Chapter 11
eleven
Chance glared at his alarm clock as it beeped at him. Didn’t the damn thing know he’d been up most of the night?
Outside was dark, not even the gray light of false dawn peeping through the windows. Chance had to get moving if he was going to make it to the feed truck by the time Quint did. A rancher could never get “just five more minutes,” no matter how tired he was.
He reached out and slapped the alarm off, then scrubbed a hand over his face. Christ, but he was tired. His own fault, though—he’d gone and kissed Cordy, touched her sweet, sweet pussy, then spent the whole night up thinking about it. And not about how it was a bad idea and he shouldn’t repeat it. More like obsessing over how much further he’d wanted to take it.
She’s about to have a kid. Another man’s kid. She’s got no place to stay. She’s only sticking around until the baby is born.
You’d be a shit father and husband.
It was true. She was better off with her vibrator than him.
Okay, maybe the vibrator line had been a bit much. She must be pissed, and he couldn’t blame her. But she’d said he was so good at this, and it had hit him exactly why and what he’d done to get that good, and he’d had to stop.
There were reasons why he was the way he was, which meant he couldn’t touch Cordelia Grace Johnson.
Didn’t mean he still didn’t want to, though. His need for her was like someone had shoved a red-hot branding iron deep in his belly and kept pressing. And to hear she had wanted him all this time too… How the hell was he supposed to stay strong in the face of that confession?
That got Chance up and out of bed. He wanted to be gone before Cordy woke to spare them any awkwardness. If he could get in a full day’s work, he could clear his head enough to face her.
Chance had to be careful with her, couldn’t get her tangled up in his life. She was a good woman trying to be a perfect mother. She had real shit at stake here, and he couldn’t fuck that up for her.
When he walked into the living room, her dog was laid out in front of the fireplace, all four legs in the air, tongue hanging out. The thing looked like a dead possum.
For a heart-stopping moment, Chance thought the dog might actually be deceased.
He walked up to Iggy. The dog didn’t move. Chance poked his flank with a toe.
Iggy flicked one forepaw and snorted as delicately as a dog could, but didn’t open a single eye.
“Good Lord,” Chance whispered. “You really are that lazy.”
Iggy had nothing to say to defend himself.
In the kitchen, Chance started a pot of decaf coffee and made his usual breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. The eggs were from his dad’s chickens, the bacon from a 4-H kid’s fair pig, and the toast was from the Donut Palace. He liked the sourdough they made there.
He added double what he usually did. The extra would go on a covered plate for Cordy so she could have a warm breakfast. She could pop it into the microwave whenever she woke up.
That made the cramp in his stomach ease up. He hated leaving her alone all day, but he also didn’t want to face her. And he damn well didn’t want her to go hungry. She needed that food.
She hadn’t even been here twenty-four hours and she’d already turned everything inside him upside down.
The dog was still asleep when Chance left. Not even the smell of bacon had woken Iggy up. Chance shook his head. What kind of dog didn’t wake up for bacon?
“Unnatural,” Chance muttered to himself. “That’s not a normal dog.”
Iggy didn’t answer as Chance walked out the door.
The morning seemed to go on forever, not only because working on irrigation was one of Chance’s least favorite chores. He kept wondering what Cordy might be up to and forgetting what he was supposed to be doing. Quint called him out on it a couple of times.
By mid-morning, they were finally getting somewhere. “Give me that wrench,” Chance asked his brother, hand out for it. “This bolt is stuck hard. God, I don’t want to have to…”
The back of his neck prickled. The sixth sense he had about Cordy lit up.
She was here, somewhere.
Quint gestured to the north with the wrench. “Isn’t that your girl?”
“She’s a woman, not a girl.” Chance rose to his feet, looking for her. “And she’s not mine.”
“She’s living with you.”
“As a roommate.”
Chance squinted at a figure in the distance. There she was, walking the fence line of the north pasture, her dog at her side. Chance’s ribs unlatched a notch, and he could breathe easier. She was just fine.
“You’ve never had a roommate before.” Quint wasn’t letting it go. “You don’t even bring women home.”
“How do you know that? Are you watching through my windows?”
“Am I wrong?”
