Yeah.
She’d never had a chance.
To her credit, though, she’d tried to resist his charms. That was why she’d hurried off the plane and tried to disappear into the terminal when they landed in Chicago. Too bloody bad she was only slightly shorter than Big Ben and therefore stuck out like a sore thumb. And she’d blown him off there in the terminal, too, although that had been considerably harder, because her head had been turned by his determination to see her again. But she’d done it, hadn’t she? Perhaps that was the thing she needed to focus on. As a case, she wasn’t entirely hopeless, was she? No. Her status should be upgraded to...doubtful.
“Ms. Montgomery?”
The important question was: How was she to deal with Marcus now that they’d both be staying at Judah Cross’s ranch and vying for the privilege of handling his auction? Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? She’d have to revert to her cool businesswoman armor and wear it well. She could do that. And it wasn’t as if they’d be there together on a spa vacation. This was a professional trip, and she’d have no opportunity for canoodling with Marcus, because they’d surely never be alone together. Even she, weak as she was, could handle a couple of days in close quarters with a man she found fabulously intriguing.
“Ms. Montgomery?”
She just had to keep her goals in mind: landing the biggest auction of her career and stopping herself from making the same mistakes with men she always made. Yes. She had a plan—
“Ms. Montgomery!”
Claudia started. “Yes? What?”
The driver caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I was asking if you’ve ever been in this part of the country before.”
“I haven’t,” she said.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I’d never live anywhere else.”
Claudia took a good look out her window for the first time, and all the oxygen left her lungs in an audible whoosh.
“Yes,” she breathed. “It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
The sky was a bright blaze of cornflower-blue, and the grass was the purest, most intense green she’d ever seen. Mountains rose, jagged and snowcapped, in the distance. Great pines marched up and down both sides of the road, and when she rolled down the window, she was treated to the crisp scent of needles, damp ground and the irresistible earthiness of wood smoke.
This was why she’d always wanted to come West. To wallow in scenery exactly like this.
“I’ve studied up a bit on the wildlife,” she told him.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, and you’ve got bald eagles, foxes, moose, elk, bison, wolves—”
“Bears,” he interjected.
“Yes, but they’re the lovely brown bears, correct? Not the nasty grizzly bears.”
He chuckled, a sound that was not reassuring to her bear-phobic sensibilities. “You want the truth, or a reassuring lie?”
“A reassuring lie, of course.”
“Well, the good thing is that grizzlies aren’t looking to meet you any more than you’re looking to meet them. So I wouldn’t worry too much—”
Claudia’s phone bleeped and she fished it out of her purse. “Excuse me, please. So sorry. Yes, hello? Charles? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” answered her twenty-seven-year-old brother. As always, her ears went into high alert, listening hard for clues about where he was, who he was with and what mess he might be in the process of creating. Messes were big with Charles. He got into them, and she got him out. “Didn’t your phone tell you it was me when you picked up?”
“Yes, but I’m wondering why you’re calling when you’re supposed to be in class right this very second.”
“Maybe I’m calling to see if you made it to the Wild West safely. You didn’t call when you landed yesterday like you promised you would. How many cowboys have you encountered thus far?”
Aaaand there it was. The false geniality accompanied by an uncharacteristic concern about anything that might be happening in her life. It was starting to grate, especially since Mum’s death. Possibly because Mum was no longer there to handle Charles and his ongoing issues 50 percent of the time.
“You don’t give a rat’s arse about my business trip,” she said tartly, acutely aware that it was impossible to have a private conversation with the driver not ten feet away. “What gives?”
“Always the skeptic. Perhaps you could show a bit of trust in my judgment.”
“Yes, but given past history, that would be foolish to the point of insanity.”
A harsh sigh. A pause. A new injection of sadness in his tone. “I’m, ah... I’ve decided I’m taking some time off from school,” he informed her. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for a business degree.”
Claudia’s jaw dropped and the familiar hot flush of frustrated anger flooded her face. Resting her free elbow on the window, she squeezed her eyes closed, rubbed her forehead and strove for patience. Under normal circumstances, if she was in, say, a cab when he called, she’d call him back later. Unfortunately, she was on a business trip and had no idea when she’d be free anytime soon.
That being the case, she put a muzzle on her snarling temper and decided to figure it out now.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to the driver. “Could you please pull over for just a tiny moment? I need to talk to my brother.”
“No worries.”
The driver eased to the side of the road. Claudia got out, slammed the door and stalked away, hoping that with the car’s windows up, she would be well out of earshot. The last thing she needed was the driver reporting back to Judah Cross that she was a nut job who screamed at her brother over the phone.
“Hello?” Charles snapped. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said, weary and annoyed.
“Well, perhaps you could say something. I’m in need of some direction in my life.”
“Fancy that. And what, pray tell, would you like to study, Charles? Now that you’re well into your fifth year of an undergraduate program, and we’ve determined, to the tune of several thousand pounds of my money, I might add, that you’re not cut out for degrees in anthropology, French, finance or marketing?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m taking a break from school. I need to figure out what my life’s about.”
