“Let me say it again. Be charitable, Mia. Nobody is doing well today. Pretty much anything goes for crazy emotions, don’t you think?”
She immediately bowed her head and covered her eyes with one hand. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re allowed the emotions, too.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
She allowed the tiniest uptick of a smile. “Kind as always. It’s good to see you again, Cole. I’m sorry we haven’t had much time to catch up.”
“We will,” he replied. “Everything’s good in New York?”
“It is. I applied for a new job in the hospital—chief resident in pediatrics. I’ve been working on pediatric surgery rotations, and the last step in certification is to hold a position of leadership. If I’m lucky I’ll have my certification this time next year.”
“Pediatric as well as general surgery. Impressive goals, as usual. Will we have to call you Dr. Dr. Crockett?”
“Sure. I’m that arrogant.” She actually smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Now go. Get cleaned up. You look like you’ve been mud wrestling.”
He looked to where Harper’s swinging black braid was disappearing through the dining room attached to the kitchen. He didn’t know what had happened to him outside, but whatever it was, he wished he could re-create that chicken dive and have Harper’s head wind up cushioned against his arm for a little while longer. It wasn’t mud wrestling—but getting down and dirty with her again . . . He turned back to Mia.
“I’m happy for you,” he said. “Good luck with the job. When do you find out?”
“A couple of months yet. The beginning of November. It sounds a little puffed up, I know, but I’m fairly confident.”
“I’m sure you have every reason—as usual. See you in a few minutes.”
He was lucky. Rarely could a person spend six years dating someone, mutually and completely agree to separate, and remain genuine friends. He loved Mia, but they’d accepted long ago they’d never really been in love. It would take the family even longer than the two years that had already passed to believe they’d never get back together.
AS HE WENT through the huge dining room and the smaller sunken living room—smaller but still spacious enough to host a presidential reception—Cole smiled at Bjorn and Melanie Thorson and two of their kids, and a remaining handful of Bella’s relatives who were staying in the tiny nearby town of Wolf Paw Pass. Rosecroft could have been an ostentatious monstrosity, with its nine bedrooms and five bathrooms and all this space on the main floor, but despite the size it embraced its people like a much smaller cottage. Bella had always seen to the friendliness of her home. The furniture was upholstered in reds, maroons, and subtle oranges—and their conversational groupings on thick, pale blue area rugs made the space warm as a sunset.
He climbed the wide wooden stairway to the second floor and followed the airy hallway to his temporary room at the end of the house. Each of the girls still had her own bedroom, despite the fact that the triplets had moved out five years ago and none of the sisters had lived here since each had left for college.
The guest room was simply decorated in blue and white, with a view toward the mountains, an attached bathroom, and shelves filled with books of every genre. The walls were decorated with photographs of Paradise Ranch—amazing images he knew had come from Harper’s camera. The girl was artistic in more ways than painting.
Harper.
He stood by the bed and shucked off his soaking shirt, glad to have the cold, mucky fabric off his body. His mind moved from his moment in the mud with his old best friend, to that unplanned kiss they’d shared.
Absolutely unplanned.
In all truth, he couldn’t say he’d never imagined kissing her. Seeds of feelings for Harper that were more than friendship had been germinating longer than he’d ever admit out loud, but she’d never seemed interested—and Mia had. He couldn’t explain what had made those feelings sprout today after so many dormant years. Sure, he’d spent a lot of time talking to Harper the past Christmas, for the first time in years. And, yes, after that, he’d found himself unable to stop wondering about her: how her painting was progressing or how the community education classes she taught were going. But those thoughts weren’t attraction—he’d simply rekindled the friendship they’d always had.
