Three Dates (Paths To Love Book 2)

by Grahame Claire

  Tomorrow was the day. My plan was to get in, get out, and get on with my life.

  Today, though, I would keep my promise to Stone and go on our third and final date.

  “Fabulous, isn’t it?” Vivian straightened the deep violet wrap dress I’d never seen before I put it on. “I knew it would look perfect,” she declared, her eyes glittering like the black diamonds around her neck. She’d been wearing the necklace more frequently since she and Daniel had reconciled. It was a sign that she belonged to Daniel, and because she really and truly did, she allowed it. It was what she wanted.

  What would it be like to have that kind of bond?

  “Jewelry,” she said, snapping her fingers as if she’d just remembered. She grabbed a black velvet box off the nightstand and pried the resistant hinges open. “We’re really cutting it close. He’ll be here any second.” She held up a gold chain, letting it dangle for me to see. There were two hearts entwined.

  “It’s beautiful. Daniel didn’t give this to you, did he?”

  “No. It’s new.” She moved behind me, and I lifted my long hair. Once the necklace was clasped, it hung to my breastbone. Vivian reached for another box, the black velvet almost gray from years of use. “Neither one of us have our mother’s pearls, so these will have to do.” She threaded large pearl earrings through my lobes.

  “Where did you get these?”

  The doorbell chimed before she could answer. My stomach lurched. This was worse than the nervousness I’d had before the first date, maybe because I was afraid it was going to be the last. Vivian grabbed my purse from the bed and then my hand and dragged me to the front door.

  “Slow down. These heels are really thin,” I protested to no avail. If anything, her pace quickened. “Wait,” I said when she started to turn the knob.

  There was love and understanding in her eyes. “You have nothing to lose,” she said, and flung the door open.

  His hair had been trimmed since I’d last seen him, though it still swept across his forehead to his eyebrows. He had on a white shirt that looked custom tailored, stretching across his muscles. Instead of jeans, he wore charcoal gray slacks and a matching suit jacket, but no tie. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt open, and he had on black Italian loafers, not his old boots.

  He presented a bouquet of bluebonnets, and his chocolate-colored eyes locked on mine. “For you.”

  His voice struck me straight in the heart. I’d missed hearing it more than I’d realized.

  I’d missed everything about him. He wasn’t cold, angry, or guarded. His crooked smile said he was happy to see me.

  “She’d say thank you if she could find her tongue,” Vivian said as she snatched the bouquet from his hands, “but you’ve rendered her speechless.”

  Absently, I reached for the flowers, which she put in my hands.

  “Still prettier every time I see you,” Stone mused, almost as if he couldn’t get used to it.

  I cleared my throat. “Thank you for the flowers.” My voice was so soft, I could barely hear myself, but Stone’s smile told me I’d been loud and clear.

  “You’re most welcome. Ready to go?” He offered his arm to me. I breathed in deeply and exhaled, wrapping my fingers just above the crook. Had it really only been a month since the first time we’d done this?

  “Don’t forget this.” Vivian hooked my purse over my arm and layered my coat on top of that. Then she shoved me out the door, causing me to stumble into Stone, who caught me, his arm automatically circling my waist.

  “That’s much better,” he whispered against my hair, holding me for a long second before releasing me. I was dazed from being so close to him, his fresh outdoor scent infusing my senses. It took me a second to get my bearings, but somehow I managed to get my feet to move toward the elevator.

  “Love y’all,” Vivian called.

  I looked back at her, a glass sheen blurring my vision. “Love you too,” I whispered, barely choking out the words.

  This moment felt final. My chest constricted, the air flow to my lungs cut off. Stone gently tugged me into the elevator. “You okay?”

  “Not really,” I returned, clutching the bouquet of bluebonnets. They were a bright spot, standing tall in my fingers, not a trace of wilting like I was. They were happy. I was miserable. It gave me no joy to know that in a few hours they’d begin to lose their luster. I wanted to keep them forever exactly as they were right now, because they were from Stone.

