Chapter 2
Belle Justine Holiday had always made bad decisions. At the grocery store, she always chose the slowest line. At a restaurant, she always chose the menu item that had the waiter wincing. At the gym, she always chose the treadmill that sped up erratically. She chose clothing that looked great in the dressing room but hideous when she got it home, makeup that made her skin look yellow and sallow, and haircuts that were thirty years out of style.
If left to her own devices, she would look like a homeless person stuck in the nineties and inflicted with jaundice.
Thankfully, she had never been left to her own devices.
She had her twin sister. Liberty had never made a bad decision in her life. Every choice she made was the right one. Grocery lines, menu items, treadmills, clothes, makeup, and hairstyles. Flowers, food catering, and wedding venues. If Liberty chose it, it always turned out perfectly.
And Liberty loved choosing things—not only for herself, but also for her twin.
Unfortunately, when Liberty wasn’t around, things went to hell in a handcart.
The current situation was a perfect example.
If Liberty had been around this morning when Belle had decided to ride over to their family’s ranch, she wouldn’t have allowed Belle to choose a horse that happened to be terrified of thunder. In fact, she would have taken one look at the clouds gathering in the sky and decided it would be better to drive to the Holiday Ranch.
But Liberty hadn’t been there. She had been with Jesse. Jesse Cates, a man Belle was thoroughly starting to dislike for taking her sister away from her and leaving Belle to her own bad decision-making.
And he wasn’t just taking Liberty away from her. He was also taking Liberty away from her and Belle’s business.
Holiday Sisters Events was Belle’s life. She loved helping people celebrate the most important events in their lives. She loved fluffing wedding veils, lighting ninety birthday candles, and helping fifty-year-wedding-anniversary couples remember the vows they wrote. She loved making sure the arrangements on the reception tables were correctly placed, the cake wasn’t cut until it was time, and the flower girls didn’t toss all the petals before they walked down the aisle.
What she didn’t love was all the decisions that went along with the perfect event. Decisions were Liberty’s forte. Without her, there would be no Holiday Sisters Events.
Thunder boomed and the horse whinnied and reared. Belle was so busy trying to keep her seat she didn’t notice there was someone in the barn until they spoke.
“What the hell!”
As soon as the horse’s front hoofs landed on the ground, Belle glanced around until she spied the shirtless man standing by the back stalls. It didn’t take more than a second to figure out who he was. Corbin Whitlock was the reason Belle was there. Although he barely resembled the sweet, awkward boy she’d known in high school.
His hair, that had once been a mop of unruly dark blond curls, was now trimmed short on the sides. Even wet, the locks on top fell in expertly cut layers. His face was no longer dotted with acne. It was blemish free, tanned, and clean shaven. The tall, gangly body, which had tripped over its large feet whenever Liberty was around, was not gangly anymore. It was sculpted with hard chest muscles, knotted biceps, and washboard abs.
The only features remotely familiar were the blue eyes that stared back at her. But even those had changed. They no longer held the soft vulnerability that had touched Belle’s heart.
Now, they were hard and cold.
“Bella.”
While everyone else called her Belle or Belly, Corbin had always called her Bella. She never knew why, but being a big Twilight fan, she had liked it.
She didn’t like it so much now. Especially when his voice held no warmth. Although she wasn’t surprised by his cool tone. She knew he hated her and why. But she was surprised that he had recognized her. Few people outside her family could tell the difference between her and Liberty. How had Corbin known the difference? Especially when she was soaking wet and they hadn’t seen each other since high school.
Lady Grantham snorted and restlessly pranced and Corbin took a step back and warily eyeballed the horse. Which surprised her. He had been an awkward teenager, but never a fearful one. His courting of the most popular girl in school had proved it.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice was deeper than she remembered. Huskier. Angrier.
“I think that should be obvious—coming in out of the rain.”
“Well, you can go right back out in it. I have enough Holidays to deal with. You aren’t welcome here.”
