Chapter 3
Kade
What the hell had I been thinking? I hadn’t seen her in years. That should have dulled something. After what had happened? It should’ve dulled everything .
Instead, her presence hit me like a tsunami. No warning. No mercy. Just Leah, reaching into my chest and getting a grip on me like she always had. Touching at something I’d thought untouchable.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been her , the girl who had always been able to undo me. The Devious Debutante might be a woman, but the girl who’d lived in the house across the creek was still there. She might’ve grown up since I’d seen her last, but Leah was still there. I hadn’t been counting on that when this plan had been getting ironed out. Her blonde locks weren’t the wild mess I remembered, and she looked thinner than she used to, more sophisticated than she used to, but she still fidgeted when she was nervous. She still tried to hide in the shadows as soon as attention shifted her way, like the wallflower she could never be.
Those sky-blue eyes were just as bright when she looked at me. For a second, they’d been almost hopeful when they met mine, until I’d quashed any chance of a cordial relationship, let alone anything close to what we’d had, with a swift dismissal. If she’d known it had taken all my restraint to not carry her suitcase for her, she’d have worked me around her little finger. How was I possibly going to have her here for an entire year? What the hell had I done? What did I do now? The only option I had at the moment was to get her situated and get away fast.
I opened the door to the cabin and flicked on the lights. Elijah, the stable manager and all-around fixer, was supposed to have had this place cleared out, cleaned up, and livable. A quick glance around made it clear that our standards on what was considered livable might not have matched up this time. At least she had it to herself and it wasn’t a prison cell. That was something.
Damn it was cold, though.
I knelt by the wall, fidgeting with the controls on front of the electric baseboard heater. It wasn’t on? No wonder it was so frigid in here.
“You need to turn the heat up manually when you come in.” I made sure to keep any concern out of my voice. Damned if I’d let her work me over. She’d burned me when I was barely a man, and it wouldn’t happen again.
“Where’s the thermostat?” she asked, looking about the small space as if in disbelief that this was to be her new home.
“It’s on the baseboard, down there.” I pointed to where I had just been kneeling.
She walked into the middle of the room and shivered as she looked around.
“Wait, where’s the bathroom?” Her tone was even, but she was chewing on her lower lip.
She was taking it better than I would’ve expected, at least pretending to be calm.
“The bunkhouse has bathrooms and a kitchen you can use.” I motioned to the building no more than ten feet away, visible through the cloudy window.
We were about at the end of autumn, and the temperature reminded you every night if you happened to forget. Was it going to be miserable to traipse out in the cold in the middle of the night every time she had to pee? Most definitely, but I didn’t trust her enough to have her stay in the house with me. And I sure as hell wasn’t putting her in the bunkhouse surrounded by men so she could stir up trouble there. This would have to work, even if it wasn’t ideal.
“It’s”—she let out a sigh, as if she were coming to terms with the place—“exactly what I expected from you.”
I caught her shivering again. It might’ve been this place or the temperature. I had to get out of here before I forgot who she was, what she’d done. She wasn’t some wronged innocent who needed protection. She didn’t need me to take care of her.
“You can go next door to the bunkhouse until it warms up. Everyone is expecting you. Chuck is the ranch foreman. He’ll find you tomorrow and show you the ropes. Elijah is the stable manager and also handles a lot of the maintenance if something breaks or you need something.”
Great. Now I’d made it sound like she had one of those New York supers she was used to at her beck and call.
“No one will be waiting on you,” I added. “If it’s light when you get up, you’re late.” I gave her shoes a pointed look. “And I hope you’ve got some sturdier clothes in that suitcase. It’s going to be hard to shovel shit in those.”
Her chin lifted an inch as she stared right back at me. “As much as I appreciate your experience in this area, I’ll be just fine. I don’t want you worrying about me when you’ve clearly got your own issues going on.”
She’d be fine here. I wasn’t her protector. I wasn’t even her friend, not anymore. And this was Leah. She’d give as good as she got, which might’ve been why she could crawl under my skin the way she did. She was one of the toughest people I’d ever met, even when she’d just been a kid.
I walked back into the house and went immediately to the cabinet, pouring myself a whiskey. I threw it back and poured another before settling onto the couch, resisting the urge to drink until I was numb. I’d never been an alcoholic, but her being here felt like my brain had gotten tossed into the spin cycle.
My phone lit up, my brother’s name flashing on the screen. The only thing surprising about the call was that he’d waited this long. I’d expected him to start rapid redialing hours ago, before she arrived.
“How’d it go?” Alec asked the second I answered.
