by Hebby Roman
“Are you open?” Skye asked, trying to ignore the tall, dark, and handsome guy standing beside her.
“Yep. You want a table or just want to sit at the bar?”
“How about a table?” Joe cut in. “We have more joining us.”
As the girl led them to the far side of the establishment, Skye noticed that Hank’s still had the same rustic interior and sawdust-covered floor. Joe grabbed a table with six chairs. Were they expecting more than Ollie and Celeste? How in the world had she not known that her brother and her best friend were seeing each other? She could understand why Ollie might not tell her—it wasn’t like the two of them chatted intimately about their love lives—but Celeste? Her oldest and closest girlfriend?
The hurt was kept at bay for only one reason, and he was currently pulling out her chair.
She hung the coat she hadn’t bothered to wear on a hook on the wall—seeing Carrigan had cranked up her internal temperature—then sat, trying her best to ignore him as she tucked her purse beside her. He rounded the opposite side of the table, shed his heavy jacket, and sat directly across from her.
She surreptitiously noted that he hadn’t changed much in the looks department: his physique was still lean and coiled beneath the grey thermal pullover he wore; his brown eyes still reflected little emotion, a fact that had been driven home on that day so long ago when he’d rejected her. Despite having had several boyfriends in the ensuing years, both serious and casual, no man had ever come close to Carrigan.
Sarcasm echoed in her head. What a lovely end to an already awful day.
She needed a drink.
“Can I get you both waters?” the hostess asked, handing each of them a menu.
“I’ll have a Whiskey Sour,” Skye said. If she was going to be forced to make small talk with Carrigan after a nine-year absence from her life, she needed fortification. Besides, Ollie would drive her to their parents’ ranch, so if she was a bit tipsy, no problem.
“I’ll have whatever’s on tap,” Carrigan said.
Although Skye wasn’t hungry, she opened the menu and began perusing it in earnest. “Thank you for stopping to help me,” she murmured without looking up.
“I’d been following you for a while. I had no idea it was you.”
So his heroic actions weren’t really for her, but a general thing. Goddamned kismet and goddamned fate. She should’ve hunkered down in Durango, but she’d convinced herself that she could make it to The Quarter-Circle.
Her stomach knotted tighter.
The waitress appeared with their drinks, and Skye took hold of hers, wanting to appease her anxiety as soon as possible.
“How about a toast?” he asked, forcing her to halt the liquor mid-air.
A toast wasn’t really on her mind, but she raised her glass a smidge. Wouldn’t want to be rude and all that.
“It’s good to see you again, Skye.” He clinked his pilsner against hers.
She gave a half-hearted smile and a nod, then took a big gulp of fortification.
Why had she always had it so bad for Joe Carrigan?
She only knew the basics of his return, since she had made a point not to ask about him when speaking with her parents or Oliver in the past few months. With her Christmas spirit slipping away, she steeled herself. It was time to get it over with and hear all about his beautiful wife, three gorgeous children who all resembled him, and his extraordinary life in general. She took another drink of courage. “What have you been up to the last nine years?”
“Well, if you’re wondering if all that tutoring you gave me in high school worked, it did. For a little while, at least. I went to UC Boulder for a few semesters, but I didn’t finish.”
“Why not?”
He gave a slight shrug and leaned back in his chair. Her gaze flicked to the beer glass he fingered with a hand that worked the land and not a computer.
“My dad wanted me at the ranch, and truthfully, I wanted to go back. I came to realize that classrooms and books weren’t my thing.”
“I heard the ranch in Estes Park was quite impressive.”
He nodded. “It was.”
“But you sold it? To come back here?”
He took a drink of his beer, and then remained quiet for a moment. “Estes Park was my dad’s dream. And he worked hard at it. Maybe too hard. One day, he had a heart attack in the kitchen. And he was gone, just like that.”
“I’m sorry.” And she meant it. “There was no one quite like your dad.”
