by Melody Anne
She’d really thought she would be fine on her own. She’d worked in a retail shop in a mall in Washington D.C., thrilled to leave Maine behind, even though it had meant also leaving her beloved condo and moving into a tiny studio apartment. But the place she’d been working had gone out of business, and she couldn’t get another job to save her life. She’d sold off most of what she owned to make the move, but the whole “adventure” had bought her only a little time — a year, to be exact.
So here she was, in her father’s new office building. No, she wasn’t the master of her fate, but she was still unbowed. More precisely, she was more than ticked off. If Richard thought he’d earn back his place in her heart by forcing her hand, he was dead wrong. What he had done was manipulative and degrading. Yes, she was ticked, but beyond that she was showing the first inklings of real fear.
Upon reaching the top floor, she stopped breathing as the doors opened onto a beautiful lobby. It was smaller than her dad’s executive office space on the East Coast, but it was just as classy, and the same secretary he’d had for the past twenty years was sitting behind a huge mahogany desk.
“Good morning, Brielle. It’s been a long time,” Tanya said with a genuine smile.
Brielle had always liked Tanya, but she couldn’t let down her defenses, not right now, so her reply was less than warm: “I’m here to see my father.” Instant remorse filled her when the woman, who’d always been kind to her, flinched. “I’m sorry, Tanya,” Brielle told her. “I…” Her words had to trail off — she didn’t know what to say.
“It’s okay, darling. I understand,” Tanya said, but it was obvious that she didn’t.
Brielle sighed. “No. It’s not.” She gave the woman a rueful smile, then turned and moved toward her father’s office. Being cold was how she survived. It was awful, and she knew it, but it was the only way she made it through each day. Trying to erase the awkwardness with Tanya from her mind, she came to the end of the hallway, where she found an open door.
Of course his office was facing the water. Her father had always loved the ocean, even after losing his parents in a boating accident.
Enough of this. Brielle refused to get sentimental. She was here on business, and she had no time for anything else. She was here to get her father to bend to her will. Or maybe to her wiles.
Turning her lips up in a determined smile, she walked through her father’s door. Richard looked up and a grin spread across his face. It was nearly blinding and caused Brielle to stop in her tracks. When was the last time she’d entered a room and found someone so happy to see her? She honestly couldn’t remember.
Her protective wall seemed to crack just a little. Heck, she really wanted to rush forward and cling to her father the way she used to do when she was younger and found herself frightened or hurt.
But times had changed. She needed to remember that. She wasn’t a little girl anymore and she didn’t need anyone, especially not her father. Repairing the wall around her heart, she started moving again — was her stride suitably confident? — and then sat down across from Richard without a word.
“It’s so good to see you, Brielle. I’m glad you made your way to Seattle,” Richard said, his smile not deflating in the least despite the cool look she was sending his way.
“You really left me with no choice, Father,” she replied, trying to tone down the bitterness in her voice but not quite managing to pull it off. She’d had to take a bus to Seattle. A bus! The trip had taken three days. Three days of pure hell.
“Again, I will say that I’m very sorry I had to do things the way I did, but I need for you all to understand that anything in this life worth having is worth working for.”
“This whole rescuing-a-failing-business thing is stupid, Father. I don’t know anything about business. Do you remember my college major? You’re setting me up for failure, and you know it.”
“I would never do that. I love you, Brielle. I know how strong and capable you are. Heck, from the moment you were born, you had your brothers and me wrapped around your tiny little fingers,” he said with a chuckle.
“The only business that’s left is a stupid ranch in Montana.”
“I know. Your brothers have already taken possession of the other businesses. I’m very pleased to be seeing results already.”
“I can’t go to Montana!”
“I hope that’s not true, Peaches, because I think it’s just the place you need to be.”
“I’m not Peaches anymore!” She obviously couldn’t pull this off. She was too dang upset.
“You will always be my baby girl. I love your brothers dearly, but you will always hold more of my heart than anyone else. And I know you can do this. I wouldn’t have asked you to do a task I thought you’d fail at.”
They gazed at each other for several moments. Two personalities so much alike in some ways, but so different in others. But the bottom line was that Brielle knew he had the upper hand, knew he didn’t need to back down. He knew that, too.
“And if I do fail, I lose everything?”
“Failure isn’t an option. You’re a Storm.”
“You don’t know me anymore, Father!”
“I know you better than you think, Brielle. You’re a fighter. I got lazy as a parent and forgot how to raise you, but it’s never too late. Don’t give up before you’ve had even a chance to see yourself shine.”
“Crew gets to be in sunny California and I have to go to Montana. How is that fair?”
“You shouldn’t have taken so long to choose.”
“So I’m being punished because I didn’t want to play your game?”
“You’re not being punished at all, Brielle. I know you’ll figure that out once you’ve decided to put your heart and soul into this.”
“Well, it sure as hell feels like a punishment.”
“I understand that, darling, but go to Montana and I promise that you’ll find yourself.”
He had to be crazy. How could she find herself amongst a bunch of cows?
