She’d barely reached her office door when Mr. Jackson popped his head in and asked Alyssa to visit a client in the Upper East Side. Their office was located around the corner from Times Square so it wouldn’t be a long ride and she didn’t mind leaving the office for a while. It was a nice late summer day and the temperature was still pleasant; some fresh air would help her keep her mind off Julian for a while, and she welcomed the distraction.
While she was in the taxi she couldn’t help wondering what would be waiting for her on her desk when she went back. Ever since the awful date with Julian and their exchange in the Federal Court seven days ago, Alyssa had been showered with all sorts of gifts when she’d stepped out of her home or walked into her office, from giant bouquets of flowers and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates to front-row theater tickets, reaching the point where Will, the delivery guy, had almost become her best friend. Every single item had been returned to the sender without her even bothering signing the delivery bill.
She’d earned lots of incredulous stares from her dear colleagues, who thought she was crazy for turning down such a catch. She was the only one who was immune to him, and the more he tried, the more she hated him. In her mind he was just a posh stalker—charming, dressed in expensive suits and with a successful career, but a stalker nevertheless.
She was sorry she wouldn’t be seeing Will today. After all he was a funny guy, and she always enjoyed exchanging some words with him during the few minutes he stayed in her office. He always had a joke or a witty remark that would make her laugh and slightly ease the tension Julian’s gifts created. She was sure one of her colleagues, Denise most probably, would be happy to accept the delivery on her behalf though—making Julian think she’d finally caved.
As if on cue, her phone rang, and she frowned when she saw it was a private number. A sense of dread filled her, but she shook it away: she really was becoming paranoid.
When she answered, after convincing herself that it must be a client calling her, her legs turned to jelly and a sudden fit of rage caused her to grit her teeth.
“I’m glad I finally found the right gift. At first I’d figured you out as a woman who loved flowers and chocolate, but when you sent everything back I realized you’re just like all the others after all. No woman can resist the sparkles, especially if they come from Tiffany’s.”
He gave a light, annoying chuckle, and Alyssa felt her blood rush to her head.
Since she’d returned his gifts Julian had started ringing her, on her mobile at first, and when she didn’t take any of his calls, he’d used her office number, pretending he needed to speak to her about a case so that the receptionist would put him through. She had refused to talk about what had happened ever again, not at all interested in his excuses, and she had asked him to stop calling her at work but she didn’t think he’d hide his number just so that she would take the call. Why was he so set on her anyway?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alyssa said, her tone as cold as ice. “I’m not in the office and if one of my colleagues accepted whatever it is you sent today, I’ll make sure it’s returned to your office by the end of the day.”
“Well, why don’t you take a look at them first? It’s a rather exquisite pair of diamond ear studs that would look quite impressive on you.”
“I don’t want your gifts, Julian, no matter how expensive they are. Even if you gave me the moon, I’d still tell you I’m not interested.”
She let out an annoyed huff and hoped he’d get it this time. The taxi stopped in front of a glass and iron building, and she let out a sigh of relief, knowing she had an excuse to end the conversation now.
“Listen, I have to go now. I’m meeting a client in a minute, and I’ll end up being late. Goodbye, Julian.”
She hung up, paid the driver and got out of the taxi, taking a lungful of air to steady herself. If he thought he could win her over with expensive gifts or stupid excuses he didn’t know her at all. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She never had and she had hoped he would eventually get it, but apparently he hadn’t. When he’d shown up outside her apartment a couple of days before, waiting for her to come home in the evening, she had pondered the idea of talking to her father, and asking him to issue a restraining order. But Julian was an attorney after all, and her mother had the greatest admiration for him; it was obvious he would find a way out of it, and she would be considered a stupid, paranoid girl.
As she was waiting for her client to end the conference call he was in, Alyssa paced the small, modernly furnished waiting room, looking at the black-and-white pictures on the walls that reproduced various parts of New York, from the Chrysler Building to Grand Central Station.
She inspected each image, hoping to feel some sort of emotional attachment for the places she’d seen all of her life, but she realized that those pictures, even the beautiful image of Central Park, didn’t stir anything in her. If she had to think of a place that could stir any emotion, she knew she would be thinking of her grandparents’ house in Ireland; that had been the one place where she’d always felt at home, even though she’d only visited during summer break with her younger brother.
She let out a sigh and turned her back to the pictures, walking toward the big floor-to-ceiling tinted windows. She looked out at the view from the thirty-fourth floor. It didn’t matter that she’d grown up in New York—looking down from a skyscraper still scared and amazed her at the same time. She found herself wondering what it would feel like to jump right through that window and soar in the air, down thirty-four floors toward the ground, arms outstretched at her sides, the wind whipping her face and tousling her hair. Would it hurt? It probably would but then again, she’d be free. No more behaving the way people expected her to, no more caring about who her parents were, no more doing a job she’d never liked in the first place. She’d be free, once and for all.
A phone ringing in the other room snapped her out of it, and a flush heated her cheeks.
What had she been thinking?
