by Cora Seton
Sadie couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t spent her days here, or in the maze, or in the long, large greenhouse where she started delicate seedlings, grew plants used to a milder climate and prepared the herbs that went into her remedies.
Only once had she let the wider world interfere with her duties, and that had ended disastrously in a shoot-out that almost took her sisters’ lives just a few weeks ago. Mark Pendergrass was gone—wounded, soon to go on trial and hopefully be locked up for a long time. Sadie was glad. She didn’t know how he’d managed to steal her heart. Had no idea how she’d missed all the signs that he was nothing but trouble—that he’d been using her all along to get to her ranch.
Mark and his friends had wanted to use Two Willows as a home base for their large drug distribution network. Cass’s fiancé, Brian, had helped to drive them out. Cass had fought for the ranch, too. So had Lena.
Sadie had done nothing. And her shame at the part she’d played in nearly losing her family’s home still made her heart ache every time she thought of it.
Now the very land was punishing her.
How else to explain the damage in her garden? Sadie had nourished each and every one of these plants from tiny seedlings she’d cared for in the greenhouse. She’d transplanted them with one eye on the phase of the moon and the other on the weather. She’d fed them, watered them, cared for them. Even sung to them from time to time.
Why were they dying?
Because of her betrayal?
Sadie knelt beside a tomato plant that had only recently grown as tall as her thigh and bushed out well beyond the cylindrical cage that gave support to its stem, but now had shrunk in on itself, its foliage a sickly yellow-green that made Sadie wince. Its fruit was withering on their stems, the thin, wrinkly skin of the tomatoes auguring tasteless sponginess rather than firm, mouthwatering bursts of flavor.
Why? Why was this happening?
Because she’d turned her back on her garden? Neglected it in favor of following Mark Pendergrass around on his errands, waiting on him hand and foot, hoping for a morsel of his attention?
She was lucky she hadn’t received any, she knew now. Lucky she hadn’t even tempted the man. He’d squired her around in public like they were a couple—sometimes. The rest of the time he’d ignored her unless he needed her for something. He’d kissed her a couple of times. Groped her once or twice. That was the extent of his attentions, something that had shamed her at the time. She’d felt he treated her like some childish virgin, which she wasn’t, even if she hadn’t had a string of boyfriends. Now his neglect left her thanking her lucky stars.
To have slept with the man who’d tried to kill her sisters—
That would be too much to bear.
“I’m done with men,” she told the tomato. “Forever.”
The tomato didn’t listen. It didn’t speak to her, either, even when she touched its leaves. Even when she dug her fingers into the dirt at its roots. Not a word.
Not that tomatoes spoke with words.
Sadie had always felt the plants communicated with her in the same way the future communicated with her sister Alice. “It’s like I can hear—or see—or something,” Alice always said when people questioned her about her hunches. “Like I have access to information other people don’t.”
That’s what it felt like to Sadie in her garden. When she was near a plant she simply knew what it needed, as if it had told her in words.
At least, that was how it had always been—until the day of the shoot-out.
Since then it had all shut down. She couldn’t hear or see or feel anything—about the tomatoes, the carrots, the herbs, the berries out back of the greenhouse, or the hedge that formed the maze, either. The whole ranch had gone silent. A door had shut on her, cutting off the most important part of her existence—her connection with the growing things.
Her connection with her mother.
Sadie knew what it meant. The ranch didn’t want her here anymore. Everyone had told her Mark wasn’t the one for her. Even the plants had shrunk away from him whenever he came near. She’d known he was trouble. She’d known everything she was doing with him was wrong.
She’d done it anyway.
Now she had to pay.
The price was steep—steeper than she’d ever thought possible. Because while Sadie had foreseen a day when Mark would lose interest in her, and she’d always known it was possible she might be caught helping him in his illicit activities—and suffer the consequences of being found guilty, including the censure of her sisters—she’d never once dreamed that the ranch itself would turn on her and kick her out.
“I’m done with men,” she told the garden again. “I’m done, I swear. I’ll devote my life to you. I’ll never look at another man for as long as I live.”
A half-ripe tomato fell with a plop off the shriveled plant into the dirt.
Her remorse wasn’t good enough. Her broken heart wasn’t enough.
“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered to the plants surrounding her. She’d lost too much that she loved already. More than eleven years had passed since her mother died. All that time she’d kept her promise to Amelia. She’d kept the garden flourishing, nurtured her sisters, and their neighbors, too. She’d done everything she could to keep her mother’s spirit alive in the growing things at Two Willows.
But that was over. If it was a choice between her happiness and the health of Two Willows, the ranch had to come first.
The signs were clear.
She had to leave.
For good.
When Connor knocked on Two Willows’s front door, he could tell Brian and Cass’s reception was in full swing at the back of the house, but he’d been raised right, and he wouldn’t walk into a wedding uninvited. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and took a deep breath to settle his nerves. Soon he’d meet Sadie—the woman he was supposed to marry.
Things like this didn’t happen to a man every day.