This sort of existential mumbo jumbo from Charles exhausted her no end. “What the bloody hell does that mean? Your life is about the same thing everyone else’s life is about. You grow up, get a degree, get a job and become a contributing member of society rather than a leech. Simple. Where’s the complication? What’s so tricky about your poor, privileged life?”
“You know what?” Charles’s veneer of civility was gone now, leaving only the low snarl she was so accustomed to. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Perfect Princess—”
“Don’t call me that!”
“—because what have you ever had to struggle for? Everything you touch turns to spun gold in your manicured hands, doesn’t it?”
Outrage made her want to lunge through the phone and throttle him, but now wasn’t the time, and he wasn’t going to throw her off her game today. Not when her career was at stake.
“Look, Charles,” she said, taking care to keep her voice even and nonjudgmental. “This isn’t a good time for me to talk, all right? I need to focus on landing this auction and launching my career here in New York—”
“Right,” he said bitterly. “It’s always about you and your precious career, isn’t it? I can’t eke out one second in your busy, busy life, can I?”
Her frustration rose until she thought she might gag on it. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. If you’re not going to school now, then you need a job. Simple as that. So what’s your plan?”
A pause followed, during which she heard the distan
t clink of ice and Charles’s audible swallow. The sounds opened up a whole new world of dreadful possibilities.
“Charles?” She pressed a hand to her pounding heart and tried to get it under control. “You’re not drinking again, are you?”
“And there it is. Didn’t take long for that accusation to fly again, did it?”
His tone had taken a sharp turn into ugly, which only scared her more. This was the problem—one of the many problems, actually—with dealing with a heavy drinker: you spent a lot of time trying to trust, trying not to be suspicious, trying to watch for signs, but not being too accusatory when you thought you saw a sign, and then, ultimately, becoming convinced that it was you who was the problem—you who tiptoed along the edge of sanity. Not them.
“Just answer the question, Charles,” she snapped. “Are you?”
“Yes!” he roared.
Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh, God—”
“I’m drinking a glass of ice water, okay? Is that okay? Or is that not legal in the Perfect Princess’s world?”
Her relief, although tinged with a hint of lingering disbelief, was such that she could ignore his renewed use of the nickname.
“Okay, then.” She took a shaky breath. “What’s your plan?”
“Well, I’m hoping you can check with some of your contacts. Maybe see if anyone’s looking to hire.”
“Charles, the economy is in the toilet. No one’s hiring.”
“I know. That’s why I need your help.”
She pulled the cell phone away from her ear and just stared at it, as though maybe it could explain what it would take for Charles to stand on his own two feet for once in his twenty-seven-year-old life. There were times, exactly like this, when she wished she could fling her cell phone into the field of rippling green grass by the road and leave Charles to find his own way in the world for once.
Why was it that every move he made only created more work and worry for her?
“I’ll see what I can do when I get back to New York,” she began. “I can email some contacts back in London and maybe ask—”
“Oh, I thought I mentioned that. I’m coming to New York. I want to work there.”
Every time she thought she’d become immune to the casual grenades Charles tossed her way, he surprised her by lobbing one from another direction.
“Charles, you can’t just up and work in America, for one thing,” she tried. “There are visa and permit requirements you have to meet. And plane tickets aren’t going to be much less than four or five hundred pounds, and we both know you don’t have that kind of money—”
“Actually, I do,” he said brightly. “When I canceled my classes, they gave me a tuition refund, and I used that for my flight.”
It took her a beat to scroll that back in her mind and make sure she’d heard correctly.
“That’s my money!” she shouted. So much for the driver not thinking she was a complete lunatic. “I paid for your tuition!”
“Don’t worry about it.” His nonchalance was enough to make her blood pressure skyrocket. “I’ll pay you back as soon as you help me get a job.”
Chapter 8
Half an hour later, the SUV rounded a bend, and there it was, stretched out on the banks of the Snake River: Judah Cross’s ranch. Sweet Heaven was carved on the gateway that let them through the split-rail fence to the log cabin.
A log cabin fit for an emperor.
Claudia gasped. Though she was more of a Parisian-spa type of girl and didn’t see the point of letting nature get too close, she’d done enough research about the ranch and knew enough about real estate in general to know when she saw a gem.
This was, unquestionably, a gem. The place was ten-thousand-ish square feet of chinked timbers, picture windows with river views from every conceivable angle, fieldstone fireplaces, decks and a dock. Mature pines framed the house, as though God had put them there only to accessorize this architectural masterpiece.
“Wow,” she breathed as the driver rolled the SUV to a stop under the covered archway at the foot of the stone steps leading to the massive front door. “Just...wow.”
“Wow about covers it.” The driver hopped out, came around and opened the door for her. “We get wow a lot around here.”
