“Oh, wow. Now she’s a slave driver.”
“And now he complains about everything. I want to work. I don’t want to work.” She turned and walked over to the table.
He squeezed the rag, because he really wanted to grab her and pull her into his arms. If her back hurt half as much as his did, he wanted to soothe it.
He shut those thoughts out of his brain. He owed her this. They’d done a lot of talking before that last night, but he should never have allowed things to get out of control the way they had. Louise had been a great friend. She’d understood him. And she was a great listener. Even watching the way she helped her grandparents, he could tell that hadn’t changed.
By the time the burritos were ready, he’d finished scrubbing the pan and swept the floor. “Where’s your mop?”
“We’ll eat first. The food is ready, and no need to eat a cold breakfast because of a little sticky tomato on the floor.”
“You don’t have to talk me into it.”
He carried two steaming mugs of coffee out, and she carried their plates and silverware. He held the door so she could go through and allowed her to choose where to sit. The swing.
Fine by him. He sat on the other side. Careful not to touch her. Not that he couldn’t. But the awkwardness between them had given way as they’d worked together, and he’d been enjoying their easy conversation. He didn’t want to scare her off again.
She gave him his plate, and he handed her a mug. Their fingers brushed, and fire flew up his arm, but he kept his face carefully neutral.
They started eating in silence. She made amazing burritos. Fast, too. Like she’d done it a lot.
“Thanks for letting me come today.”
“You were a great help. I’m so glad you did.”
He’d never been real good at beating around the bush, and Louise had always been fine with it. “Is the ranch in financial difficulty?”
Several expressions passed over her face as her fork stilled halfway to her mouth. Guilt? Fear?
“What made you ask that?” Louise asked. Her movements were carefully controlled, and he thought she might be hiding something. Maybe he could uncover it.
“I saw pink shoes out on the back porch. Too small to be yours.”
Real fear sat in her eyes for a good two seconds. Then her mouth worked as she struggled to hide it.
“Small pink shoes?” Her breathing had become fast.
He made his voice as gentle as possible. He didn’t want her to be scared to tell him about her problems. “Yeah. Too small to be yours.”
“Uh...”
The hand that held her fork trembled, and she dropped it back onto her plate. He hated that she was so upset.
Thinking to make it easier for her, he said, “So, I just thought that maybe you’ve taken up some childcare in addition to your shifts at the restaurant? And that made me think that the ranch might be needing money.”
She let out a deep breath. “Pap had a stroke a few months ago, and the hospitalization took our savings.”
“I see.” He had money in the bank he didn’t know what to do with. His upbringing wouldn’t allow him to be a big spender. He’d always figured he’d come back to the ranch and his childhood home eventually, he supposed. He didn’t really have big plans other than to play the best hockey he could. That was his current job. Things had shifted over the past week for him. Maybe he was developing some long-term plans for the first time that didn’t involve hockey.
He didn’t want to be nosy. “If you want to tell me about it, you can.”
“There’s nothing much to tell.” She played with the fork on her plate, while he finished up the last bite of his burrito.
“None of my business. I understand.”
“Not that. The ranch is still in Gram and Pap’s names, so any care they receive that we can’t pay for, the ranch is collateral. But I think Palmer has it figured out, and he’s going to have enough money to pull us out.” Her gaze shifted between her plate and straight ahead, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“You want the rest of that?” he asked, indicating the last third of her burrito.
She handed her plate to him silently with a lifted brow.
He grinned. “Tell me about what you’ve been doing and why you aren’t a doctor or a researcher.”
Her eyes widened before she looked away. He’d surprised her with his subject change.
For a while, he wasn’t sure she was going to answer him.
But she lifted a shoulder in a gentle shrug. “There are a few reasons, but the biggest is that I don’t want to leave. I love North Dakota, and I don’t want to live anywhere else.”
“I definitely missed it. I didn’t even realize how much until I came back.” He set the empty plate down and leaned his head back. “This is a land that pulls at your heart.”
“Yes. That’s exactly how I feel. And I did get an English degree online. I work in the diner, but I also have a freelance editing job that sometimes brings in more than my waitress salary.”
His head popped back up at the mention of the editing job. “So you watch kids, waitress, take care of your grandparents, work on the ranch, and you have an editing business?” He didn’t know anyone who worked that hard. Finances must be a lot worse than he’d thought. He couldn’t think of a way to ask about it in more depth, though.
“It’s not that much. I’m happy and busy.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, adjusting her shoulders like her back hurt.
He longed to rub the tension out of it, but that was moving too fast, assuming he wanted to move at all. He did. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to. He’d changed. She’d changed. But her changes only made him admire her more.
She wasn’t ready. He needed to explain what he’d done, but not today. He didn’t want to ruin the satisfied afterglow of hard work completed. Instead, he shifted, laying an arm on the backrest of the swing, making sure he didn’t touch her.
She tensed, but didn’t open her eyes or tell him to give her space. A win, he thought.
“So what do you do?” she asked. Her eyes stayed closed, and that made it harder for him to judge if she were asking out of politeness or because she was really interested.