Not welcome here? On a ranch that had belonged to her family for over a hundred years? She knew she had done Corbin wrong. But the stupid, teenage mistake she had made years ago wasn’t justification for thinking he could steal her family’s ranch. But before she could do something really stupid—like lose her temper and tell him off—another loud boom of thunder caused Lady Grantham to rear again.
This time, Belle was too preoccupied to be prepared. She slipped out of the wet saddle and hit the hard-packed ground on her butt with a pain-filled grunt. It wasn’t the first time she had been thrown from a horse. She was country smart enough to roll out of the way as the frightened horse charged back out into the rain.
She was lying there trying to catch her breath and assess her injuries when a warm hand settled on the chilled skin of her arm and gently rolled her over.
“Bella.” This time, Corbin didn’t say her name like a curse as he knelt next to her. The one word was spoken in a soft, concerned voice. She had forgotten how blue his eyes were. They were like the sky at dusk, deep, intense cobalt that could rival any flamboyant display the setting sun offered.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.” He pulled a cellphone from the back pocket of his wet jeans and tapped the screen. “Just stay still. An ambulance will be here shortly.”
She closed her fingers around his wrist. The man had one thick wrist. And an extremely strong heartbeat. His pulse thumped wildly against her fingertips as she spoke unsteadily.
“I-I-I’m—fine.”
“Like hell you are. You just got thrown off a wild-eyed beast from hell and then trampled beneath his hoofs.” He started tapping the screen again, but stopped when a snort of laughter bubbled out of her mouth.
“A wild-eyed beast from hell?”
He lowered the phone. “You think this is funny? Did you get kicked in the head?”
She stopped laughing, but still couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “You’re right. It’s not a laughing matter. But Lady Grantham isn’t a wild-eyed beast from hell. She was just scared.”
“So you aren’t hurt?” His gaze swept over her before it settled on her chest. She glanced down and realized the rain had turned her white T-shirt transparent.
Another bad choice.
She crossed her arms over her chest. Which caused his gaze to quickly lift to her eyes. Was he blushing? Or just flushed from the muggy heat of the barn?
“The only thing that’s hurt is my pride,” she said. “Although that’s not the first time I’ve been thrown from a horse and I doubt it will be the last.”
“You’ve been thrown before and you still ride? That’s insane.”
“Some people might think so, but to me, the occasional fall is worth the joy of riding.”
“I don’t think any joy is worth the fall you took. Can you sit up?” He slid his hands behind her shoulders and gently lifted her, bringing her face only inches from his hard chest. He smelled of rain and manly soap. Her lungs absorbed the scent like a dry sponge to water and she felt a little lightheaded.
Had she gotten kicked in the head? This was the man who had foreclosed on her family’s ranch. She shouldn’t be sniffing him like a dog in heat and getting lightheaded. She was there for one reason and one reason only and that was to apologize for the bad choice she’d made years before.
“You okay?” he asked.
She pulled her gaze away from the sexy hollow between his hard pectoral muscles and nodded. “I’m good.” His gaze lowered to her breasts again and he cleared his throat and looked away.
“So do you want to explain what you were doing horseback riding in a thunderstorm?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left the Remington Ranch.”
He looked back at her. “So you’re staying with your sister Cloe?”
Cloe had recently married the oldest Remington boy, something Belle still found hard to believe. Not only because her older sister had never expressed any interest in Rome, but also because Rome’s daddy had long been Hank Holiday’s sworn enemy. Subsequently, their children had never been close. Which made her stay at the Remington Ranch more than a little uncomfortable.
Not just that, but Cloe and Rome were still newlyweds. Belle shouldn’t be staying with them. She should be staying at the Holiday Ranch . . . with Liberty. But Liberty was living with Jesse at the house he recently purchased to turn into a bed-and-breakfast.
It wasn’t right.
Nothing was right.
Belle had to fix this topsy-turvy world before she ended up toppling off into nothingness.
