged and tried to get the image of Brett marrying the perfectly beautiful Amanda out of her head. She’d seen the photographs. Billie-Jean had made sure of it. Brett had looked so handsome in his suit and tie and Amanda had been a vision in white silk and lace.
“I’m…sorry,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business.”
“No,” he said. “But with our history, meeting again was never going to be easy.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said and n
odded. “And today is about B.J., Rick and the baby. Not anything else.”
Not us…
“Exactly,” he replied. “They are going to need us both. Without any distractions.”
He was right. She was only back for a few days and wasting time arguing with Brett…with doing anything with Brett, for that matter, was a distraction no one needed. Before she returned to Sydney she needed to ensure her sister was settled and stable.
“So, Rick intends to be a hands on father?”
“I believe so,” he replied.
“Good. I know B.J. wants him to be involved. I hope they can work it out.”
“Better than we did, at least.”
Elyse stilled. There were more unsaid in his words than she wanted to admit. Because B.J. and Rick could easily have been herself and Brett. If she’d stayed. If she’d accepted his proposal. If she hadn’t been so scared that the moment he’d said the words she’d wanted to run like the wind.
And she had.
She’d run and kept running. Even breaking up with her ex-fiancé had been about bolting from commitment. Because the same dread had leached through her blood once Don had demanded she pick a wedding date. Old emotions had risen up. Old fears. And the same, irrational sense of being trapped. Of course she knew it was ridiculous. Marriage wasn’t a trap. Marriage was about spending a lifetime with someone she loved. But that someone wasn’t Don. She wasn’t even sure that someone actually existed for her. Maybe she was simply too career focused. Too independent. Too…selfish. Don had said as much.
So had Brett.
“You said you were hungry?” he reminded her and waved a hand to the food. “Lunch is about ten minutes away.
She nodded. “Yes…sure. But I think I might go and unpack first.” She turned to leave, but swiveled back. “By the way, how’s your mother?”
“You can see for yourself soon,” he replied. “She’ll be here after lunch.”
“Billy-Jean said she’s out of the wheelchair?”
“That’s right,” he said. “She uses a walking stick nowadays. And she’s driving again.”
She knew his mother’s accident had been hard for the family. But the McCrane’s were tough. “I’m happy to hear it. Well…see you later.”
She turned on her heels and walked from the room. Her heart heavy. Her head uneasy.
And she knew she was destined to stay that way until the moment she left Denary.
CHAPTER THREE
Up in her old room, Elyse sat on the edge of the narrow bed and twisted her hands in her lap. Everything was same…the posters of faded rock stars on the walls, the cabinet filled with her old trophies from pony club, the pale purple chenille bedspread. The room was unchanged…almost like the last decade hadn’t happened.
But it had, she reminded herself. She was older. Wiser.
Her hands moved across the soft bedspread and she expelled a heavy sigh. How many times had she made out with Brett on this bed? Too many to count. They’d been hot and heavy for one another as teenagers. She’d lost her virginity in the hayloft at the stables on his farm. He’d been as nervous as she was. But he’d been gentle and considerate too. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it to herself, Brett McCrane had set a benchmark that no other lover had ever come close to.
Maybe it was simply that first loves were the hardest to forget, she mused and sighed heavily as she stood and began to unpack her small suitcase. She had deliberately packed just four days’ worth of clothes and not more. Four days. She said the words to herself over and over, like a chant she knew needed to become imbedded in her brain. Because Elyse would be gone once she knew her sister and nephew were okay.
She thought about Brett again. There was a hardness to him now. He’d grown up. Gone was the boy with the sexy smile and loose-limbed walk who’d always managed to get her heart racing. Oh, her heart was racing now…but not for the same reason. Now, she was wound up and annoyed because he clearly hadn’t forgiven her for bailing on them ten years ago.
I didn’t bail.
I left so I could have a career.
Only, Brett had never seen it that way. He never would. Besides, he’d married someone else…so Brett McCrane and his lingering resentment could go straight to hell.
Elyse shook off her thoughts of Brett, changed into a fresh T-Shirt, squirted on a dash of her favorite Dior fragrance and then headed back downstairs.
She heard sounds coming from the front living room and lingered discreetly in the doorway. Billie-Jean and Rick were sitting on the sofa, their baby between them. It was a nice picture. She knew Rick had every reason to be angry at her sister, but the baby was clearly a good antidote for those feelings. They looked…happy.
Something twisted deep down in Elyse.
Have I ever been truly happy?
She turned and walked down the hall and back into the kitchen. Her father was there, dressed in his signature blue overalls, his battered cowboy hat on the table. He was rifling through the top cupboards, clearly looking for something.