Seeing her today, however, all the latent thoughts he’d once had about her had risen out of hiding and boiled over: how unique among the six sisters she was; how soft-spoken she could be until her adamant, highly opinionated side would burst through; how sweetly curvy and feminine, like her Grandma Sadie, she’d always been, compared to the other five who’d gotten their mother’s taller, slighter build. Twenty minutes ago, wet and bedraggled and stubbornly determined to catch the damn chickens, she’d suddenly struck him as fifties-movie-starlet sexy. And stoic. And vulnerable. It had always been rare to glimpse Harper Crockett being vulnerable. She knew how to bury that weakness. In a way, Sam Crockett had taught that to all his girls. But Cole had fallen into, what had Mia called it? Champion mode.
Ridiculous. Harper might need, even appreciate, a shoulder to lean on, but she was no damsel in distress. She didn’t need a champion. God knew he didn’t need the complication of an attraction to her.
His dress pants came off, and he dragged on dry jeans.
Starting anything with Harper would be a fool’s pursuit. He had a plan, and it would not work with a long-distance relationship or a woman, however much he admired her and found her sexier than hell, who’d made it clear years ago that she wanted no part of ranch life. He’d told her already—he was going to get the Double Diamond back. It wasn’t an idle wish.
He was it. The last of his line. Poor health had robbed his mother of having more children. His father had been robbed of passing the Double Di down to his only son by timing and economy. Now all Cole had was his own brand of stubborn determination. He’d worked his ass off the past three summers, making great money in North Dakota, riding the oil-rich economy as a mechanic. He’d learned to repair everything from transport vehicles to parts of oil wells. He’d come back to Paradise in the winter, when the demand for manpower in North Dakota waned, and it was hard for Sam and Leif to keep help on the ranch for the harsh winters. He didn’t know how much longer the work in North Dakota would last, since oil prices were falling. But it didn’t matter. He was close—within a year or two of having enough money to buy his property back from Paradise.
And once he did, he wanted to make sure it wouldn’t leave his family again. He wanted a wife someday, one who’d love the land as much as he did. And he wanted kids. A passel of them, like Sam had raised.
Girls. Boys. He didn’t care. The difference would be, they wouldn’t want to leave.
So maybe the last parts of his dream were still in the wishing phase. It didn’t make them any less real.
He still had no right to push anything with Harper—it wasn’t fair to either of them. No matter that the kiss had been more than fun. It had scared him with its honest intensity. And Harper had shied from it like a day-old foal. He didn’t blame her. At the very least, he could admit that a day like today was not the best time to mess with the shaky status quo. Everyone’s heart was broken—his included. He hadn’t lied. He’d believed Sam Crockett would live forever. He’d liked the man despite his iron will and unbending vision.
And his death was going to throw a wrench into Cole’s goals. Sam alone had known the details of a potential sale.
He pulled on his favorite old V-neck sweater, ignoring the fraying cuffs and the slightly stretched-out hem. He didn’t need to be formal anymore. He pulled on clean socks and his worn boots, then longingly eyed his everyday Stetson sitting on the small desk by the window. He wished he could wear it—it always made him feel complete. On the job in the Midwest, they’d called him Cowboy, and it had made him unique. Here, it was who he was.
He didn’t want to go to the meeting Sadie had called. But she’d
specifically asked for him and for Leif to attend. He couldn’t imagine what it was about, but he closed the bedroom door behind him and made his way down the stairs.
HARPER HESITATED AT the door to her father’s office, trying for the hundredth time to imagine what this meeting was about. She’d changed into jeans, a comfortable tank top, and a thigh-length, loose-knit cardigan that was her favorite “curl-up and get warm” sweater. Her well-loved Uggs would assure that Mia continued picking on her clothing, but she was beyond caring. Too many emotions took precedence over whether her sister thought she dressed like a crazy artist. Like what would Mia think if she knew Harper had just kissed her ex-lover? Did that matter?
With a deep breath, she entered the room and was swept away from every emotion but the conflicting ones over her father. She might have had her issues with him, but this room embodied everything Samuel Crockett had been—good and bad.