Chance sighed. “No, you’re not wrong. But she’s different. I’m not sleeping with her, she’s not mine, and I’m just helping her out.”
“Why aren’t the Saxons helping her out?”
“Ask them,” Chance muttered darkly.
“It’s their first grandbaby. Most folks would be over the moon about that.”
“They ought to be.” Chance watched as Cordy strode over his ranch with her long legs. With that noodle dog straining at the end of the leash, she looked like something out of a magazine. Long and lithe and sexy as hell.
“Is she going for a walk?”
“Yeah.” Chance should have known she’d be out of the house and exploring the first chance she got. Given how she’d grown up, she wasn’t one to stick in one place, even for a day.
Which meant she probably wasn’t staying in Star Crossed Springs, no matter what she said about the baby growing up near the Saxons. With how they treated her, soon enough she’d come to her senses and move somewhere else.
“Remember how Mom used to take walks?” Quint asked.
Chance felt a weight settle on his chest. They didn’t talk about Mom much. Right after she’d died, they’d been too busy trying to keep everything together as Dad fell apart. After, it became a habit. They knew bringing her up would hurt, so they didn’t.
“I remember,” he said. “After dinner, she’d take Dad’s arm and say, ‘I want to see our land.’ And they’d walk over the acres until dark.”
That had always reassured Chance when he was little. There were predators out there who wanted to hurt their animals, but Mom and Dad would make sure they weren’t around. They’d make sure that the fences were secure and nothing could get to their herd. And then they’d come home and tuck their boys into bed, and everything would be safe and right with the world.
That feeling didn’t seem so big the older he got, but it never really went away—until Mom passed, and nothing felt secure anymore.
“We never did that,” Quint said. His voice was rough. “Walked over this place just to walk. We’ve always got something to do. Always something needing fixing or attending to.”
Chance sighed. Quint was right. Watching Cordy out there gave him the itch to join her. To see what she thought of what he and his brothers had made here.
“Cordy likes exploring,” Chance said. “Her parents dragged her all over the world when she was a kid.”
She walked across their land like she owned it, her strides long and confident. The dog strained at the end of the leash, but she controlled him easily.
Chance could watch her all day. Just her, walking. He wondered again where that grace of hers came from. Natural or taught?
Quint tapped Chance’s shoulder with the wrench, tearing him out of his obsession with Cordy. “Did you want this?” Quint asked.
“Yeah.”
Quint squatted next to him. “Ruby likes her. Cordy.”
“Ruby also really likes Hailey. Maybe she could put a flea in Hailey’s ear and get them to treat Cordy right.”
“She might already be doing that.”
Might. It was too slim a word, too weak an assurance. “Can you ask her?”
Chance hated meddling in his brother’s marriage. Ruby was part of the family… and yet she wasn’t. Her childhood wasn’t like theirs, so she’d never understand what went on between the brothers. It wasn’t an understanding Chance would wish on anyone, but it meant Ruby was outside their fucked-up circle.
“I’ll ask,” Quint said. “She’s probably already doing it.”
Ruby liked to manage things, that was for sure. The ease in Quint’s tone told Chance that things were good between his brother and his wife. At least for the moment. Which made Chance feel easier, too. Looked like Ruby showing up to help with the move had been a good thing.
He took one last look at Cordy, who was following a trail, her noodle dog happily trotting beside her. And that made him feel easy, too.
An hour later, Chance was dripping sweat and irrigation water, ready to kick that damn broken pivot until he felt better. “If this doesn’t work,” he told Quint, “I don’t know what to try next.”
“Let me turn on—” Quint broke off as he frowned into the distance. “Your woman is still walking. And now she’s walking toward the house.”
The warning in those words had Chance snapping to his feet. “Wait, are you sure?”
Quint gestured with his chin.
Sure enough, Cordy and her noodle dog were on a beeline for the main house.
Chance hadn’t told her she couldn’t go there. It had never occurred to him she might even try. He was an idiot, because it should have.
“He’s home.” Chance didn’t need to tell his brother who he meant.
“Where else would he be? Did you tell her about him?”
“Of course not.” Chance packed up as quick as he could. If he rushed, he could stop her before she reached the house.
