Chapter 8
Belle felt like a complete fool.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sitting here whining about my own problems when your life was so . . .” She wanted to say heartbreaking, but she knew he wasn’t the type of man who would want sympathy so she chose another word. “Hard.”
He handed her the cocktail napkin. “You don’t need to be sorry. Sunny and I survived and are doing just fine . . . when she’s not driving me to drink with her dangerous exploits.”
“What kind of dangerous exploits?”
“Skydiving, race car driving . . . horseback riding. If it scares the hell out me, Sunny wants to do it.”
“Maybe she’s not trying to scare you. Maybe she’s just trying to be her own woman.”
“Doing dangerous things doesn’t make you your own woman, Belle.” He glanced down at the glass of whiskey. “Neither does drinking whiskey. Do you even like whiskey?”
She really wanted to lie, but the knowing look in his eyes stopped her. “It’s nasty stuff.”
He smiled. He had a really nice smile. It was the kind that totally transformed his face from handsome to breath stealing. “Okay. We’ve figured a couple things out. You don’t like licorice ice cream and whiskey. What drink would you like?”
“Liberty always orders us—”
He cut her off. “We’re not talking about what Liberty always orders for you. What do you want?”
“That’s the problem. I’ve let Liberty take control for so long that I don’t have a clue.”
“Then let’s figure it out.” He waved over the bartender. “The lady would like one each of your most popular cocktails, please.”
“What are you doing?” she asked once the bartender was gone. “That’s a horrible waste of money.”
He winked. “Luckily, I have money to waste.”
The bartender only brought two drinks at a time, but she had to take sips of seven different cocktails until she found the one she liked the best. As soon as she took a sip, she knew. Corbin seemed to know too.
“If that look of utter delight is any indication, I think we have a winner. You’re a lemon drop martini girl.”
She took another sip. “It tastes like summer. It’s refreshing like a dip in Cooper Springs and sweetly tart like Mama’s lemonade. And it gives you a warm feeling right here.” She pressed a hand to her chest. Corbin’s gaze followed and that warm feeling intensified.
“I think that warm feeling has more to do with all the alcohol you’ve consumed.” His gaze lifted, his eyes a dark blue that beckoned her to dive in and swim around. The crazy thought had her realizing that she probably was a little tipsy. She looked away and continued eating the baby back ribs, potato salad, and beans the bartender had brought.
She’d forgotten how good Bobby Jay’s ribs were. She usually ordered the brisket like Liberty, but now she realized she loved ribs much better. Although she didn’t like them as much as Corbin. He finished off his plate and then started helping himself to some of hers.
“Hey, rib stealing is a crime here in Wilder,” she teased.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind sharing with the man who helped you find lemon drop martinis.” He took a big bite from the rib he held.
When they had finished polishing off the ribs, he asked for the tab and refused to accept the credit card she tried to hand him. “My treat and I’ll drive you back to the Remington Ranch. You can come get your car tomorrow.”
He was right. She was too tipsy to drive. But she didn’t want to go back to her sister’s.
“I don’t want to go to the Remington Ranch.”
He cocked his head in confusion and a strand of hair fell over his forehead. It reminded her of the wayward mop of hair he’d had in high school. Unruly and unstyled. He had gorgeous wavy dark blond hair with brown undertones. On their date, she had wanted to reach out and run her fingers through the silky-looking strands. Of course, she had been too shy and terrified of being found out then.
She wasn’t now.
Without hesitation, she reached out and tousled his hair, causing more than one strand to fall over his forehead in messy waves.
His shocked look made her realize how inappropriate her actions were. But she wasn’t sorry. She liked messy-haired, casual Corbin much more than she liked styled, rigid businessman Corbin.
She lowered her hand from his hair and smiled. “There’s the boy I remember.”
His features hardened. “I’ll never be that foolish boy again.”
“You weren’t foolish, Corbin. You just liked a girl, that’s all.”
“And foolishly pursued her with wilted wildflowers and silly poems as if I would have ever stood a chance.”
“That’s what I admired most about you. There were a lot of boys who fell under Liberty’s spell, but most of them didn’t have the guts to do what you did and go for it. I don’t think that’s foolish. I think that’s brave. I, on the other hand, wasn’t brave. I wasn’t brave enough to tell my sister I wasn’t going to lie for her. Or brave enough to tell you the truth. And I’m not brave enough now either. I’m shaking in my boots just thinking about having to live on my own and make my own decisions. But it looks like I don’t get a choice.”
He studied her. “Sometimes not having a choice is exactly what makes us brave.” He got up. “Now come on, I’ll drive you home.”
She shook her head. “No. I mean it. I’m not going back to Cloe’s. She doesn’t need me staying in the room she should be decorating for her and Rome’s baby.”
“Then I’ll take you to Sweetie’s.”
“Sweetie and Decker don’t need me butting into their lives either.”
He studied her for a long moment before he sighed. “Fine. There’s room at the ranch. You can stay there until you figure out what you want to do.”
She was more than a little surprised. “You’d let me stay at the ranch after what I did to you?”