“I’d be willing to put up with a few bears to live in a home like this,” she said, craning her neck and looking all around so she didn’t miss any detail of this exquisite setting.
“Most of us are.”
He grabbed her luggage from the trunk and the two of them walked to the front door, which was flung open just as they reached the top step. A woman appeared.
No, not a woman. A pixie.
With wispy blond hair that framed her adorable chipmunk cheeks, a cheerleader’s smile that flashed blindingly white teeth, dimples in alarming quantities and enormous eyes the exact blue of the Wyoming skies overhead, the woman had one of those age-resistant faces that looked about fifteen years old—sixteen at the most. This youthful effect was enhanced by her white yoga bodysuit and zero percent body fat, Claudia saw at a glance. She had a layer of orange scarves twined around her neck, and her five-toed athletic shoes were a headache-inducing shade of hot pink. If the pixie had worn a pair of six-inch heels, they would’ve put her in the five-foot range. As it was, though, she bobbed around somewhere at the level of Claudia’s breasts, an unfortunate detail that made Claudia feel like King Kong.
“Good morning to you!” The woman’s voice was a pealing singsong that, more than anything else, made Claudia want to catch the next flight back to New York, where people were never that ridiculously cheery. “Welcome, welcome! Good morning!”
“Hello!” Hanging on to her smile by a thread, Claudia extended her hand. “I’m Claudia Montgom—”
“Oh, we don’t bother with handshakes at Sweet Heaven! Come here!”
Claudia went blank, wondering, Come where? when the women threw open her arms and pulled her into a hug. Claudia turned rigid with horror and tried not to squirm away. Did this woman not realize she was a Brit, for God’s sake? Brits didn’t go about hugging perfect strangers! Brits barely hugged their own children!
The body contact went on forever.
And ever.
When finally the woman was done showering her with unwanted affection, she pulled back and held Claudia at arm’s length, smiling that toothpaste commercial smile. Thoroughly flustered, Claudia smoothed her hair, stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest lest the woman get any more ideas about physical contact.
The woman seemed impervious to this defensive move. “I’m Summer Wheaton,” she announced. “Judah’s life coach.”
“So lovely to meet you,” Claudia said. And then, because she’d done extensive research about Judah Cross and read about life coaches online, but still couldn’t quite believe they were a real thing these days, added, “And I do hope you’ll tell me, because it’s such a fascinating area—what does one do with a life coach, precisely? I mean, what are your duties?”
“Oh, well.” Summer beamed, as though the questions had tapped into the life source of all her energy. “Do you want the long answer?”
Claudia, who only wanted an answer that made a modicum of sense, tried to look as though she didn’t think the entire subject was a load of nonsense.
“Please.”
“I work with Judah to ensure he experiences the fullest gift of divine happiness possible,” Summer explained.
What the blue blazes did that mean?
“Oh?” Claudia asked encouragingly.
“Yes. Helping him to maintain his sobriety in his everyday world is crucial, of course.”
“Of course,” Claudia agreed.
“So I help him through moments he may find challenging, when he may be tempted to fall back into self-destruc
tive habits, and I work with him to manage stress, and I oversee his diet and exercise.” Leaning closer, she dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. “Judah’s been in talks to go back on the road. Another world tour. I’d go with him.”
Claudia blinked. “He just finished up his farewell tour last year, I thought. Is he coming out of retirement again?”
“Well, you never know with a creative genius like Judah,” Summer said brightly. “He’s just not happy unless he’s meeting his fans and soaking in the spotlight.”
“Right.”
Summer’s expression darkened. “If we do go on tour, part of my duties will be to keep the leeches away. As I’m sure you know, there are plenty of people who’ve gotten rich off the Judah Cross machine but don’t care about the man underneath. That’s where I come in. I make sure that the man doesn’t get trampled. He’s like a rose, blooming in a garden—”
A rose, did she say? Claudia’s mind flashed back to concert footage she’d recently watched of Judah, in full makeup and costume, being brought onstage on a litter carried by six nearly naked women with spiked chains around their necks while he lashed his whip and pumped his hips at them.
“—trying not to be trampled or eaten by deer.” Summer paused, fixing Claudia with a stern look that made her blue eyes glint with manic determination. “I. Will. Not. Let. Judah’s. Leaves. Be. Eaten. By. Deer.”
Oh, dear God, Claudia thought. “Good for you,” she said.
More beaming from Summer. “We’ve got a wonderful lunch ready for you and the others. Oh, here they are now!”
Claudia looked around. Sure enough, a black-on-black SUV, a rental much like the one Judah had sent for her, was now making its way up the drive, spewing gravel behind it.
Claudia’s heart rate kicked into overdrive, and that was before the vehicle pulled to a stop in front of the porch. It was a small consolation that Summer was also atwitter with excitement and doing a poorer job hiding it than Claudia was. By the time the car doors opened, she had bounced down the steps, her arms wide in preparation for another round of hugging.
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