The office walls were navy blue, the masculine darkness offset by a lighter patterned area rug on the pine floor in blues and creams. The chairs and sofa were burgundy leather, the desk a massive cherry piece handed down from Sam’s father, Sebastian. Her father’s signature pipe tobacco, dark and spicy, had permeated the furniture and fabrics and hung in the air—as if his spirt stood watching in the background. An oil painting of him with his favorite horse, Smokey Jasper, hung in a row with portraits of Harper’s other Crockett relatives: Benjamin, her uncle, who’d died in Vietnam; her grandfather Sebastian, who’d been Sadie’s husband; and her great-grandfather Eli, who’d homesteaded the ranch in 1916. All the men looked alike—tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, intense-eyed.
Harper turned from the memories and faced the living people in the room. Cole wasn’t there yet, but her mother, tall and regally beautiful in a soft gray dress, smiled with stoic, buried grief. Beside her, leaning heavily on the black-and-red flowered cane, stood stooped-but-indomitable Grandma Sadie.
Brilliant, organized, no-nonsense Amelia held a deep discussion with Bjorn. The triplets, Raquel, Kelly, and Grace, her adorable, accomplished baby sisters named for their father’s favorite two movie stars, sat in front of their grandmother. And then there was Joely, standing like a sunbeam in the middle of the room—the only sister with their father’s light, honey-colored hair, and the one who could have worn puce- and mustard-colored pajamas to a state dinner and pulled them off. If Mia was brilliant and no-nonsense, Joely was her opposite—social and popular. The homecoming queen, the rodeo queen, and, six years ago, Miss Wyoming, she’d been the first and only sister to marry. That had been four years ago, and Joely was still, and probably always would be, beauty queen stunning.
The sisters represented the entire breadth of the country now. Harper liked her crazy life in Chicago with her painting and teaching. Mia had her surgical practice in New York and seemed to love it there. Joely lived in California with her husband, Tim, and the triplets were in Denver with their very successful organic coffee shop and restaurant called Triple Bean.
Each of them had found success in her own right. Just not at ranching—to their father’s now-permanent sorrow.
“You okay, little Harpo?”
She looked into Leif’s familiar old face and tears finally threatened. By “little” he meant, of course, to invoke the spirit of the Harper he’d watched grow up. With all the surreal emotions sitting on her heart, today she felt just shy of ancient.
She accepted his hug, feeling a touch of desperation in the old cowboy’s embrace. He’d been hired for this job by Sebastian practically upon getting of the boat from Norway almost fifty years earlier. Now he was a true American cowboy—right down to his handlebar mustache and bowlegs.
“I’m okay, Leif, but how about you?”
“It’s hard. Didn’t think I’d outlive two Crockett bosses. But we’ll go on.”
Her mother appeared quietly beside them and rested her hand on Leif’s arm. “Yes, we will. Hello, sweetheart,” she said, turning to Harper.
“Oh, Mama.” Harper kissed her cheek. “Is this meeting something you have to do now? It’s not too hard on you?”
She smiled, a wounded half-lift at the corner of her mouth. “Sadie is adamant that we tell you girls how your dad left things, and the triplets have to leave tomorrow. No, I don’t want to do this, but we have to. It’s all right.”
“It doesn’t sound like you have good news.”
Her mother cupped her cheek. “Not the best. Come sit down and you’ll see.”
A boulder dropped into the pit of Harper’s stomach.
“Ah, there’s our boy.” Her mother turned Harper to face the door.
Cole stood just inside the room. The sound around her seemed to fuzz in her ears, and all Harper could discern was her own thumping heart. The sensation lasted only a few beats before she shook it off; still, he was a sight for sad eyes. The dress shirt and loose tie were gone. In their place was a softly worn gray sweater that hugged his frame the way Harper would have like to. It showed off his strong, muscled chest and shoulders and his tapered waist and hips. Below that, his long, denim-clad legs led her to the toes of his cowboy boots, which looked as worn and as comfortable as her suede Uggs.
He reached her with an unhidden smile and followed her to an armchair, indicating without words she should sit. He perched beside her, and without a single touch he eased the anxiety churning inside.
