12. Archer
Archer
Eve pottered around the kitchen once again filled with the scent of fresh pine boughs and cinnamon that I’d come to associate with Red Hart Ranch. I leaned across the broad solid oak benchtop, surrounded by a selection of glasses and liquor.
Christmas Day was the single calendar day that Red Hart didn’t actively work on. I knew that, and I’d been here last year, but it still felt strange to wake up after the sun rose on a glittering field of fresh snow and not be out working in it.
Breakfast was a slow affair, the ranch hands trickling in close to nine a.m. after their one and only sleep in—and mine. But once we started cooking, Eve, Jude and myself, and everyone else started eating, the conversation started and never stopped for the day.
As soon as we made our way downstairs, Eve had set me bartending duties.
That included manning her precious coffee machine.
Not that I minded, but I suspected she did it to keep me out of the kitchen while she pottered and worked through the recipes in the book I had given her.
Thanks to Red Hart’s never depleted pantry, she could play around with most of them, though her post New Year’s shopping list pinned beside the fridge grew by the minute as she flicked pages.
Watching her play, the faintest smile hinting at the corners of her lips, gave me as much pleasure as feeling her beneath me in her bed.
That soft smile was worth every second of the months we’d been apart, the heartbreak that had claimed significant damage on both sides of the line.
But the way she involved herself in cooking, in providing for everyone on the ranch…
That alone gave me confidence in my choice to bring a contingent of ranch hands back to Red Hart.
Especially when the big house doors opened to admit the loudest person I’d seen all day shortly before dinner.
“Suzy!” Eve yelped as she dashed forward, nearly bowling the older lady over as she de-layered Beanies owner. The White Cap fixture shooed her away, taking a seat at the kitchen bench and refused to move as I placed a tumbler of whiskey in her hands.
“Thank you, Archer. Trader you for that coffee.” She hefted a bag of beans over the benchtop that must have weighed a metric ton.
“You’ll send yourself broke,” Eve scolded her, waving to Natilie who fell in the door, covered with snow and followed by Trader Kyle and his wife, Sienna. They parked themselves at the end of their long table, well away from Joe Brunel’s group who grew rowdier as the night began to set in.
Will sent me a concerned glance but I shook my head, knowing Jude would pull them into line or kick them out before real trouble brewed.
“Fresh coffee?” I offered, weaving a thermos at Eve.
She cast me a quick grin, her gaze flicking back to the recipes that she was still trawling through, making extra lists.
“Sure. I think there’s some gingerbread flavoring on the bench if it hasn’t run out. Watch Natalie. She has that stuff on ice cream like it’s going out of fashion.” Eve trailed her finger down the line of ingredients listed on the page, tapped one and disappeared into the pantry.
I glanced at Natalie who turned a shade of red and ducked away.
“Be quick with that.” Jude leaned his back against the bench at my side, nodding to the growing line of ranch hands clamoring for their round of Christmas spirits. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“Of course?” I shrugged. How different could pouring a stack of drinks for some thirsty ranch hands be? Surely it couldn’t be worse than dealing with a staff Christmas function.
Thirty whiskey sours, a dozen beers and a vodka martini later, I had a new appreciation for bar staff.
Jude raised his cocktail from across the room, saluting me. I shot him a dirty look, though the corner of my mouth turned up.
Not bad, Ranger, he mouthed.
I snorted as I cleaned up the empty bottles, logging them to a mental itinerary. Eve’s kitchen might be full, but there was a significant lack of top shelf spirits I intended to stock her cellar with.
A single glass clanked onto the bench in front of me.
I looked up into eyes so similar to Eve’s, but these barely hid the shadows that still haunted him.
It wasn’t only the ranch hands I was glad I had invited back to Red Hart.
“Travis,” I nodded warily as he slid his glass forward. “Didn’t see you come in. What can I get you?”
Eve’s twin regarded me with a shuttered face for a long moment, and he nodded. “How about a damn fine dose of gratitude for looking after my sister for the last few weeks?”
Thank Christ for that.
“And here I thought I was going to find out what sort of fighter you are.” I held his gaze, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
The Travis I knew from my last trip to Red Hart had been cavalier, flighty and quick to anger.
After his accident and months unable to work the land he loved, this version of Travis still held a decent dose of anger simmering just below the surface, but he watched me with a sense of peace that had never been present in him before.