  “Stars” by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals played as we climbed into the back seat of a black Escalade. I clamped my lips together and looked out the window.

  “Tell me.” His voice was gentle, ever patient.

  I wanted so badly to open up, spill everything, even though I didn’t have the words. I desperately wanted him to understand the reasons I had for what I was doing, for him to tell me he didn’t hate me for it, that one day he’d forgive me. But I didn’t need the words because I could see hate was not at all what he felt toward me. Behind the concern in his eyes was a warmth I didn’t deserve.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked. My nose tingled. The waterworks would soon follow.

  “This date?” I nodded. “If this is my last chance to spend time with you, I’m not going to waste it. This is the first time in four days everything hasn’t hurt.”

  I dropped my gaze to his side. “How’s your wound?”

  He followed my line of sight and shrugged. “It’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. Maybe this is me sticking my head in the sand, but I’m going to pretend this is my last day on earth, and I’m lucky enough to spend it with the woman I love.”

  A tear escaped before I could stop it. Stone caught it with his thumb.

  “It’s just you and me, okay? Just lunch,” he said.

  “Okay,” I whispered, his sweet smile encouraging me to return it, but all I could muster was something between a smile and a grimace.

  Stone was pleased by my effort. “Okay,” he repeated. “I hope you brought your appetite.”

  “I haven’t been able to eat much,” I admitted.

  His handsome face fell. “Me neither.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked, trying to brighten the mood.

  Stone fell right in sync with me, giving me a mischievous grin. “You’ll see when we get there.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Stone

  The wind whipped Muriella’s dark hair when we descended the staircase onto a small private runway, a black strip surrounded by red dirt and dotted with a few scrub brushes. She gracefully took the last few steps, holding her dress down with the hand that gripped her bouquet of bluebonnets. They hadn’t been out of her sight since I’d given them to her.

  “I promised you Texas,” I said as I held open the door of a 1986 red Ford F-150. I remembered when my granddaddy brought it home for the first time, thrilled to death to have it. I was nine. He’d tossed me the keys on my sixteenth birthday with a stern warning that I was not to wreck or sell it.

  My nose was hit with the smell of leather. The cab was clean as a whistle, not even a stray piece of straw. I’d asked my dad to have it here, wanting the twenty-minute drive to the ranch alone with Muriella. Once we got there, everyone would be waiting, and I’d have to fight for her attention. Also, I needed the time to prepare myself for what was ahead.

  Once I was in the driver’s seat, the old girl cranked right up with a roar. I flipped the knob on the heater as far over as it would go, rubbing my hands together a few times to warm them up. “You can’t sit over there,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re too far away.”

  She slid across the bench seat without protest, another surprise. When we’d pulled up to the plane in New Jersey, I wasn’t sure she’d get on it. Yet she had without hesitation.

  She straddled the gearshift, and I buckled her seatbelt before fastening my own and turning up the radio.r />
  Thompson Square was singing the exact thoughts running through my head in “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not.” Just being near her was enough, but I missed the way she tasted. I decided to hell with it, turned her face to mine, cupped her soft cheeks, and pressed my mouth to hers. I didn’t even give her time to get used to it before I broke away and shifted into first gear.

  She stared at me, but held onto my hand, and my confidence grew. “So this is Burdett?” Muriella’s presence made this homecoming all the sweeter. I’d wanted to get her here for years, and now that she was, it felt right.

  “Just outside it. Town’s back that way.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder when we turned out onto the highway, the pavement no longer black but bleached from the sun. “We’ll ride through later if you want.”

  “I’d like to see it before we go.”

  My confidence rose another notch. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but it had to be a good sign. “That can be arranged. We’re about four hours west of Dallas, and the ranch is fifteen or twenty minutes away.”

