Chapter 11
ELEVEN
MEREDITH
I wake up to birds singing obnoxiously outside my window. I have to get to the brewery soon. The pressure of maintaining the same output day after day weighs on my chest as if I’m breathing through a straw.
I sit up and rub a hand down my face. Blinking, I trudge to the window.
The big Escalade hasn’t moved since last night.
Calder’s probably still asleep. I’m tempted to stomp around and disrupt his slumber, but he essentially fed me last night after working nearly an entire shift.
And we talked. A real conversation without hostility.
Going to bed with his “night, Meredith” in my ear wasn’t terrible. In fact, it was entirely too pleasant.
Yawning, I shrug into my robe on the off chance he’ll venture upstairs to see how I’ve flipped his old room from earth tones and horseshoes to orange and pink hues. My comforter resembles the horizon after a clear summer evening’s sunset.
I wash up in the bathroom, hoping I’ll wake up. No such luck. I need a day off, but my next one is for the funeral. After that, I might have all the days off I want.
When I’m done, I head downstairs. The house is quiet.
I can enjoy breakfast in peace and go to the brewery without the mental strain of Calder in business clothes with a beer in his hand.
In the fridge, there’s a fresh carton of eggs, piles of fruit that weren’t there yesterday morning, a drawer full of veggies, milk, and juice, and someone has taken out a package of hamburger from the freezer.
When did he manage to find time to grab groceries between the funeral home and parking himself in Ransom’s office?
More importantly, is he willing to share?
I close the fridge door. He replaced my calzone.
Does that mean I have to reimburse him for any food I have?
My stomach grumbles. Damn. If I don’t have what he bought, I’m stuck with toast. There’s nothing to pack for lunch unless I swing by the grocery store to see if they have any ready-made sandwiches left.
The front door opens, and I frown. If Calder’s still sleeping, who’s here?
Heavy boot thuds resonate through the room, growing closer. My pulse quickens. Carlos always knocks. Oh god. Is it another brother? Is he going to give me that unimpressed once-over while looking like he walked out of a cologne ad?
But the guy who enters the kitchen is holding an old cowboy hat that has seen better days.
His dark hair is tousled around his head in a way I didn’t know was possible, and his legs, clad in crisp blue jeans smudged with dirt and mud, are hard to look away from.
But I do—only to admire his massive chest in a too-tight green shirt that makes his biceps appear gigantic.
“Oh, it’s you,” I say on an exhale. Calder, he’s… hawwwwt. So damn fine there’s probably drool running down my chin. My hormones remind me I haven’t taken time for myself in a while.
He holds his arms out to look down at himself and gives me even more of a gun show. I’m staring. Gawking and drooling and lusting. All three are highly inappropriate.
“You scared me.” There. He’ll never know what I’m really thinking.
He nods as if he finally understands, and he’d better never catch on to how jumbled my insides are.
I thought I could be immune to a slick businessman, yet the country boy returning to his roots will be my undoing.
He’s going to kick me out and change the locks once the will is read, and I’ll thank him and beg for more.
“Sorry. I tried to be quiet,” he says.
“Impossible with those big clodhoppers,” I say, gesturing to his boots while my insides quiver. I’m barely winning the battle against my libido. Barely. “Where’d you find them?”
“Downstairs. I went looking for any of my old stuff last night so I could give Carlos a hand this morning. The boots and the hat work. My old jeans didn’t, and the shirt is good enough until I get to Ritter’s.”
Aw, hell. He’s actually willing to get his clothes from the farm supply store? And he got up early to help with the chores? He’s making it hard to hate him.
“I’m sure Carlos was surprised to see you.”
“Shocked, just like you.”
No, not just like me. At all. “Did he have to remind you which ones are the horses and which are the cows?”
“After he explained the difference between straw and hay.”
I snort, unable to suppress my grin. It’s not fair that he’s funny too—and he manages to do it without cracking a smile. The man is like a glacier, but I still want to cozy up to him.
I peek in the fridge one more time. “I’ve gotta get going so I can pick something up for breakfast.”
“You don’t like anything I bought?”
“I’m not going to take your food.”
His lips thin. “You get the next round of groceries if it’s a big deal. It’s too much of a pain to separate out the food.”
Oh. Another thoughtful gesture. He’s up three by now. And I’m at zero.
“Even if I buy Ben & Jerry’s and licorice?”
He swaggers closer, and Lord help me, his veins ripple down his arms. “Red or black?”
