Muscle

by Lexi Whitlow

  Camden takes an unexpected left, swinging into a drive fenced on both sides with tall, white painted rails, lined with mature evergreens just inside the fence. As the headlights fall on the house, I’m taken by its size and its simple design. There’s little ornamentation to speak of. It’s a practical building, and one obviously constructed in staged additions, decade after decade, growing as the requirements of the family within its walls expanded. It’s painted pale yellow, its clapboard siding neat with black trim around the doors and windows. The structure rests on high stone foundations, buttressed with wide, heavyset chimneys of the same material.

  “Emma’s in bed by now,” Camden says, switching the ignition off. His voice is low and quiet in the car. “My mom’s staying over tonight to watch her, so you’ll get to meet her. It’s pretty late and I know you must be bushed.”

  That’s an understatement.

  Stepping out into the weather, I note there’s not another light visible around us for as far as I can see. The quiet of the landscape is almost oppressive. I can hear the snow as it falls, individual flakes landing, setting down, piling upon themselves in the still, dry air. The air here is thin. Taking it into my lungs, it cuts deep, slicing again with each exhaled, cloudy breath.

  I’m too exhausted to be overwhelmed, and for that fact, I’m grateful, as under normal conditions, this entire experience would be a lot to process without freaking out.

  I’m a long way from home.

  Chapter 2

  Camden

  She’s not at all what I expected.

  This girl—Grace—looks like someone out of a movie or television show. She’s sure not like any of the girls here. She’s maybe five-two or three, with curves in all the right places and none of the wrong ones. She’s got a perfect, heart-shaped ass that’ll stop traffic if she ever makes it to town. And she’s got something else that most of the women around here don’t have; it’s either confidence or arrogance, and I’m not sure which.

  She’s not a chatty, all about me, sort of nervous little thing like so many girls are. She’s comfortable in her skin, like a champion thoroughbred. She didn’t start batting her eyelashes at me right out of the gate. She’s got manners, and she seems to understand that this deal is strictly business.

  Now, if I can only remember that too. At the moment, I’m worried that her cute, short blond hair and those flashing hazel eyes—not to mention her ass—are gonna cause me to forget why she’s here.

  She’s here for Emma. She’s here because I need help. She’s here for a job—and that’s it.

  I don’t need any more female drama. I’ve had my fill of that. Emma’s the only female drama I can handle in my life; she’s all I want.

  Walking Grace in to the house, I try hard to remind myself of all of this, but following her in my eyes wander down to that fine ass, distracted by the curved outline of her thighs wrapped in tight, black jeans. I keep my eyes on her as she walks up the steps to the ranch house.

  Good goddamn.

  I nearly forget the open the door for her, but I hop ahead of her at the last moment, and my mother greets us.

  “You’re Grace!” my mom says, greeting us in the foyer with a big, warm smile. She takes both Grace’s hands in hers. “I’m Beck, Cam’s mother. I’m so pleased to meet you.”

  My mother is a lovely person. She’s also Mission Mountains toughest, born and raised at the foot of these peaks, with ice-cold snow cap run-off coursing through her veins and granite-edged wisdom sharpening her discernment. She doesn’t suffer fools well, and she can spot a liar from twenty paces. The first four times I hired a nanny, I did it on my own. This time, I called in the cavalry. Mom gets to decide whether Grace gets the job or not. If mom doesn’t like her, she’s on the next flight back to North Carolina.

  “Happy to meet you too,” Grace says, returning the warm smile. “I’m sorry we’re in so late. I hope we haven’t kept you up.”

  Mom shakes her head, taking Grace’s coat, hanging it on a spare hook near her own and Emma’s. “Not at all,” she says. “Let’s get you something to eat and drink, then we’ll let you get to bed.”

  Grace nods. “That would be great,” she says. She asks if she can freshen up first.

  “C’mon,” I say, “I’ll show you your room.”

  I lead her upstairs to the last room on the end at the back of the house, right beside Emma’s bedroom.

  “It’s sparse,” I say, showing her in. “But it should have everything you need. Mom laid out towels in the bathroom, and there’s an extra blanket in the bottom drawer if you get cold later on.”

  I watch her take the room in, a flash of amusement creasing her eyes. I wonder what she sees. Is it so different than where she lives? It must be.

  “It’s perfect,” Grace says, taking her backpack from me.

  “Come on down whenever you’re ready,” I tell her. “We won’t keep you up much longer, I promise.”

  Mom greets me at the bottom of the stairs with arched eyebrows and an optimistic smile turning her lip. “She’s precious.” She slips her fingers around my arm above my elbow, drawing me with her into the kitchen.

  “She’s young,” I reply. “Maybe too young.”

  “Nonsense,” she quips, shutting me down. “Give her a chance, Cam. See how she does with Emma.”

  I walk to the cabinet, retrieving a glass and the bottle of my favorite whiskey, pouring a neat, warm drink.

