The Bride Wore Denim

by Lizbeth Selvig

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes while the rain splashed her face again, definitely feeling closer to ten than her sometimes ancient-seeming thirty.

  They lay a moment longer, letting their laughter ebb, but then, with her heart pounding, Harper came to her senses and scrambled to her feet. It had to be the raw, see-saw emotions of the day causing this unwarranted reaction to him. Her friendship with Cole went back too far for her to allow some rogue attraction to take root. He and Amelia might be ex-lovers, but there was a code between sisters you didn’t break.

  She held out her hand this time, and he took it. Once he was standing, she dropped the contact.

  “I declare this a tie,” she said. “I propose we work together to get the chicken and neither of us has to eat lefse.”

  “We call it a tie. I’ll help you catch the chicken. We both eat lefse,” he said, making a counteroffer.

  “Oh, fine.”

  Once they weren’t sabotaging each other, they cornered Roxie and had her in custody within two minutes. Since Harper was the dirtiest—and she was extremely dirty—she carried the ticked-off chicken to the coop. Once she’d double-checked the gate, she sagged against it, wet to the skin and slightly chilled from the breeze, despite it being August.

  “Thank you,” she said, as her adrenaline drained away and took her energy with it. “I’m sorry you got caught up in the rodeo.”

  “Don’t be. The company inside was . . . frankly, not this much fun.”

  “I never asked why you came out here in the first place.”

  He gave a quick frown, an attractive wrinkle forming between his brows. He’d changed over the past decade. All signs of the cute-faced boy and young man he’d been had disappeared beneath the angles and planes of a stunning adult-male face.

  “Oh yeah, I guess I did have an official mission,” he said. “Joely got back from the barn fifteen minutes ago, and we wondered where you ended up. Your grandmother has called an all-hands meeting.”

  “Grandma Sadie?” She shouldn’t have been surprised. Sadie Crockett had to be the only nonagenarian who could still command her family like a naval admiral. “What’s our matriarch got under her bonnet now? Another private prayer meeting? A final eulogy? Can’t be about the will; that isn’t a secret.”

  “I don’t know,” Cole said. “The only thing she told me was that attendance isn’t optional.”

  “Crazy old lady,” Harper said fondly, feeling the mood start to slide.

  Grandma Sadie wasn’t even a little crazy. She was still sharp as a pinprick, and if she wanted a meeting, she had all the moral authority in the world. At ninety-four she had buried a son.

  As Harper and her sisters had buried a father.

  As their mother had buried a husband.

  And not one of them understood how Samuel Crockett could be dead. In the space of a finger snap, the hurricane that had been his big, intense life had gone aground and dissipated long before any expert had predicted or expected.

  She tried to cling to the silliness of the chicken chase, but it was fully gone. A tear escaped, and she swiped it away before it could traverse her cheek. They’d all cried plenty in the past days. Wasn’t that enough of a tribute to the man who’d inspired awe, respect, sometimes even adulation, but never warm, schmaltzy emotion?

  Cole’s arm came around her, and he pulled her close. She felt his kiss on the top of her head.

  “Look.” He pointed across the yard, past the working heart of Paradise Ranch with its barns, sheds, and cattle pens, to the view of Grand Teton National Park sixty-five miles away. In the deep purple sky over the mountains, one fat sunbeam had beaten back the rain clouds to create a brilliant rainbow. “I think that came out for you,” he said. “You’ve always known how to pull hope out of a rain cloud.”

  How did he know to say something that would soothe her so perfectly?

  “If only my father had shown me a fraction of that kind of insight. After all these years—that was really nice of you to say.”

  “You weren’t big on letting us see your work when we were younger, but I still caught wisps of your talent. We all did. I know you still have it.”

  She wanted to tell him then. She’d promised herself not to say anything to anyone about her news until after the funeral. This was not about her and her dreams—this was about her father and the end of his. She stared at the sky and, in her mind, mixed the oil colors that would approximate its vivid beauty on canvas.

