Red Hot Rancher
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Maureen Child
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16,0K
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11
One
“She’s back.”
“She who?” Caden Hale looked up at his foreman, Jack Franklin. No one knew him better than Jack, which was why Caden was surprised to see the man now.
Everyone on the ranch knew not to disturb Caden when he was engulfed by the dreaded paperwork needed to keep the Double H ranch running. Caden would much rather be out in the corral or riding fence-line, checking for breaks. Hell, to be honest, he’d rather be in the stables, mucking out stalls. But at least once a week, he was forced to sentence himself to hours behind the desk that had once been his father’s.
Jack stood opposite that desk now and the foreman’s expression was a weird mixture of dread and shock. Caden braced himself, leaning back in the chair, tapping one finger against the desktop.
Caden didn’t have a clue who could have put that look on his oldest friend’s face. He and Jack had been pals since grade school and when Caden took over the family ranch ten years ago, Jack had come on board, too. Usually, the man was unshakable. Not today.
“Come on, Jack. What’s going on? You look like somebody died.”
“Not yet,” his friend muttered, then swept off his Stetson, curled his fingers around the brim and tapped the hat against his upper thigh.
Caden straightened in the chair, leaned both forearms on the desk and stared at his friend. “Just spit it out. Who the hell are you talking about and why should I care?”
“You shouldn’t care,” Jack said. “But you will.”
“Enough. Just tell me.”
“It’s Emma, Caden,” Jack told him flatly. “Emma Williams is back.”
And just like that, the day went from annoying to a crap-fest. Caden’s chest was tight, and he didn’t even notice how hard he was clenching his teeth until his jaw ached in response. Deliberately, he took a long, deep breath and willed the sudden tension in his body to drain away.
Damned if he’d let a woman he hadn’t seen or spoken to in five long years get under his skin. And yet, he had to admit, just the mention of her name had done it. Caden closed his eyes briefly to fight the wave of tangled emotions rising up inside him. Anger and betrayal were tied for first place, but the rest weren’t far behind. Lust, the remnants of a love he thought would live forever and just enough pleasure to worry him.
Emma was back.
Why? For how long?
And damn it, why did he care? He hadn’t spoken to her in five years. She’d tried to call a few times, but he’d never answered. Why the hell should he?
“Did you see her?” he finally asked.
“No,” Jack said with a sharp shake of his head. “Gwen did. She was in town this morning, getting some groceries. Saw Emma wandering the aisles. Caden,” he added, “she had a baby with her.”
Another sucker punch and now breathing was becoming a hell of a lot harder than it should have been. A baby? She’d had a baby while she was gone? With who? Was the baby’s father here with them? “Damn it.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “When Gwen told me I knew this wasn’t going to go well.”
“Good call.”
Caden exhaled roughly, hoping to ease the raging tide of conflicting emotions rising inside him. Yeah, he was still furious over how Emma had ended things between them, but through it all, there was a hot, thick wave of need he’d never been able to shake. Just thinking about Emma Williams was enough to make his body hard as stone and his mind an empty cavern. Which was why, he reminded himself, he’d tried to avoid all thought of her for the past five years. It was only in his dreams that she came back to haunt him. Every damn night.
“Did Gwen talk to her?” Jack’s wife knew everything that had happened between Caden and Emma. Hell, everyone for miles around knew the story. It’s what happened in a small town.
Cache, Montana, had a population that hovered around five thousand. If you needed a big city once in a while, Kalispell was only thirty miles away. But Cache was large enough for Caden. It had everything he needed. There were stores and schools and Main Street was dotted with buildings that were built more than a hundred years ago. It was small, but it was his. A tiny town, where everyone felt free to share their opinion on just about anything.
“Yeah.” Jack pushed one hand through his hair. “She says Emma got home last night. Didn’t tell anyone she was coming...”
Which explained why Emma’s sister Gracie hadn’t said anything about this to Caden when he saw her yesterday. And he was willing to bet that Gracie was no happier about this than he was.
“Says she’s home to stay. She’s done with Hollywood.”
“Is that right?” Teeth clenched, he thought about what this would mean for him. He’d have to see her all the damn time now. The town would resurrect old stories and he’d catch people watching him with mocking eyes—or worse yet, sympathy.