She fumbled with the single button on her suit jacket, trying to get a grip and stifle the urge to run out of that office. She turned around and sat on the black leather couch next to the door. A few magazines were piled neatly on the glass coffee table in front of it, so she picked one up, hoping it would take her mind off the dangerous thoughts racing through her mind. She flipped through the pages until a picture caught her eye, flooding her body with a sense of calm.
She didn’t read any of the words of the article about country life in Wyoming; she simply concentrated on the images of trees and fields that made her long to be there, lying on the grass and feeling the sun shine warm on her face. The weirdest, and probably the bravest idea she had ever had began to form in her mind, and she realized she didn’t necessarily have to kill herself to get far away from it all; a vacation could be just what she needed to clear her mind, to make Julian understand that he should leave her alone, to show her mother that she was old enough to make her own decisions.
When the blond-haired secretary came out of the office and told her Mr. Park was ready to meet her, she dropped the magazine back on the coffee table and made a mental note to stop at the closest travel agency as soon as she was done with her client. All of a sudden, her mood was sky-high.
Chapter 3
September
Sean Maclaine loaded the last box with milk bottles into the bed of the beaten red pick-up, and brushed his hands on his worn jeans. He should be used to getting up at the crack of dawn by now, but sometimes he still wished his father would agree to get some help at the ranch, not just the usual young kids who swung by during the busy summer months.
Unlike his two brothers, Sean had been the only one who’d ever contemplated working in their family-run dude ranch in Wind Creek, the small town where he was born and grew up, a few miles away from the Shoshone National Forest and the Teton Range mountains. He’d never been away too long from Wind Creek, apart from his college ye
ars, when he’d lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming’s capital city. After he graduated in ranch management, in the hope that one day he’d be able to turn their family business into something more than a dude ranch with five rooms and a few horses, he’d had no doubt about going home to Wind Creek.
Even though it was a small business, it was hard work. Their five cows had to be milked first thing in the morning; then he’d have to feed the six horses and brush their manes, which was the task he loved the most; then it was letting the sheep out in the fields for a few hours and, if the time was right, he’d have to sow or reap vegetables in their garden so they could sell them at the Saturday farmers’ markets, and sometimes even at the Sunday market in Dubois, a bigger town some ten miles away. Luckily it was his mother’s, or sometimes his sister’s, task to feed the chicken, collect the eggs and look after their dogs, the beautiful working dogs they bred and sold to farmers around Fremont County and sometimes even farther out.
Although their ranch managed to be fully booked during the summer months, and they could depend on the money coming in from the tourists, they barely filled a room or two during the rest of the year, and they hardly ever had someone stay over in winter. For this reason, they had to rely on their organic produces, the sale of sheep dogs, and the items his mother knitted with the wool of the Bighorn sheep they bred.
With four kids, the Maclaines had hardly ever made much money, but Sean and his siblings had never had reason to complain; they’d always had food on the table, shoes on their feet and clothes that didn’t make them feel different from the other kids at school. They’d never managed to afford to go on vacation to some exotic location, but Sean wouldn’t change his childhood for anything; he’d been happy, free to run in the fields and play with his brothers in the woods surrounding their ranch. Most of all, he’d been loved by the most amazing parents he could have wished for, and this was the reason why he’d decided to stay in Wind Creek and work in the ranch with his father.
Now that he was older, though, he wouldn’t mind turning his family business into something a little bigger and more profitable; he wasn’t greedy and didn’t want a better lifestyle, he simply wished all his hard work would pay off. He wanted them to take a couple of people to help them all year long so he’d finally have a little time—and energy, too—to spend Saturday nights with friends, meeting girls, and maybe settle down and start his own family. He was twenty-nine and, although he knew there was still plenty of time for that, his social life was close to non-existent; at this rate, he’d never manage to meet a good girl, fall in love, and get married.
His older brother, Andy, had been lucky enough to meet the love of his life in high school; they’d all known Reese ever since they were little, and she’d often come over to hang out with them at their ranch when they were younger. With a town population of close to eight hundred, it was easy for people to know one another, especially the kids. Reese and Andy had turned from mischievous friends to sweethearts when they turned fifteen, and they’d been an item ever since. They both went to college in Cheyenne and came home immediately after graduation. Now they lived happily in their love nest in Dubois, with two three-year-olds Sean truly adored.
Sean doubted he’d ever be that lucky; sure, he’d dated some town girls all through high school and college, but he’d never found someone he thought he’d like to settle down with. Then there’d been Bethany, the girl who’d captured his heart with one stare, and had stomped all over it a little less than a year later. After she’d revealed her actual personality, he’d sworn off girls for months until he’d come home from college, and Andy and Reese decided to play matchmaker, forcing him to go on double-dates with them and some of Reese’s friends. Their plan hadn’t seemed to work very well, though; even though a couple of the girls he’d gone out with were cute and nice, he’d soon found out that farm life didn’t leave much time or energy for socializing, and eventually the girls got tired and decided he wasn’t worth their time.