  Her fingers itched for her brushes. Her head and heart longed for a secluded room and an easel. But she hadn’t brought any supplies with her from Chicago. She’d contented herself with a sketchbook and case of pencils. This trip was not about escape, and a good daughter wouldn’t keep wishing for it. Then again, when had she ever been the good daughter?

  The rainbow intensified. Cole held her more tightly. The rain slowed further, and after a few more moments, she realized it had stopped altogether.

  “I guess we should go in. I volunteered to find Joely for purely selfish reasons—I wanted to get away.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I should be in with the rest of the family. It seems better if I don’t spend too much time with Mia, and I was one step from having to organize food with her. Not a good plan.”

  “Your Mia? Dr. Amelia Crockett, the very one who keeps all order and makes all peace? Why would you need to keep your distance from your sister?”

  “Amelia moved out a dozen years ago and has never looked back. We haven’t lived together in all that time. But to her, I’m still the hippie screw-up, the sister who couldn’t be organized if her life depended on it. She’s a lot like Dad. I get tired of her telling me what to do as if I don’t understand the world.” She laughed humorlessly. “She was always the border collie, and I was the sheep she couldn’t get into the pen.”

  “I miss the border collies,” he said. “Loved the ones we had. But Mia is no border collie, Harpo. She doesn’t care where the sheep go—she’s only worried about her own destination. She’s more like a bloodhound.”

  “I disagree. Mia could organize squirrels to line dance if she wanted to. Sorry. I’m speaking ill of your ex.”

  Harper hoped no old bitterness bled through the words. Childhood pettiness had no place in their lives anymore, especially at a time like this.

  “I love Mia,” he said, “and I’m sorry things are strained between you. But ‘ex’ is the operative word here, so I’m not necessarily on her side. I think this is a hard time, and you sisters haven’t been around each other enough to smooth things over. Give it time.”

  “Okay, enough of the sensitive cowboy.”

  That was another thing she was remembering about Cole. For a ranch-loving cowboy, he’d always been accused of having a streak of insight and chivalry in him that most macho guys lacked. The soul of a cowboy poet. It was why he’d once juxtaposed so well with the straight-shooting, ultra-efficient Amelia.

  “Hey, I’m no cowboy anymore. At least not most of the time.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, glad to leave talk and thoughts of Mia behind. “You have some sort of mechanic’s job now.”

  “I work for a company that contracts out big-machinery mechanics to anyone who needs them. It’s not a bad fit for me during the summer. I always liked working on the equipment around here and home. I’m staying on here through the winter now, though. I left the other job early when I heard about your dad. Leif and Bjorn will need all the help they can get, and I was coming back in three weeks at the beginning of September anyhow.”

  Her heart squeezed at the mention of Leif and Bjorn Thorson. Leif had been her father’s right-hand man for forty years. His son, Bjorn, was now the best foreman any ranch owner could ask for. They were devastated by the loss of their tough, savvy boss. Harper felt worse for them than she did for herself.

  “You’re a good guy, Cole. It can’t be easy for you to come back since the Double Diamond was sold.”

  He shook his head. “I was
really angry at first. But not at your father like you might think. He did my dad a favor by buying him out so we didn’t have to sell to developers. But I was furious at my father for giving up. For selling off our legacy.”

  “And still, you came back to work for the enemy.”

  “I got over it. I understand what happened to the Double Diamond, and my father made the only choice he could. But I won’t lie. I’m not letting it out of my sight, and I’ll stick around until I can get it back. I’m damn close, Harpo. I’d almost convinced Sam he didn’t really want to keep that little piece of property.”

  “It is a gorgeous hunk of land.”

  “The Double Di was in my family as long as Paradise has been in yours. I’d like to be the one to restore the legacy.”

  “Ironic.”

  “What is?”

  “Out of four tries and six children, my dad didn’t get a son—or even a daughter—who wants this place as much as your father’s one child wants his. You lost yours to our passel of ingrates.”

  “I wasn’t going to say it.”

  “Hey.” She frowned. “You’re not supposed to agree with me.”

  “Hey.” He echoed her. “This is an astounding legacy you girls walked away from.”

