CHAPTER 6 #2
‘It ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before.
’ He smiled, his face lighting up as he considered me.
I silently resolved to ask Lil how she’d managed to employ not one, but two guys who looked like they’d take on a grizzly and win, before posing for a high-fashion photo shoot.
Even without the cowboy hat, with his sandy hair swept back and stormy grey eyes fixed on mine, I had to look away at the table to keep from staring.
‘I’ve got two sisters,’ he continued, as if my stare was nothing out of the ordinary.
‘I’ve seen just about every emotion on the damn scale – sometimes all at the very same time, if I’m real lucky. ’
He winked, stretching over to steal a piece of bacon just as Lil reached the table and offloaded a short stack of pancakes onto each plate. There were two empty spaces – one for her and one for . . .
‘There you are,’ Lil said, swatting away Jesse’s hand as he reached out for more bacon.
Cole.
This time, shirt firmly in place and buttons done right up to the neck – just as I’d done with mine – he carried his hat over to the pegs on the wall and placed it next to three others.
‘Who wants eggs?’ Lil asked, juggling another two pans on the stove.
‘Yep,’ Jesse and Bailey said, now fighting over the coffee and cream.
‘Can I give you a hand?’ Cole asked in a voice low, approaching Lil, his eyes averted from the table.
My traitorous heart began to pound, but I held my neutral expression in place. Even if my eyes did slide down to his ass, hugged pretty perfectly by the Wranglers wrapped around it.
Lil threw him a grateful look but shook her head.
I noticed again the deep furrows under her eyes, the manic flyaway hairs around her hairline.
Although never polished, Lil had always been put together, scrubbed and made up, pretty enough to turn heads without a whisper of make-up.
But now . . . it was as though her seams were exposed, ragged and worn at the edges.
I pretended to listen as Bailey messed with Jesse, but I poured myself a coffee and took a sip, resolving to help. Really help. I’d combine straightening out my life, job hunting, Kyle, all of it – but Lil would take equal priority. I owed her.
‘Nice to meet you again. Almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’
The room suddenly went quiet, just the crackle of eggs frying on the stove as I looked up from my mug into Cole’s eyes. He held his own poker face, just a hint of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth as he sat down, reaching for the orange juice.
‘Likewise,’ I replied quietly, a suffocating mix of embarrassment, annoyance and pure, feral attraction merging into one word.
At Jesse and Bailey’s shock, Lil laughed.
‘Cole was chopping logs by the store, woke Lottie up in her tiny little city pyjamas.’
Jesse snorted.
‘I like her,’ Bailey said to Lil, shaking her head. ‘That same whip-crack style as you.’
Lil’s eyebrow lifted, her keen eyes moving between Cole and me.
‘Oh she sure does, don’t be fooled by the British accent. Ain’t nothing stuck up or uptight about that one.’ She laughed at my incredulous expression. ‘We’re just the same as our moms. Pair of them could tear down every wise-cracking asshole in town.’
Cole ventured nothing else, just a brief, curious glance back to me as he slowly helped himself to the contents of the table.
‘So, you’re a city girl?’ Bailey asked, mouth half open as she made light work of her pancakes. ‘London, right?’
‘Yeah, sort of,’ I replied, not missing a second glance from Cole, but this time, it was colder. A flicker of fear ran through me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe it was about something else. I added, ‘I mean, I’m not from the city, I just moved there for work.’
Lil sat down, Jesse and Bailey nodded, too engrossed in their breakfast to speak.
‘Country not enough for you?’ Cole asked quietly, his voice soft, but the words had an edge.
It hurt. More than it should. His warm, bright brown eyes were suddenly dark. The man that’d lit my entire being on fire just two nights earlier had gone.
I frowned, watching as the others looked between us, seemingly unsure of his reaction, of what mine would be in response.
‘No, that’s not it. Just more opportunities, that’s all.’
He shrugged and my stomach dropped. Whatever had taken place the night before last . . . had I imagined it all? Had I just been so starved of any depth of feeling with Kyle that the first gorgeous guy to kiss me with any passion had turned into something else in my head?
After a pause, Lil launched into a list of jobs and chores for the morning and I ate as much as I could, realizing how unused I was to real food, or certainly any large quantity of it. Nutrition had been fairly low on the list of priorities in the past year.
‘Okay, time to fly,’ Bailey said eventually. ‘See you sometime at the barn, Lottie?’
‘Sure.’ I nodded, giving her a brief smile, carefully avoiding looking at Cole.
‘Hold up,’ said Jesse, swinging himself off the bench at the same time as Cole and swiping his hat off the pegs. ‘Look forward to showing you the ropes, Lottie.’
