by Susan Ward
Oh fuck. Yes, I’d been right to think earlier there were currents bubbling beneath the surface at dinner. Alan was bubbling. Very elegantly, subtly, but in a few absurd sentences he’d let me know, medical directive or not, if a decision had to be made, it better not contradict them.
“I’ll try to remember that, sir.”
“I certainly hope so”—he downed his drink in a single gulp—“better than you remember not to call me sir. In fact, Damon, I’m putting my every trust that you’ll always make good choices in the shit abyss. Don’t disappoint us.”
“No, Alan. Never.”
He flashed his smile. “Fill up my glass again, and yours, too. I’m reasonably confident we could both use a couple of good drinks tonight. And that cognac is excellent. It must have been a gift from the King. It tastes like Arthur’s booze. How is your father?”
I EXCUSED MYSELF AN hour later and hurried to my bedroom before Alan waylaid me again, and found Khloe with Chrissie sprawled out on our bed. How they looked together made me hang back for a moment and watch them.
“Ah.” Khloe sighed, carefully putting the sheet of paper she was holding back into its envelope. “Krystal always writes the best letters. Thank you for bringing them, Mom.”
Chrissie kissed her daughter’s hair. “I couldn’t come empty-handed. And I kinda thought you’d want this more than anything else.”
Khloe nodded eagerly and smiled, tearing open another one. Letters from Khloe’s siblings. That was Chrissie’s present. My heart stuck in my throat. A very timely gift, given what we still had to get through.
Mother and daughter were so lovely together I didn’t want to disturb them. Careful not to make a noise, I backed out of the entryway.
I was about to turn when I heard Chrissie say, “Are you sure you don’t want me to send out a family emergency text and get the entire family here before the surgery?”
“Don’t think I don’t want to see them…you know…before. But it’s kinda hard to explain everything without telling anyone anything.” Khloe’s voice held longing and sadness. “We need to keep the circle of trust really small. Just Damon and you two and the medical team. I hate that. We’ve never done that before in our family. But if too many people know, it ups the risk that the things we don’t want to slip out will get out to others.”
Chrissie groaned. “That won’t happen, if you want to see your brothers and sisters before the sixteenth. We’ve never had a problem with what happens to the family stays in the family.”
Khloe surprised me by laughing. “Oh, yes we do. You couldn’t imagine all the stuff us kids overheard when you and Dad thought yourselves alone quietly talking. Things I think would shock you.”
“Khloe Manzone,” Chrissie exclaimed dramatically with her little impish growl in her voice. “What do you think you know about thing-things?”
“I’ll never tell,” Khloe countered cheerfully.
In a moment, they were both laughing.
“DAMON, WAKE UP.”
I shot open my eyes to find Khloe standing above me. I squinted from the bright light pouring through the windows, and there was a murderous pounding in my head. I felt like I’d been rolled, but she was perkily awake and dressed differently than the last time I saw her. Curve-hugging jeans and a black turtleneck.
“What’s happening?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”
“Me?”
Her head tilted as her brows went up. “You never came to bed last night. Why are you sleeping on the couch?’
A fuzzy memory of Alan fought for control inside my throbbing head. Yes, that was why I was feeling lousy this morning. I’d left Khloe with her mum in my room, and Alan had caught me again. The cognac had flowed more freely during our second man-to-man chat. Groaning, I shut down the sound reel of our talk before it could play too long in my thoughts.
“Your dad,” I said by way of explanation, pressing hard with my fingertips into my temples. “Drinks. Lots of talking. I must have fallen asleep out here.”
Khloe sighed. “I’m glad you’re getting along well with my dad. It’d be awful to have them staying with us indefinitely if you guys didn’t get along so well.”
Indefinitely?
“We’re turning into brilliant mates,” I said with a smile.
“Good.” She lowered and kissed me. “Now hurry up. Splash some water on your face. You missed the dawn with me and my mom, but you’re not going to miss breakfast. I’ve got to get back to them. Remember, Mom likes to eat in the kitchen.”