“I need money. I have nothing,” she told him. If she could just get enough to get by for a little while, she’d manage to find another job, and she’d show him that she didn’t need him to prove herself a success.
“You have a budget to work with,” he said, then paused before speaking again. “You’ll get it once you reach Montana.”
“And how am I supposed to get there? It took the last of my funds for the damn bus ticket here.” She was still ticked he hadn’t even paid for an economy-class flight.
“I will get you there.”
Brielle greeted his words with silence, but she knew she’d been defeated.
She’d go, but only because she had no other options before her. She wouldn’t succeed, and she knew it. Still, it would be a place to rest her head, a place where she could figure things out and begin mapping out her next steps.
Yes, she would go. But she certainly didn’t have to be happy about it.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS A freaking nightmare. Sure, most ranches probably had dusty old trucks, and what else did she expect to be waiting for her at the ridiculously small airport in Sterling? But the rusty orange clunker didn’t even have air conditioning!
And now that she’d managed to get this antique off and running — sort of — she was hit with another shock as she looked at the house standing before her. What could she say about it? Country bumpkin?
She stood aghast in her stiletto heels and stared at the giant monstrosity of an ugly house before her. It was large, that was for sure, with a huge wraparound covered porch that some people might have found appealing, but Brielle wasn’t the type of girl to hang around on a front porch. Screw that quaint little rocking loveseat; she’d never use it in a zillion years.
The house was in desperate need of a paint job, and the windows looked as if they hadn’t been updated — ever. Taking a cautious step forward in the dirt and gravel, she let out a very unladylike curse as she stubbed her toe and
broke a manicured nail, her high-heeled sandals offering zero protection.
“This can’t work. There’s no possible way,” she muttered. How could her father do this to her?
She could come up with only one answer: Because he doesn’t love me.
Think about it. There was just no way that the man who had raised her could love her. He’d put her in the wilds of Montana with a bunch of cows and wheat fields. Ten thousand acres of that stupid wheat and those wretched cows. Or bulls. Or whatever.
The only thing she knew about cows was that they tasted damn good when prepared by a top-level chef. Maybe that wasn’t sensitive — some of her best friends were vegetarians. But get real. She knew nothing about the world’s bovine population, and she wanted to keep it that way. Sensitivity had its limits.
Once she finally made it to the wide front steps, Brielle reached a tentative hand out to the railing. It didn’t look sturdy enough to hold her weight, and she didn’t weigh much. She made sure of that.
When the rail didn’t rock, she felt better, but not much. Holding on tight, she made her way up. But when she reached the porch, she felt a tickle on her hand. Crap! She looked down to see a huge, hairy, ugly-ass spider scurrying across her fingers. And Brielle lost it.
Screaming as if she were being attacked, she jerked her hand back, lost her balance and went tumbling backward, landing hard on the dry grass, dirt and rocks in front of the steps. She felt a bruise forming on her rump, and then Brielle did something she hadn’t done since she was thirteen years old. Twelve years of repressed emotions ended in one hell of a tantrum.
“I hate it here!” she shrieked, feeling like a fool but not caring. She hadn’t been at the ranch for five minutes and already her world was crumbling. “Spiders, cobwebs, rocks, dirt, grime, and who knows what else! Lions and tigers and bears…”
Her angry tears soon stopped, but Brielle was still in a foul mood as she sat there trying to breathe normally. After a few moments, she pulled herself together. Wasn’t she better than this? When she heard the crunch of footsteps behind her, she grimaced, not wanting to deal with anyone or anything else right then.
Whipping her head around, she got ready to tell whoever it was to go away when her tongue got stuck on the roof of her mouth. When the person who’d invaded her privacy spoke, she felt even more disoriented.
“May I help you?”
Brielle couldn’t seem to find her voice. Since she was still sitting on the ground, the man standing before her was so tall, he seemed to block out the sun. His boots looked old, his jeans dusty — like that truck — and the shirt plastered to his chest had seen better days. Brielle tilted her neck all the way back to examine his face, which was shadowed by the brim of his faded cowboy hat.
“Are you real?” she asked.
When his lips tilted up in a sardonic smile, she thought for a moment that she might be fantasizing. No, not likely. Where she was from, girls never fantasized about cowboys — she preferred a man in a suit. Still, she had to admit, if only to herself, that the guy towering over her was one hell of a hot piece of man candy.
And then he spoke again. “You must be Brielle Storm. I’m Colt Westbrook.”
The velvet-voiced giant of a man held out a hand to help her up, and his deep drawl sent an unwelcome shiver down her spine. And yet Brielle found herself hesitating to give him her hand.
Nonsense! She wasn’t attracted to him, and she did need to stand up eventually.
Firming her shoulders — it helped that they were on the ground — she stuck out her hand. When his fingers clasped hers and he lifted her up easily, Brielle felt her breath rush from her lungs. But when he held her hand just a moment too long to be appropriate, Brielle finally tugged against him, needing to step back.