“I’ve done a good bit of traveling during the off-season. I’ve taken my mom on some trips. There’s a bunch of charity work in Pittsburgh that I’m involved in. And during the season, everything is hockey. Kind of nice to get paid to do what I love.” The first few years were great. Over the last year or so, it had become more of a job or a business. But that was fine, and he hadn’t minded. Everyone had to work. Just because his job wasn’t as fun as it used to be didn’t mean he was going to quit doing something that made him so much money.
His agent had been hoping to get a decent eight figures for another four years or so. After playing that long, he’d be ready to retire, no doubt. Come back to North Dakota.
“You must go to the gym a lot.”
“Yeah. It’s part of the job.”
“So you play hockey, go to the gym, and travel, working in your charities when you have time?”
“Yeah.” He supposed it sounded like a wasted life to her. What, exactly, had he accomplished, other than getting rich? Was that all he wanted?
“What do you want to do yet, that you haven’t done?” he asked her, really wanting to know.
She rolled her head on the back of the swing. Her toe dragged as he pushed a little with his boots planted firmly on the floor. “I’m content here. I love being with my family, working with Gram. I love our town and my life. I’m happy.”
She’d had so many plans and dreams in high school. It angered him some that she’d given up and settled. Or maybe that she’d given up and was going to settle with Paul. “Don’t you want more out of life?”
A white line appeared between her lips, and she straightened. “What do you want? What are you doing here anyway?”
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t har
dly tell her he was out here because all he seemed to want was to be with her.
“I’m sure there are lots of career-oriented women in Pittsburgh who’d just love to hang on your arm and simper while you look straight into the camera and tell the world your hometown’s just a hole-in-the-wall with three dogs and a bunch of old ladies and nothing to keep your interest.”
He’d said that. Almost to the word. He thought he’d been protecting her. No one in the press would bother with his dinky hometown if they thought all the action in his life was in the city. He hadn’t meant for her to hear. He definitely hadn’t meant to hurt her.
Her foot tapped on the floor. A staccato beat, loud in the silence.
“But I’m happy here. Content. And it might seem crazy to you, but I don’t have any desire to go anywhere, and I’m glad I never left.”
“I just thought you had all these things you wanted to do when we were in school.”
“Yeah. Well, I’ve grown up a lot since then.” She jerked the door open. “Thanks for your help.”
Chapter 9
Ty drove straight to his brother’s, Ford’s, place after he left Louise. He hadn’t liked the way they’d parted. It wasn’t what he planned. But he hadn’t expected her to be so sensitive to his questions about why she was still in Sweet Water. He hadn’t realized how the words from his interviews would sound to her. How they’d hurt her.
And the girls on his arm. She didn’t realize they were just photo ops. He didn’t know them, didn’t have anything in common with them, and wasn’t interested in changing that.
There were a lot of things she wasn’t telling him, too, and he didn’t blame her. She didn’t know him well enough to share the financial difficulties of her family. But he could help with that, and he wanted to.
Even if she chose Paul?
Maybe that’s why she was marrying Paul. Lights seemed to flash before his eyes. Of course. She was probably marrying Paul because he had money. Maybe he’d offered her money to marry him. That was pretty far out there, but she’d admitted that theirs wasn’t a love match, so it wasn’t too crazy of an idea.
All he’d been thinking about was Louise, and he tried to put her out of his mind for a little bit. Ford and he talked on the phone almost every week—because Ty called Ford. Ty also spoke with Georgia fairly often, who’d come down with his mother several times a year, including the holidays, to Pittsburgh.
But Ty had only been to Ford’s ranch twice. Summer visits of a couple of hours. In the month that he was going to be here, visiting Ford had been high on his list of things to do. The list that had been completely derailed when he’d seen Louise at the reception.
He and his brother had been close through their childhoods and early teen years. After Ford’s accident, that had all changed.
He made the right off the highway onto Ford’s lane. Wagon wheels with bright flowers decorated the end of the drive. Ty didn’t remember them being there before.
The drive was paved. Ty had never looked into paving anything, but he remembered asking his dad once to pave their lane, and his dad had said it was way too expensive.
First the barn came into view. Freshly painted red with white trim, it was big and majestic sitting in a perfectly manicured yard. Bright white corral fences contrasted with the brown dirt they encircled. And, hey, a white fence ran along each side of the drive. Ford’s business must be doing okay. More than okay. Ford didn’t really mention it during their phone conversations.
Ty continued down the paved drive. Young trees now lined both sides. It had only been four or five years since he’d been here, but the changes were astounding, and they all shouted “money.” This was by far the ritziest place he’d ever seen in North Dakota, aside from places sponsored with oil money, like Sweet Water Ranch on the west side of Sweet Water.
The house sported the same expensive upgrades. Two wings flanked the original two-story structure, all sided in deep red siding, trimmed in white. It matched the barn and would draw the sun’s heat in winter. Smart.
Ty was happy for Ford. Ford had been a better hockey player than Ty by a long shot. But his accident had put an end to any pro dreams he might have had.