In truth, he didn’t know what to make of Sadie. She wasn’t his type. The women he dated were bold, fun-loving—as apt to pick him up in a bar as he was to pick up them. Women who knew exactly what they wanted—and saw what they wanted in him.
Connor had never felt any impetus to settle down before. Why would he? He knew what marriage was—a temporary pretense masked as something permanent. A vehicle for promises men and women couldn’t keep.
His parents’ marriage had torn two families apart. Forged on a holiday when his mother and father had met in Paris, their long-distance relationship couldn’t stand up to the realities of living together when his father had left Texas and moved to Ireland to be with his new wife.
Connor supposed he should give his dad credit for lasting thirteen years in a country where the ranches were called farms, and the largest of them were a fraction of the size of the Texas holdings he’d grown up around. Not that his father ever owned the land he worked there. He’d been a foreman all his days, and hoped Connor would follow in his footsteps.
But Connor wanted his own land. That was why he’d joined up in the first place. He’d planned to scrimp and save until he could buy some—but land was expensive.
Which was why he was here.
Part of the reason, anyway.
Sighing in exasperation, not wanting to remember the other half of the equation that had brought him to this Montana ranch, he pounded on the door with his fist. Couldn’t anyone hear him?
It would be good to see Brian again. The Navy SEAL had—
The door swung open and Connor forgot everything but the woman standing in front of him.
Sadie Reed. Dressed in a spring-green bridesmaid gown, her hair piled on top of her head. She looked thinner than she had in the photo back at USSOCOM. He saw a wariness in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. She looked older than her twenty-two years somehow, but at the same time she had an innocence about her he found unnerving. She was… stunning. Something shifted in Connor’s heart, exposing a chink
in the armor he’d surrounded it with. He’d always prided himself on his ability to remain detached. Without warning, that detachment gave way to a desire to connect. He nearly reached out and touched Sadie—until he saw her eyes widen and he snatched his hand back. Desperate to fill the awkward silence between them, Connor did what he always did when the situation got tense.
Fell back on the Irish accent he could still produce at will. He hammed it up to show he wasn’t taking any of this seriously—least of all the heritage he’d left behind.
“Well, hello there, lassie,” he said heartily, as Irish as the green hills of County Galway. “You must be Sadie Reed. I’m Connor O’Riley. The General sent me.”
The words of greeting Sadie had prepared when she heard the knock on the front door died on her lips when she took in the handsome features of the man before her. He was tall, broad-shouldered, lean with muscle, with hair so dark brown it was almost black and piercing blue eyes that danced with mischief. But it was his outrageously fake Irish accent that left her speechless. No one quite so unusual had ever washed up on her doorstep before.
“That’s right. I’m Sadie.” She made no move to ask him in, despite his mention of her father. The General had sent Brian, after all—the man Cass had married just an hour ago. And even if that had turned out for the best, Sadie was still wary of anyone who had the General’s approval.
She let the silence stretch out—a tactic she’d learned from the General himself. People liked to fill silences. Maybe this Connor O’Riley would spill the beans about why he was really here.
“The General says it’s time,” Connor said finally when it became clear she didn’t mean to speak. He stepped forward, edging his way into the house.
Sadie took in the rucksack he carried. Her suspicions grew. Did he mean to stay?
“Time for what?” She shifted and blocked his way so he couldn’t pass the lintel of the door. Up close, she had to crane her neck to see his face. Connor was no shrinking violet. His biceps, covered with a blazer appropriate for the occasion, strained his sleeves and she didn’t think her two hands could encompass his muscles if he flexed his arm. His thighs nicely filled out the black jeans he wore with the jacket.
Those were cowboy boots under his jeans, she realized. Was this man at home on a ranch?
Why did that thought light a curl of interest low in her belly? His raffish good looks weren’t enough to fool her.
“Time to start building,” Connor said.
Sadie had to admit he was easy on the eyes. She felt drawn to him despite herself. Wanted to know more about him.
Which meant she was a hopeless case.
Tangling with Mark Pendergrass should have taught her that no man was worth falling for. He’d chewed her up and spit her out—humiliating her in the process. Even now she felt vulnerable—naked almost—dressed in this bridesmaid gown, a pretty picture for a man’s enjoyment. Connor looked like he was enjoying the sight of her all too much.
She couldn’t wait to change back into her jeans.
“Building what?” she asked in exasperation. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“Building your legacy.” Connor eased forward until he had room to set his rucksack down. Sadie eased back. What else could she do faced with this monster of a man?
“My… legacy?” What was he talking about? The only legacy she had was the pain and shame of her own behavior these past few months. She’d fallen for a man who cooked meth—whose business it was to profit off the suffering and addiction of others. A criminal and the kind of person she’d been raised to despise.
She’d spent months dancing to his tune like a puppet.
A senseless, stupid puppet.
She wasn’t going to be fooled again. Not by any man.
Not by this… joker.