His gaze softened, and he seemed to share her sentiment. “I know.” He raked a hand through his black hair. “My mom was having a tough time, and the ranch was a lot of work. I suggested we downsize, and I realized that she was interested in returning here. The old Carrigan Ranch wasn’t available, but the Three C was.”
“Skye?” Her brother’s booming voice drew her attention from Carrigan.
Oliver strode up to the table, dressed in a white button-down shirt and nicer jeans than he normally wore. While he’d gone to college in Arizona, in the end he’d returned to a rancher’s life much like Carrigan had. He ran his own small spread to the southwest while remaining involved in The Quarter-Circle with her mom and dad.
Skye stood to hug her brother. His hair, more burnished than hers, was looking presentable for once. He smelled good, too. He was definitely on a date. And that girl was right behind him.
“Skylar!” Celeste, her long blond hair flowing down her shoulders, grinned broadly as she scooped Skye into an embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“It was last minute.”
Another woman lingered behind them. Celeste ushered her forward. “This is Tina.”
The petite, brown-haired woman shook Skye’s hand and then Joe’s. As everyone moved to sit down, Skye noticed that Celeste made sure Tina was beside Carrigan.
Celeste took a spot next to Skye, and Ollie took residence at the end.
“Why didn’t you call?” Ollie asked her.
“Dad said he was going to get a hold of you to meet me here,” Skye said, not really wanting to admit that she’d lost control of her car. “Did you talk to him?”
“No.” Ollie pulled out his cellphone. “I missed a call from him, though. How’d you two find each other?” he asked, looking from her to Joe.
The waitress appeared and took drink orders for the three new arrivals.
“I saw her in the parking lot,” Carrigan said, his tone flat. That he was covering for the fact that she’d slid off the road—and throwing Ollie off the scent of harassing her for bad driving—was enough to make her heart flutter. But then he did something that caught her completely off guard—he held her gaze with a flirty twinkle in his eye.
Alarm bells went off in her head. Scratch that. It was more like a blazing siren.
In high school, no matter how much she’d wanted him to look at her the way he had Sheila Walters or Bella Brookstone, he never had. Not once. It had been up to her to make the first move, and the result was a swift crash and burn of the two-year bubble that Skye had built in her head filled with nothing but the two of them.
Certain that she had misread the situation, she diverted her attention, because if her intuition was right, then Tina was here for only one reason. This was a double date. And Skye was the infamous fifth wheel.
“You all were planning a get together tonight?” Skye said to Celeste. “In this weather?”
Celeste laughed, and Skye didn’t miss the nervous undercurrent. “Yeah, we just wanted to grab a beer. And Tina is new in town. She works with me at the print shop. I wanted to get her out to meet more people.”
“Where are you from?” Skye asked the woman, determined to ignore Carrigan.
“Dallas,” she replied.
“That’s a change of scenery. How do you like it here?”
“It’s great,” Tina replied, moving her napkin aside so the waitress could set a frosty glass of amber beer in
front of her. “But I’m looking forward to spring.”
Everyone laughed.
Celeste took a drink of her frothy ale and said to Skye, “I didn’t think you were coming until Christmas Eve.” She added for Tina’s benefit, “Skye lives in Denver.” To which Tina gave a polite nod.
“I decided to take some vacation days,” Skye said, reaching for the bowl of peanuts that Celeste had somehow commandeered, not wanting to mention the inheritance yet, at least not until she had a handle on exactly what she had inherited. Maybe Mrs. Pendleton’s house was falling apart and overrun with mice. Maybe the land was fallow. Maybe the old lady was haunting the place. That caused her to smile. She added, “Things at work have been complicated. I’ll tell you about it later.”
Skye made the mistake of glancing at Carrigan. His hooded gaze bore into her, and she almost turned to look behind her for the woman that he was obviously shooting lusty thoughts toward, because it sure as hell wasn’t her.
On top of everything else, she now had to contend with broken radar when it came to men.
