by Zoe York
She nodded, her shoulders drooping with that unspoken admission. “I didn’t need it to know Cody was Tom’s, but I wanted it so Tom couldn’t deny it. What else did Sandy say?”
“I have no desire to repeat it, but I’m sure you can guess.”
Again, she nodded, folding her arms tightly across her chest and refusing to meet his gaze. It was probably overstepping his bounds, but he carefully took her hands and unfolded her arms, then slipped his fingers under her chin and tipped her head up so she had to look at him. Her eyes rounded, reminding him how young she was. She was usually so strong that moments like this and last Saturday hit him hard.
“It pissed me off, Annie.” He caught his lip between his teeth. He’d done it again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you that.”
“I’ve always hated that name,” she murmured. “Kids always used it to tease me, but when you say it….”
Her voice had turned husky, and instinctively, he brushed his thumb along the line of her jaw. When he replied, his own voice was thick and rough. “How do I say it?”
“I don’t know. But I think I like it.”
Abruptly, she cleared her throat and straightened, composing herself as if she’d suddenly realized how close they were to crossing a line. He mourned the end of that moment of openness and the promise of it.
“I’m sorry for what Sandy said. You’ve been such a… a wonderful help to me that I hate to think she’s dragged you into my mess.”
“Not your fault.”
“Which part? That she unloaded that on you like an eight-gauge or that I slept with her husband?”
“I don’t think that’s what happened. I mean, I’m sure it happened, but I don’t think it happened how she’d like me to believe.”
“Why wouldn’t you believe her? You barely know me.”
“I know enough. And what I know didn’t come from a bitter wife whose opinion is far from objective.”
“And what do you know about me?”
“That you’re a young woman who made a mistake and is doing her damnedest to make the best with the hand she was dealt. You were, what, eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Eighteen. Nineteen when Cody was born.”
“Tom must’ve been close to twice your age. More than experienced enough to make a naïve girl believe whatever he wanted her to believe. I’ve lived in Cody a lot longer than you, Annie. Tom doesn’t exactly have the cleanest reputation, and I’d bet my family’s ranch that you weren’t his first… indiscretion.” He laughed softly. “You are the first, however, who’s had the guts to make him pay for it.”
“I don’t know who’s paying for it.”
She said it so quietly that he almost missed it.
“That right there. That’s exactly why what Sandy said pissed me off. She called you a gold-digger. Not in so many words, but that’s what she wanted me to believe. I don’t know a gold-digger alive who would take this place—” he gestured to the cabin and, with a sweep of his arm, the rest of her ranch “—and try to make a home here. Takes too much work.”
“You sound like you’ve had some experience with them.”
“Just one. And it was an expensive lesson to learn.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “She wouldn’t have agreed to exchange bookkeeping for wiring, like you did. She would’ve tried to manipulate me into rewiring her house for free.”
His voice had sharpened, and Annemarie eyed him like she might a snarling dog. He should say something to comfort her, but he couldn’t. They stood on a threshold he wanted to cross, and trying to soothe her would push him back from it.
“Let’s just get everything out in the open right now. You’re not a gold-digger, and if I were married or had a girlfriend, I’d never cheat on her. Everything clear enough? Because I don’t want to start our friendship with any doubt.”
She chewed on her lip, and after a moment, she nodded. “What was her name?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, you know all the intimate details about my life now.”
“Not all,” he replied. “But fair enough. Her name was Leigh Bennett. What about you and Tom? How did that happen?”
“Pretty much how you said. I was just starting college in Laramie, and he walked into the restaurant where I worked, larger than life. He made me feel smart and mature and wanted.” She shrugged. “And I fell for it. It went on for a couple months while he was in town taking care of his uncle. I didn’t expect anything serious to come of it. I was on the pill, but it failed. Ninety-nine percent reliable, but I was the one percent.”
“What’d Tom say?”
“He refused to acknowledge that Cody’s his son. When I saw the ad for an accountant here in Cody, I thought it was a sign. Obviously, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have come here.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the Grant Ranch and her lips lifted in a faint smile. “But even as hard as it is, I’m glad I did. I wanted Cody to have a relationship with his father’s family, and maybe Tom is still as indifferent as ever, but Thomas…. He dotes on Cody. So did Ginny, before she died. I wanted Cody to have roots, and Thomas at least is giving him that.”
“What about your family?”
“They all adore him, but we don’t do roots. We tend to go where the wind blows us.”
“And that doesn’t appeal to you.”
“It used to… until I had Cody. And I don’t even like to admit this to myself, but maybe I wanted to make Tom pay however I could for making me feel so absolutely worthless.” She sniffed and turned back to him but didn’t meet his gaze. “I am sorry you’ve been dragged into this. I’m sure it’s more than you ever wanted to know about a client.”
“It’s all right. I get the feeling you could use a friend right now, and that’s a position I’m quite happy to fill. If you want me, that is.”
“You’re right. I could use a friend right now. And as far as that goes, I’d consider myself lucky to call you one.”