Still, she’d left once before. Why should he believe that she would stay now?
“Caden,” Jack advised, “just let it be.”
He shot a look at his oldest friend. Jack looked worried but he couldn’t help the man with that. If Emma was home, then he was going to face her and get a few things out in the open. “Not going to happen. She’s back and we’re going to talk. Set things straight right away.”
“What’s left to set straight? You guys ended it five years ago.”
“She ended it,” Caden reminded the other man. “Now it’s my turn.”
“What exactly is your problem, Gracie?” Emma Williams caught her younger sister’s arm to stop her before she could flounce out of the room Emma had just entered.
The living room was as it had always been. Wide windows overlooking the front yard and the long driveway leading up to the Williams’ ranch. Furniture chosen for its comfort rather than style and now threadbare rugs that her mother had hooked before Emma was born. Watery October sunlight pushed its way through the grime on the windows and spotlighted dust motes floating in the still air.
Gracie yanked her arm free. “You, Em. You’re my problem.”
Her sister had been avoiding her since the night before, when Emma had walked into the house as if she’d been gone an hour instead of five years.
“How?” Emma threw both hands high. “I just got home last night.”
“Exactly.” Gracie tossed her short, curly hair back from her face. “You’ve been gone a long time, Emma. Then you show up and we’re all supposed to act like you’ve been here all along? Like nothing’s changed? Like the ranch isn’t falling apart and Dad has hardly gotten out of bed in the last year?”
Gracie’s green eyes, so much like Emma’s own, were flashing with fury, and at least, Emma told herself, that was honest. Since the night before, Gracie had been shut down, refusing to speak to her. Well, angry shouts were at least communication of a sort.
And everything her sister was saying jabbed at her like hot needles. She’d had time to look around the ranch this morning and Gracie was right. The place looked as though it was struggling and their father was grayer and slower then she remembered. But even as she felt that quick jolt of guilt, she defended herself.
“You never told me Dad was sick,” she countered. And worry twisted with guilt inside her.
“He wasn’t,” her sister retorted. “Isn’t. He just gave up. Because you walked away.”
That hurt and she really hoped it wasn’t true. But it felt true and Emma’s pain rose up to choke her. She hadn’t meant to leave a trail of destruction in her wake when she left. Hadn’t meant a lot of things. And that changed nothing. “You should have told me.”
“In an email?” Gracie asked hotly. “Or one of your famous two-minute phone calls? Yeah, lots of time for a chat then, huh, Em?”
More guilt. Great.
“You can’t lay this all on me, Gracie,” Emma argued. “You were here. You knew what was happening.”
“And couldn’t change it,” her sister said as tears filled her eyes. She took a deep breath, blinked the tears away and when she spoke again, her voice was low, but controlled. “I was trying to hold the ranch together and all Dad could do was worry about you. ‘All alone in California.’ While I was all alone right here.”
Stung, Emma swayed at the impact of her sister’s words. It was true that she hadn’t thought about what would happen here at home when she left. Maybe she hadn’t allowed herself to think of it.
Five years ago, she’d seen her future laid out in front of her and something inside her had just snapped. She’d had to go. Had to try.
“Gracie...” She didn’t know what she might have said, but it didn’t matter when her sister cut her off.
“Don’t say you’re sorry. It doesn’t matter and besides, you’re really not.” She swiped away a solitary angry tear. “You did what you wanted to do. Just like you always have.”
For the first time in this conversation, Emma felt a quick blast of anger. She was willing to take a little bit of bitterness from her sister, but damned if she’d stand there and be a target for whatever Gracie wanted to throw at her.
“Seriously? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Emma moved in closer, kept her voice low so their father wouldn’t overhear them. “When Mom died, who was it who held this place together, taking care of you and Dad? Besides, you don’t do what you want? Since when? You stole Dad’s truck for a joyride, remember? And, you ditched school and hitched a ride to a concert in Billings—”
“When I was a kid,” Gracie cut her off. “Don’t have any new stories to tell, though, do you, Em? Because you weren’t here.”
This was getting old, fast. “A lot of people leave home, Gracie.”
“Most of them at least visit.”
“If they can afford it,” Emma argued.
“You were on TV,” Gracie shot back.
“For one season,” Emma reminded her and on one level, she couldn’t believe they were having this argument. God, she hadn’t even been home for twenty-four hours.