“Great, love. I’ll be along quickly.”
Khloe smiled and left me. I fell back on the sofa cushions and moaned. The last thing I needed today was food and more of Alan. Not that I didn’t like him. I did. I just wished everything with him didn’t feel like he enjoyed trying to mess with me.
I pushed to my feet and headed to my bedroom to do as Khloe asked. After a dose of pain medication and a full glass of water I was ready to brave another day with Alan.
Going into my closet, I rummaged through my folded sweaters for my hidden gift for Khloe. Thankfully, it was Saturday. The little box wrapped in lavender and silver would be a distraction from the food.
Seeing it in my hand made me brighten inside. How many Saturdays had I done this since Christmas? Five? No, six. But Khloe’s enjoyment and amusement over this never ebbed.
I adore how her face looks when I hand the box to her…
When I entered the kitchen, they were gathered around the breakfast table, laughing together.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said, jovial. “Sorry I kept you waiting. I overslept.” I paused beside our housekeeper to pour my coffee. “Just eggs for me today, Mrs. Freeburg.”
My truculent housekeeper did a slight nod and I went to the table. Instead of sitting down, I crouched next to Khloe. “Happy Saturday, love.”
I set the box in front of her and Khloe’s gaze shimmered with an array of emotions. “Damon, you shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, but I have to.” I kissed her and waited for her to open it. Slowly, carefully, she removed the ribbon and the paper and pulled off the lid. I used the same damn box and wrapping from the Christmas gift each week.
I waited…waited…ah, those gorgeous blue eyes shot to my face. “What is it, Damon?”
I lightly held her cheeks with my fingers and turned her face downward toward the box. “No, love, close your eyes and tell me what you see.”
She shut tight her lids, then her smile unfurled across her face. “Wonderful weeks with my parents and everyone thoroughly happy.”
My heart contracted behind my smile and I hugged her fiercely. Whatever she wanted, I would have given to her. I had to swallow twice before I could answer. “You make me thoroughly happy every second of my life, Khloe.”
She did a silly little shake of her head. “Then sit down, Damon, so we can all eat breakfast. I’m starving.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Damon
The Past
I SHOT AWAKE, NOT SURE what had robbed me of the rest I sorely needed. Something sure as hell had, though I was grateful whatever had ravished my subconscious hadn’t followed me into wakefulness. I was tense and my heart raced as if I’d downed a full pot of coffee. It was worse when I remembered the dreams.
I took a few deep breaths to calm myself then turned my head. Khloe was curled into me on her side, sound asleep. I willed the tension from my body. Nothing was wrong. Nothing had changed…no, Damon, a lot had changed in the past two weeks.
Khloe’s illness had caught up to her. Each day stole a bit more of her vibrancy. It was terrifying how quickly the crueler whim of illness could overtake someone. Only a short while ago she’d been frolicking with Cody, building a snowman. Last night she labored to walk from the kitchen to our room with me.
It was agony not to be able to stop this for her. I’d never felt more usele
ss as a man.
Maintaining the air of cheerful normalcy which she wanted had grown nearly as excruciating as watching her rapidly fade away. I couldn’t fathom how her parents managed it. Most days I felt stuck on a pendulum swinging back and forth between tears and wanting to break something. Somehow they never broke, whereas I always felt I was hovering on the edge.
The insomnia needed to end. The surgery was in two days. My emotions were frayed. I needed to change that quickly somehow. I sensed I would need every ounce of strength I possessed to get through the surgery and after.
I closed my eyes and tried to fall back to sleep. A few minutes later my phone dinged. I did a fast check to make sure the sound hadn’t woken Khloe and carefully untangled my limbs from hers.
Damn it. The text was from Mr. Freeburg. A problem in the north pasture that he wanted to talk to me about before he did anything because the issue was a costly one.
