That still hurt, but she was determined not to let her father go without fighting for a closer relationship.
Now that loving Gideon had shown her what a real relationship, built from true love, could look like.
Just being close to her fiancé like this made her frustration start to fall away. She leaned her head against his shoulder. His hands moved up even more, rubbing gentle circles into her shoulders and the back of her neck, loosening muscles gone tight from inactivity.
"You tell Mia yet?"
"No." As Gideon would say, that was the other burr under her saddle. Eloise had told Alessandra about their lost sister, and it had been a total shock. Eloise hadn't told Mia. She'd left it up to Alessandra when to break the news.
Alessandra was still coming to terms with it herself. Her mother had died when she was small, just five years old. Mia had been even smaller at three. She had no memories of their mother. If Alessandra had felt betrayed at hearing this news about their father, what would Mia feel? Father had been the only parent she'd known.
Plus, she was still trying to navigate the changing relationship with her younger sister. It wasn't until Alessandra's life had been threatened by an assassination attempt that she'd faced the reality of how broken their family had become. With Father caught up in his royal duties and now pushing many of those duties onto the crown princess, there was no real family structure.
And Alessandra wanted a real family. When she'd come to Gideon's ranch, lost and alone, she'd found the family she'd been looking for. And she wanted to rebuild what could be with her own family.
If Mia found out she'd been keeping this secret—for over two weeks now—she'd be hurt. It might put a wedge between the tentative friendship they'd been expanding since Alessandra had returned to Glorvaird after the assassination attempt.
Gideon's magic fingers relaxed her so much that her head fell back.
Which must've been what he wanted, because it gave him access to her face. His calloused hands moved to cup her jaw, and he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with a gentle intensity that had her tingling all the way down to her toes.
Her hands rested on his muscled chest, amazed at the power harnessed there, amazed that this virile, powerful man loved her back.
He pressed kisses against her temple and cheek, finally pressing his jaw to her ear.
Her racing heart still hadn't slowed.
"What about you?" she asked. "Did you get your books balanced?" She didn't know anything about the ranch's accounting, but Gideon carried a heavy load with managing the ranch, which his stepfather had left to the three Hales, Gideon, his brother Matt, and his sister Carrie. When Gideon had declared his love for Alessandra, he'd also given up some of the rigid control, leaving more of running the ranch in the foreman's hands. The ranch also employed four other hands to care for the large spread and keep it running smoothly.
It wasn't easy for Gideon to be away for long periods of time. But he'd done it because he loved her.
Now she felt the tension coiled in him. She realized he hadn't answered her question. "What?" she whispered.
"Something's going on," he said. "There's a discrepancy in the accounting. I haven't found what it is yet, but it wasn't there before we left for Glorvaird."
Her stomach pitched. "What does that mean? Someone's stealing from the Triple H?"
He shrugged slightly, his chest moving beneath her hands. "I don't know yet. It could be an honest mistake." She knew Gideon though, knew he'd seen some of the worst things human beings could do to each other during his missions. He had to be suspicious that it wasn't a mistake. "If one of the hands is responsible, I don't want them to know I've figured anything out yet. Can you keep this is a secret?"
"Of course." She stretched up slightly on her toes and pressed a kiss against his bearded cheek.
"If I'm tied up with this, I'll have to take some time away from the details of the engagement party."
She loved that he called it a party when it was really a full-fledged ball.
"That's all right. I've got Mia here to help, and the event coordinator has handled most of the details." The time they split between Glorvaird and Texas necessitated that they utilized one of the premiere party planners in Dallas. "Since we've already found the venue, it's more about coordinating with the florist and decorators. And finding my dress."
"And managing the security team," he reminded her. "I'll make time for that."
She couldn't help smiling. "And the security team." Since her near-assassination, Gideon had been overprotective. Not that she minded having him close, and protecting was in his nature.
But how would his protective nature react if he discovered someone was stealing from the Triple H?
Chapter Two
Ethan was elbow-deep scrubbing dog poop out of the kennels when he was paged to the front of the veterinarian's office.
In addition to the odd jobs he picked up, he worked three days a week as a kennel assistant. Mostly cleaning cages. Sometimes clipping a dog's or cat's nails or exercising the dogs who were boarding.
And occasionally, if there was a difficult animal, usually a large dog, the vet would ask for his help when the technicians—most of them vets in training—needed it.
Turned out, he was good with difficult animals.
Just not difficult brothers.
Without the education he'd given up his one shot at, this work was the closest he could get to his dream job.
He joined the vet, Suzanne, and the tech in the larger of the two exam rooms, surprised into hesitating in the doorway when he caught sight of the blonde head bent over a good-sized German Shepherd Dog he recognized. The animal must be edging close to eighty pounds, all muscle.
It wasn't the dog that had his stomach clenching. It was the woman holding its leash.
She looked up, her hair falling in a golden cascade over her shoulder. His initial guess had been correct. It was the princess. Mia.