“I’m already stuck with three Holidays. What’s one more?” He grabbed his hat and tugged it on.
She should have taken him up on the offer, but she couldn’t. “Thank you. But if I’m going to learn to stand on my own two feet, I need to start now. I can drive myself to a hotel.” She stood and the floor shifted beneath her feet.
“Like hell you can.” He hooked an arm around her waist to steady her, except the feel of his strong fingers curling over her hip made her feel anything but steady. “Nor am I dropping you off at some seedy hotel and those are the only ones remotely close to Wilder.”
She frowned at him. “The last thing I want right now is someone else telling me what I should do.”
“I get it, and if you hadn’t imbibed too much alcohol tonight, I would be more than happy to let you go wherever you wanted to go. But since I contributed to your drinking, I can’t do that.”
He was right, but she still couldn’t concede. “I don’t want to be around family right now. I need some space to figure things out.”
A long moment passed before he spoke. “I have another option. It’s not The Ritz Carlton, but it will give you the space you seem to think you need.”
The beat-up trailer he drove her to was about as far from The Ritz as you could get. “Whose is this?” she asked when he pulled his big truck into the dirt lot.
“It’s mine. It used to be my Uncle Dan’s.”
Belle had known Dan Wheeler lived in a trailer. She just hadn’t realized its condition. As she took in the broken windows and rusted siding, her heart ached for Dan . . . and the two teenagers who’d had to live here with him.
Corbin shut off the engine and turned to her. “You can still come back to the ranch with me. I’m sure your family would be thrilled.”
“But you wouldn’t.” When he didn’t reply, she shook her head. “No. This is good.”
“Suit yourself.”
The inside of the trailer wasn’t much better than the outside.
“It’s very . . . nice,” she lied.
He laughed. “There are clean sheets in the hall linen cabinet and there’s a new toothbrush and some toothpaste in the top drawer in the bathroom. Lock the door when I leave and call if there are any problems. Do you need me to come pick you up in the morning to get your car?”
“Thank you, but you’ve done enough. Especially after what I did to you. I’m sorry, Corbin. I’m truly sorry.”
He nodded. “How about if we let that night go?”
“Can you?”
He hesitated and his gaze lowered to her mouth. She had thought she’d sobered up on the drive to the trailer, but if the warm feeling in her tummy and the dizzy feeling in her head were any indication, she wasn’t sober. When Corbin took a step closer, her lips parted on a soft exhalation as her eyes slid closed. But instead of feeling the soft press of his kiss, he spoke.
“Good night.”
When she opened her eyes, he was already heading out the door. Once he was gone, she felt like a complete fool. Corbin wasn’t going to kiss her. He had never been interested it her.
It was Liberty.
Always Liberty.
She locked the door and glanced around the trailer. She had spent the last couple months living alone while Liberty had been helping to untangle things at the ranch. She hadn’t liked coming home every night to an empty apartment, but that loneliness had felt nothing like this loneliness. Probably because she’d known it was only temporary. Liberty would come back and they’d live like two peas in a pod once again.
But Liberty had found another pea and another pod, leaving Belle with only two choices. She could try to squeeze into one of her sisters’ or her parents’ pods. Or she could put on her big-girl panties and get used to being a single pea.
Moving in with one of her sisters would be safe, but maybe it was time to stop playing it safe. Maybe it was time to start making her own decisions—even if they turned out to be the wrong ones.
Tonight, she had tasted a lot of drinks before she’d gotten to the lemon drop martini. Once she’d taken the first sip, she’d known it was the drink for her. Maybe that’s what she needed to do in life. She just needed to keep trying things until she discovered what she liked and what she wanted.
She didn’t know why an image of Corbin popped into her head at that exact moment. But there he was, his wavy hair all tousled from her fingers and his blue eyes filled with surprise that she had touched him. There was something about his surprise that had made her feel powerful. Probably because she rarely surprised people. She was the compliant twin who went along with everyone.
It was time for that to change.
She fired off a text message to Cloe telling her that she wouldn’t be home. She lied and said she was staying at Sweetie’s. If she’d told the truth, Cloe would be over in a New York second to find out what was going on. It would be better if Belle explained everything in the morning.
There were two bedrooms in the trailer. One had a bed and one had a mattress on the floor. Since the one with the bed had a floral bedspread, she assumed it was Sunny’s and chose it. Corbin had already screwed with her head enough tonight. She didn’t need to sleep on a pillow that smelled like him.
She slept much better than she thought she would in a strange place. She woke up the next morning with a slight hangover and the sun shining brightly in the window. She reached for her cellphone on the nightstand to see what time it was, but since she hadn’t charged it, it was dead. She went to set it back on the nightstand and noticed the sketchpad.
Everyone at school had known Sunny loved to draw. She’d taken a sketchpad with her everywhere. Belle couldn’t help picking it up and taking a peek inside. As soon as she opened the sketchpad, she realized Sunny wasn’t just a doodler. She was an artist.