He tipped his head to one side—and Eve gesture that he shared with his twin. “The sort that managed to pull his head out of his ass with no small amount of pushing—oof.” Travis raised his arm as a tornado of dark curls crashed into his side.
“Travis!” Eve grinned, wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug.
I’d been on the other end of enough of those to know that it had to help Travis heal, at least a little.
“Damn, babygirl. You pack a punch.” Travis raised an eyebrow, his dark curls that matched hers, albeit shorter, flopping over his face as he hugged her back.
“Not yet,” she warned him, stepping back. “I didn’t expect to see you this year.”
Travis’ gaze shifted to hold mine. “I wasn’t sure either.”
Eve caught the look, the pain of not having her twin beside her leaking through the ether between us. She mouthed thank you to me, then returned to her brother and punched his shoulder.
Hard.
“Fuck,” Travis muttered. “I didn’t come here to be beat up, Evie,” he grumbled.
“You shouldn’t have waited for Archer to call your ass to come back and see me. I needed you.”
“Yeah?” he grinned. “Maybe that goes both ways, little sis.”
“What are you drinking?” I asked, twirling his glass between my hands.
Travis grinned. “Something terrible, from the look of what Jude’s having.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Not my choice of station, my friend.”
Eve slipped around to my side, burrowing into my shoulder. “Thank you,” she murmured again
I concentrated on filling Travis’ glass. “For what?” Eve nudged my shoulder, and I slopped whiskey. “Dammit.”
“You know why.” She shook her head. “I can’t understand how you keep pulling miracles on me.”
“I’ll keep them up as long as you’ll have me around. And I need to talk to you about your lack of a spirits cabinet. Decent ones, anyway. Apart from this.” I held up the peat whiskey.
“So you are staying then? Really staying?” Eve’s fingers grazed over my stubble, turning my face to meet hers.
I handed Travis’ glass over without looking, uncaring if I dropped it on the floor. From the swearing at my side I might have, but I blocked it out, cupping my whiskey stained fingers to Eve’s soft cheeks.
“I’m staying. I don’t care how many times you ask, or how many times I have to say it, Eve. I’m here for you. Nothing can take me away.”
She leaned into my touch with a sigh that on any other day might have boiled my blood and have me carrying her up the stairs, but for tonight with the scent of her happiness and contentment wrapped around me, all I could do was smile.
“I love you.” I murmured, kissing her gently. When I pulled back, tears cascaded down her cheeks. I brushed them away with my thumbs. “What’s this?”
“I love you too. I won’t survive you leaving again, Rhys. I can’t.” She bit her lip, staring at me with those haunted eyes, so like her brother’s from their shared tragedies.
“I’m not leaving, Eve. I never should have in the first place and I sure as hell shouldn’t have stayed away for so damn long.” I kissed her again. “Anything that comes at you, we face it together. Not alone, right?”
“Right,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me tight in the sort of hug that only Eve could give. The kind filled with healing, and hope. “I love you too.”
I buried my head in her curls, crushing her to my chest.
“Merry Christmas, Eve.”
“Merry Christmas, Archer.”
Red Hart Ranch was once again full of the people who loved the land, and who adored the woman who ran it. I settled with my back to the wall, Eve held to my chest as Jude started a round of bawdy songs, and promised myself I would hide the damn vodka from him.
When I managed to extract myself from the woman I’d crossed the country to find again, which might take a while.
Because in no way was I ready to let her go any time soon.
I spent more time over the next two hours cleaning than I did with Eve in my arms. A problem I’d rectify as soon as everyone left for the night, I promised myself.
“We’re gonna use the cabin that I never unpacked into, right? Now that you’re brother’s here? Because he sure as hell doesn’t want to listen to you coming all over my cock all night,” I murmured into her ear as I pinned Eve top the wall in the pantry, squeezing her hips possessively.
“You can’t say that,” Eve hissed, her resolve breaking the moment my mouth sealed over hers.
“Hell, I can’t even get a bottle of whiskey to take to bed,” Travis grumbled, walking into the pantry and straight back out again.
Eve giggled into the crook of my neck as I grinned down at her.
“So, my place?”
“Mmhm.” She murmured, tracing patterns on my torso. “You know this is your place now, right?” I swore she’d perfected looking up at me through her lashes.
“Yeah. but still I don’t really want to fuck you to your twin’s commentary all night. And we are going all night, Evie,” I growled, licking my way across her throat.
She moaned appreciatively, tipping her head back to gift me access.