  She nodded, scanning every bush, blade of grass, head of cattle, even the cerulean sky. She absorbed Texas like she couldn’t help herself, but I knew how easily the state could get in a person’s blood, even if you weren’t a native. There wasn’t a house for miles, and passing another car on the way home was an iffy proposition. Something about this wide open space hooked people before they even realized it had happened.

  “That was a nice runway for the middle of nowhere,” she commented.

  “We breed and train quarter horses at the ranch, some for other people. Lots of those folks have their own jets, so we have a nice landing strip for them. Can’t do anything about this road, though. Not enough pull with the Department of Transportation,” I said as I veered to miss a pothole.

  “Seventy-five seems like a high speed limit for this road.”

  “You get used to it.” I wasn’t going anywhere near that on the two-lane highway, not because I was scared, but because I wanted to drag out every second of this ride with her.

  “It looks different than I imagined,” she mused. “And the air is dry.”

  “That it is.” I settled our hands on her thigh, and she glanced at them. “What did you picture?”

  “I never could decide if it would be like the desert or one giant pasture. Turns out it’s a combination of both.”

  “That’s a fairly accurate assessment. This is where the two landscapes sorta blend together.”

  “I didn’t expect it to be this cold either.” She shivered, and I considered pulling over to give her my coat, but she huddled closer to me, and I adjusted the vent to blow more directly on her.

  “It gets colder than a well digger’s belt buckle in the winter, but who the hell knows—today the high is in the forties, tomorrow it may be in the sixties. Anything is possible.”

  Her brows shot up. “Where do you come up with these sayings?” Texas was already having its intended effect; she seemed less burdened.

  I motioned out the windshield. “You’re looking at it.”

  A scrub brush rolled across the road, and she watched in fascination. “Did you get everything sorted out with the ranch?”

  “Zegas is working on it.”

  “You never told the rest of your family?”

  I didn’t much care for the disappointment in her voice. “Hopefully, there’ll be no reason to.”

  I slowed the truck as the gate to the driveway came into view. Daniel’s team had done a hell of a job clearing the paparazzi. There wasn’t a soul in sight. We turned onto the dirt road, rumbling under the black metal archway that read ‘Jacobs Ranch’ with a Texas star on either side of it.

  “Ready for this?” I asked, unable to stop smiling.

  “Do I have a choice?” Her hand tightened on mine.

  We rolled down the drive, which split two pastures: horses on one side, cattle on the other. Her head bobbed as she looked from one field to the other. When my parents’ house came into view, I was glad she was finally here.

  “Stone, it’s beautiful.”

  My sentiments exactly. It had been built by my great-grandparents back in the 1920s. They’d struck oil on part of the property, and that had provided the means to build a good-sized house for the time. It was a two-story farmhouse with white siding, black shutters, and a wraparound porch. White Christmas lights woven through garlands framed the front door, though they were barely visible in the afternoon sun. Evergreen wreaths were attached to every window by wide red velvet ribbons. Wonder if Dad or Mitch hung those this year?

  “There’s Sissy.” The old girl munched on grass just outside the fence she was supposed to be on the other side of.

  “I thought she only escaped in the morning.”

  “Guess Mama told her you were coming to visit.”

  I parked next to a red Escalade I’d never seen before. It seemed criminal for a car like that to have a layer of dirt on it dulling its shine. Just a hazard of life on a ranch.

  I threw on the parking brake and cut the engine. Instead of waiting on me to go around to the passenger side to help her out, Muriella slid out behind me. Before I closed the car door, I grabbed the bouquet of flowers. We walked hand in hand up the steps to the porch. Potted poinsettia plants flanked either side of the steps. I opened the screen door and didn’t knock before turning the old brass handle on the wooden door. The scent of pine and cinnamon instantly hit my nose.

  The Christmas tree twinkled in the living room to the left of the foyer, and I laid the bluebonnets on the console table on the right. My brother said something unintelligible before laughter filled the air.

