Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Bailey drove the half mile down the highway. After making a left turn out of her place, she made another left turn onto the property of Reeves Durham.
She had the man’s phone number, and she’d texted him several times in the past two and a half weeks since she’d moved to town. He’d been cordial and polite in his responses, and today was the first time Bailey had set foot on his property or would see him in the flesh again.
His house also sat back off the highway, as he had a whole host of pine trees protecting the property from the road. It finally emerged from the snowy boughs, and Bailey brought her SUV to a stop.
“Holy cow,” she said right out loud. “His place is way nicer than mine.”
Her house was the original one built on the property, but there was no way that the stone and glass beauty in front of her was the original home on this property.
It was a house from the modern era, with beautiful white siding on the top half and a gorgeous gray stone on the bottom. Wood pillars held up the roof over the porch and matched the golden oak glow in the garage door.
She had no idea who Reeves Durham was or what he did for a living, and she suddenly wanted to look him up.
There were celebrities and wealthy businessmen who liked the privacy that Wyoming offered.
Montana had them too—movie stars who owned big ranches so they could get away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood, or tycoons who simply needed a mountain escape from their big city lives.
Heck, Country Quad all lived here for a reason.
Yes, Bailey knew there was plenty of money to go around in this small town. Sure seems like Reeves has some, she thought as she put her car in park right at the end of the sidewalk leading to the front door.
She looked over to the homemade peppermint bark, about the only thing that Bailey could make without setting something on fire. Both her mother and Georgia had told her it was edible, and that boosted Bailey’s confidence enough to grab the little cellophane bag and get out of the car.
It had only gotten colder in the weeks since she’d been here, but at least it wasn’t snowing today. Still, she stood in front of Reeves’ door and rang the doorbell, hoping his living room was only a couple of feet away from the front door and he’d answer quickly.
She stood there for what felt like an astronomically long time, and he didn’t answer. She had no way of knowing if he was home or out on his farm, or if he’d left town for the holidays.
Never one to give up, Bailey reached up and pushed the doorbell again, listening to it ding-dong through the house.
She leaned into the door as she knocked.
A few seconds later, a loud beep filled the air, and a man’s voice said, “I’m just coming in from feeding the fowl.
I’ll unlock the front door, and you can come in. ”
Bailey knew that voice subconsciously, as he had laid behind her and kept her warm for a half-hour until she had woken up. Embarrassment still made her cheeks burn that he’d undressed her and laid down with her in such a state. But she knew there was nothing nefarious or sexual about it.
“Are you sure? I can just—” She cut off as the mechanism on the front door whirred and then clicked.
“I’ll be in in another thirty seconds,” he said, and Bailey tried to find the camera and couldn’t.
Another sign of a lot of money, she thought, as she reached out and opened the door.
She entered the house to a friendly, if a little bare, foyer.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting: a bench where he would sit and take off his boots?
He probably didn’t use the front door at all, what with all of his work and business out the back.
When he had to leave his house, he’d go through the garage.
She couldn’t imagine that he got many visitors, because she certainly didn’t.
“It’s Bailey from next door,” she called, and when she didn’t get a response, she peered into the office on her left.
“Wow,” she said at the professional camera equipment set up there. He had cameras and lights and tripods, with battery packs sitting on the desk where three monitors lazily showed a neon screensaver tumbling across them.
“You here, Bailey?” he called, and she tore her attention away from his office and hurried down the hallway into the back of the house.
It opened up to vaulted ceilings and windows that faced south to draw in all the winter light. He had a gourmet kitchen, and a stone fireplace, and plush, comfortable-looking couches. He stood at the back door, wiping his feet and peeling off his gloves.
His face held pinkness from the cold outside, and Bailey simply stared at him. She hadn’t really gotten a good look at him from their first meeting, and wow, the man possessed some seriously good-looking genes.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?” he asked.
Bailey took in the absence of a Christmas tree, but the presence of a single stocking hanging on the mantle. No other evidence of the holiday existed, and her curiosity burned at her. Not only that, but a very loud voice shouted at her in her mind that she hadn’t come here to ogle.
She lifted the peppermint bark. “I just came to bring you a little holiday treat,” she said. “And thank you face-to-face for what you did for me a couple of weeks ago.”
Reeves reached up and removed his cowboy hat, hanging it on a hook by the back door, just as she’d suspected.
“Anyone would have done it, Bailey,” he said. “I’ve told you that.”
“I know,” she said, a hint of humiliation running through her. “It’s just, we’re going to be neighbors and all, and I thought I should probably meet you properly.”
Meaning clothed, she thought.
She gave him a smile. “Your house is really nice.”
