by Maisey Yates
“It’s a delivery fee.”
“For my child or for the snacks?”
“Thanks for reminding me,” he said, this time taking a peanut butter one.
She expected him to go then, because it had been a long day, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him at work earlier. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood for a moment, his expression uncharacteristically thoughtful. “I might not be able to drop Amelia off at home as often in the future.”
“Oh?”
It was abrupt and weird. Especially considering she’d just been thinking about what a stalwart Caleb was.
“Yeah,” he said. He braced himself on the truck, and her eyes were drawn to his biceps, to the way the muscle shifted beneath his tanned, scarred skin.
She wondered what the scar on the inside of his arm was from. Barbed wire? An angry bull? Maybe just from a youthful misdeed. It was very hard to say with a man like Caleb.
It really was a wonderful arm. It had to be said. Objectively speaking, Caleb was a perfect masculine specimen.
He wasn’t pretty. No, he was too raw to be anything like pretty. Even with those blue eyes, which were the kind of blue that women had difficulty letting pass by without remarking on. But he was scarred, and he was weathered from working outdoors, and, as she had previously been thinking, his hands were rough.
Though, they could be gentle when they needed to be.
If she had a single friend, she would definitely set her up with Caleb.
“I... Why?”
“I’m buying a new piece of property.”
“Really?” Caleb hadn’t given any indication that he was thinking of moving away from the acre lot that he lived on.
“Yeah,” he responded, maddeningly opaque.
“Details, Caleb.” Having a man for a best friend could be annoying, because they didn’t tell you things, like the fact that they were considering moving. And then, when they finally did tell you, they didn’t tell you anything about it.
“I bought Jehoshaphat Brown’s place.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
Jehoshaphat Brown was an eccentric who lived a few miles up out of town, and had the largest Christmas tree farm in the area. “I did,” he said. “I mostly don’t believe it because I don’t believe he would move. But he is. He’s moving to Hawaii.”
“Now, I really don’t believe that,” she said.
“Hey,” he responded, “believe whatever you want, but he is. He’s moving to Hawaii, taking a job as a bartender at a resort. Oceanside. He bought a condo with the money I paid him.”
“But you are... You’re going to run a Christmas tree farm?”
“At least temporarily. Everything’s ready to go now, which means finishing out the year, or the next few years, is guaranteed money in the bank to begin other ventures. There’s contracts already made with outfits around the country, truckers on hand to drive the things to their destinations. And he owns that small lot down on the main street of town. So, I’m all set not only to sell this year’s crop around the country, but also sell it here.”
“But you don’t... You don’t actually want to...be a Christmas tree farmer?”
“My ultimate goal is cattle,” he said.
She’d had no idea. None at all. Not that he wanted his own ranch, not that he’d been unhappy at the school. Was he unhappy at the school? Was he leaving?
“What does this mean for your position at the school?”
“I will be leaving. Which I will be talking to Gabe about later tonight.”
“But...”
“With West Caldwell coming into town, there’s no need for me to hang around. He’s going to be working on the ranch.”
“Your half brother that you’ve never met. That’s putting a lot of stock in a man you don’t even know.”
“Gabe figures we owe him. And, since Gabe is awash in guilt over the whole half-sibling thing, I figure that works in my favor.”
As much as Ellie loved Hank Dalton, the patriarch of the Dalton clan, it was becoming more and more clear that he was problematic. A couple of years ago it had been discovered that he had a daughter that none of them had known about. McKenna Tate. She’d come into town after discovering the identity of her family, and after some adjusting, the Dalton family had welcomed her into the fold. But on the heels of that revelation had come another one.
There were three more children. All adults now.
Hank had never known about them. But Tammy had.
It had changed the relationship, that reveal.
But Hank was awash enough in the guilt from the actions in his past, that the two of them were trying to work through it, to an extent. And Ellie really hoped that they did. For some selfish reasons, if she was honest. Because she loved them, and they were the closest thing to a family for her, and she didn’t want to lose them.
“But... Don’t you want to wait and see if it’s going to work out?”
“No,” Caleb said. “I don’t want to work at the school forever. This is what I want.”
That made her...angry, and she couldn’t figure out exactly why. He deserved to have dreams; of course he did. But she’d just...assumed he was happy with the way things were. She’d somehow meshed his dreams together with hers.
Had decided that what she was doing with his family ranch, with the school, was what he wanted, too.
But if she didn’t feel great about him fighting fires anymore, maybe he didn’t, either. And she’d never asked. She’d only thought about it in terms of her own comfort. That wasn’t right at all.
Still, the idea of him having his own endeavors, his own life farther away from her and not right all around her while they worked...
She needed him. She really had. She still did.
She didn’t like this...this change. But she should be happy for him, and it made her feel... She felt bad. And she didn’t like feeling bad about something that was good for her friend.