Her drawings brought her subjects to life. There were drawings of the townsfolk—Mrs. Stokes in her ratty mink, Sheryl Ann baking in her kitchen, Mr. Crawley standing behind the counter of the general store. There were drawings of animals—a sad-looking mutt dog sitting by a dumpster, a long-horned cow munching grass, a litter of kittens snuggled in a cardboard box labeled FREE.
There was a drawing of a teenage Corbin sitting on his old bike in front of the trailer. He wore a stretched out T-shirt and frayed cut-off jean shorts. His tube socks drooped around his tattered running shoes and the bill of his ball cap sat crooked on his mop of hair. He was laughing. Belle couldn’t remember ever seeing him laugh like that with his mouth open and his eyes crinkled at the corners. Just looking at it made her smile.
The smile faded when she came to the next few drawings.
They were all of the Holiday Ranch. Every detail was right, from the swing in the old oak to the peonies in Mimi’s garden. In one, Sunny had even put their old barn cat, Mouser, peeking out of the barn. In another, a much younger Mimi was working in her garden. In another, teenage Belle and her sisters were all squeezed together on the porch swing, laughing.
Belle now knew why Corbin had wanted to give the ranch to his sister. Sunny’s infatuation with it was there in every pencil stroke.
A banging on the front door had Belle jumping. She quickly closed the sketchpad and put it back on the nightstand before she hurried to the door. When she pulled it open, she found Sweetie, Cloe, and Liberty standing there.
They did not look happy.
“What the hell, Belle!” Liberty hollered.
“There’s no need to yell at her, Libby,” Cloe said. “She looks like she’s had a rough night.”
Liberty glared at her. “And I’m about to give her a rough morning.”
Sweetie’s expression was less hostile and more concerned. “What were you thinking, Belly? We’ve been worried sick since Cloe called me this morning. Why would you say you were staying with me when you weren’t? And why didn’t you answer your phone? Thankfully, when we called the ranch to see if you were there Corbin knew where you were.”
“I’m sorry,” Belle said. “I just knew you’d want to come check on me and I needed some time to think.”
“To think!” Liberty yelled.
Sweetie held up a hand. “Simmer down, Libby. How about we all go to Nothin’ But Muffins and talk calmly? I’m starving.”
Nothin’ But Muffins was the spot to be in the mornings. The small coffee shop was filled to the rafters when they stepped in the door. Everyone greeted them with big smiles and a hearty “Good mornin’!” as they stood in line to place their orders with the owner, Sheryl Ann.
Belle couldn’t decide what muffin she wanted to go with her herbal tea so she ordered a half dozen different ones. Since there were no tables inside, she and her sisters moved outside to the picnic tables. When she opened her box of muffins and started taking bites of each one, her sisters stared at her with surprise.
“What’s wrong?” she asked around a mouthful of a Sour Lemon Poppy muffin.
“We thought you’d ordered for all of us,” Sweetie said.
She swallowed the bite of muffin. “Oh. Sorry.” She handed the lemon poppyseed muffin to Sweetie. “But I’m happy to share the ones I don’t like.”
Liberty stared at her. “You’ve lost it, Belly. Really lost it. I get you’re upset that I’m marrying Jesse, but you need to get over it.”
“I’m over it.” She tasted Pea-Nutty Buddy and her eyes widened. “This is it! This is the best muffin ever.”
“What about Cocoa Java Junkie? I thought that was your favorite.”
Belle picked up the Cocoa Java Junkie muffin and set it in front of Liberty. “It’s your favorite. It has always had too much coffee flavor for me.”
Liberty studied her, and as always, read her well. “So you want to make your own decisions. Is that it? Well, that’s great. It’s about time. We have an entire calendar of events we need to do, both here and in Houston, and I can’t be two places at once. So you’ll have to do the events in Houston and I’ll do the ones here.”
Normally, Belle would agree. But she wasn’t in an agreeable mood today. “No.”
Liberty huffed. “Fine. You do the ones here and I’ll do the ones in Houston.”
Belle took another bite of muffin before she spoke. “You misunderstood me. I’m not doing either. I’m taking some time off.”
She didn’t know who was more surprised by her words, she or Liberty. Probably Liberty. Her eyes were wide and her mouth gaped open. Belle could tell by the tic at the corner of her eye that things were about to get ugly. Sweetie and Cloe knew it too. They both rested their hands on Liberty’s arms as if to keep her seated.
“Now, Libby,” Sweetie said. “There’s no need to get upset. I’m sure Belle has a good reason for needing some time off.” She looked at Belle, who finished off her muffin and wiped her mouth with a napkin before she spoke.
“Not really. And it’s not like it’s surprising. I was planning to take some time off anyway to help Mama and Daddy sell the ranch—”
Liberty cut her off. “Mama and Daddy aren’t selling the ranch anymore. It’s not theirs to sell!”
“I know that. But we still planned for me to take off this month. Which is why we didn’t take on as many events as we normally do. It was you who added more to our calendar by agreeing to do events for the townsfolk—without even consulting me, I might add.” She shrugged. “So it’s you who needs to figure out how to take care of those events.” She got up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to order another Pea-Nutty Buddy. Who knew I was such a peanut butter fan?”