He hadn't been able to stop thinking about her in the three days since he'd seen her at the Triple H. Today she wore slim slacks with dressy flat shoes and a fuzzy pale green sweater.
Movement caught his eye, and he remembered there were others in the room. Suzanne stood beside the exam table but hadn't approached the dog yet. The usual tech, Candy, was at the vet's elbow, also not approaching the dog.
"Good old Apollo," he said because he didn't know whether it was appropriate to say hello to a princess, or even if he should.
He smelled like dog poop and probably looked like it too. Not that it mattered when Mia was so far out of his realm.
Her expression eased into a smile. "Hi, Ethan."
She remembered his name.
And he didn't miss the vet's sideways look.
"This guy giving you ladies trouble?" He stepped right up to the dog, pushing away the hesitancy he'd felt moments ago. He had to provide a steady presence for the dog, so it would calm down and endure the exam. "I'm a little surprised one of the guys didn't bring him in."
"Trey is outside," Mia explained. "I caught a ride to town with him and Apollo, but he had to take an important phone call." Mia surrendered the leash to Ethan, and their fingers brushed. He worked at schooling his face into a neutral expression, not wanting to show the zing that'd traveled up his arm and straight to his gut.
Candy ducked out of the room, apparently content to let Ethan handle the dog. He'd seen Apollo for the last two annual exams. The big guy did not appreciate the rectal thermometer or the needles that delivered his shots.
Mia stepped back, and Ethan ran his hands down the dog's back and shoulders. Apollo's ears relaxed a little, and Ethan nodded to the vet, who approached with a confident gait.
"Ethan is our resident dog whisperer," Suzanne said, and he felt Mia's curious gaze on him. He kept his focus on the dog.
"He can calm down any unruly animal," the vet continued. "Even this guy."
He was aware of Mia slightly behind him and at his elbow but kept
his face angled toward the dog. Maybe she wouldn't see him blushing this time.
"Apollo isn't so bad," he said, with a scratch of the dog's chest. He kept his hand there while the vet manipulated the dog's back legs and feet, checking his joints and muscle movement.
"Is this another of your odd jobs?" Mia asked curiously.
Suzanne answered before he could. "Ethan started volunteering here when he was ten. We had high hopes that he'd join the practice."
The vet moved to Apollo's head, and Ethan moved back a bit, allowing her the room she needed to check the dog's teeth, eyes, and ears.
Suzanne couldn't know how much of a blow her words were, casual as they were spoken. He'd wanted it too, so very badly.
"You know there's still scholarship money earmarked with your name," Suzanne said.
Okay, maybe she did know.
She brought it up every few months, as if he could ever forget it. What did she hope to accomplish now, bringing it up in front of the princess?
He'd tried to keep up with his education that first year after Carol passed. Enrolled in six hours of online classes. It had been impossible to keep up while caring for a ten- and eleven-year-old and running the dairy.
He smiled stiffly at Suzanne, who went on with the exam as if she'd been talking about the weather, not his life. She engaged the princess in conversation about her impressions of Texas.
At four years old, Apollo was in the prime of his life, and it didn't take much longer to give him his vaccinations.
Ethan's heart rate came down after the princess had left the room. The vet was paged for an urgent phone call, and he found himself alone in the exam room. He took out the industrial-strength cleaner beneath the cabinets and wiped down the floor where Apollo had stood for his examination, then disposed of the needles properly.
He was on his way back to the kennels when the front desk paged him to take a phone call. He ducked into the small employee lunch room, heart pounding. In his experience, surprise phone calls were usually bad news.
He was right.
The high school office asked him to come down. He had just enough time before the afternoon milking.
He met his stepbrothers in the hallway just outside the principal's office. They sat on hard plastic chairs, both wearing sullen expressions.
"It wasn't our fault," Sam muttered.
It never was.
No matter what he said or did, the boys seemed to have a problem with authority. Unlike his dad with him, Carol hadn't instilled any respect in them at all.
Maybe it was because she hadn't respected Ethan, no matter what he'd done for the family, what he'd sacrificed.
Things had come to a head last winter, when his brothers had been picked up by the sheriff's office for defacing one of the buildings on Main Street with spray paint. And the half-empty twelve-pack of beer cans they'd been caught with hadn't won them any brownie points. The business owner had pressed charges, and Robbie and Sam had had to go in front of the county judge. They'd been sentenced to forty hours of community service each.
Ethan had hoped the event had scared them straight, and it had, for a few months.
But then, the boys' behavior had become increasingly worse. He'd had two calls from their teachers in the past month.
The principal, a woman in her mid-fifties with slate-gray hair, stuck her head out the office door. "Coach wants you boys at football practice. I'd like to see you again in the morning, before your first class."
Robbie rolled his eyes.
Ethan nudged his foot, and both boys heaved aggravated sighs.
"Fine," Robbie muttered.
They scooted down the hall toward the locker rooms, leaving Ethan to enter the principal's office alone.
He'd never visited when he'd been in high school.
She steepled her fingers on the edge of her desk after they'd both sat down. "There's been another incident."
