by Liz Isaacson
It was never fun to look back on his mistakes, that was for sure. Just like he shouldn’t have given up long-distance running when the weather turned cold. He preferred to lift at the gym in the winter, because all of his friends at the fire station and on the force dominated the weights.
He didn’t ask anything else during the run, because he didn’t need to know more. Finally, Gray’s house came into view, and relief sagged through Ames’s muscles. Gray had started to slow down about a half-mile ago, and he slowed even further. About a half a block away, he began walking, his breathing going in and out smoothly. “Not bad, right?” He gave Ames a smile.
“I’m not running back,” Ames panted. “I’ve got to use the bathroom, and then you can drive me.”
“Drive you?”
“What else have you got to do today?” Ames challenged.
Gray said nothing, and that answered the question. “Exactly,” Ames said, his legs starting to cramp. “I’m dying.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“Do you have those cell salts?”
“Yes,” Gray said. “I’ll doctor you up, and you can make breakfast while I shower, and then I’ll drive you home.” He paused in his driveway. “Not working today?”
“Not until four,” Ames said. “I’m on the night shift for the next few weeks.”
“Ah.” Gray stretched, and Ames followed him, because Gray knew how to cool down after a run. A few minutes later, his bladder didn’t care about cooling down, and he left Gray in the driveway in favor of the bathroom.
When he came out, Gray had entered the house too, and he’d put Ames’s favorite band over the speaker system. “Come drink this,” he said, indicating the tall glass of cloudy liquid on the counter. “And take some painkillers.”
“Thanks,” Ames said, reaching for the glass and the pills. He downed it all, his chest still stitching with pain. But he put a smile on his face. “I’ve got to get back on the treadmill for longer than two miles.”
“Yes, you do.” He grinned. “Hey, I wanted to ask you about your schedule next month.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, uh, Elise invited me up to Wyoming for Valentine’s Day.” His face started to turn red, and Ames marveled at that. Gray never got embarrassed. Well, almost never. “Not really Valentine’s Day. I mean, close to it. She has to work that weekend, and I thought I’d go maybe during the week, but I know that’s harder for you and Hunter, and I don’t know, if you’re on nights….”
Ames had never heard Gray say so many run-on sentences before. It took a few moments to process everything, catalogue it as his brother’s nerves, and enjoy that Gray was flustered over this woman. Legit flustered.
“I’m on nights until February sixth,” he said. “It’s not hard to have Hunter during the week, Gray. He goes to school. I go to work. We come home.”
“It’s just that Mom and Dad are getting older, and then I’d have to explain everything to Mom.”
“I know,” Ames said. “I get it. It’s fine.” He turned to fill up his glass with plain water from the sink. “So what will you tell them? Why do you need to go up there again?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’ll know you’re gone.”
“Yeah, she will.” He looked miserable, and Ames didn’t want to add to that.
“Be straight up with me, Gray,” he said anyway. “Are you going to move up there?” Ames hated the snakes writhing in his stomach, but they’d been there since Gray had said his girlfriend lived in Coral Canyon.
“I don’t know.” Gray bent his head and raked both hands through his hair.
“I don’t want you to move up there,” Ames said, which brought Gray’s head up. His eyes filled with questions.
“Why not?”
“Because then I’m here by myself,” Ames said. “And Mom and Dad need a lot of help, and I can’t do it alone.” That was a valid reason, but not the only one. “I don’t want to live here by myself. The best part about Colorado was that we were all here, and now there’s more of us somewhere else than here.”
Gray nodded. “I hear you. I doubt Dad will ever sell that farm. I’m thinking about buying it and taking it over. They can live in the granny house, and Hunter and I will take the homestead.”
“So maybe Elise would move here.”
“Maybe I should see if we’ll have a relationship that lasts longer than a weekend,” Gray said with a smile. “Maybe you’re getting way too far ahead of yourself.”
“And maybe a man likes to have a plan.” Ames lifted his eyebrows, silently daring Gray to contradict him. If there was something the two of them shared, it was their love of plans and checklists.
Gray laughed, got up, and embraced Ames. “Love you, brother. As soon as I know anything, I’ll let you know.” He nodded toward the fridge. “Find something for us to eat. Low fat, low sugar. I’m going to go shower.”
“Low fat and low sugar foods aren’t worth eating,” Ames called after his brother, but Gray just laughed and continued toward the doorway that led to the master suite.
Ames watched him go, a storm moving into his soul. Things were changing, and Ames did not like that.
“Focus on what you can control,” he muttered to himself. And he could control how soft the scrambled eggs were, so he got down a pan from the rack above the island and set about making breakfast.
Chapter Eleven
Elise’s phone beeped at her, and a notification came up on the screen. Fifteen percent battery left, and it wasn’t even noon yet. She smiled as she got up off the couch at the cabin and went down the hall to her bedroom to get her charger.
Bree and Wes were coming home from Hawaii that day, and Elise had said she’d then help her best friend pack up what she needed to move into Wes’s house down in the valley. Bree would be back the next day and over the course of the next couple of weeks to really get all of her stuff out of the cabin, and that brought a slip of sadness to Elise’s soul.