Ty pulled as close to the house as he could and looked around for a valet. Not really, but he felt like he should not only have valet service, but he was way underdressed. He made a mental note to wear a tux the next time he visited his brother.
He stepped up to the house and wouldn’t have been shocked to have the door opened by a butler. In uniform. But it was Georgia, in jeans and a t-shirt, her wildly curly hair drawn up in a topknot, from which about a third of it was escaping. Her hair was so thick and curly that a third for her was a full head for normal people. He remembered many times in their childhood when people had mused that Georgia’s hair must have come from a throwback gene. It wasn’t Norwegian.
“Ty!” she shouted and threw her arms around him. He caught her easily. She was light and delicate. Her body frame was not like the sturdy Norwegian frame either. If he didn’t know that his mother had the highest integrity, he’d suspect that Georgia had a completely different ancestry than Ford and he who were both big-boned and tall. So were their parents.
“Hey, Runt.”
“Ugh. Why was I happy to see you again?”
“If you hadn’t stopped growing in second grade, I wouldn’t have to call you that.”
“A twelve-year-old asked her out the other day.” Sawyer’s deep voice echoed through the hall.
Georgia rolled her eyes.
“Hey! I didn’t realize you were visiting. Was the valet busy taking your car to the back lot, and that’s why I didn’t see him?”
“The valet took his car around back and is washing and waxing it. If you left your keys in your ignition, he’ll do the same for yours.” Ford limped down the hall. His blue eye, so dark it almost looked black, was as serious as it always was. The other eye was gone, the area covered in an eyepatch. All the laughing of his childhood had vanished with his accident. The right side of his face twisted in a permanent scowl, and his left side, though not affected, always matched it, at least as far as Ty knew.
Ty’s brows felt like they’d fallen off the top of his forehead. “You really do have a valet.”
“I do.” Ford hobbled to a stop. He held out his hand. “It’s been a long time, bro. Note the changes.”
He’d lived too long out of the land of his birth. A cool handshake was very Norwegian, but Ty would not be put off by the emotionless greeting. He wrapped both arms around his brother who, despite his accident, was still a shade taller than him. And still fifteen months older. And still best friends with Sawyer, Louise’s brother.
He stepped back and spoke to Sawyer first. “Someone told me you had so much work to do on that ranch you needed to be three people.”
“That’s the truth. But some people can’t be convinced to leave their castle to come down and meet with us peasants, so if I want to see him, I have to come to him.”
“I see. I hope I’m not interrupting?”
“Nope. I’m happy you’ve finally made it back up home.”
“Been busy.”
Ford snorted, and Georgia outright laughed. “You’re not too busy to come see your family. There were other things keeping you away.”
Ty painted a bland look on his face and shrugged like they’d completely missed the mark.
“I’m not standing here forever,” Ford growled. “Georgia, tell the cook to make us something to eat and have that annoying maid serve us in the sitting room.”
Ty’s brows furrowed at his brother’s brash words. He met Georgia’s eyes, but she only shrugged. This was why she was here instead of living her own life. To take care of Ford because everyone felt bad for him.
Ty wondered if maybe Ford was drowning in a little self-pity, but he didn’t see him often enough to call him out on it. If Georgia put up with that treatment, then good for her.
Ford turned without saying anyth
ing else. Ty glanced at Sawyer, but he was watching Georgia walk away and missed Ty’s look. Sawyer’s face held an odd look. Almost longing, but Ty had to be reading that wrong since he treated Georgia like an annoying kid sister.
Ty followed Ford’s slowly retreating figure, knowing he shouldn’t have stayed away so long. Obviously, Ford could use a brother.
THAT NIGHT, TY DIDN’T come into the diner at his usual time.
Paul had stayed longer than he normally did, and Louise had a harder time than she normally did focusing on what he was saying.
She hadn’t been very nice to Ty after he’d been so kind and helped them with the tomatoes. She’d been hurt to see him with other women, and it had been even worse when he’d said there was no one worth looking at in his hometown, but that had been years ago. She was over it. If she wasn’t, she needed to be.
Her upbringing demanded an apology. But he’d not shown up.
The planning for Harvest Fest was coming along well, so she wasn’t worried about that, but she’d come to expect him in the evenings.
She choked on a laugh as she stacked dirty plates and cleared off the last table. She’d come to look forward to seeing him.
Had he not come because of how snippy she’d been? Guilt pricked her throat, and the need to apologize made her fingers twitchy.
Miss Donna was out of town at a craft show, so if he were home, he’d probably be alone. Being alone with Ty was a disaster waiting to happen. There’s no way she was going out to see him. But she could call him. Except they’d never exchanged numbers.
Closing time finally came, and she rushed through the night cleaning and chores. Saying “good night” to Jackson and Rebel, she hurried down the deserted sidewalk. The town shut down at nine.
Standing at her car door, she scrolled through her phone contacts, finally finding Georgia, Ty’s sister. They weren’t besties, but she definitely considered Georgia a friend. She hoped it wasn’t too late to call as she hit the button and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?”
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