  She felt the slight, sudden tension. “C’mon, Cole. You know how he was. It was impossible to fall in love with a place that was run like a cross between boarding school and a tough-love boot camp for delinquents.”

  “I do admit, your father was the nicest asshole I’ve ever known.”

  The accurate oxymoron drew rueful laughter from Harper, and the tension dissipated. “Yeah. And nobody said that out loud at the service did they?”

  “Funerals aren’t for honesty. You know that. And Sam was a good man. He wasn’t cruel.”

  “Just obsessed,” she said.

  “Exacting. Demanding.” He nodded.

  “Arrogant.” Harper sighed. “He chose Amelia to take over, but in truth I think he had his best chance at an heir with Raquel. He lost her when the other two triplets left. She wasn’t about to stay here alone. Besides, my father’s hired workers always did better dealing with his rigidness than we did.”

  “If you did your job around him, showed a little initiative, based on his standards, of course, he left you alone,” Cole said. “On the other hand, look what he built because of those standards. This place is spectacular. The man was brilliant.”

  “He was that.”

  She looked up, surprised to see they’d left the chicken coop and nearly reached the long, triple-level back deck of the big log ranch house, surrounded by its trellises of stunning blue and lavender morning glories—her mother’s favorite flowers. The chickens might have the Hilton because of her father, but the family had this warm, wonderful place, Rosecroft, because of their mother. Bella Crockett had designed and decorated the big house, planning its charm from the ground up, including the name because she’d fallen in love with the tradition of naming homes during a trip to Scotland in her youth. It was the one place on Paradise Ranch Harper always missed.

  To her surprise, Cole picked up her hand and squeezed it between both of his. He’d held it plenty of times in their lives—after she’d been teased on the school bus, the first time she’d been bucked off a horse—but the strong, long-fingered, broad-nailed hand engulfing hers caused as much trembling as it did comfort. “The bottom line is Sam Crockett left us too soon.”

  “Not that long ago, sixty-eight would have been old,” she murmured.

  “He might have been an ass once in a while, but your father was not old.”

  She nodded and sighed. “I figured he’d live forever.”

  They both hesitated, as if heading up to the back door was something neither of them wanted.

  “I hear you’re not staying long,” he said. “That’s too bad. Are you sure you don’t want to hang around another week or so? Take some rides around the old place, for the heck of it?”

  She debated only a moment before lifting her eyes to his, a slow burn of excitement taking the place of heavy sadness. “Can I swear you to secrecy?”

  “Ah, intrigue. Sure.” He crossed his heart, eyes sparkling.

  “Tristan, you remember me talking about him? He booked me a gallery showing.”

  The genuine pleasure in Cole’s eyes thrilled her. “Seriously?”

  She nodded, and before she could elaborate he crushed her into a bear hug and twirled her in place hard enough to swirl her wet skirt in a dripping circle.

  “Tristan. He was that hippie-assed boyfriend of yours, right? The one who promised to make you famous?”

  Tristan Carmichael was her de facto manager—a fellow artist with far more connections than Harper would ever have. He’d been a . . . What? A lover for a while. But a boyfriend? She laughed. “He’s definitely not my boyfriend.”

  “Not what I heard.”

  She frowned at his teasing and finger-flicked him on the shoulder. He laughed and set her down. “The point is, Tristan found a small, classy private gallery and gave them three of my paintings. The owner loved them, sold one the day he put it on display, and he agreed to host a full show. It’s scheduled to open a week from tomorrow.” Her words came in a rush now. “The gallery is called Crucible—it’s on the lakefront in Chicago—and I have a million things to do to get ready . . . ”

  He bent. To the shock of her entire body, he slipped a kiss onto her mouth, and she froze. Wrong. This was very wrong. But the kiss fit as if it had been custom made for her lips. Sparklers zipped to life deep inside her belly, and she closed her eyes when she should have pulled away. Whatever scent or aftershave it was that made him smell like a spicy movie star turned her knees to rubber, and she couldn’t stop drinking it in.