“What are you doing? We’re not done,” Quint said.
“I’ve gotta stop her before she sees him. ”
“If she does meet Dad, he won’t do anything to her. He was never a mean drunk. Hell, he’s not even drunk anymore.”
Chance wanted to ask if Quint would let Ruby spend time with Dad, then thought better. Cordy couldn’t learn the truth about his father. That would only pull her into his mess, and Chance was trying to prevent that with everything he had. Look at how noble he’d been last night when he’d let her go to bed alone.
“I’m going to head her off,” Chance said, throwing the last of the tools into the side-by-side. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
“Head her off?” Quint planted his fists on his hips. “She’s not a cow.”
Chance remembered Ms. Reston’s warnings from the class and almost laughed despite his panic. “Trust me, I know that. But she’s about to run headlong into danger, and I’ve got to stop her.”
Quint said something more, but it was lost in the engine’s roar as Chance tore off to catch Cordy before she met his father.
Cordy woke up from a restless sleep, still pissed at Chance for leaving her hanging like that last night.
Okay, yes, when she thought about it, he was right. That somehow made her restlessness worse, though.
The vibrator sat untouched in her dresser drawer. If Cordy pulled it out, she’d have only flung it at Chance’s head.
When she saw him this morning, she wasn’t sure what she would do. But seeing the breakfast he’d left for her made her irritation go up in smoke.
The note left next to the plate read: Food’s for you. Coffee’s decaf. PS. Sorry about the vibrator thing last night.
Not the most elegant apology, but she was touched all the same. The eggs and toast were delicious, and she could barely tell the coffee lacked the most important ingredient.
After breakfast, Cordy figured she’d finish getting settled in, start baby-proofing, maybe even take a crack at the crib, despite Chance’s chest-beating. But as she poked around the house, the restlessness returned in full force. Being in a new place made her itch to explore. There were all kinds of new things right outside and she wasn’t seeing them!
So she woke up Iggy, clipped on his leash, and took them off for a long walk.
The morning was already warm, but the sunshine was glorious. It felt so good to stretch her legs and have the freedom to walk wherever she wanted. The ranch was massive, with hundreds of cows happily grazing behind barbed wire fences. Cordy waved to all of them, not caring how silly it might be.
Iggy was less excited by the cows—he couldn’t figure out what the heck they were—but he eagerly kept pace with Cordy.
She felt lighter than she had in ages, almost giddy with how beautiful the morning was. She’d needed this, she realized. It had been too long since she’d gone on an aimless ramble, just her and Iggy. So she kept going and going, even as the morning stretched on.
Coming across Chance and Quint working was a shock. Of course, she might have expected it, but still, she went flushed and hot all over.
Chance was too far away to even yell to, but he still looked damn sexy. Long legs, broad shoulders, and the way he cocked his hip as he watched her… she got all tangled up in memories of last night. So bad she almost tripped over her own feet.
Luckily, she didn’t go down, but decided to move elsewhere. There was plenty of open space; she hadn’t said hi to the cows in that other pasture.
Iggy still wasn’t so sure about the cows. He plastered himself to Cordy’s leg, shivering when the cows got too close. Cordy didn’t blame him for being freaked out, but he handled it like a champ.
When Cordy saw the ranch house, she decided to check it out. Was it where Chance had grown up? It must have been.
Before she got to the house, she stumbled over the chickens and the goats. Now those were a surprise. Of course they had cows—it was a ranch—but chickens and goats, too?
Cordy said hello to the hens, who ignored her as they scratched around for bugs under a massive oak. Iggy stared at them intently, quivering with something other than fear.
Uh-oh. She gave the leash a wriggle, reminding him to look at her. “Chickens are friends, not food.”
Iggy didn’t look convinced. Cordy decided it was time to visit the goats instead.
“Hi, guys!” She waved to the goats, clustered around an actual barn, painted red with white trim and as adorable as the goats themselves.
Five goats stared back at her, looking very unimpressed. They were gold, white, and buckskin, all shorter than she might have expected. The cows had gentle eyes but were careful to keep their distance when she walked by. The goats were very different—they didn’t seem mean exactly, but they had a take-no-shit look in their eyes. She wouldn’t call them gentle.