  “She doesn’t like the weather either, and this ain’t even cold yet. Wait ‘til the snow is four feet deep and we can’t get out without a sled. She’s a city girl. She’s not gonna know what to do with this place.”

  “Pour me one of those,” Mom instructs, nodding to my glass. “And quit looking for obstacles. If you’d lighten up a bit, you might realize that a little new blood is just what this old shamble needs. You’re too much like your father, Cam. You’re obstinately resistant to change.”

  I pour mom a drink. Handing it to her, I consider her wisdom. My father was the best man I ever knew, but he was set in his ways to a faulty degree. When I took over Kicking Horse after he died, I couldn’t believe the mess the books were in. I couldn’t believe he was still running things like it was the 19th century. He was barely making ends meet and behind on property taxes. It took me almost two years to turn things around, catch up on taxes, and break even. It took another two years to turn the first profit the ranch had made in the last twenty.

  My dad’s unwillingness to change, to expand his horizons and consider new approaches, is why I left at seventeen and went to work across the valley on Jim Burke’s ranch. I wanted to learn and experiment, to see what was possible. Mr. Burke’s operation was world-class. I learned a lot from him, and everything I learned, I’ve applied here at Kicking Horse, plus adapting a few new approaches along the way. My father taught me horses, but Jim taught me how to run a business. To ranch successfully, you need to do both things well.

  My father died when I was twenty-six. I inherited this place with my mother. She stayed on a year, but when I got married, she said that Beverly was the lady of the house and she’d just be in the way. She and Bev never got on very well, so I went along with it.

  It was a rocky marriage right from the start. A year in, I was pretty sure that marrying Beverly Beaufort was the worst mistake I ever made, but then she got pregnant and I knew I had to make it work, no matter what. I tried hard to be a good husband, but Bev was never satisfied with anything about me, or our life out here in the valley. She wanted to move to Missoula. She wanted me to get a real job, sell the land, leave the horses.

  My fifth great-grandfather, Camden Spencer Davis, came to this precise spot in 1906 with his nineteen-year-old wife in tow, along with his infant son, six well-bread work horses, two cows, and a dozen goats. That first summer he dug blocks from the valley floor and built a sod hut as shelter for his wife and his animals. They all lived together inside it, passing their first bitter, Montana winter. A year later, his brother Dyl
an Rhys Davis joined him and together they built the main structure of the house I now live in.

  Spencer Davis’ brother died in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. My fifth great-grandfather survived, along with a son and two daughters. His wife perished in the spring of 1919 in childbirth, along with the baby. They’re all buried a thousand yards from here in the family plot, along with generations of their descendants.

  With all that history? There’s no way in hell I would ever sell this land or give up this life. Too many people before me worked too hard to get here, stake their claim, and make something of it. I don’t feel like I own it. I’m just holding it for the next Davis in line who, like me, will serve as caretaker. I’m hoping that’ll be Emma. I’m trying to teach her to love this place as much as I do. I know I’ll never find anyone else who does.

  A few moments pass and Grace appears, joining us in the kitchen. She’s washed up, changed into fresh clothes, but still looks drained from a long day of traveling.

  Mom made her a roast beef sandwich, which she regards with suspicion when it’s presented. Like she’s never seen fresh-made bread or meat that looks quite like that. She probably hasn’t.

  My mother—ever the wizard—reads her thoughts with deft precision. She smiles wryly.

  “The beef is Kicking Horse Ranch, grain fed, hormone and steroid free. We’re not certified organic, but we could be. It’s fine, unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case I have some hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. If you’re vegan, you’ve come to the wrong state.”

  I can’t help but laugh, although I try my best to stifle it.

  Grace grins sheepishly at my mother. “Thank you. It looks wonderful. I’m not a vegetarian—definitely not a vegan.”

  Thank. God.

  Mom makes idle chit chat while Grace works on her sandwich. I pay little attention to the conversation, only studying the turn of Grace’s jawline, and the way her muscles flex hard as she chews. Her hands are delicate. They’re not scarred or calloused like mine. She’s probably never done a lick of real work. That’s good though. They’ll be soft to the touch—for Emma.

  What is she? Twenty-four or so? Maybe twenty-five. Does she have a boyfriend? Of course, she does. Smart girls who look like her always have boyfriends.

  “No,” I hear Grace say, responding to one of my mother’s more invasive questions. “My father died about seven years ago. My mom is remarried, again. She lives in Atlanta. I don’t see her much. We aren’t that close. She kind of went off the rails after my brother passed. I left for college, and that was pretty much that.”

  “So, other than your mom, you don’t have any family? At all?” my mother asks. I hear disbelief in her tone.

  “Nope, not really.”

  We have a big family. Mom has five siblings. My father had four. Between the aunts and uncles, and all their kids and grandkids, this place becomes Ground Zero for holiday functions and family reunions. Hosting those things comes with the territory I inherited. I resigned myself to it years ago. In truth, I enjoy it. It was something Bev never managed to wrap her head around. She hated it when the family descended on Kicking Horse for a reunion or Thanksgiving meal.