“Don’t you have anything better to do with your life than caring about this?” I certainly wished I didn’t. Why had I done this to myself? Nothing good came from feeling bad for others. I was positive of that right now.
It was too late to get out of it, though. Even if there were a chance to renege, could I really send her to prison? The Devious Debutante probably belonged there, but Leah wasn’t just that woman, no matter how much I’d hoped that was who would show up. Little Leah had also come. No matter how much she’d tried to hide her, I’d seen her just beneath the surface, and that person I could never send to prison. I couldn’t even evict her from my heart completely, as I’d learned tonight. She was still in there, with a grip so tight I could feel her nails biting inside of me.
“Someone is awfully testy. I guess all those denials of feelings aren’t holding up?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I hated when Alec was right. Worse, he was laughing as he spoke. If he were here, I’d be punching him in the face already.
“I want to know every single detail. I’m still trying to figure out how this deal came to be. You’ve never really explained that, no matter how many times I ask.”
He’d asked at least fifty time and I still wouldn’t tell him if he asked fifty more.
“It doesn’t matter how it happened. Monroe needed me and I helped out because I could. There’s nothing else to say.”
“Where’s little Leah now?”
Unfortunately, he knew this place almost as well as anyone, and I was going to sound like the biggest dick going. “She’s settled in a cabin.”
“Cabin? Which one? I thought Missy was in the only livable cabin.”
“Elijah fixed up the other one for her.”
Alec groaned. “There was no fixing up that dump. The only thing that could fix that scenario was a dumpster. I can’t believe you?—”
“It was fine. She’s fine. It’s better than a cell.” It wasn’t like she couldn’t spend her free time at the bunkhouse.
With the guys.
I needed another drink. I needed to rewind the clock a month, back before I’d agreed to this.
“Oh, I get what’s going on. You didn’t want her too close to you , so the house wouldn’t work. But you were always a jealous fuck, so you weren’t going to put her in the bunkhouse with the guys, either.”
“I’ve never been jealous in my life.” That was usually a true statement.
“Maybe not with other women, but no one could go near Leah, even though you weren’t even banging her. Were you even kissing her?”
“You’re a sick fuck, you know that? She was a baby, and I wasn’t jealous; I didn’t want anyone taking advantage of her.”
“You’re trying to tell me you were only protecting her? She was sixteen and you were nineteen. Not exactly robbing the cradle.”
“I think it’s time you found a hobby.” I was resisting a third whiskey, but he wasn’t making it easy.
“There’s nothing as interesting as this. Is she as hot as she used to be? She looks even hotter if you go by her mug shot. She looked better in that than the covers of those mags on the newsstand.”
If he only knew. The pictures I’d seen of her through the years, the memory of the shy teen, none of it did anything to prepare me for the stunning woman who’d arrived tonight. It had taken everything to act cold and aloof, and it was only because I couldn’t let her know how she undid me.
My mind flashed back to her standing inside the cabin, giving me one last look, every line of her body stiff, her eyes flashing rage. She was such a force to be reckoned with that my dick stiffened just at the thought of her.
I had to stop thinking of her like that.
“Whoever she was, it isn’t who she is now. Who steals a painting like that? It wasn’t just the money. It was a priceless religious painting that’s been missing since WWII. You realize how morally bankrupt you have to be in order to do that?” I’d have to keep repeating this to myself every time I softened.
“I don’t care what the news says. There’s more to this story. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m telling you, she didn’t steal that fucking painting. You weren’t the only one who knew her.”
“She’s not the girl we grew up with. She was a kid then. She’s different. I don’t know if it was the money that got to her or?—”
“You’re wrong,” he said, digging in. “People with hearts like hers don’t change. Remember how she used to save all the abandoned bunnies and every other damned little critter who was hurt or sick? You don’t go from that to a monster. I think you want her so much that you’d rather think the worst to dull any feelings because the world might burn down around you if you cared.”
“Except I don’t care. We both know who she is, who’s she’s always been, and nothing will change that.” There was a short pause as I dragged up the past again. “She could’ve cost me this ranch.” Alec had never wanted anything to do with this place, so of course he wouldn’t care.
“You’ve always blamed her for that situation, and for the record, you’re wrong about that too. Even if you aren’t, she was a fucking kid ,” he said, rehashing the argument we’d had many times. “And while we’re on the subject of the ranch, I’m clearing my schedule for a visit.”
“This is not a sideshow. Do. Not. Come.”
“Fuck off. I’m coming.” He hung up before I could beat him to the end button.
How the hell I was going to make it a year with her here?
Distance . That was how. I’d delegate all my interactions to Chuck. If I didn’t, she’d ruin me.