The Ashtons: Cole, Abigail and Megan

Chapter Three

Cole’s mouth kicked up in a grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast before.”

“I was trying to rescue your stupid dog.” She was out of breath and disheveled, her chest heaving beneath a skimpy T-shirt that read, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.

Tilly was calmer now that she’d found backup, though she still huddled behind Cole. He ran a hand over the top of her head soothingly and tried to sound severe. “You’re supposed to keep your demon cat inside.”

“Guess what? He got out.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” Eli said, “if Cole’s dog weren’t so pathetic.” He looked at Tilly, crouched behind Cole. “I know the cat is big, but you still outweigh him by fifty pounds.”

“Like that matters.” Cole shook his head. “As far as Tilly’s concerned, everything in the world is bigger and meaner than she is.”

Dixie sauntered closer, as casually graceful as her cat and a lot more interesting to watch. “She may be right about meaner. I’ve seen earthworms with more backbone.”

“Earthworms are invertebrates.”

“You get my point.”

Eli had been noticing Dixie’s legs. In all conscience, Cole couldn’t blame him. “Aren’t you cold?” Eli asked, concerned. “This isn’t exactly shorts weather.”

Cole could have warned him not to suggest that Dixie didn’t know what she was doing at all times. He wouldn’t have, of course, but he could have.

Dixie eyebrows flew up. “It’s shorts weather to me. I’ve gotten used to a more rugged climate.”

“Rugged.” Cole nodded. “Yeah, that’s the first word I think of when I think of you. I like the Tshirt.”

“I noticed that you’d become a slow reader.”

Since the letters were stretched across a pair of lovely breasts, he just grinned.

While they were talking, Hulk was infiltrating. Nonchalant as only a cat can be, he’d wandered closer. Tilly kept retreating until she was behind Eli. Hulk, triumphant, stropped himself against Cole’s leg, purring.

“Yeah, I can see how innocent you are,” Cole said, bending to pick the cat up. He promptly went limp, purring manically. Automatically Cole stroked him.

Dixie smirked. “He likes to be rubbed behind the ears.”

“That’s a dog thing.”

“Tell him, not me.”

“Okay, I get it.” Eli nodded. “See you two later.”

Cole glanced at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Going back to work. You remember about work? It’s something some of us like to do at this hour on a weekday.”

“Good idea.” Cole looked back at Dixie. “Take Tilly with you.”

“Forget it. You deserve a few handicaps. Nice to see you without that camera, Dixie,” he said, then headed off.

Dixie watched Eli leave, looking vexed. “I like your brother.”

“So do I, at times.” Especially when Eli had the good sense to go away. “Why does that bug you?”

She huffed out a breath. “I wasn’t paying attention, I guess. Of course, he’s very closed up, even worse than you. Hard to read. But I was not trying to play the two of you off each other.”

“I didn’t think you were. You can’t help flirting—that’s like breathing for you. A process I enjoyed watching, by the way, while reading your T-shirt, but never mind that for now. You don’t play men off each other. That would be calculated, and there’s nothing calculating about you.”

“That came perilously close to a compliment on something other than my breasts. Backhanded, but averaging more positive than negative.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. Here.” He held out twenty pounds of limp feline. “Take your monster. Tilly’s having a breakdown trying to figure out how to hide behind me when I’m holding her enemy.”

She draped the beast over her shoulder and started at an easy pace for the carriage house. Cole fell into step beside her.

Dixie slid him a sideways glance. “You think Tilly has some kind of canine PTSD?”

“I’m putting it down to poor parenting. Her former owner must have mistreated her.”

“She was previously owned by a cat?”

His lips twitched. “I’d say her fears generalized.”

She smiled, but fleetingly, and didn’t respond. For a few minutes they walked together in silence, with Tilly on Cole’s other side.

Funny, he thought. He’d once found it irksome to walk with Dixie. They’d matched up great in bed, but he hadn’t liked matching his steps to hers. She strolled. He wanted to get where he was going as efficiently as possible.

She’d said she didn’t see the appeal in sweating. He didn’t see the point in taking twenty minutes to get somewhere if you could do it in ten. But it was okay to slow down occasionally, he decided. It gave him a chance to notice the subtle scent she wore…slightly spicy, more herbal than floral, hard to pin down.

Like her. “What did you think of New York?”

“I loved it,” she said promptly. “Even during my homesick period, when I was in this horrible little apartment and didn’t know anyone, I loved it. There’s so much to see and do, and the energy is incredible.”

“You liked that? I never could picture you there, part of that lickety-split New York energy.”

“You always saw me as a lazy flake,” she said philosophically.

“No, I didn’t.” When she looked at him, all skepticism, he conceded, “An artistic flake, maybe. Not the same thing. You saw me as a dull business grunt.”

“Never dull,” she murmured. “Driven.”

“A word that conjures the echoes of a few of our better arguments.”

“Your definition for better being…?” She shook her head. “Never mind. You never wanted to move away, try a new place, did you?”

“My goals, my family, my life—they were all here. They still are. Why did you leave?” As soon as the words were out, Cole wanted to call them back. They’d come out too abruptly, sounding too much like why did you leave me?

He knew why. Eventually he’d understood and even agreed with her. Understanding wasn’t the same as forgiving.

Either she didn’t hear the unspoken question or she didn’t want to go there, either. “Itchy feet,” she said lightly. “You know what they say about New York—‘if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.’ I wanted to see if I could make it.”

“You succeeded.” They’d reached the carriage house. He opened the door and held it.

“Women and monsters first.”

“Just the monster. I’ve got to get back to work. What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re in a hurry to get back to work and I’m not.”