He took the chair across from her, praying he wasn't getting anything nasty on the upholstery. "I'm sorry."
It was his standard answer. They both knew it. They both knew he was sorry. He just didn't know how to make his stepbrothers feel regret.
Somehow, Carol had made them believe they could get away with whatever they wanted. No matter how many times he grounded them or took away their video games, they couldn't seem to understand that their actions had consequences.
In two more years, Robbie had a chance to get out of this town. To go to college and be something.
"Both boys were in Sam's classroom before the bell rang and were cutting up with some friends. The teacher overheard some inappropriate things and asked the boys to quit the conversation. But Robbie and Sam shouted at the teacher. They cursed at him and were threatening bodily harm before another teacher and myself diffused the situation. They've both received detentions after football practice for a week."
Ethan nodded, stunned. How could his stepbrothers do something like this?
"There's another issue that we need to discuss. Both your stepbrothers are failing their French classes. If they can't get their grades up by mid-term, they won't be eligible to finish the football season."
Now Ethan felt as if he'd been sucker-punched. "How bad is it? Is there make up work they can do?"
"I've talked to the French teacher, and unless they put some real work into it, they're going to be so far behind that they'll never catch up. He's offered two make-up tests. Verbal tests."
She reached a piece of paper over the desk, and he took it with a sense of doom. He knew the boys had to have two foreign-language credits to get into college. Sam was enrolled in the basic-level French, while Robbie was taking his second year. And that with their mediocre grades, football scholarships were the only way they were going to be able to afford tuition.
He stared at the paper in his hand. He'd barely passed his own high school foreign language classes because he'd been working so many hours outside of school. And that had been years ago. There was no way could he tutor them himself. And with their budget so tight, how could he afford to pay someone?
The principal sighed. She stood and came around the desk, leaning her hip against its edge.
"Ethan." She sighed, and he braced himself.
"Have you thought about just... letting the boys go?"
That was totally unexpected.
Letting them go?
"Everyone in town admired what you did when your stepmother died. God knows you didn't have to take on the care of two minors when you were that young."
At the time, he hadn't felt as if he'd had a choice. The boys had needed him, and he'd had those memories of his father's death burned into his mind.
"You've nearly killed yourself since you were sixteen to keep that farm going, and none of your family appreciated you. Robbie and Sam are old enough now to understand consequences. I don't think anybody would blame you if you let them go into the system."
He couldn't find words. His gut reaction was denial. How could he turn his back on his stepbrothers? When they'd lost so much, just like he had. He was the only family they had left.
He shoved to his feet, the turmoil in his gut causing enough agitation that he couldn't remain seated. "Thanks for your concern. I'll talk to them about—" He waved the paper still clutched in his hand.
"Ethan."
He was enough of a rule-follower that he stopped in the doorway.
"I didn't mean to cause offense." Her voice and expression conveyed apology, but he wasn't offended. Just shocked.
"You've given so much...first to your stepmother, and now to the boys. But what about yourself? When do you get to live?"
Heat burned his face. He didn't have an answer. If he didn't work the dairy, they didn't eat. Just making their bills left him no time for anything else—much less figuring out a plan.
He excused himself, making his way out of the quiet school while the principal's words clattered in his mind.
The visitors' lot was adjacent to the football fie
ld, and he stopped near the chain-link fence that separated the field from the sidewalk. He rested his palm on the cool metal bar at the top of the fence.
Let them go? All the years he'd cared for his brothers, he'd never considered sending them into the system. Foster care.
It felt horrible to think it, but the idea was appealing. They'd never appreciated all he'd done for them, no more than their mother had. He could relinquish his ornery stepbrothers to the state and get on with his life.
But they were family—sort of. Hadn't he promised his father he'd show them how to be real men? He hadn't done that yet. And even though they were more trouble than a stall full of cow dung, they were his brothers.
Stepbrothers who, at the rate they were going, wouldn't make it into college, scholarship or not. He'd staked everything, his entire future, on the fact that the boys would leave for college after graduation.
Today's news was especially painful after the vet's reminder of what he'd given up.
One of the coaches shouted, and the offensive line, including Robbie and Sam, rushed forward, smashing their bodies against a series of weighted sleds with dummies atop them. Ethan's brothers rammed into those dummies like they rammed through life, destroying everything in their path without as much as a glance to see the damage they left in their wake.
What was he supposed to do if they lost their chance to go to college? He wouldn't continue to support them past their eighteenth birthdays. College was their chance to make something of themselves. A chance he hadn't had.
How could he convince them not to squander it?
From further down the field, the quarterback threw a long, spiral pass to one of the receivers under the watchful eyes of the assistant coach.
Ethan would have given anything to have played. He'd started on peewee teams at five. He and his dad had loved playing catch. Making plans for JV and varsity. If his dad had lived, Ethan knew he would've been at every game. They'd even talked a little about what colleges Ethan might go to on a football scholarship, when it was time.
Cowboy Charming Page 2