“Thank you, Colt. Do you work for me? You must if you know my name.” Thank heaven her voice had come out smooth and controlled, that it was finally working again!
His eyes crinkled as if something she’d said had amused him. She was more puzzled now, but quickly covered that up with a snotty comment — her specialty. “I asked a question. Would it be too much to expect an answer?”
He chuckled. But all he said was “No, ma’am.”
What in the hell did that mean? No, he didn’t work for her, or no, she shouldn’t expect an answer? Was this place already messing with her head? Was she living in some alternate reality where she found herself instantly attracted to the wrong sort of man, and she couldn’t understand the language?
Baloney. This was nothing but nonsense. Firming her shoulders again, she decided to bail out. “All right, Colt. I’m tired, not happy about being here, and so not into playing games.” If he wouldn’t answer her simple question, she would just walk away.
Besides, his smell was now beginning to drift over her, and the combination of sweat, leather, and something else she couldn’t pin down was making a few butterflies flutter low in her belly, which again made zero sense. She loved cologne, expensive cologne. Not sweat!
She made her way carefully up the steps, but this time she avoided the rail. If she could survive this miserable little trek, she just might see the inside of the house before the damn sun went down over the “picturesque” mountains looming all around her property.
Not that she appreciated the view. She didn’t appreciate anything about this rugged land. She had grown up in a small city, but that was by the sea and huge cites hadn’t been far away, especially with an unlimited credit card.
Then when she’d gone to Brown University, she had loved the large population, though she’d been on campus so much and with college life, it was like living in your own personal city with people all your age who shared similar interest. Sighing, she almost wished she could go back…
Back then, she’d already developed the chip on her shoulder when it came to her family, but it hadn’t been as bad because she’d loved college, at least at first, and then she’d let the weight of the world settle on her again, and she’d left before she’d graduated. Stupid! That had been stupid.
Had she only finished her degree, she wouldn’t be in this mess now, climbing a dilapidated house’s front steps with a huge cowboy not far behind her.
“Out here, we’re a little more friendly. But it’s probably a steep learning curve for a rich bitch like you.”
Brielle spun around at the top of the stairs and gazed down at Colt, who was looking up at her with a mocking smile that had her grinding her teeth.
“If I gave a damn about your opinion, I would ask you to speak,” she said with what she hoped was a smirk on her lips. There was no way she was going to let this man — this complete stranger — make her day any worse than it already was.
She turned away, but before she had a chance to dig into her purse for the key to the house, she heard the steps creek, and without any more warning than that she felt him behind her, making her jump. She faced him again — better to see your enemy — but backed against the door.
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, just lowered his face to only inches from her wide-eyed stare.
“Lady, you really need to learn basic manners.” It wasn’t a threat, the voice too low, the sparkle in his eyes telling her he was enjoying himself. But she didn’t know this man, didn’t know what he was capable of. If she were wise, and at the moment she apparently wasn’t, she would apologize and send him away.
But once Brielle felt backed into a corner, she didn’t tend to make the wisest of choices. Crew had often told her that when she was a young girl, she would be the first to cut off her own nose just to spite her face. She felt as if she were doing that right now, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from poking the bear — a bear who happened to have some pretty stunning hazel eyes.
When she finally found her voice, she was grateful that it came out with a bite. “Get your hands off me this instant, or I swear you will never be able to have children!”
When he didn’t even cringe, just sported a huge grin with p
erfect white teeth, Brielle tensed, her body preparing to keep the threat she’d just issued. He must have felt her slight movement because suddenly he was pressed up against her, his legs preventing her from lifting her knee.
“Honey, I plan on making lots of babies, so I suggest you don’t do that,” he practically whispered, making Brielle more furious with her body’s reaction to his breath floating across her lips as he dipped his head just a little bit closer.
Utterly, horrifyingly speechless, Brielle found herself looking deep into his eyes, which she was discovering had flecks of silver in them. Why and how could she notice that right now? Shouldn’t she be afraid?
“Mmm, Brielle, it’s going to be a pleasure working with you,” he said, leaning even farther forward.
With his lips only half an inch from her own, she sucked her breath in through parted lips, wondering whether she was going to let this stranger — this cowboy — kiss her.
Why in the world would that be the thought crossing her mind? She should be screaming, not contemplating how his lips would feel pressed up against hers. Finally, her voice returned.
“Colt?” The sudden sweetness of her voice must have confused him, because he drew back a few inches, giving her space to breathe.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“Let’s hope you were lying about those babies.” The smile she gave him was one of promise.
It took him a moment to process what she was saying, and then he returned her smile with one even brighter than before.
“Again, a pleasure,” he said before stepping back, out of kneeing range. “Have a great day.”
With those final words, he turned and jumped down the steps, soon disappearing — she didn’t know where. After five minutes… ten minutes — hell, maybe an hour — Brielle finally pulled herself from the door and turned around.
That was one hell of a first encounter, and it had started in her first ten minutes on the property. If each day went this well, she wouldn’t survive a week…