Man, she needed another drink.
“You can come to the Ball tomorrow,” Celeste said.
The Mistletoe Ball was an event her folks and many of the people in Durango and the surrounding communities attended every Christmas, and Skye had forgotten completely about it. The last one she’d attended had been five years ago.
Celeste glanced around the table. “We’re all going. I even got a ticket for Tina.”
Carrigan’s date.
An invisible anvil clobbered Skye’s chest. He hadn’t professed to having a wife and kids, so obviously Celeste was playing matchmaker. She had done it plenty over the years, meddling regularly in Skye’s own love life. It was the exact reason Skye had never confided in her best friend about Carrigan. She hadn’t wanted Celeste plotting and planning, no matter her good intentions.
But now Skye would have a front-row seat to the Carrigan and Tina show.
“I don’t have a dress,” she said quickly. “But thanks anyway.”
She avoided looking at Carrigan by draining the rest of her Whiskey Sour.
“Did you know about Mrs. Pendleton?” Celeste asked, oblivious to Skye’s taut nerves. “She passed away in a nursing home in Cortez a few days ago.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Skye said. “I was sorry to hear it. She was a nice lady.”
Ollie waved over the waitress for another round of drinks. “But a thorn in Joe’s side,” he said.
Skye glanced at Joe. “How so?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. It’s not that important.”
“Remember The Peppermint Tree?” Celeste asked.
“What’s that?” Tina asked.
Celeste leaned forward. “It’s this odd-shaped tree that sits on the corner of Mrs. Pendleton’s property.”
“It’s a pine tree that’s bowed at the top,” Oliver added, “so it kind of looks like a candy cane.”
“It’s always been a spot where the kids congregated,” Celeste continued. “Luckily, Mrs. Pendleton never got mad about any of us trespassing. She would even decorate it every Christmas with big ornaments. You could see it from the highway.”
“My mom met my dad at the tree,” Joe said.
That was news to Skye, but before she could say anything, Tina turned to him and said, “That’s really romantic. Celeste told me that your dad recently died. My mom passed last year, so I know how hard it can be.”
Skye was forced to watch while Joe and Tina bonded over the death of a parent, feeling even lower for resenting their shared connection. She would be devastated if she lost either of her folks, and she should respect that maybe talking about it would make the other feel a tiny bit better.
She should leave.
A glance at her brother, however, made it clear that it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. He was here with Celeste, and Tina was meant for Carrigan. And Carrigan must have known, since he’d grabbed a table that could seat five instead of four.
She finished off a second, then a third, and finally a fourth Whiskey Sour in the hope of killing off any feelings for Carrigan that dared to show themselves in her heart. She’d been so sure that she was over him, but her discomfort from watching pert, cute Tina befriend him told her that nine years had done nothing to give her perspective on the damned man.
To further drown her sorrows, she stuffed down a hamburger and fries. She reasoned that she needed the food to absorb the alcohol in her stomach.
“You still eat like a lumberjack,” Carrigan said.
Gee, thanks.
“Ollie, we should leave,” she said, her need to end this evening reaching a flashpoint. “Mom and Dad will be worried.”
“You’re just gonna leave your car at Hank’s?” her brother asked.
Nuts. Time to confess her predicament, but Carrigan cut her off.
“I’ll take you back to your folks, Skye,” he said.
“No,” Celeste cut in. “We’ll take her.” Then she said to Joe, “Maybe you can take Tina home?”
“If it’s all the same, I’ll run Skye home,” Joe replied coolly. “It’s on my way.”
Was it? Skye tried to remember the location of the Triple C. Didn’t it border The Quarter-Circle? Despite squeezing her brain into thought, she couldn’t remember.
She decided to keep her mouth shut. Her bags were already in Carrigan’s Bronco anyway, and this way she wouldn’t have to admit to Oliver that her car was stuck in a snow bank somewhere.