Apparently Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You could go home again, you just couldn’t make anyone happy to see you.
For some reason, Emma had expected it to be easier to slide back into her old life. While she was in Hollywood, this ranch, her family, had become her mental security blanket. When she was worried or scared or whatever, she’d close her eyes and let her memories soothe her.
This was home. It was the one place she’d told herself that was there, waiting for her if the world turned on her. She’d always told herself that she could go home if her dreams crashed and burned. But home wasn’t what it had been when she left five years ago. Now that she was back in Cache, she had to admit that it wasn’t what she’d remembered. What she’d hoped to find. But even as that thought settled in her mind, Emma wondered if that was true. Maybe it wasn’t home that had changed, after all. It was her.
But how could she not? So much had happened to her in California that Montana had begun to seem like a dream world to her. She’d written and emailed and video chatted, but the longer she was away, the bigger the chasm between her and her family had grown. And how could it have been different, when she wasn’t really telling them what her life was like in California? She didn’t want them worried about her making rent on that dumpy little apartment in Hollywood. Didn’t want them knowing that she was hungry often and anxious all the time. So she’d been bright and happy and brief in those calls that had become less and less frequent.
Her father, Frank, had always been happy to hear from her. But Gracie had slowly shut down, pulled away. And now her little sister could barely stand to be in the same room with her.
And maybe she had it coming. Emma’s world was now divided into two separate entities. Before she left Montana and now. She preferred the before because dealing with the now was harder than anything she’d ever done. Now meant she had a sick father, a sister who hated her and a baby who depended on her.
What felt like boulders dropped onto Emma’s shoulders and she almost sagged under the emotional weight of it all. But the truth was, none of those burdens were as crushing as the knowledge that she still had to see Caden again. And everything in her was torn.
It had been five years since she’d seen him and five minutes since she’d thought of him. He’d been in her mind forever. Since the moment they’d met in high school, Caden Hale was all she’d been able to see. All she’d wanted to see. Until the night he had laid out their future together. Marriage, kids, the ranch, everything they used to talk about. Everything that Emma had come to believe was somehow destined.
But that same night, it had become clear to her that if she stayed in Montana with him and never tried to chase down her own dreams, she’d end up resenting him and hating herself. So she’d left. Walked away. And she had the feeling he’d be even less happy to see her than Gracie was.
Since the evening before, when she’d walked in the door of her family home, Emma had been dreading and anticipating the moment when she’d face him again.
“Emma! Come on in here.” Her father’s voice splintered her thoughts and dragged her back to the moment.
“Coming, Dad!”
“Bring a bottle,” he shouted, “I think my granddaughter’s getting hungry!”
Emma frowned as one more weight settled on her shoulders, but she told herself that was a problem for another day. She looked at her sister and said, “We’ll finish this later.”
“Oh,” Gracie told her, “we’re finished.”
Taking a breath, hoping for patience, Emma headed to the kitchen.
The drive from the Double H ranch to the Williamses’ place only took about twenty minutes. Once upon a time, he and Emma had talked about one day cutting a road directly across their adjoining fields, to directly link the ranches. But that, like so many other things, had never happened.
At any other time, Caden might have noticed the fall colors erupting on the trees lining the wide road. But now, all he could see were the images replaying in his mind, of Emma’s eyes the night she said goodbye.
“I have to go, Caden,” she said plaintively, trying to make him understand. “I have to try. I can’t do what my mom did. She gave up on her dreams. You remember what a great singer she was, right?”
“I do, but—”
“She never did anything with it and before she died, she told me that was her one regret. That she’d never found out if she could make it or not.”
Panic was rising in his chest, but Caden fought it down. He and Emma had been together a long time. He’d always believed that they were working toward the same goals. This had come out of nowhere for him and he didn’t know what the hell to think. “What about the dream of building up my family ranch?”
“That’s your dream, Caden,” she said simply and tore a hole in his heart.
That was a slap. She’d had plenty of ideas, had jumped in enthusiastically with plans. “We’ve been talking about this for years,” he reminded her. “We were going to do it together. Create something special.”
“I know.” She touched him and her hand on his arm was like a fire that was bone chilling. “But this is important to me, too, Caden. I have to find out if I’m good enough.”