“Your mother made Two Willows’s gardens what they are today. She caused the greenhouse to be raised and planted the maze around the standing stone.”
Connor had dropped the exaggerated Irish brogue, leaving her wondering if he was Irish at all. He could be as American as she was.
“Now it’s your turn,” he went on. “You want to put your mark on this ranch, don’t you? What do you want me to help you build?”
The ground shifted beneath Sadie’s feet and suddenly she wondered if it was her mother, not the General, who’d sent this man.
An image filled her mind—a walled garden—a place to withdraw from the world when it made no sense, when only growing things and the birds that visited could soothe the soul. She saw herself standing at a doorway looking in through a circular portal formed by a curved gate and the arch above it. A magical entrance to a magical place she could retreat to when the world got too much.
Connor’s eyes flashed, as if he’d caught a glimpse of the vision she’d seen.
“Whatever you can think of, I can build,” he told her, leaning closer. “Like I said, the General sent me. Today we celebrate your sister’s wedding. Tomorrow we get to work.”
She was hooked. Just like that.
Connor saw the light go on in Sadie’s eyes and knew she’d thought about her legacy—surprising in one so young.
But as quickly as that light turned on, it blinked off again. Her wariness was back.
“I don’t need anyone’s help to build a legacy,” she said as if it was the most ridiculous idea in the world. “My legacy is my healing. I help people every day. At least—”
She trailed off. Connor took another step forward. Sadie stepped back. He was almost far enough inside the house to shut the door behind him, and somehow Connor knew it was imperative he be able to shut it. She could still drive him away. And he’d be damned if he’d leave now that he’d met Sadie.
“I need to pay my respects to Cass. The General gave me something for her.”
Sadie bit her lip. He could almost see her mind racing to solve this dilemma. She wanted to block him from her home, but already he was in the door, with a present in his hand for her sister—from her father. How could she kick him out?
Connor took advantage of her hesitation, stepped forward and shut the door behind him.
There.
Home free.
Thank God. Connor knew he’d do whatever it took to actually make this his home.
“Five minutes. Then you need to hightail it out of here and back to the General. We let in one of his goons; we don’t need any more. And I don’t need your help building a legacy.”
“Sure you do.” He reverted to the brogue. “Every lovely lass needs a legacy.”
Ignoring her protests, he dropped his rucksack and strode through the house, intent on finding the party, but he faltered when he reached the large, old-fashioned kitchen. He’d heard from Brian that this room had taken the most damage during the shoot-out that occurred when drug dealers came after Cass and Lena a few weeks ago, but it was one thing to hear about it and another altogether to see it with his own eyes.
He knew there hadn’t been time between the shoot-out and the wedding to renovate the house, which is partly why the wedding was being held outdoors. Brian had ripped out the damaged lath and plaster walls, leaving the studs still visible.
The windows had been replaced, and he could tell the back door was new. But what kept his gaze frozen in place was the heavy, old-fashioned table that stood in the center of the large room.
Bullets had scored several deep grooves in the wood. Connor leaned over and ran his hand across one of them. Did the General know how close his daughters had come to disaster? If so, why wasn’t he here, himself?
He looked up to find Sadie watching him.
She shrugged. “I wasn’t here,” she said. “Not until the end.” Her shuttered expression hinted at pain as she made her way to the back door. “Cass is outside.”
He figured he’d save his questions for another time. He knew Sadie’s boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had been one of the men who shot up the house that night. Mark Pendergrass was still getting over significant inju
ries while awaiting trial. Just the thought of him made Connor’s hands ball into fists.
“I’ll be glad to have another man around the place I can trust,” Brian had told him on the phone several days ago. Connor knew he was afraid of reprisals. When he and the Reed women had blown up the trailer where the dealers had stashed their drugs on Two Willows’ land, they’d put a crimp into a large operation.
Outside, the reception was in full swing. Guests ate barbecued chicken and steak and any number of other dishes laid out buffet style on tables on the lawn. Someone handed Sadie a glass of champagne. Connor accepted one, too. Sadie led him to where Cass stood talking to a small knot of guests. Brian stood by her side.
“Connor!” Brian spotted him, broke away from the guests and came to greet him, engulfing him in a quick, manly hug accompanied by several slaps on the back.
“Brian—looking good.”
“Meet Cass.”
Brian made the introductions and Connor shook her hand. “Glad to meet you,” he said honestly. “Brian’s a lucky man.”
“I’m glad to meet you, too,” Cass said, smiling. Connor could see why Brian had fallen for his bride. There was something open and honest about Cass’s expression, and Connor knew she was optimistic and hardworking from everything Brian had told him.
“He’s got something for you,” Sadie told her sister, nodding toward Connor. “Something from the General.”
Cass’s eyes widened. “From the General?”
“I was just with him, ma’am,” Connor said. “Flew in to Chance Creek today. Hope you don’t mind; the General sent me to stay awhile.” He passed her the small wrapped gift the General had handed to him.
“He did?” She glanced at Brian for an explanation. Brian just shrugged.