Finally, she looked up at him, and her expression brightened. There was something more she wanted to say, but she held it back, and he figured she’d already told him plenty, so he didn’t press her. Instead, he held open the front door for her and followed her inside.
As was their routine, Gabe got to work with Cody watching and helping where he could. He was particularly glad for the little boy’s presence today. Cody’s stream of questions and chatter kept his conversations with Sandy, Thomas, and Annie at bay. That was a nest of complications he wasn’t ready to attempt untangling just yet.
Funny that he kept calling her that. It had a decidedly intimate feel to it, and while he was definitely attracted, he hadn’t given himself a chance to consider if that attraction was something he wanted to act on. And the few times the idea of something more than a client-contractor or even a platonic friendship had crossed his mind, he had shut it down. Quickly.
He needed to do it again right now, or he would risk doing something stupid, like dropping the wire he was fishing through the wall. Or kissing Annemarie the next time she needed to lean on him for support.
Feeling eyes on him, he glanced over his shoulder to find Annemarie watching him from the couch. It wasn’t the first time. She seemed to like watching him work almost as much as her son did, though she did so without the endless questions. Usually when he caught her, she looked away, but this time she smiled.
“Find this interesting?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. You make it look so easy.”
“Practice.” He returned his attention to his task. “Lots of it.”
“Gabe?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you still okay with us coming out to your family’s ranch next week?”
He stopped what he was doing but didn’t look at her. Was he? “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He heard the sigh she let out from across the room. Relief.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I was worried that maybe what you heard today would make you feel awkward about it.”
“Wouldn’t matter much if it did. I promised you and Cody a weekend away. Didn’t I, Cody?”
“Yeah! But how come you have to go home to your ranch?”
“Branding.”
“Oh, right.”
Gabe turned toward Annemarie. “It’s only going to be awkward if you make it so.”
She nodded, shyly averting her eyes. Gabe nearly groaned as he fought the urge to sit beside her and gather her in his arms and hold her until she believed him.
He should walk away when the job was done. That would be the smart thing. But it was too late for that now. And the ease with which he admitted it meant there were some questions he’d need to answer before he risked his heart.
Chapter 5
The acrid stink of singed hair and hide stung Annemarie’s nose as the plaintive bawling of calves calling for their mothers drowned out the shouts and laughter of the men wrestling them down to be branded. She leaned against the corral fence with her arms folded on the top rail watching Gabe and his six brothers, eldest nephews, and brother-in-law work. Even at six feet tall, poor Andrew—the brother-in-law—was the smallest man in the crew. The Collins boys all stood between six-three and six-five. Even John, Gabe’s father, was taller, having shrunk from six-four to six-two after a series of back injuries.
She tugged her heavy coat closer around her to ward off the chill wind soaring down out of the Owl Creek and Absaroka Mountains. The damp bite in the gray afternoon promised that the plumes of snow obscuring the peaks would soon descend on the narrow valley. The Collins Ranch was barely four times the size of her spread, but it was considerably more fertile, watered by streams emptying snowmelt from the surrounding mountain ranges. The creeks were lined with dense thickets of willow, aspen and cottonwoods, and in between, hayfields and pastures sprawled. They were still gray with winter now, but in a few more weeks, they would be lush and green. It was so full of life while her ranch often felt unbearably empty and desolate.
Beside her, the only Collins sister—Delilah, Andrew’s heavily pregnant wife—let out a howl of laughter when a calf escaped her eldest brother, Samuel. Annemarie grinned. The good-natured heckling between siblings reminded her forcefully of her brother, and she wished Robert and his family lived closer. They talked on the phone every week, but until she’d arrived at the Collins Ranch yesterday evening and been greeted by Gabe’s siblings, she hadn’t realized just how much she missed his face.
Annemarie glanced over her shoulder to check on Cody, but he was thoroughly entertained with half a dozen of Gabe’s younger nieces and nephews. Ruth, the matriarch of the Collins clan, had them bottle-feeding bum calves in the pen next to the calving stalls while she cradled baby Joshua—Samuel’s newborn grandson—in one arm with a relaxed confidence Annemarie was certain she would never possess herself. When she’d held Joshua at breakfast, she’d been as terrified of dropping him as she’d been of dropping Cody when he was that small.
It was odd to think that Gabe’s brother was a grandfather while Gabe himself was unmarried and childless, but there was a fourteen-year gap between them.
“It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it,” Delilah remarked. “Andrew didn’t know what to make of this circus the first time I brought him home, either. He got used to it, and I’m sure you will, too.”
It wasn’t the first comment she’d heard alluding to a deeper relationship between her and Gabe. Not even close. She didn’t think a waking hour had gone by without one of his brothers or his mother or father remarking on the unusualness of her presence on their ranch. Apparently, Gabe hadn’t brought even his more serious girlfriends home to meet the family. What did that say about her?
“I’m sorry,” her companion said when she didn’t respond. “I try not to be as pushy as the rest of my family when it comes to Gabe’s personal life, but my brother is different with you and it makes me curious.”