Couldn’t she see that she’d never be as important in Hollywood as she was right here? To him?
“So you’re just leaving.”
“You could come with me...”
He laughed at her. “I can’t leave.”
“And I can’t stay,” she said. “If I don’t go now, neither one of us will be happy.”
He cut off the memories and buried them under a layer of fury. She’d made it seem like she was doing him a favor by walking away. As if the dreams they’d forged together for years hadn’t been as important as the ones she’d nurtured all to herself.
Well, she’d ripped his heart out that night and he’d had to shut himself down to get through it. But he had. He’d made a damn good life without Emma and it was only going to get better. And once he’d faced her and had his say, he could get back to it.
When he steered his top-of-the-line, black Dodge Ram truck up the drive to her father’s ranch, he noted the peeling paint on the fence rails and the weeds choking out the front flower bed. The Williams place had been slowly going to hell since Emma left. Just another black mark against her.
Frank Williams had pretty much given up when his oldest girl had run off to Hollywood. He’d expected her to take over, to merge their ranch with Caden’s as they’d always planned.
Emma had torn up a lot of dreams when she left to find her own.
Still, Caden felt a pang of guilt. He should make more time to check in on Frank and do what he could to help out. Frowning to himself, he made a mental note to send a few of his ranch hands over in a day or two to paint the corral fence. Get it done before winter, he told himself, or the damn wood would rot and warp and the whole fence would have to be replaced.
“The perfect metaphor,” he muttered. When Emma left, they’d all had to rebuild. She’d taken off to chase a dream and left the rest of them wondering what the hell had happened. Now she was back.
With a baby.
He parked the truck, turned off the engine and just sat there for a minute, staring at the house where he’d spent so much of his life. It was old and sturdy, yellow, with white trim because that’s how Emma’s mother had liked it best. There was a big front porch and a second story where the bedrooms were. He knew this house as well as he knew his own.
He and Emma had been a couple since the year she was a freshman in high school. He’d been a “manly” junior and took substantial mocking from his friends for being interested in a “kid,” but he hadn’t cared.
Emma was all he’d been able to see back then and until the night she’d walked away, that hadn’t changed. But things were different now. Emma had left once before. Why should he believe she was here to stay now? No, what was between them had curled up and died five years ago.
Yet even as that thought rose up in his mind, his body was tightening at the prospect of being near her again.
While he sat there, watching the house, the front door flew open and Gracie, Emma’s younger sister, raced toward him. Caden got out of the truck in time to catch her when Gracie threw herself at him.
“I can’t believe this,” she muttered against his chest. “She just showed up last night like it was nothing and we’re supposed to be happy she’s here.” She pulled her head back and glared up at him. “I’m not. I’m furious.”
At twenty-five, Gracie was a beauty, with short, curly brown hair and green eyes a shade paler than her sister’s. He’d been a big brother to Gracie all their lives and he could see that there was pain as well as fury in her eyes.
He knew how she felt. “Gwen ran into her at the market this morning. Said she’s come back to stay.”
Gracie let him go, took a step back and swiped a solitary tear off her cheek. “That’s what she says, but why should we believe her? She left before, didn’t she?”
He didn’t know if it was good or bad that Gracie was pretty much echoing his own thoughts on the matter.
“Dad’s happy to see her anyway.” She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and tossed her windblown hair off her forehead. “He actually got out of bed this morning.”
That was news. Frank had given up on life about a year after Emma left. Little by little, he’d withdrawn more and more from everyday life. He’d started out hoping Emma would see she’d made a mistake and come running home. But finally, the older man had realized that his girl was probably gone forever and all the life in him had just drained away. Not even Gracie had been able to coax him out of the depression he’d dropped into.
If Emma left again, it’d probably kill her father this time.
“She can’t be here, Caden,” Gracie was saying. “What if she finds out? She’ll tell Dad and then—”
“You should tell your dad,” Caden whispered. He was the only person Gracie had trusted with her secrets and he’d never betray her. But he did think she was handling them all wrong and didn’t mind saying so.
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Especially not now.”
“Hello, Caden.”
Just like that, everything in him went still and cold. He hadn’t heard that low-pitched, sultry voice in too damn long, but it had the same effect on him it always had. He turned to look, saw Emma standing in the open doorway and his mouth went dry. His jeans were suddenly too tight and drawing a breath seemed near impossible.