But she’d been sleeping in the cabin alone for eleven nights now, and every one got a little bit easier. Colton had suggested she get a dog—a little one—because they liked to bark if they heard anything at all.
Elise had resisted, because the last thing she needed was a little dog yapping because the ice maker in the freezer churned out its cubes and made some clunking noise. Then she’d think there was an intruder, trying to tap-clunk-bang their way into the cabin.
She may or may not have already thought that because of the noise the ice maker made. Adding a barking dog to the mix would only frighten her more. She’d told Colton she was fine, and that she didn’t need him to solve all of her problems for her.
“I have nothing else to do,” he’d said, and Elise had picked up on that more than anything else they’d talked about recently. She’d suggested he get a job, but he wanted to put it off until after Wes came home, because then there would be the moving, the family celebration, a trip to talk to his parents about selling the farm, all of it.
Elise plugged her phone in out in the living room and went back to her texts with Gray. He didn’t have a job during the day either, and every morning after his workout, he texted her how far he’d gone and his time.
Marathon speed today, he’d sent earlier. Half-marathon distance.
She had no idea how on earth someone ran thirteen miles without stopping. And she had no idea what marathon speed was. But Gray did, and he’d seemed very pleased with his time. An hour and forty minutes.
He’d run down a road for an hour and forty minutes.
She felt like he existed on a different planet. One made of muscles and protein and determination. One where she would never be able to visit.
He’d told her he was resting tomorrow, and then he’d asked her what she was doing that Monday morning.
Elise didn’t have much to do, but she hadn’t wanted to tell him she’d been working on a recipe for blue corn pancakes, or that looking through an online catalog of tulip bulbs had
brought her an hour of joy.
They both seemed so lame compared to what Gray did with his time. Raising a son. Training for a marathon.
She shook her hair over her head and told herself she was worthy of a man like Gray. Because she was. She normally didn’t doubt herself so much, and she wasn’t going to start now just because he was built, and beautiful, and a billionaire.
If one wanted to send you flowers, he’d said while she’d been gone to get her charging cable. What would be an appropriate kind?
Elise smiled down at her phone, the back of her neck sending a shooting pain down her back. She’d been texting with Gray so much over the last week that she had physical ailments now.
All flowers are acceptable, she typed. But all women love roses. She sent the text, hoping she was authorized to speak for all women.
Most women, she amended, giggling quietly to herself. She leaned back into the couch to give respite to her neck and held the phone above her head, continuing the conversation with her boyfriend.
She’d told no one about kissing Gray on the street, and he’d said nothing more about coming to Coral Canyon for Valentine’s Day. She didn’t need to know right now; she simply wanted to know.
He called her each evening after his son went to bed, and Elise decided she’d ask him that night, when she could hear his voice and judge his mood more easily than through a text.
He finally said he had to go get something done that day, and Elise said good-bye. She sighed happily, gazing up at the ceiling. She should probably go get something done too, so she got up and left her phone on the armrest of the couch. In the kitchen, she pulled out her design notebook and turned it over and then flipped it around, so the back cover was now the front.
She opened the first page, the dress she’d sketched there bringing a balm to her weary soul. She’d told no one—not even Bree—about her secret desire to be a fashion designer. That wasn’t entirely true. She didn’t really want to be a fashion designer. She just wanted to design dresses for herself.
She’d started with a simple pattern that only had cinching on the waist, and she’d made the dress out of dark green fabric, big, black buttons on the bodice, and precise stitching. She received compliments on it every time she wore it to church, as she knew the fabric brought out the color in her eyes, making her appear less washed out.
Elise picked up a pencil and migrated over to the dining room table, flipping pages to get to the latest design she’d started to pull out of her head. She always worked in a slow, methodical way on her sketches, and then she’d wander the fabric store for hours, trying to find exactly the right fabric to bring the dress to life.
This one, though, she already had a fabric in mind. She’d seen it a few months ago, but she hadn’t bought it, a fact she lamented now. The store in Coral Canyon didn’t always carry the same fabrics for very long, and Elise thought she should probably get down the canyon and get it if she wanted to make this dress.
She still wasn’t sure what length to do the skirt, and she’d drawn several figures of the lower half of the dress, trying to get it just right. She didn’t like the look of mid-calf, but she didn’t want anything higher than the knee. Making a maxi dress out of this fitted upper half didn’t feel right either.
Elise didn’t normally wear skin-tight dresses—she wasn’t going to clubs or parties—but she loved the feel of the fifties dresses—cinched waists, fitted bodices, fun scooped necklines, and a flared skirt.
Her fingers moved, and she adjusted the neckline, and drew long, quick strokes for the skirt, ballooning it out as if it would fall to her knee in the traditional fifties style. But she took it all the way to the floor, and ended up with a ballgown.
The black fabric with bright red cherries on it wouldn’t do for a ballgown. Would it? And where would Elise even wear such a dress?
She didn’t worry too much about those questions as she sketched. She just let her mind wander and her fingers roam free.