“Thanks,” he said. “But I just bought it like this, so don’t be impressed.” He gave her a grin then and walked over toward her. She handed him the peppermint bark.
The thought to invite him to her family’s Christmas activities lit up her mind. “Do you have family coming into town for the holiday?” she asked.
“Nope.” Reeves turned his back on her and walked into the kitchen, where he put the bag of peppermint bark on the island next to a box of graham crackers.
“Well, if you’re not busy,” she said. “My family’s doing a Christmas Eve dinner since—” She cut off so abruptly that Reeves turned on the sink and then just stood there and watched her.
“Since what?” he asked, his voice low, undemanding, despite the fact that he didn’t use very many words.
She couldn’t tell him that Otis and Georgia had taken their family out of town for Christmas, so they weren’t celebrating OJ’s birthday tomorrow, and therefore her parents had decided to have their big family dinner on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.
She really couldn’t get into her backstory of her biological son in the first five minutes of dropping off a treat.
“We’re just not doing anything on Christmas this year,” she said. “My momma and daddy live up at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, and they do a big tree lighting every year on Christmas Eve, and we’re going to do dinner after that. You’d be welcome to come.”
“To your momma and daddy’s place?” he asked. “Do you have the authority to invite?”
“They invite half the town,” she said. “One more won’t matter.” She didn’t mean to make it sound like he didn’t matter, and she hoped he didn’t take it that way. “I mean, if you’re not busy.”
“Thank you.” He focused on washing his hands in the kitchen sink. “I appreciate the invite, but I don’t think I can this year.”
Bailey wanted to press him and ask him if he didn’t have people coming in for the holiday, perhaps he was traveling to see them.
She told herself not to pry, because she’d spent plenty of Christmases without family in Butte, and a person could look whole on the outside—and, in fact, be devilishly handsome like Reeves—and still carry internal wounds.
“All right,” she said. “Well, I won’t keep you. You didn’t have to come in off the farm.”
“I was done,” he said.
“I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and thank you.”
He nodded and gave her a brief smile. “Merry Christmas to you too. It was good to see you again.” He moved parallel to her, clearly heading for the hallway, and Bailey launched herself into gear to leave the house. He followed her down the hall, and then quickly reached past her to open the door.
“Thanks for stopping by,” he said.
“If you ever need anything, let me know,” she said, though she had no idea what this man could possibly need from her.
“Are you going up the canyon tonight?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m actually gonna go talk to a friend….” She trailed off, because Lark McClellan was not a friend, and neither was Cash Young.
He wasn’t her cousin. He was her ex’s cousin, and OJ’s cousin.
Bailey sighed. “I’m doing one more interview before the holidays.”
“Sure, because you’re starting that vet clinic.”
“That’s right,” she said. “And Lark McClellan is almost done with her animal science degree. Do you know the McClellans?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure how long you’d been in town,” she said. “They’re a lifelong Coral Canyon family.”
“Sure,” he said, but he offered no timeline for when he’d moved to town.
“Well, technically, they’re in Dog Valley,” Bailey said, and she told herself to stop talking. She’d come, she’d thanked him, she’d given him the treat, and the bonus invite to Christmas was simply more humiliation she didn’t need.
“I’m doing that interview this afternoon,” she said. “I’ll head up to the lodge tomorrow afternoon, probably around two. So if you change your mind….” She let the third blasted invite sit there, and then she ducked out to his front porch. “Have a great day, Reeves.”
“You too, Bailey,” he said, and she hurried back to her car and got behind the wheel.
She told herself not to look up to the front door, but she did anyway. Thankfully, Reeves had already gone back inside, and the door already sat closed. “And probably locked,” she muttered to herself.
She turned around in his driveway and trundled back to the highway, thinking she’d made a fool of herself for the second time with this man, but somehow proud of herself for having a prompting and acting on it.
Bailey was still learning how to talk to God, how He spoke to her, and rebuilding the path back to Him, and as she turned right to head back to her house, she prayed.
“I don’t know what he needs, Lord, but he’s there all alone for Christmas. He didn’t even have a tree. So if there’s anything that I can do, put the thoughts into my heart and mind and give me the bravery to act upon them.”
At home, Bailey walked into her office, where she had completed employee folders of information on the right-hand side of her desk. She had managed to hire two certified, licensed veterinary technicians, a custodian, and two secretaries.
It was a small staff, and she’d need another doctor and more vet techs if she wanted to grow to the size she’d been in Butte.
Lark couldn’t be either, but she had a lot of training with animals, which included pharmaceuticals, cleanliness, reproduction, nutrition, and more.
If she could get her on as a veterinary assistant, Bailey could open her clinic as scheduled and keep looking for more certified staff as she grew.