Sean shrugged the thoughts away and put on his cowboy hat, getting behind the wheel of the truck. His father stepped out of the house carrying a wicker basket, which Sean was sure contained his mother’s blueberry muffins. They were one of the first things they usually sold out at the market; some of the women in town told Sean his mother should consider opening a bakery, but he’d never even given it a second thought. One family business was hard enough to look after; he didn’t need his mother to open a business of her own and leave him and his father to take care of everything at the ranch.
“Ready, Son?” his father asked, as he opened the passenger door. Sean nodded. “Got milk and everything in there?” He beckoned toward the bed of the truck, and Sean nodded again. As if he could forget anything. He’d been attending the farmers’ market every Saturday on and off for years now, but his father still liked to treat him as if this were his first time. As long as it made him happy, Sean didn’t care, though.
His father was nearing sixty, but he had no intention of retiring or backing off a little. He still liked to consider himself the Big Boss, and the only one that knew how to do things around the ranch. Sean’s mother had told him to let his father be. Apparently, he didn’t want to feel old and useless, so Sean was happy to let him help, although he always made him believe that he was in charge of everything—even if that meant Sean would have to get up earlier than his father to make sure he carried out the heaviest duties.
“Your mother said we got an email for a reservation last night?” Sean nodded, putting the truck in reverse, and backing out of the gravel lane. “She said three weeks starting from next one? That’s weird, don’t you think? Who goes on vacation for three weeks in September?”
His father shrugged and Sean couldn’t help but agree; the weird email had taken him by surprise, too. Besides, they’d never had anyone stay that long—ever. Wind Creek was an amazing place to grow up in, and it was close to most of the main tourist attractions, but it wasn’t a place you’d want to spend more than seven days in—not even during rodeo season.
The woman from the travel agency had told them their client would be flying in from New York the following Friday. Maybe this woman didn’t have a job, or maybe she was so rich she didn’t have to work at all. He cringed at the thought of a posh, wealthy brat sashaying around the house, giving orders to everyone, thinking they had to be at her beck and call. They hardly ever had wealthy people staying over; they’d had a couple of rich ranch owners from Colorado during one of the big rodeos, but they’d been quite cool to be around. He was a little biased about rich people, but after the way things had ended with Bethany nobody could really blame him for that.
“Tracy and Jeff will leave a couple of days after she arrives, so we’ll have to find a way to keep her entertained. I guess I could take her riding, and Mom could spend some time with her. I can’t really think what she could possibly do for three weeks,” Sean said, shaking his head. He just hoped at least she was nice.
“Maybe she’ll just sit on the back porch and sleep all day,” his father said with a smile. “I can only think of two reasons why anyone would spend three weeks in Wind Creek: either she needs some good sleep, or she wants to hide from the cops.”
Sean laughed; a fugitive hiding from the FBI—that would be fun.
By the time they’d set up their stall at the market, their regular customers were already showing up. Sean didn’t always go to the market with his father; it was usually his mother and sometimes his little sister, Tammy—when she felt in the mood for getting up at dawn. He enjoyed going every now and then, even though it meant there’d be more work waiting for him when he got back to the ranch.
“My, my, Sean, you keep getting more handsome every time I see you, dear. I can’t believe you haven’t got a ring on your finger yet.” His old high-school teacher Mrs. Leclaire wore a coy smile as she approached the stall. He knew she’d always had a soft spot for him and was hoping he’d go out with her daughter, but the truth was Mrs. Leclaire had always
terrified him when he was in school and the last thing he wanted was for her to become his mother-in-law. The mere thought was enough to give him the creeps.
Nevertheless, he flashed her one of his best perfect-student-and-ideal-son-in-law smiles.
“There’s still plenty of time for that, Mrs. Leclaire. Work keeps me busy, and I wouldn’t want my wife to feel neglected,” he said, handing her the usual order of milk, eggs, carrots and lettuce. The sooner she got served, the sooner she’d leave him alone.
“Such a shame;” she said, shaking her head. “Lesley keeps saying how hard it is to find a good family man these days, and here you are, a hard-working, handsome young man, too busy to enjoy life. I always thought you’d be perfect together.”
Yeah, didn’t I know that, he thought, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise. Now he felt completely cornered, and whatever he said would probably be the wrong thing. He smiled nervously, hoping she’d take the bag he was handing her and leave him alone. The last thing he wanted was for his high-school teacher to start fantasizing about her daughter and him together.
“Sean Maclaine,” a female voice called from behind Mrs. Leclaire. His teacher stepped aside, and a woman with a familiar face came forward, smiling at him. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
He frowned and the woman’s eyes twinkled with amusement at his missed recognition.
“Pam Ridgeway?” Sean’s eyes grew wide as he took in the woman standing in front of him, her long, dark hair pinned to the side, her blue eyes staring at him from underneath long lashes and perfectly made-up lids. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized the girl he’d dated for over a year in high school although, at the time, she definitely didn’t look anything remotely close to this gorgeous woman standing in front of him—with a baby bump showing underneath her open checkered shirt.
Hold on to Love Page 2