“Everything okay, Dad?”
He stopped and turned, his expression narrowing. And he looked at her strangely. Almost…almost as though he didn’t know her. Then recognition suddenly flickered in his eyes.
“Oh, it’s you, Elyse.”
She stepped toward the counter. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and waved a hand dismissively. “Sure. Just looking for my damned hat.”
His hat? “It’s on the table, Dad.”
Her father looked across the room. “That’s not my hat.”
Elyse picked it up and held it out. “Sure it is. You’ve had this hat for years.”
He didn’t look convinced and scowled again, harsher this time. “I think I know my own hat and I’m telling you that’s not it, so stop–”
“How about this one, Frank?”
Elyse swiveled on her heels. Brett stood in the doorway, with an old straw hat in his hands. She watched as her father nodded and quickly smiled.
“Yes,” her dad said, clearly relieved. “That’s the one.”
Brett looked at her with a kind of heated intensity for a second and then moved his attention to her father. He spoke quietly to her dad about which sugar cane field was getting cut next and the unreliable cutting machine. Brett’s voice was deep and quiet and strangely calming. Her father clearly thought so to, because the scowl on her dad’s face quickly disappeared and his bony shoulders loosened. Yes, her father had lost weight. And a lot of it. And in that moment she realized he looked much older that his sixty-four years.
Concern immediately marred her expression. Was he ill? She looked toward Brett for reassurance, but her former lover wasn’t looking at her. He was still talking with her dad, still using his calm voice to ease what she suspected would have been her father’s building temper.
Brett got her father to sit at the kitchen table and Elyse immediately walked around the counter and grabbed a stack of plates from the cupboard. Brett pulled out the cutlery and in less than a minute they had set the table for five. Rick and Billy-Jean appeared in the doorway and Elyse was suddenly glad for the ally her sister provided. B.J. was smiling and it made Elyse smile in return.
“So,” Rick said cheerfully to his brother as he came into the room. “You wanna meet your nephew?”
Elyse watched Brett’s shoulders tighten, and was amazed that she still knew his moods….even after ten years. She knew how much Brett wanted children of his own, he’d told her as much when they were dating and again on that ill-fated Sunday afternoon when he’d proposed. Part of her wanted to know why he hadn’t started a family with Amanda….and why he’d divorced the other woman after barely a year of marriage.
As Rick handed the baby over to Brett, Elyse’s stomach rode a wave of loop-the loops. As a very much in love seventeen year old, she had imagined having Brett’s baby countless times. Of course, the image was always intertwined with her need to have a career. To do more. To be more. But mostly to
get out from under her mother’s unhappy shadow.
The memory lingered and a strange sensation filled her ribcage. Brett held the baby with a confident ease and any concerns she had about Billy-Jean having support quickly faded. Brett would make sure Rick and her sister were okay…she was sure of it.
Lunch was mostly an easy affair. The baby took everyone’s attention and Elyse was pleased that B.J. seemed to be settling in to the role as Jack’s mother. Rick was quiet. Brett even quieter. And her father came out with random pieces of conversation in between bites of his lunch. She caught Brett’s stare every now and then and by the time the food was eaten and the crockery piled into the dishwasher, Elyse had a deep-rooted need to be alone for a while. Which she would have done had Brett’s mother not arrived just as they were about to vacate the kitchen. Maureen McCrane was a tall, striking looking woman in her late fifties with a silver grey bob and dark eyebrows. Elyse had always liked the older woman…but she knew Maureen’s feelings were the opposite.
Like her father, Maureen had never quite forgiven Elyse for leaving her son.
She walked with a stick, but she was still as attractive in navy moleskins, a blue checked shirt, silver belt and heeled boots. Maureen insisted on holding her new grandson and Rick proudly handed the baby to his mother once they were all seated in the front living room. There was a shabby looking Christmas tree in the corner and she recognized the old ornaments and tinsel. Elyse stayed by the door, watching her family and Brett’s family intertwine so seamlessly. Finally, the Prescott’s and the McCrane’s were one family. Like her father had always wanted. Like Maureen had always wanted.
And I’m not a part of it.
It saddened her and she had no idea why. Elyse had gotten over her feelings for Brett a long time ago. There was nothing between them now. Just history. And a kind of lingering resentment. But standing in the doorway she had never felt more alone and isolated in her life. Except perhaps for the day she’d left Denary after Brett had proposed.
She swallowed the heavy feeling in her throat and turned on her heels. She needed some fresh air. Some thinking time. Some time out.
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