Iggy cocked his head. Cordy sensed him gearing up for another meltdown. Poor guy.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “They won’t hurt you.”
“They will, actually.”
Cordy spun around at the strange voice. A man had come up behind her, older with a heavy limp. He’d looked like he’d once been as robust and broad-shouldered as Chance, but life and the years had beaten him down. His brown eyes were faded and sad, but she could see Chance in them.
Her heart beat faster as she realized this must be Chance’s father.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Cordy. I hope I’m not disturbing you. You’re Chance’s dad, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Name’s Holden.” He held out a gnarled hand to shake. “No, not disturbing me. It gets too quiet around here. Me and Pard could use some company.”
“Pard?”
“The dog.” Holden pointed out a basset hound resting in the shade of a hay shed. “He’s friendly.”
“This is Iggy. He’s friendly too, but he’s a little nervous. He’s never seen cows or goats or chickens before.”
Holden raised an eyebrow. “He gonna try to hunt ‘em?”
“No.” Cordy gathered the leash up. “He’s scared because he spent the first two years of his life in a crate. He’s a rescued greyhound, so most everything in the world is new to him. Or at least it was before I got him.”
Holden gave an approving grunt and then gestured to the goats. “They don’t like dogs. They’ll head butt him if he gets too close.”
“Oh, Iggy’s not getting any closer; he already thinks we’re too close. Chance never mentioned you had goats.”
Holden looked her up and down. “Chance never mentioned you.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t rude exactly, but Cordy was taken aback. Maybe she shouldn’t have come over here. Maybe there was a reason Chance didn’t talk about his dad. “Well, he’s helping me out. I’m staying with him until I find a place of my own. I was living above the Swing Inn, and…”
She trailed off as Holden’s face fell.
“Laura used to love that place,” he whispered.
He looked so deeply unwell, his face going gray, that Cordy panicked.
“Do you need to sit down?” She took his elbow, wondering what she would do if he collapsed on her. Cordy was strong but not that strong. If he did…
A pregnant lady falling with an older man was going to be a mess. One or both of them would end up hurt.
Oh crap, where was Chance? She looked wildly around for him on the off chance he’d come up to the house without her noticing. He was nowhere to be seen, though.
“I’m all right.” Holden straightened up with effort. “It still hits me bad sometimes, realizing she’s gone.”
Cordy’s eyes stung. This man missed his wife terribly. Chance’s mom had died years ago, but Holden’s grief felt fresh and deep. Not a bit healed over.
And yet Chance had never mentioned his mom beyond telling Cordy that she’d passed away. Chance mentioned his dad even less. Something was wrong here, but Cordy couldn’t see what.
“Well, I’d like to sit down,” she said. “This belly gets heavier by the day.”
She actually felt great, but she wasn’t above using her pregnancy to get her way.
Holden’s gaze ran up and down her in a way that made her skin prickle. Suddenly, he didn’t seem so harmless.
“You’re staying with Chance, huh?” He gave a soft snort.
Cordy couldn’t tell if he thought the baby was Chance’s or not. Surely Chance had told his dad everything that was going on… hadn’t he?
Before she could clear anything up, Holden turned. “House is this way. Got some coffee on.”
“Coffee would be great,” Cordy said before remembering that she wasn’t supposed to have any. She’d have to pretend to sip it to be polite. “Are the goats and chickens yours?”
He nodded. “Rye helps me with the chickens. I can’t drink cow’s milk anymore, so I got the goats.”
He slapped his thigh, and Pard got up to follow him. The dog’s ears swung with each waddling step he took. His jowls flapped, too. The basset hound was Iggy’s opposite in every way—it was hard to imagine they were even the same species. Pard looked back and gave her a doggie smile, his tail thwacking along.
Iggy looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. He wasn’t too sure about this other dog. Cordy doubted Iggy had ever even seen an animal like that before.
Well, he’d have to get used to it.
“Come on,” she told him.
They came around the side of a massive shed filled with heavy equipment, and the main house appeared. Up close, it was… haphazard-looking. It seemed to have started as something smaller and humbler, and each generation added what they needed as they came along. An entire wing joined up to the east side, a second story was over only one half of the house, and a porch wrapped around the front as best it could.