Grandma Sadie rapped on the desk with the handle of her cane and the talking ceased immediately. All eyes turned to their matriarch like subjects to a queen.
“I know you’re all displeased with me for pulling you away from guests and food and chickens and whatnot.” Sadie’s voice, naturally forceful, had mellowed with age. Harper took in her wizened grandmother’s snow white hair and naturally pleasant features, and she caught a knowing little smile at the word chicken. “I’m sorry for that, but even though this is one of the hardest days of my life, of all our lives, the rest of the world doesn’t stop. And business must be discussed.”
“You don’t need to do this.” Her mother’s soft voice juxtaposed with Grandma’s slight rasp. “I can handle—”
“Isabella, you sit now and let the children comfort you. I don’t have much left to do on this earth, but I can still act the part of the testy old matriarch. Your time will come quite soon enough.”
“Don’t say that, Grandma,” Kelly said. “Today we need to think you’re staying with us forever.”
“Hush, child. I appreciate the sentiment, but that’s far from the point. I have called you all here today because you’re entitled to know the state of the ranch your father left to you, and the struggle your mother has in front of her. Let me say right up front that Bella has my highest respect. If my Sam was the backbone and heart of Paradise Ranch, she’s been the blood. And Leif and Bjorn have been the muscle and bone.”
Sadie’s pale eyes slid around the room, missing nothing, hiding nothing.
“The rest of you,” she continued, “have fallen far short over the past decade. And we are about to pay the piper.”
A punch to Harper’s heart was echoed by the collective gasp around the room. A quick glance proved that everyone felt the sting of the blunt criticism.
“Oh, Sadie, come now—” Her mother stood.
“No, Bella.” Grandma Sadie put up a hand. “This is not the time for pussyfooting. Paradise is in trouble, and the girls need to know it.”
“Trouble?” Harper blurted out the word. “What possible kind of trouble? I don’t understand.”
“That is true. You could not understand.”
She took in her sisters’ faces; each one looked like someone had slapped her puppy. Harper couldn’t deny the sense of guilt building inside, but there was no point in acting wounded now. They’d all made choices.
“Then it is good you called us here. Sounds like we need . . . enlightenment.”
Cole rested a hand on her shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up.
“Thank you,” Sadie said. “Enlightenment is
a good word. Something neither I nor your mother could ever get your father to embrace. He insisted the problems no longer concerned you girls. He was not going to use the threat of financial deterioration to guilt you into coming home. I, however, have no such compunction. I’m very old. Too old to mince words. Paradise Ranch is, for all intents and purposes, nearly out of money. And everybody in this room needs to think about what’s going to happen next.”
Another round of gasps and murmurs spilled through the office. Out of money? Harper’s jaw slackened. Only three faces besides Grandma Sadie’s registered no shock—her mother’s, Leif’s, and Bjorn’s. It wasn’t at all clear yet how long this had been brewing, but obviously the topic was not new to the family leaders.
“All right,” Harper said, since even super-practical Mia was still staring dumbly. “What exactly do we need to know?”
“To start with, you all need to understand that the cost of every single basic need on this ranch has skyrocketed in the past decade: fuel, feed, equipment repair, wages, transportation, veterinary care. Everything.”
“But hasn’t the price of beef gone up as well?” Cole asked. “The cattle industry is in a boom period—aren’t the rising costs covered?”
“Cattle ranchers across the country took a big hit several years ago when that wasn’t the case. Ranchers were forced to diversify to survive.”
A sudden spark of angry understanding ran through Harper’s body and she stood. “You mean they’re calling in the oil and gas companies.”
“That’s always been an important option. It’s long-term security if there’s oil on the land,” Amelia said.
“It’s no option.” Harper tried hard to tamp down the surge of annoyance that rose like one of the oil wells they obliquely discussed. “How could you forget what happened to Martin Buckner?”
The Bride Wore Denim Page 3