Before she knew it, the light outside shifted, and Elise looked up from her notebook. Her stomach growled, and before she could check the time, her phone rang in the other room. She left her notebook and pencil in the kitchen and went to answer the call.
“Bree,” she said into the phone. She laughed immediately afterward. “Where are you? Did you land? On your way back?”
“Yes,” Bree said, and it was so, so good to hear her voice. Elise couldn’t stop smiling, though the pinch in her chest was very, very real. “We’re in town already, actually. We’re getting lunch. Have you eaten?”
“Not yet,” Elise said. “Where are you?”
“The Souper Bowl,” Bree said. “And can I just tell you how amazing it is to be back where there’s not one-hundred percent humidity?”
Elise laughed again. “Yeah, just don’t breathe in too deeply through your nose. Everything might freeze together.”
Bree laughed too, sobering enough to say, “I think you like the combo with the clam chowder and the deluxe grilled cheese.”
“That’s it,” Elise said. “White bread. I’m not a health nut.” Of course, she thought of Gray. She wondered if the man even ate bread at all, and she added it to her list of things to talk about with him that night.
“We’ll be up in about a half an hour,” Bree said.
“Sounds good.” After she hung up, Elise went back into the kitchen, marked her place in the notebook, and slid it back into the drawer where she kept it. The pencil went in with it, and she got busy hanging up the welcome home! signs and setting out the banana cake with maple frosting she’d made for Bree’s and Wes’s return.
She was determined to put on a brave and happy face for her friend, so the moment Bree walked through the door, Elise shouted, “Welcome home! You’re back!” She rushed forward and grabbed onto Bree, who looked so tan and so healthy and so happy.
They laughed together while Wes brought in a small carryon-sized bag and closed the door behind them. He wore a smile too, and Elise pulled away from Bree. Her eyes widened as she looked into Bree’s dark ones. “Can you believe you’re married?”
“It’s kind of surreal,” Bree said. “To be honest.” She gave Wes a smile but kept her attention on Elise. Her smile slipped as she leaned closer. “Are you okay? Really?”
“Eleven nights,” Elise whispered. “I’m okay.”
“Maybe someone will come live up here with you,” Bree said.
Elise shook her head. “Who would do that? Why would I want them to?”
Bree didn’t say anything, but Elise actually appreciated the worry in her eyes. It meant she cared about Elise and wanted her to be comfortable and happy. “Oh, I got you something.” She practically bounced over to the suitcase by Wes’s side, and Elise finally allowed herself to look at him.
Gray’s brother.
He was older and sported more gray hair. But he had the same dark eyes, the same sloped nose, the same power emanating from those Hammond shoulders. “How are you, Elise?” Wes asked, his voice filled with only kindness.
Her heart flipped over, because he even sounded like Gray a little bit. “Good,” she said, stepping over to him and giving him a quick hug. “How was Maui? Your fiftieth state.”
“I really liked it,” he said. “Bree…not so much.”
“My hair was a rat’s nest the whole time,” Bree said, her back to Elise as she dug through the suitcase. “And it rained a lot, as if there needed to be more moisture in the air.” She exchanged a look with Wes and then turned to face Elise. “Surprise.”
She held out both hands, each of them clutching something. The first item was a giant bag of caramel macadamia nuts. Elise took it, her eyes widening. “These look amazing.”
“They are amazing,” Bree said. “When I tasted them, the first thing I said was, ‘Elise would love these. I’m getting her the biggest bag I can find.’ And I did.” She radiated happiness in a way Elise had never seen before, and she actually got a little teary-eyed at the pure spirit Br
ee brought with her.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice catching on the last word.
Wes’s phone rang, and he said, “It’s Gray, baby. I’ll be right back.”
Elise couldn’t help watching him walk into the kitchen, saying, “Gray, my brother. How are you?” He laughed heartily, and Elise really wanted to know what Gray was saying to his brother. She wasn’t sure why. They’d agreed to see each other, and they’d both talked to Colton about staying out of their business. Surely Gray wouldn’t call Wes and tell him everything within an hour of Wes being back on the mainland.
Would he?
“Elise,” Bree said, and she shook the thoughts out of her head. “I got you this too.” She handed her a packet of reddish-orange powder. “It’s pineapple seasoning, and it’s amazing. You know how you’re always saying pineapple is too one-note? This makes it like, ten-note.” She beamed at Elise, who took the package of powder and looked at it.
“Oh, and don’t worry about not having fresh pineapple,” Bree said. “You’ll be getting one in the next day or two. Or maybe two. I think we had two shipped.”
“You shipped pineapples from Hawaii to Wyoming?”
“Yep.” Bree turned back to her bag. “Now come help me empty all of this and get a few things for the next few days.” She zipped her suitcase and looked at Bree again. “I feel really bad leaving you up here.”
“I’m okay,” Elise said. “Honest. And I made that banana cake you love, and I’m starving, so where are the soups and stuff?”
“Wes’ll get them in a minute,” she said. “And then we’ll eat.” They started down the hall together, and Elise was just about to ask her another question about moving in with Wes.
But he said, “Elise, you and Gray are dating?” and that made everything in her life come to a screeching halt.
Her footsteps.
Her breathing.