Which was why she was there. She was the only one who knew exactly what had happened in high school. The only one to blame for Corbin’s hatred of the Holidays. As much as she would have liked to forget that night had ever happened, she couldn’t if she wanted to save her family’s ranch. After she fixed things here, she needed to convince Liberty that living in a rundown mansion with Jesse was a crazy idea. Then maybe everything could go back to normal.
She just wanted things to go back to normal.
She took a deep breath before she spoke. “I came here today to apologize for what happened that night.”
“I don’t know what night you’re referring to.” The coldness that entered his eyes said differently.
She swallowed hard. “The night you were supposed to go on a date with Liberty.”
Something flashed in his eyes. Anger? Hurt? Before she could figure it out, he looked away. “Water under the bridge.” He got to his feet. “I’ll tell your family that you’re here.”
She tried to get up, but her abused butt protested the quick movement and she groaned in pain.
He whirled back around. “You are hurt.”
Her butt was only bruised, but she knew if she told him that, he’d leave. She couldn’t let him leave until she’d convinced him to let her family keep their home.
“Maybe a little.” She winced as she slowly got to her feet, then limped toward a bale of hay. She only made it halfway before she was lifted off her feet and held against a hard, naked chest. Being surrounded by Corbin’s hot skin felt like diving beneath a heated blanket. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed when he lowered her to the hay bale and stepped away.
“I’m calling an ambulance.” He lifted his phone.
“No! Really. I’m fine. I just need a minute to—” She hesitated. “Tell you how sorry I am. I shouldn’t have pretended to be Liberty. I should have told you immediately who I was and explained things. I take full responsibility.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You take full responsibility? I think I know who is responsible. Everyone in Wilder knows Liberty is the leader and you’re just her minion.”
It was the truth, but that didn’t stop his words from stinging.
“I’m not her minion.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Tell me one thing you haven’t done that she’s wanted you to do?” She scrambled for an answer and came up with nothing. He snorted. “Like I thought. So don’t try to tell me you were responsible for the twin switch. You might have tried to execute it, but it wasn’t your idea.”
“It was my idea. I was only supposed to tell you that Liberty was sick. But when I came to the door and you looked . . .” She hesitated and he finished the sentence for her.
“Like an infatuated fool.”
“I was going to say like you had spent a lot of time getting ready.”
Anger hardened his face. “So you felt sorry for me.”
“No!” When his eyebrows lifted, she sighed. “Fine. I felt badly that you were going to be disappointed and when you mistook me for Liberty and handed me the flowers, I just thought . . . what would it hurt if I pretended to be her for just one night? I didn’t think you would figure it out.”
“Only an idiot wouldn’t. You’re nothing like Liberty.”
Since Liberty was gregarious, charming, and dynamic, he was pretty much saying Belle had been reserved, boring, and dull. And yet, he had continued to play along.
“Why didn’t you say something?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I guess I wanted to see how far you’d go.”
She had gone far. Too far. But that wasn’t something she was willing to talk about. And he didn’t seem to want to talk about it either. Although his gaze lowered to her mouth for a split second before he looked away.
“I’m not going to give your family’s ranch back. So if that’s what this confession is all about, you’ve wasted your time. Foreclosing on the ranch was never about the prank you pulled that night. It was about your family defaulting on their loan.”
She stood, trying not to wince when pain shot through her butt. “My brother-in-law, Rome, is willing to pay you what we owe.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want money. I want the ranch.”
“Then buy someone else’s. There are plenty of ranches for sale around here. This isn’t your home.”
In the depths of his blue eyes was the vulnerability that had been missing before—the same vulnerability that had pierced Belle’s heart on the night he had come to pick up Liberty and Liberty had already left on another date. Like then, Belle wanted to remove that look and replace it with something else. Happiness. Laughter. Hope. But then the look was gone and when he spoke, his voice held no warmth or forgiveness.
Just determination.
“It is now.”