Too shy and skittish yet to ask what that meant, Annemarie turned her gaze back to Gabe and his brothers and maintained her silence. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. The way he moved—with effortless power tempered by grace—fascinated her, and she was beginning to question whether it was only the insinuations of his family that made her hope there might be something between them or if she hoped because there really was something.
“How is he different?” she asked at last.
“He’s protective of you and your son.”
Annemarie repeated the word to herself, tasted it. It felt right. “Wasn’t he protective of his girlfriends?”
“No, which I always thought was weird because he’s always been the most protective of me. When Ezra and the rest would pick on me mercilessly, Gabe was always the one to tell them to shut up, and when I had a boyfriend in high school who tried to stake his claim on me at prom, it was Gabe who beat the piss out of him. Hence why he’s my favorite brother. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one younger than him, but I doubt it. It’s just who he is.”
Annemarie lapsed into silence, once again studying the man at the center of their conversation. There was so much she wanted to know about him, but it had been so long since she’d allowed herself to feel anything but anger and disappointment for a man that she wasn’t sure where to begin. It helped that Delilah seemed willing to share information, but even so, she felt guilty for using Gabe’s sister to dig up tidbits he might not want to share with her.
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
With a wicked grin, Annemarie turned to her companion and said, “Your brother is a very sexy man.”
“Which one?” Delilah quipped with a wink. “I have seven, so you might need to be a little more specific.”
Annemarie laughed like she hadn’t laughed in a long time, deep and long. “Well, all of them are, but I was talking about Gabe.”
“Yeah, he did get the best genes.” The other woman chuckled. “But I get the feeling that’s not what you wanted to be honest about.”
“No.” She pursed her lips and returned her gaze yet again to Gabe. She winced when the calf he was holding kicked out with a hind leg and nearly clipped him in the jaw, but he dodged fast enough to avoid the strike. He caught the leg and held it firm while Andrew pressed the iron to the calf’s shoulder. He was as good a rancher as he was an electrician, and she wondered why he’d left the ranch he so obviously loved.
“So… what did you want to be honest about?” Delilah pressed.
Annemarie chewed her lip, her eyes still trained on Gabe. “It’s been a long time for me.”
“What has? Sex?”
“That… and relationships in general.” She cursed the heat that rose up her neck and crawled across her face.
“How long?”
“Cody’s father. And I’ve come to the realization that it never qualified as a relationship.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Annemarie nodded.
“But Cody must be almost six, right?”
Again, she nodded. “I learned a hard lesson, and one I’m in no hurry to repeat. But I like your brother.” She hadn’t meant to say it, but it was true, wasn’t it? And it was liberating to admit it. “I haven’t known him that long, really, but so far, he’s been amazing. So kind and generous. But I thought that about Cody’s father at first, too, although now that I have someone to compare him to, I wouldn’t call him kind and generous so much as attentive and indulgent.”
“Let me guess. He wined and dined you, fed you one pretty lie after another, and then left you saddled with a kid.”
“More or less. Plus… he was married with two kids.” Annemarie glanced at her companion and found Delilah staring open-mouthed at her. “I was young and stupid. So very stupid.”
“I think you’re being way too hard on yourself. Sounds to me like he knew exactly what he was doing, and you were just too innocent and trusting to see it.”
“That’s what Gabe said, too.”
“Maybe you ought
to listen to us. Especially Gabe. He knows what it’s like to be deceived and screwed over by someone.”
“Let me guess. Leigh?”
Delilah lifted a brow. “He told you about her?”
“He mentioned her. Why? Does he not talk about her?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“She let him know she was breaking up with him by maxing out his credit card and cleaning out his checking and savings accounts while he was in Thermopolis helping our brother Michael wire his new tire shop. It’s a long story that still pisses me off, so if you want to know the juicy details, you’ll need to ask Gabe. I don’t want to have this baby right here in the pasture.”
Annemarie tapped her thumbs on the corral rail. She was about to ask why Gabe had left the ranch when his sister spoke again.
“He had a blind spot where she was concerned, and she exploited it.”
“Oh?”
“She was his first love—they dated all through high school. First loves have a strange way of sticking with us.”
Was that why she hadn’t been able to bring herself to start dating again after Tom? In a way, she supposed he was her first love. She could say without a doubt that she hadn’t loved any of the boys she’d dated in high school. Not even the one who had become her first lover. And Tom was her son’s father. She tilted her head as her eyes found Gabe again, and the term suddenly felt wrong. Tom was no more a father to her son than any bull who sired a calf. Wham-bam, thank you, ma’am, and that was the extent of it. Sire. That was the proper term for him. And that’s how she’d think of him from here on out. Because a man who had been a stranger just a few weeks ago had already been more of a father to Cody than Tom had ever been.
Delilah squeezed her hand. “He’s a good man, Annemarie. He won’t ever do what Cody’s asshole father did to you.”
“He’s your brother. Doesn’t that make your opinion of him biased?”
“Sure it does. I’m more likely to point out every single one of his faults.”
“I might believe that if you hadn’t already told me that he’s your favorite brother.”