“I’d... Well, congratulations,” she said. Even though she didn’t feel like congratulating him at all. She felt like having a tantrum.
She really didn’t know why.
“Thank you,” he said, his mouth quirking up into a half smile that made it very clear he was well aware she wasn’t having the best reaction to his news.
“I’ll miss seeing you.” The words more plaintive than she’d intended.
“I’m not moving away,” he said.
“Yeah, but I see you all the time,” she protested.
“You will still see me all the time.”
“But you won’t be dropping Amelia off when I want you to.”
“Probably not.”
Her stomach twisted, but that wasn’t what was upsetting her. She knew it wasn’t.
And then it hit her, as strongly as that melancholy had when she’d realized it was nearly the Christmas season.
This phase of life was over.
The one where he was here to carry her. Where she had a crutch to get her through what life looked like without Clint. Being a single mother.
It was changing.
It had begun to change months ago, when the idea for the school had come about. She had gone back to work.
But she’d been a fledgling, and he’d been there to help her.
In the years since Amelia was born, she had lived off the insurance settlement she’d gotten after Clint’s death. And settlement money from the helicopter company, which had been found negligent. It was overloaded, and they knew it, knew that it didn’t have the capacity to carry the number of people that had been on it.
Every man who’d been on the helicopter had died.
Money didn’t bring back people you lost.
It in fact seemed like a laughable pursuit when you were grieving a husband. But once she’d had it she’d realized w
hy it mattered. Because she hadn’t been able to do anything beyond the bare minimum to keep herself alive. And she was having a baby.
It was how she’d bought this house.
And all the furniture in it. Everything that had made the place a home that she and Amelia could inhabit. And even when it had been difficult to care about such a thing, part of her had known that she had to.
And it had been Caleb, of course, who had assembled it all. Who had helped with everything.
And now she was being a jerk about something that he’d achieved. After all he’d done for her.
Well, the little scolding session she gave herself was nice, but she still felt unhappy. But that didn’t mean she had to act unhappy. She had ample experience with pretending to be more okay than she was. She should be able to do it now.
“I’m happy for you,” she said. “Really. I’m sorry. We can go get furniture that’s difficult to assemble, and I’ll help you put it together.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll...offer you a drink while you put it together?”
“Right.” He nodded. “Sounds about right. Hey, don’t worry about it, Ellie. Things are going to be fine.”
There was so much she wanted to say to him, but she didn’t know how to articulate it. Mostly because she couldn’t quite explain the discomfort happening in her own chest. So instead, she just watched him get into his truck, and didn’t even scold him when he stole another cookie.
She tried to figure out exactly what the feeling was as she watched his truck disappear down her driveway. Then she turned and walked to her porch, sitting down on the bottom step.
“What is wrong with me?”
And suddenly, it hit her.
He was moving on, and she hadn’t.
It was different, because of course, he had been Clint’s best friend. She’d been Clint’s wife. So Caleb moving on from the whole situation was easier. More expected.
But she wished... Well, she wished for a whole lot of things.
Things that were coming up more and more often. Her best female friend at the moment was Vanessa Logan. Vanessa was pregnant, getting ready to have a baby with her husband, Jacob, a man who loved her so much that just looking at the two of them together made Ellie’s whole body hurt.
She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to fall in love. She didn’t want a relationship. But she wanted...
It would be nice to be kissed under the mistletoe, maybe. To have something to wear a dress to. To go dancing in that dress.
And suddenly, those thoughts she had in the chicken coop, about those moments that felt out of her life, that felt like an escape, crystallized.
That was what she wanted. Just some moments. To feel like something other than a tired single mother, or a sad, grieving widow.
A moment to feel like a woman.
Maybe she needed to make some changes, too.
Maybe, instead of dreading Christmas, she needed to get started on her wish list.
CHAPTER TWO
CALEB DALTON HADN’T had much to smile about for a long time. It had been a bear of a few years, since his best friend’s death, and while time might ease a wound, it wouldn’t ever bring Clint back.
But that permanence made space for movement, around the grief, around the pain. And finally toward a future he’d been planning for a long time.
Clint had been, honest to God, one of the best men on earth. The hole he’d left behind had been huge, and Caleb had dedicated himself to caring for his friend’s widow and child in his absence.
That had been his life, his whole life, for nearly five years. And it was fair, because it had been Ellie’s life, too.
He cared for Ellie. A hell of a lot. He’d met her because of Clint, but she’d been in his life now for more than ten years.
His feelings for Ellie were complicated. Had been from the beginning. But she’d been with Clint. And there was no doubt Clint was the better man. More than that, Clint was his brother. Maybe not in blood, but in every way that counted.