He winked again, smiling as I nodded and tried very hard not to imagine him helping lift me into a saddle. Cole said nothing, disappearing under his hat and striding out into the hall.
‘Come out back with me.’ Lil grabbed her coffee. ‘Let’s take five minutes to ourselves before the day really gets going.’
Feeling numb, I followed her out onto the same deck I’d stalked across earlier, and we each took a rocking chair.
Lil sighed, clutching her mug like it was a lifeline, looking out over the view.
The ridge we were on fell away steeply, the tops of the spruce trees below just visible over the edge, nothing to block the panoramic view of the valley floor below and the knife-edged Tetons in the far distance, the sky as blue and clear as sapphire.
‘In some ways this place hasn’t changed at all, has it?’ I murmured, lifting my legs up onto the chair and hugging my knees. ‘The trees are a little taller maybe, but the mountains, the house, the town . . . it’s like I never left.’
‘I can see that,’ Lil replied, rubbing at her eyes for a moment.
‘From your point of view. It’s a different place for me now, in lots of ways.
Ever since Mom left for Colorado; maybe even before that when Dad left.
Sometimes . . .’ She shifted, wincing almost. ‘I feel like an ungrateful asshole for saying it, but sometimes I just wish I’d let her sell it.
Maybe then I could go get myself one of those city jobs, have a social life and some pretty clothes. ’
Smiling, I shook my head.
‘Come on, you’ve got living proof sitting right here that that life isn’t all it’s sold as being. You’re even less of a city person than me. Besides, this place can’t be all bad, right?’
Lil shook her head, looking back out at the mountains, as if to anchor herself.
‘No . . . of course not. I love this place, to its bones, like you do,’ she said, glancing at me as she sipped her coffee. ‘It’s just, the financial side of running a ranch is complicated. Having guests helps, keeps things ticking over, but managing this much land is hard. Even with help.’
It dawned on me just how small my worries were in comparison to hers.
How my life was just about me, my job, my relationship – whereas Lil’s were about a legacy, a family name and the livelihoods of three other people, not to mention the other services and small businesses that relied on ranches like the Diamond Back.
‘Anyone . . . special out there, to share the load?’ I asked, curious about the absence of any talk of boyfriends.
She gave a wry chuckle, raising her eyebrows.
‘Oh honey, even if I didn’t know every last man in town either from high school or through running this place, I’d need an extra day in the week to do anything about it.’
‘Bullshit,’ I teased, watching her indignation turn to amusement as I grinned at her. ‘You telling me there’s no time for a night out? Some whiskey and live music? There’s got to be someone to have some fun with?’
Laughing now, she put her head back against the chair. It felt good to see a glimpse of the old Lil, the one I remembered. Silently, I vowed to use this trip to bring her more of that, a small relief from the heavy duty across her shoulders.
‘Maybe, honey, maybe.’ She considered me for a moment. ‘We always had a lot of fun, didn’t we?’
I nodded, flooded with memories.
‘But everyone here is really great. I mean, I know I only just met them but they seem like a good team,’ I said quietly, just in case any of them suddenly appeared from around the side of the house. ‘Although . . . what’s with Cole? He seemed a bit . . . off with me?’
She studied me for a moment, expression shifting from the thoughts that creased her forehead to something else I couldn’t quite define.
‘Oh, pay no attention to him. It’s just his way, he doesn’t mean anything by it. Or if he does, it’s all his own shit.’ She paused, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘He’s been a lifeline to me these last few years. He’s not perfect, but I’d have lost the ranch a long time ago without his help.’
‘I had no idea things were so tough,’ I replied, my voice quiet. ‘I want to help. I mean, I need to figure out a job and straighten my life out too, but I’m here because I want to help you, however I can.’
‘I’ve missed you, Princess.’ Her smile was sad.
I returned it, remembering the nickname her parents had given me one summer, when they’d declared I could pass for a younger version of Kate Middleton.
‘Princess? I thought you said Lottie was just a regular girl,’ Jesse announced, approaching the deck and leaning a foot against it.
‘She lied,’ I jumped in, trying to save Lil from explaining the origins, from making her think too much about her parents, about the way things used to be here. ‘I’m actually an undercover princess escaping the paparazzi in the mountains.’
He chuckled.
‘Well, Princess, if it’s not too much trouble for a royal such as yourself, I could use a pair of hands saddling up the horses for a ride. Got a few guests going out and Bailey’s had to run down to the river meadow with Cole to patch up a fence.’
Lil groaned.
‘What happened this time?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘Think it’s just old. There’s no real damage, the wood’s rotten is all.’ Lil made a sound as though this was a well-trodden conversation. ‘Lil said you’re good with horses,’ he added. ‘You in?’