The last time he’d seen her was on his television screen. Emma had been starring in a vapid, ridiculous sitcom, and as hard as it had been for Caden to admit, she had been really good in it. So good, he’d watched the show exactly once, got stinking drunk and never turned the damn TV on again. She’d left him for Hollywood and it burned his ass that she’d done well.
Now she was back, and why did she have to look so damn tempting?
Her dark brown hair was longer, falling well past her shoulders now, in the wild, thick curls she’d always hated. She wore a long-sleeved red flannel shirt and a pair of black jeans that hugged her hips and long, shapely legs. Her old boots completed the outfit and somehow it felt to Caden as if she’d donned a costume to fit in.
Maybe the Hollywood Emma was the real person now and this woman in front of him was the one acting out a part.
And as much as he wanted her, Caden braced himself against old emotions, desires and faced her now with the cold, empty memories flooding his mind. Her greenish-gold eyes were still as clear and beautiful as ever, but as he met her gaze, Caden saw secrets there. Something he’d never seen before.
He didn’t like it.
“You’re not going to say hello?” she asked.
The voice that had haunted his dreams. The woman who had haunted everything in his life. Caden felt a sharp stab of betrayal. She’d walked out on him five years ago and never looked back. Now she said hello like nothing had changed between them? Were they supposed to go have a drink? Catch up on old times? Maybe she’d ask him to babysit. Well, screw that.
Beside him, Gracie had a death grip on his arm, her fingers digging into his skin right through the fabric of his heavy brown coat. Reminding him where his loyalties lay now. Gracie had stayed. Had taken care of everything that Emma had walked away from. So he’d stand with her against the woman who had left them both.
“What’re you doing here, Emma?”
She lifted her chin, kept her gaze fixed on his and said simply, “This is my home.”
“Not for five years.”
She chewed at her bottom lip and that action tugged at something inside him, too. Heat bubbled in his gut but Caden ignored it.
“I’m back now,” Emma told him. “I’m not leaving again.”
“Is that right?” He didn’t believe her.
“It is. I’m done with Hollywood.” Her chin was still lifted in self-defense mode.
She’d had success, though he didn’t want to admit it. So what had changed her mind? What had chased her home? And why the hell did he still care after all this time?
“What changed?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
“I guess I did,” she said.
He nodded. “Right. You changed five years ago. And now you’ve changed again. When’s the next change coming?”
“There won’t be one.”
“Don’t believe her,” Gracie murmured.
“Oh, I don’t,” Caden assured her and had the satisfaction of seeing Emma’s eyes flash. Anger? Insult? Didn’t matter which. As long as she knew where he stood.
Even knowing he couldn’t trust her didn’t stop Caden from wanting her with a bone-deep desire that had never really left him. “Why don’t you go inside, Gracie? I want to talk to Emma.”
She gave him a long, speculative look, then did as he asked, skirting past her sister still standing in the doorway.
“Wow.” Emma’s gaze locked on him. “You and Gracie must be really close these days. She’s taking orders from you now?”
“It wasn’t an order,” he told her. “It was a request.”
“That she hopped to fulfill.” Tipping her head to one side, she kept her eyes on him. “What’s going on between you two?”
Caden stared right back, and folded his arms across his chest. He hadn’t missed the temper in her tone. “You don’t get to ask that question, Emma. It’s none of your business.”
“She’s my sister.”
He laughed shortly. “You’ve been gone for years, Emma. All of a sudden now, you’re sisters?”
“I didn’t leave the family, Caden,” she argued and her chin lifted a little higher. “I left Montana.”
“And me.”
She took a breath, nodded and said, “Yeah. And you. But I explained why I had to go.”
Anger whipped through him like a lightning bolt. “That makes it okay that you took off? As long as you ‘explained’?”
She took a breath, stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets and stared at him for a long moment before asking, “What is it you want from me, Caden?”
Well, now, that was the question, wasn’t it? He’d come here to have his say. To set things straight with Emma and let her know exactly where he stood. But being here, with her, was making it hard to think.
He looked her up and down, felt a stir of need and squashed it. When he held her gaze again, he leaned in and whispered, “Absolutely nothing.”