Caleb had never claimed to be a perfect friend. Clint was one of those people who’d drawn everyone right to him. He was easy to like. Caleb’s own parents had been bowled over by Clint from the time they were kids. And Caleb’s jealousy had gotten the better of him once when they’d been younger. Something that made him burn with shame even now.
He hadn’t let it happen when they’d been adults. No matter how tempting it had been. No matter how much he’d...
A muscle in his jaw ticked.
He gave thanks that there was a space in front of the Gold Valley Saloon, and he whipped his truck there up against the curb, ignoring the honk that came from behind him.
He turned around and saw Trevor Sanderson in his Chevy, giving Caleb the death glare.
“Hold your damn horses, Trevor,” he muttered as he put his truck in Park.
He should have been quicker.
Hell, that was life in a nutshell. Sometimes, you were just too late. For parking spots, and for women.
He’d tried to get that image out of his head. More times than he could count over the past decade. Had tried to erase that first time he’d seen Ellie.
It was at his parents’ barbecue. Late one summer afternoon.
He’d been talking and laughing with his brothers, and he’d lifted a beer to his lips and looked out away from the party. Then he’d frozen.
It was like the world had slowed down, all of it centering on the beautiful blonde walking toward him. The golden light from the sun illuminated her hair like a halo, and her smile seemed to light him up from the inside out.
As she’d gotten closer, he’d taken in every last detail. The way the left side of her cheek dimpled with that grin; her eyes, a mix of green and blue and a punch in the gut. Her lips were glossy pink, and he wondered if it was that stuff that women wore that smelled and tasted like cherries. He couldn’t decide if he hoped that it was or not.
Twenty years old, more experienced with women than he probably should be, and ready right then and there to drop down to his knees and propose marriage to the one walking in his direction.
It took him a full minute to realize that the beautiful blonde was holding hands with someone.
And that that someone was Caleb’s best friend on earth.
It was a surreal moment. It had been a sea change in his soul. When his feelings for Ellie had tipped over from nothing to everything.
A revelation he hadn’t been looking for, and one he sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed.
It was like the whole world had turned, then bucked, like a particularly nasty-ass bull, and left him sprawled out on the ground.
It had been the beginning of a thorny, painful set of years. As he’d gotten to know Ellie, as his feelings for her had become knit deep into his heart, into his soul. She’d become more than his friend’s woman, and more than a woman he’d desired. She’d become a friend to him.
In many ways he was thankful for the depth of the feeling, because it was the reason he’d been able to put aside the lust. The idea that he’d fallen in love with her at first sight.
When Clint had first started dating her, she’d been in school, so she hadn’t been around all the time. But during the summers, and on breaks, she came around with Clint.
Went to the lake with them. Went fishing. Came to Christmas and Thanksgiving.
The summers at the lake, though, that had been a particular kind of torture. All of them swimming out in the water, her and her swimsuit. A tiny bikini that had left little to the imagination.
And he had been so very interested in imagining all the things that it did conceal.
And he’d felt like the biggest, most perverse asshole.
Then there had been the time that Clint had asked him to take her out riding.
Just the two of them.
Because Clint trusted him. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he trust his best friend? So he’d done it.
Had taken her out on the trails that wound behind the Dalton family property, up to the top of a mountain. And he looked over at the view with her, watched the sunset. And everything in him had wanted to lean over and kiss her on the mouth. To act on the feelings that were rioting through his chest.
For just a breath she’d looked back at him, met his eyes. And he’d thought maybe she’d wanted it, too.
Yeah, it would have exploded his relationship with Clint, but for a minute it seemed like it might be worth it.
Then she’d looked away. And then he’d come back to himself.
Clint was his brother. In every way but blood.
And he couldn’t betray his friend like that.
Anyway, Ellie loved Clint.
She didn’t love Caleb.
And no matter how much he might not want to, he had to respect that.
So he hadn’t kissed her. They had ridden back down that mountain, and nothing happened between them. But late at night, Caleb had taken himself in hand and fantasized that it had.
Two days later Clint and Ellie had been engaged.
Caleb had agreed to be the best man.
She’d married Clint. And while his feelings for her had remained, they’d shifted. As they’d had to.
He wasn’t perfect. He’d never touched Ellie. Not like a man touched a woman, though that hadn’t stopped him from going over the accidental brush of fingertips, of their elbows touching, over and over in his mind if it had happened on accident.
It hadn’t stopped him from keeping and cherishing secrets with her, even when he knew he shouldn’t. Hadn’t stopped him from pushing some boundaries that not even Ellie had realized he’d been pushing at.
Ellie was the one who’d realized, for the first time, that he was dyslexic. And he’d sworn her to secrecy. And in that secrecy had come secret reading lessons.
And he’d...well, he’d lost control of his own feelings again. And once he’d recognized that, he’d cut them off. Cut her off.
But then Clint had died, just a month later. And everything changed again.