Why was it that every problem on a ranch seemed to be a costly one? I couldn’t understand how some people made money raising livestock. I never did better with Winderly Ranch than breaking even.
I debated going back to bed with Khloe and ignoring it. Then I hauled my tired arse to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, dressed, and left the bedroom.
Downstairs I flipped on the lights. I’d beaten Mrs. Freeburg to the kitchen this morning. I got a pot of coffee brewing, downed a tall glass of orange juice, then went to the mudroom for my heavy jacket, wool cap, and gloves.
I left the house and sat down on the front porch to wait for Mr. Freeburg to show up with the four-wheel-drive truck to take me to the north pasture.
I rubbed my wool-encased hands together. It had snowed for a week, but at least it had stopped. It was going to be a beautiful, cold day with a clear blue sky if my weather app could be believed.
The ranch was isolated and private, but blissfully so. Very different than England, but I’d grown to appreciate why my mother had always missed it so much.
She’d been raised on the ranch, later became an actress, then she met my father, became his second wife, and gave birth to me and Leo. But in her core, she’d always been a rancher’s daughter from Wyoming.
The gnarled wood rocker I sat on was an antique in America and would have been considered slightly used in the UK. The one beside me—Khloe’s—was as well.
Carefully, I adjusted the fuzzy cheetah-print blanket on it so it would be how she liked it if she came out this morning to sit there to wait for me to return.
My fingers started to tap the arm of my chair.
Fifteen minutes and counting.
Damn it, Freeburg.
I wanted him to get here quickly so I could finish up and be back before Khloe woke.
I finally saw the headlights in the distance, sprinted down the front steps, and waited at the edge of the drive. The Ford pulled to a stop next to me. Freeburg didn’t get out of the vehicle to open the door for me.
The passenger window rolled down. “It’s a mess out there. Entire section of fence gone. Ground so hard we can’t get a post in it until spring. Stock scattered in the forest. Don’t know what you want to do, boss.”
Boss. Being called that still sounded strange even after two years, and it was doubly odd that any title sounded strange after being called Your Highness for most of my thirty years. “Run me out there. Let me look at it. There has to be a solution that won’t bankrupt me and keeps our cattle on the ranch.”
The door lock popped, and I climbed in.
By the time we reached the north pasture, the sun was coming up. “Dawn: the start of a new day and infinite possibilities,” I could hear Khloe saying inside my head.
We turned off the main road onto a loose gravel and dirt drive. The old truck slowed and bounced from the ditches and holes. Freeburg turned off into the dirt that edged a snowbank.
He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door. A blast of cold air rushed in. “Can’t go any farther, sir. Can’t see anything from here. The guys are waiting about two hundred yards ahead.”
Without waiting for a reply from me, he pulled his bulk from the seat and slammed the door. I wouldn’t have missed it if he never called me sir again…or having doors slammed in my face.
Doors slammed in my face… A memory of Khloe filled my thoughts as I climbed out of the seat to follow Freeburg. I caught up with him, and without talking we walked the last hundred yards to the problem.
The four other workers I had were waiting on horseback. The problem seemed straightforward to me: get the herd back on my property and use the slash from the forest to patch the hole in the fence. Any of the other possible repairs Freeburg explained to me seemed a needless expense.
I wondered if he’d brought me out there in part because he was still testing me. We could fix the issue with what we could glean from the land, and that required no expense or my prior approval. It was a temporary solution, but it would do for now, and Freeburg had been right; there’d be no digging fence posts until spring.
I worked with the men until everything was squared away and the downed barrier had been replaced. It was breakfast time before we finished.
“Freeburg, there’s no need for me to be here now. Drive me back to the house.”
He didn’t answer but pulled the keys from his pocket and went back to the truck. In my idle time I wondered what he thought of me. He’d known my mother and remembered her fondly. It was clear he despised my father, the King. But I wasn’t certain what he thought of me.
I was here for good whether Freeburg wanted that or not. Khloe loved Winderly Ranch and wanted it as our permanent home.