  I still manage to keep that tradition going strong even though I’m single now. Luckily, I have Mom and lots of aunts to help plan and pull it all together. I just provide the space, and hire the help and the entertainment.

  “So, you’ll be going to your mother’s for Thanksgiving and Christmas?” Mom asks Grace.

  Grace’s expression shifts to amused denial. “No,” she states flatly. “I think Mother said she and Roger—that’s her husband—were taking a Carnival Cruise. No.” She smiles at my mom, then lifts her bright eyes to me. “I’m hoping on spending Thanksgiving here with you all and Emma. But if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be back in Raleigh. The bookshop is open in the afternoon for Black Friday shoppers. It’s a busy day.”

  My mother turns to me, her expression something between horrified and thoroughly intrigued. I have no idea what it means, but I think she’s getting swept up in Grace’s unabashedly direct, Eastern manners. The girl isn’t asking for pity. She’s just stating how things are in her world. Her world is different from our world. Maybe it’s a bigger world. Maybe it’s more interesting. I don’t know. I do know that Grace Bradly isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met before.

  “I need to sleep,” Grace says, folding her napkin, placing it beside her cleaned plate. “I’m still on East Coast time, and it’s three in the morning. I need a shower and some dreams.”

  Her eyes flicker over to me before she gets up. But maybe I’m imagining that.

  She excuses herself, leaving me and mom to ourselves. I finish my whiskey, pour another, and consider what’s ahead.

  Tomorrow she’ll meet Emma. She’ll also meet Tyler and Amanda. How things go tomorrow will determine how things go forward. I may like the look of her ass in her fancy jeans, and Mom may like her straightforward demeanor, but if Emma and Amanda don’t like her, then she’s going home. I don’t care how pretty the turn of her jawline is.

  And it is right damn pretty.

  * * *

  Grace. What kind of name is that? She must have been named after someone. A grandmother, maybe. Sounds like it’s out of the last century. But it’s an apt name. It suits her. It suits the way she moves, with confidence and fluidity, standing straight. It suits the way she speaks; unapologetic, candid, and above all that, thoughtful and intelligent. It suits the cut of her body; rolling, languid lines lifting to angled arches at her jaw and nape.

  I wonder what the scent at the nape of her neck is? I caught a fleeting whiff of her in the truck, driving in, but she was far too distant from me to get a real sense of her. There’s a scent that women carry about them. It concentrates at the nape, and also in the warm, soft flesh, inside the inner thigh. You can taste it behind the knees, but breathing it in is the best way to own it.

  I want to know Grace’s scent. This is the thought seeping, slowly crawling like molten lava through my brain as I drift off to sleep.

  My mind slips into dark paneled rooms lit by flickering, candlelit shadows, and the feel of her pale soft skin under my hands, trembling beneath my kisses. My sleeping mind reveals her to me, her curves, her soft, liquid places. Her dark mysteries invite me in and as she returns my kisses, breathy and hot, I punch in deep and hard, coming quickly.

  I wake with a start.

  I roll back, cleaning the mess off myself, thinking of my sleeping visions.

  Oh fuck. Grace. She felt so good, looked so good.

  I get up and throw my boxers in the hamper, slipping a new pair on. I slide back in bed, and my mind turns back to Grace once again. Like a broken record, stuck on repeat. Unbidden. Instinctive.

  How long has it been? Beverly died when Emma was 18 months old. Emma will be five in just a few weeks. I know we didn’t sleep together again after we found out Bev was pregnant. So… it’s been a long time. Years. Too damn long.

  But there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. And dreaming about Grace in my bed, under me, fucking me back with whimpers and moans as I fuck her, isn’t going to change things. It’s only going to complicate things, and I need to keep things simple.

  I need to push this girl out of my head.

  When I wake in the morning my eyes open onto the steely gaze of my daughter, staring down upon me. She likes to do this; climb into bed and then sit there, watching me sleep until something stirs me.

  “You were snoring,” Emma says, grinning. “Not loud. But snoring.”

  I roll back, stretching. “I do that,” I admit to her. “You do it too. Everyone does.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  I prop up on an elbow, facing her, smiling, still sleepy. “You do. I used to spend hours watching you sleep, making sure you were breathing. You snore. You snore like a baby troll.”

  “I do not, either,” Emma insists, poking my chest with a tiny finger. Then she changes the subject. “She’s here.
I saw her. She’s still asleep. She snores too.”

  I nod. “She got in late,” I say. “We’ll let her sleep a bit more.”

  Emma nods, then her expression darkens. “What if she’s mean and she doesn’t like me?”

  How could that ever happen? Who in the world could not love my beautiful baby girl? I reach forward pushing the dirty blond trails of hair back from her forehead, tucking them behind her ear.

  “If she’s mean and she doesn’t love you like I do, then she goes back where she came from,” I say. “But sweetie, I met her last night, and I don’t think she’s mean. She’s nice.”

  Emma brightens. “Good. I think I’ll like her then.”