“Shit. Archer!” someone called from the living area. Possibly Will, from the stifled laughter. “Your girlfriend’s back.”
“What the hell?” I frowned down at a giggling Eve. “You’ve had too much coffee.”
“You made yourself a friend. She peeked around the edge of the pantry to a chorus of catcalls, waving them away as her cheeks stained a pretty scarlet. “Oh, hello.”
The doe who had been following me about trotted up to the kitchen the moment I stepped out with Eve.
Now who let you in?
“Ah. Shit.”
The house broke up as I sent Eve a rueful glance over my shoulder.
“Dump him!” someone yelled from the long table. Probably Joe.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Mhmm.” She gave me a finger wave and looked at the doe pointedly. “We are having words in the morning.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I grabbed my coat and a carrot, busting the vegetable up into the smallest pieces I could in my hands.
“Come on, honey. You belong outside. Was your gate left open?” I frowned as I slid my feet into my boots, shrugging my jacket on as I glanced over to the field adjoining the house yard.
The light barely made it that far, but the doe trotted obediently with me as I strode across the hard packed dirt. Sure enough the gate banged against the far fence post.
“Fuckers didn’t latch this.” I tossed a handful of carrot into the snow. The doe looked at the carrot and back to me. “Come on. In you go. Fuck.” I bent down to retrieve the carrot pieces.
The doe wandered into the field, nibbling out of my hand. I sighed.
“There you go. Much better.” I closed the gate, praying she was the only one who wandered out, and how long the damn thing had been open for. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I lit the flashlight app, but there wasn’t a single deer in sight.
Shit.
Either they were all where they were supposed to be, or they were somewhere else.
Biting back an oath, I jogged to the barn and grabbed a quad bike.
A quick trip with the headlights running found absolutely no deer anywhere they shouldn’t be.
By the time I returned to the big house, most of the ranch hands were heading back to the bunk house for the night.
I grabbed Joe’s shoulder. “The damn gate was left open. Know anything about it?”
He turned to me, his smile lazy. “No idea. Anything else other than your little friend get out?’
“No that I can see. That herd is Eve's pride and joy. If I find out—”
“I didn’t hurt your girlfriend’s toys, Ranger Rick,” Joe said softly. “But if I see a pretty thing I’ll be sure to call. Merry Christmas.”
I let the man’s shoulder go, all too ready to kick him off the land, but to be fair apart from being an asshole, he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
I parked the quad bike in the barn, locking up for the night and headed back into the house. Exhaustion slammed me along with a decadent dose of heat from the overstuffed fireplace as I shrugged my jacket off.
“All done?” Jude called from the sofa where he sat with Natalie curled around him.
“Yeah, all locked up.” I clenched my teeth, unwilling to worry him, glancing around. “Where’s Eve?”
“Upstairs.” Jude yawned, setting us all off.
I grinned. “Cheers. I’m done. Merry Christmas.”
“No, she’s not.” Travis walked slowly down stairs, his limp visible as he leaned on the banister. “Eve. She’s not up here. I just checked her room. She might be in the study.”
My grin dissipated. “I’ll check.” I circuited the house, my unease growing with every step. “Eve?” I called, opening the back door. “Did she follow me outside?” I asked Jude, returning to the living area.
His tired eyes blazing with a shot of adrenaline. “No.”
“Fuck.”
“She’ll be upstairs. Or somewhere,” Natalie offered from her space on the sofa. “What?”
I looked at Jude. “Have you told her?”
He shook his head. “We haven’t really gone into it.”
I nodded. “Now might be a good time. After we check the house again.”
Which we did, but I knew it would yield the same results. I walked straight into the study and pulled the bookcase out.
“The hell are you doing?” Trav asked from behind me as I grabbed Eve’s rifle.
The one she gifted me was stunning. It was also a historical gift and an emotional piece.
Hers was useful. I'd handed in my ranger issue handgun back when I left Texas.
“It’s not a coincidence.” I didn’t say anything else as I loaded the gun with sure fingers. “I’m going to check the cabin. Anywhere you can think of?”
Trav made a feral sound. “The cellar.”
I froze. “You’re fucking kidding me. I thought—”
“Yeah, well. We changed a few things.”
“Make it count. Take Jude.”
“He’s drunk.” Desperation coated my girl’s twin’s voice.
Not again.
“It’s better than nothing.” I walked out of the big house and headed straight for the cabin.
I’m not wrong.
Please don’t let me be wrong.