  As kisses went, it was simple. No tongue, no sound. He opened and closed his mouth so lightly on her bottom lip she should barely have felt the butterfly touch, yet shivers rolled down her neck and across her shoulders like explosions.

  This was insane.

  She gasped and pulled away, avoiding his eyes. “Cole, no. We can’t . . . ”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Mia is—”

  “No longer anything except a friend.” He turned her face gently with one finger, so she had to meet his smiling eyes. “But still, I know that was too quick. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Especially if there’s anyone else—I didn’t even ask. I honestly just got excited for you.”

  Mia was more than his friend. She was and always would be his ex-girlfriend, lover, almost fiancée. No matter how strained her relationship with her sister might be, Harper would never do the stealing thing. The comparison thing.

  “There’s no one else.”

  She stared, dumbstruck at herself. That wasn’t what she’d intended to say.

  “Well, then. That’s good.” He let her go. “And for the record? It was a good kiss.”

  It definitely had been that.

  “And congratulations on the art showing. I know this is your dream.”

  “Uh . . . ” She scrambled to regain her composure. “It is. But don’t tell anyone.”

  “Why would you keep it a secret?”

  “I didn’t feel right celebrating it before Dad’s funeral. Tomorrow is soon enough.”

  “Okay. But then you’re shouting it from the rooftop.”

  Her composure wouldn’t quite cooperate by fully returning, but Cole looked down at their clothing and made a face that at least dispelled her awkwardness.

  “We’d better go in. I’ve pushed the limits of your grandmother’s timeline. I was supposed to have you back ten minutes ago. She didn’t seem much inclined to be patient.”

  “Grandma gets what she wants, that’s for sure. But I’m sure it’s something simple like what to do with all the flowers. It has to be.”

  She looked to him for confirmation, but a surprising shadow of concern crossed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “In all honesty I got out of the house to pr
ocrastinate, too. I had the weird feeling this meeting might be something we all wish it weren’t.”

  Chapter Two

  THEY HADN’T BEEN in the house ten seconds before they were accosted by Amelia, a wineglass and a dishtowel clutched in her hands, her long brown hair spilling from a bun-like thing on the top of her head. Cole knew the harried look—the one she wore whenever she took on too many tasks at once.

  “Where in the world were you two?” Mia scolded like the chickens he and Harper had just corralled.

  “Relax, it’s okay,” he said. “Got into some chicken wrangling. Harpo saved the day and rescued a bunch of escapees.”

  “Oh, for the love . . . ” Mia shook her head. “Mother let some of the little kids go see the chickens. They probably left the gate unlatched. I told her—”

  “Mia, don’t worry,” Harper said softly. “They’re all back where they belong. No need to say anything about it. I’ll go change as quickly as I can.”

  “Fine. Yes, go, go, hurry.” Mia swapped her annoyance for bustling marching orders. “Grandma and Mother are already waiting in the study.”

  “Do you have anything to change into?” Harper looked at him. “I can probably find you something of . . . Dad’s.” Her voice caught.

  Warmth at her emotional offer spread through his chest. “It’s okay. I’m staying in the guest room for now. My things are there. Thanks, Harpo.”

  She nodded; gave a quick, sad smile to her sister; and headed out of the kitchen. Mia sighed and shook her head.

  “You picked a brilliant time to jump into champion mode, Cole. Honestly, she was really chasing chickens?” She turned with a scowl, set the wineglass on the counter, and hung the towel neatly on a holder. “You didn’t have to fall into her crazy, you know.”

  “In fact she told me to go in and not get wet, but I ignored her. Look, Harper isn’t crazy, she’s fine. She used this as a little bit of therapy, I think. Be nice now.”

  “Sure, she’s fine. Harper is always fine.” For the first time, bitterness crept into Mia’s voice—an echo of what he’d heard earlier in Harper’s. “It doesn’t surprise me a bit that she disappeared to drench herself in the rain with chickens. It’s typical, actually. She’ll say it inspired her. She’ll probably wander off now and paint them, complete with her wackadoodle colors to ‘express the emotion.’ ” The prickles in her voice made him turn to her with gentle chastisement.