“Could you give Tina a ride?” Celeste asked Joe. “Ollie and I have to help my dad with something.”
Lame, Celeste.
“She’s just a few miles back toward Durango,” Celeste added, smiling. “It’s not far.”
Then drive her home yourself! Skye was satisfied that she was only behaving like a B in her head. Right? She looked at everyone closely to see if they’d reacted to her outburst, but they all continued to ignore her and speak only with each other. Somehow, Carrigan agreed to Celeste’s suggestion, and Skye frowned.
Super. Now it was a threesome.
While Joe pulled out his wallet and threw several bills onto the table, Skye stood and collected her coat, making a conscious effort to keep herself from swaying.
Maybe I drank a bit too much.
Once bundled up, they all herded out of Hank’s. Somehow, Carrigan ended up behind her, and even through her coat she could feel his hand on her lower back.
What the hell? Quit acting like you like me, Carrigan.
She almost said it aloud. She wasn’t sure how much more time with Joe Carrigan she could handle before she rounded on him like an angry bear.
Carrigan might still entertain the idea that they could once again be friends like they’d been for most of their childhood, but Skye knew deep in her bones that she couldn’t handle it. And it depressed her more than she ever would have thought possible.
It had been nine years, but it were as if no time at all had passed since he’d left her heart in pieces.
Chapter Three
As Carrigan departed Hank’s, “Kiss You All Over” played in the background, and the irony didn’t escape him. This had been one of his haunts in high school, and he’d romanced many a girl on these very premises. Except the only one that had mattered, the one walking ahead of him like he was escorting her to the gallows. As Skye had sat across the table from him, her pretty face had alternated between fear and obstinance. All directed at him.
Maybe he should just kiss her, to set the record straight between them, because one thing was certain. He was far more interested in Skylar Mallory than Tina … he couldn’t even remember her last name. He was sorry he’d ever agreed to meet Celeste and Ollie tonight for this blind date disguised as a casual get-together, except that it had brought Skye back into his life.
Heavy snowflakes rained down as he led the women to his Bronco. When he op
ened the passenger door, Tina was at his elbow, so he reluctantly let her climb in first, putting her between him and Skye on the bench seat.
When life hands you lemons, throw them back.
His dad’s voice echoed in his head.
He climbed into the driver’s seat and left Hank’s parking lot, turning on the wipers to help with visibility against the swirling dance of snow glowing in his headlights, and headed down the white-covered highway at a grandma’s pace, although there was evidence that a snowplow had recently made a sweep of the road.
“I can’t believe this weather,” Tina said.
“It’s not a great night to be out,” Joe replied.
Anchoring her elbow against the door, Skye propped her head up with her hand and yawned.
He glanced around Tina. “Don’t pass out on me yet, Mallory.”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled, but her eyes drifted shut.
Tina’s place was in the opposite direction of The Quarter-Circle, and he’d headed toward Tina’s as soon as he left Hank’s. He would drop her off first. He could avoid being alone with her, and with Skye mostly passed out, she wasn’t in any position to voice a protest. Clearly a win-win.
“Do you have a lot of horses?” Tina asked.
“Yes. We have about fifty.”
“That’s a lot. I’d love to see them sometime.”
Joe planted his right hand at the top of the steering wheel, using his arm to create a boundary between him and the brunette. “Maybe Celeste can bring you over.”
Tina nodded and went silent.
Back in his younger days he would have made the most of a moment like this, because Tina was a cute and friendly diversion. He’d have his fun until things got a tad too serious, and then he’d move onto the next female.
Honestly, it had been his mom who had eventually called him out on his shit. She’d told him to quit acting like his father, always certain that heartbreak awaited. He’d been twenty-two years old when he’d finally learned what a tough S.O.B. his grandfather had been to his dad, and how his mom had had to fight tooth and nail to get Buck Carrigan to let her into his heart. And somehow, in his childhood, Joe had acquired the same bad habit of never letting anyone get close to him.