Shortly after nine, we pulled to a stop in front of the house. I alighted from the truck without a word to him. Every pissing war between men was different—this was ours.
Taking the steps two at a time, I reached the porch and went into the house. I could hear voices from the kitchen. I was disappointed I hadn’t gotten back before Khloe got up for the day, that I’d missed watching the dawn with her, and probably most of her breakfast.
I was shrugging out of my jacket as I stepped into the kitchen.
“There you are,” she announced brightly as I crossed the room. “Where’d you go?”
“Freeburg. Crisis in the north pasture. Need I say more?”
Smiling, Khloe shook her head. “Nope.”
I leaned in for a kiss and instead she pressed her nose against mine.
She shuddered. “Brr. You feel cold.”
“I am cold. I need some heat from you.” I snuck a fast kiss, and she playfully shoved me away. “It’s a beautiful day out there. Clear. It must have been a lovely sunrise. Did you watch it?”
“I caught a bit of it with my mother.”
I favored Chrissie and Alan with a smile before I went for the coffeepot. Her mother’s eyes added heaviness to my heart. I could tell behind their façades they were worried about her. I was as well. The surgery couldn’t have come quickly enough for any of us.
As I poured a mug of coffee, I said, “Mrs. Freeburg, can you make me some eggs and toast, please?”
Without answering me, she grabbed a cast-iron skillet from a cabinet and started cooking.
Leaning back against the counter and sipping my coffee, I studied Khloe and her parents, then asked, “What’s the plan for today? Does anyone have anything they want to do? It’s clear enough to drive into Jackson Hole, Khloe. You could go with your mother. Have lunch out. Do some shopping. Take advantage of your parents being here, since we can’t go anywhere in public without creating a paparazzi frenzy.”
The question was part of the charade we all struggled to maintain, buggering on as if everything were fine and dandy. But of course, it wasn’t.
Khloe’s blue eyes widened. “Going into town with my parents would cause a tabloid shitstorm. It’s the height of the ski season. All the fashionable people are in Jackson Hole. There’s paparazzi everywhere. I couldn’t walk
down the street with my mom without it turning into an event in the press. Besides, is that really what you want me to do today? Leave you? Us not be together? Go out with my mother?”
Not even for a second, love, not even if you could.
I ignored my heart contracting and said in a tone that matched her lightness, “I do if you want to. It can’t be fun always hiding on the ranch with me because we can’t be seen together by the press.”
She pouted. “It’s very fun. I thought that you thought it was fun, too.”
“Sometimes fun,” I replied, but I was only playing my part in our game.
Khloe slouched down and glared at me.
She wasn’t really angry with me; she’d woken flirty this morning. I drank my coffee and waited. If she wanted to banter nonsensically with me, I’d keep it going as long as she wanted to. Her playfulness today was like a balm that kept me going as my spirits dimmed.
Khloe sat up and frowned. “You really wouldn’t care if I went off and had my own plans all day today? If we spent the entire day apart?”
I shrugged. “Not if it made you happy, love.”
“Happy.” She said that like it was a four-letter word. “I’m very not happy right now, Damon.”
I pretended not to understand, but I did.
Mrs. Freeburg put my breakfast plate on the table. I moved away from the counter and sat down. After arranging my napkin across my lap, I reached for the salt.
“Most of the roads are clear today,” I told Alan. “We could head out after breakfast, and I could show you the ranch. Of course, not all of it. Not all the two hundred thousand acres are accessible. Not until spring. But there’s a wonderful spot on the east ridge we can get to with a remarkable view of the valley. Have you ever seen a moose or a wild buffalo?”
Alan arched a brow. “Can’t say that I have, Damon.”
“They’re very interesting animals. Protected, of course, as we’re in a national forest, but fascinating to watch. You might enjoy it. It would take a day to do the short loop of my land with the road conditions as they are. But I’d really like to show it to you before you leave, Alan.”