“Both.” The pulse that finally slowed down speeds right back up.
“What brand?”
“There’s only one worth having.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “I forgot bananas. Grab some when you go?”
We’re on either side of the fridge door. I take in his smug lips, and my stomach somersaults. He hasn’t shaved yet, and I bet that stubble is delightfully rough…
I’m stuck in a lust haze again.
I step back. “It’s my turn to cook, if you haven’t eaten yet.”
A line forms between his brows. “I haven’t, but you don’t have to make me anything. All I did was run a microwave.”
I dig out the eggs, ham, and cheese. “Afraid I’m going to poison you to get control of the brewery?”
He doesn’t move far away. “You’d still have to poison both my brothers, and Landry’s a wily one.”
“I’m clever. After all, I spent twenty years planning my hostile takeover.” My lighthearted attempt at humor falls flat as grief rushes over me like a river about to leap its banks. “Sorry. Too soon.”
He ignores that remark, or all of them, and doesn’t leave. When I grab a bowl and a whisk, he rummages through the fridge and pulls out onions, mushrooms, and green peppers. He establishes a station next to me with a cutting board and a knife.
I crack a few eggs and then glance at his muscles. I add six more eggs. Thoughts of Ransom and Holly run through my mind. They used to cook breakfast together before their Monday drives—until that final one.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I blurt out. “It’s senseless. How it happened.”
He pauses, chopping the green onions. “The crash?”
“Yes. Their deaths. It’s senseless.” I whisk the eggs more powerfully than usual. “I mean, they went on Mondays, when the roads are quiet and the brewery is closed, and he crashes next to a bridge he’s driven by for years? Crashes so bad he rolls more than once?”
The bridge spans a small, lazy river that swells from runoff in the spring, leaving it with wide, rocky, and often steep banks when the levels are low.
We had a wet spring, but it hasn’t rained for weeks, so the banks are steeper.
Ransom veered left, driving off the road as he was leaving the bridge, seemingly for no reason at all.
There’s a small access road on one side that winds down to the flats where people often fish, but it’s on the opposite side from where he rolled the car.
“Sixty years,” Calder adds softly. “He used to joke that was officially how long he’d been driving, since he was tossed behind the wheel at five and his dad would run the pedals.”
“And he didn’t drive fast.”
The bridge over the Sterling River is located on a county highway that circles around Scandal and runs behind the Cross property. It’s quiet and isolated. Not many fishermen attempt to cast a line in the rocks gathering around the bridge, and the shore fishing is terrible.
“It’s just… I can’t understand it.”
“What did the sheriff tell you?” He steps back to sift through a drawer on my other side.
His warmth seeps into my back, and the fresh scent of sun and hay washes over me, blending with his citrus-and-cedar smell. I inhale discreetly. My ex never cooked with me, and this feels more intimate than anything I experienced with Tanner.
Calder returns to his station but squats to dig out a pan. When he glances up at me, my brain misfires.
Yep. More intimate.
What were we talking about?
“He said they rolled.”
“That’s what he told me. Dad swerved, ran off the road, and rolled.”
“And in the convertible, they never wore seat belts.” Grief threatens to overflow its barriers. I clear my throat. “He, uh, said there’s not much more to it.”
“Nothing about why they swerved?”
“Deer, maybe.”
“Maybe?” He abandons his chopped veggies and turns to face me.
“What kind of answer is that?” Rubbing his finger and his thumb across his lower lip, he stares at the floor by my feet.
At least I have shoes on, so he can’t see the socks Sawyer got me for Christmas with Blue’s face on them.
I really need to catch up on laundry. “Dad wouldn’t swerve for a deer. ”
That was what I thought too. “He lectured me and Sawyer to high heaven about not risking making an accident worse by swerving to avoid a critter.” It may sound heartless, but it’s true. Sometimes, I took that risk. That was one benefit of desolate country roads.
His head is still bowed. I drop my eggs and face him.
“What are you thinking? To be honest, I haven’t checked on it. They’re gone.” My voice cracks on the last word.
“I know.” His voice is caressing. He doesn’t close the distance between us and comfort me. His big chest is compelling. I could curl up on it and let go, cry my heart out.
I give myself a mental shake. I can’t risk thinking he or his brothers will consider me and Sawyer in their final plans for the Cross properties. The princes have their kingdom back.
“Maybe talk to the sheriff again.” I grab the bowl of scrambled eggs, and they nearly slosh over the side.
“Dietz should’ve retired years ago.”