  “Who’s Cadillac is out front?” I asked as we strolled into the kitchen, where everyone was gathered. All eyes turned to us.

  “It’s mine. A loaner while mine is in the shop,” Mulaney said.

  I’d already guessed it was hers. “You got one of those long-ass things?”

  “No,” she huffed, hand on hip. “They only had the extended version, and it’s a miracle I even got it. Damn thing is like driving a bus.”

  “Mulaney’s gotten too high falutin’ for us with her Cadillacs,” I teased, shaking my grandfather’s hand since he was closest to the entrance. His grip was as strong as it had always been, no matter that he was in his eighties.

  “That’s rich, coming from you, Hollywood,” she shot back, throwing a wadded-up napkin at me across the island in the center of the kitchen.

  “Tell me about it. I was admirin’ that vehicle this morning at breakfast. She asked me if I wanted to drive it and tossed me the keys,” Granddaddy said.

  “You didn’t fall for that?” I asked.

  “I’m an old man. I tell you that one’s got no respect for her elders. I wasn’t a mile down the road and that damn gas light came on. The tank was dead empty. Hell, I just made it back. Been standin’ at the gas pump since six o’clock this morning, filling it up.”

  “She did that shit to me all the time when we were in high school,” Mitch piped up.

  “Does anyone watch their damn mouth anymore?” Mama asked, giving my grandfather and Mitch an admonishing look.

  Muriella drank in the scene with thirsty eyes. Hope filled me. I’d always known if I could just get her to the ranch, she’d see what her family might look like.

  “Why are you in a car anyway? Old man Carter finally take away your jet privileges?” I asked. My sister didn’t usually have time to make the long trek from Houston. Unease flickered in her eyes before it disappeared.

  “Obviously I drove, and don’t give me any shit. I beat you here by a mile,” she said. No one but me seemed to notice something wasn’t quite right with her. Or maybe they’d already had time to figure out what was going on.

  “Muriella, honey, we’re so glad you’re here. Let me introduce you to everybody,” Mama broke in like she’d known her all her life. We’d skipped pleasantries, but that’s just how we were. Mama took her hand and led her around the
kitchen. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt more pride than when Muriella exchanged hugs with my family. Except Mulaney, who thrust out her hand and gave Muriella’s a hard shake, intimidating as hell. I gave my sister a look to cool it, which she blatantly ignored.

  Daniel and Vivian appeared from the hallway, apparently saving their surprise appearance for last.

  “You two.” Muriella pointed at the both of them, giving them a menacing look before throwing her arms around them.

  I made the rounds behind Muriella. I got long hugs all around from everyone except Mitch, who shook my hand and gave me a disapproving look. When I got to Mulaney, I kissed her cheek, and she didn’t even protest.

  “Where’s Grandmama?” I asked, her absence noticeable.

  “Gone to check on her pecan pie,” Mama said about the same time my grandmother came in through the back door.

  “There’s my darlin’ boy,” she cooed, holding her arms open. I went to her immediately, towering over her as she hugged me fiercely. “You know better than to stay away this long,” she scolded, reaching up and patting my cheek. “Are you going to introduce me to your girl?”

  Grandmama slipped her arm through mine, and I led her to the other side of the kitchen. She let go of me and took Muriella’s face in her weathered hands. They’d seen a lot of years, but they weren’t frail, not by a long shot. “It’s about damn time. And aren’t you just as pretty as a picture.”

  Muriella blushed. “We should have done this a long time ago, Miss Ruby,” she said. Everyone stilled, watching the overdue meeting.

  “Ain’t that the truth? Now come greet an old woman the proper way, child.”

  Muriella and my grandmother were about the same height, and when they embraced, a strange feeling stirred in my chest. Grandmama kissed her cheek and whispered something in her ear that made Muriella’s eyes glass over.

  “Are y’all hungry?” Mama asked, breaking the silence. She was already opening the oven, and I got a whiff of fried chicken that made my mouth water.