Cordy had never seen anything quite like it. She was immediately charmed.
“How long has this house been in your family?” she asked.
Holden smiled at the admiration in her tone. “About five generations. So maybe… a hundred and fifty years? Give or take a decade.”
“It’s amazing.”
Holden’s expression darkened. “None of my boys want to live here, though. Bowie’s way off in Missoura, Quint went to live in town, Chance built himself a whole damn house as far away as he could get. Rye’s close, I guess, there in the bunkhouse. No one knows where Lane is.”
Cordy’s rote assurances died on her lips. Telling Holden that his boys probably wanted to give him privacy wouldn’t work as even a polite lie.
And that bit about not knowing where Lane was…
“Um.” She followed him up the porch steps, clutching desperately at the railing. “Um. Sometimes, kids like to wander. I haven’t seen my parents in…” She calculated, had to add a few months from the last time she’d seen them. “…My dad in about four years, my mom in about two.”
God, where was her patter now? She’d been a bartender for years, thought she could handle any situation, but this one was stumping her.
Holden paused in the doorway, gave her another of those odd searching looks. “That long? Lane’s been gone for three.”
Then he reached out and patted her shoulder. It was too rough to be comforting, his hand flopping against her like he couldn’t quite control it. But she recognized what he was trying to do.
“It’s hard.” Cordy’s nose prickled. It wasn’t like she depended on her parents for anything—she’d learned that lesson fast and early—but it would be nice to have them here. Have them care at least a little bit.
Holden nodded and then walked inside.
The interior was rough and cramped, clearly the product of a different time. The floor was bare wood, the walls old-fashioned plaster. The windows were heavy single-pane monsters with a strange pulley system to open them. The pictures on the walls were ornately framed black-and-white portraits of unsmiling ancestors and some old photos of thick-muscled cows, which Cordy didn’t understand. Were those cows famous or something?
Someone from a spic and span suburb would take one look at this place and run away screaming. Cordy wanted to explore more.
“Kitchen’s this way.” Holden went through a narrow hallway, Pard close on his heels.
Iggy sighed, then tugged her toward the well-worn brick hearth. Seems he’d found a nap spot already.
Cordy unclipped his leash and let Iggy go rest. He wouldn’t get into anything here, and he’d never start any trouble with Pard. Pard seemed like a lover, not a fighter, just like Iggy.
The kitchen was shabby but cozy, with appliances that seemed older than Cordy but probably worked better than anything from today. The big windows looked out onto several dead, bare garden boxes.
It felt like a kitchen that had once been loved but was now neglected. A little bit of work would bring it right back to life.
Somehow, Cordy preferred Chance’s kitchen. Maybe because she didn’t feel out of place like she did here. This kitchen seemed to be waiting for someone else, not her.
“Here you go.” Holden handed her a steaming mug. “Where’s your dog?”
“Asleep by the fireplace,” she said. “That’s his favorite spot to sleep. And sleeping is his favorite thing to do.”
“Kind of lazy, huh?”
“You have no idea.” She pretended to sip the coffee. “This is great, thank you.”
The smell made her mouth water regretfully. Oh, she missed coffee so badly. The pot Chance had left this morning had scratched some of that itch, but not all. She didn’t miss sushi, soft cheeses, or raw juice since she didn’t even know what that was, but coffee… Damn, she missed that.
And sex, too.
Okay, that was quite enough input from her inner voice.
Cordy set the mug down before her willpower completely broke. “I work at the Swing Inn.” She put on her best customer service smile. “I haven’t been in Star Crossed Springs that long, which is probably why we haven’t met before.”
Holden got that odd expression again. “You met Chance there?”
“Um, yes. Glenn…do you know Glenn?”
“His sister was in my year.”
Cordy wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “Well, Glenn is my boss, and?—”
The slam of a door opening cut her off. Both dogs started barking their heads off.
Cordy instinctively rose, turning to meet whatever was coming. From the loud sounds pounding toward them, it was one very large, freaked-out man. Probably wearing cowboy boots.
Then Chance barreled into the kitchen, his eyes wild, looking like he was about to have a heart attack.