“Okay, that is weird. Be ready to close the door fast.” She dumped Hulk onto the floor, stepped back and Cole closed the door—fast, as ordered, with Hulk on the other side and complaining about it. “The deadline for the first painting is pretty tight, and I haven’t got it settled yet in my mind. Eli’s the subject, but I don’t have the right angle on him.”

“You pay attention to deadlines?” he asked politely.

“Very funny. I’m not that bad.”

“If you tell me you’re always on time now, I’ll have to ask for ID. Or maybe consult an exorcist.”

She grinned. “At least you admit it’s demonic to be compulsively punctual.”

Her grin was too familiar. It tugged at places inside him that he preferred to keep private. Cole put a hand on the door, keeping her where she was, and leaned in closer. “These are new,” he observed, touching his thumb to the corner of one eye, where a faint smile line showed.

She jerked her head away. “You used to be better with compliments. Back off, Cole.”

“I’m not going to kiss you. Not right this minute, anyway.” He’d forgotten the flecks of gold in her eyes, and how they turned plain brown to a rich caramel.

Her eyebrows lifted in haughty offense over those caramel eyes—but her tongue darted out to moisten her lip. “I see. You suddenly felt weak and couldn’t stand up on your own.”

“You’re nervous. I like that.”

“You’re obnoxious. I don’t like that.” He chuckled and straightened. “How long will you be here at The Vines, Dixie?”

She regarded him suspiciously. “Why?”

“I need to know what my deadline is.”

“If I ask why again, and you tell me, am I going to be mad?”

“Probably. No, almost certainly.” “Then we’ll skip the questions and go straight to the answers. I’ll be here for about two weeks, and I’m not going to bed with you. And now I really need to get back to work.” She started back toward the winery.

She was moving faster than usual, he noted. “You’re passing up the chance to throw a great temper fit.”

“I don’t throw fits. Or anything else.” “Lost that artistic temperament, have you? I seem to recall a plate that came sailing my way once. I could have sworn you were mad.”

Her lips thinned—but it looked more like an effort to hold back a smile than real temper. “Tell me, Cole. Is this your version of dipping my pigtails in the ink to get my attention? Or are you really spoiling for a fight?”

“Want to watch me turn somersaults? Or I could do chin-ups. They’re more macho.”

The smile won. She paused. “Push-ups. There’s something so manly about push-ups.”

He promptly dropped to the ground and began doing push-ups.

She laughed in delight and sat smack-dab on the cold ground to watch, propping her chin on her hand. “Ooh, look at those muscles. You’re so strong.”

“Don’t forget—” he managed one more “—manly. Strong and manly.” He stopped before he could embarrass himself, rolling onto his back and sitting up. Maybe he needed to add more upperbody training to his routine. His arms felt rubbery. “That was harder than it looked,” he assured her.

“I can’t believe you did it—and in dress slacks, yet.”

He was surprised, too. “It worked. You quit running away.”

“I wasn’t running.” She drew up her legs and hugged her knees.

“Okay, walking away.” He wished she’d stretch her legs out again. Dixie had great legs—firm calves, narrow ankles. He wanted to run a hand up one of them.

“Quit staring at my legs.”

“I’m checking for goose bumps. What did you do—get up and say, ‘I’m in California, therefore I must wear shorts?’”

Her mouth twitched reluctantly. “Something like that. It’s almost warm enough for them.”

He leaned back on one hand. “Why the evasive tactics, Dixie? Do you really want me to go away?”

She shrugged, not looking at him. “When I decided to take this job, I wasn’t expecting you to put on a full-court press. I tried not to have any expectations at all, but in the back of my mind I guess I thought you’d be in your chill zone with me.”

Cole didn’t want to hear about how cold she thought he was. “I keep telling you I’m not twentyfour anymore.”

“It’s damned disconcerting, too.” She plucked a blade of grass and ran it up her bare leg. “Like going home after years away and seeing old buildings gone, new ones put up. You turn a corner expecting to see the Wilson’s frame house, but they’re long gone and the new people have stuccoed the exterior and cut down the big oak tree. So much is the same, but I keep tripping over the differences.”

“You’ve been home for visits, though, haven’t you?”

She slid him an amused look. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

“I got that. I just wondered if you’d avoided California altogether.” And why she’d returned.

“I come back once or twice a year to see Mom and Aunt Jody.” She pulled up some more grass and let it sift through her fingers. “Mom’s getting married again.”

“Yeah?” He tried to sound as if this was a good idea.

Her wry look told him he hadn’t pulled it off. “This time it might work. Mike’s a good guy.”

Cole could barely call up an image of Helen McCord Lynchfield. He’d only met Dixie’s mother once…and that seemed odd, now that he thought about it.

Of course, their affair had only lasted a little over three months, though they’d known each other off and on ever since Mercedes went off to college. Merry and Dixie had been roommates, and Dixie had come home with her several times during breaks. There’d been trouble at home. The man who’d been her stepfather at the time had been a grade-A bastard.

Dixie’s mother had finally left the bastard a month before Dixie graduated. And a month after that, the Valley had sweated under a record-setting heat wave. Cole and Dixie had claimed responsibility for that.

“I imagine your mom is glad to have you nearby. And your aunt, too. She’s still in L.A.?” In some ways, Dixie was closer to her mother’s sister, an award-winning reporter, than to her mother. While Cole could understand why, it had always made him wary. Jody Belleview was a funny, fiercely independent woman with a finely developed scorn for marriage.

“Aunt Jody’s not in L.A. anymore.”

Something in Dixie’s voice caught his attention. She was looking down at a small patch of ground she’d absentmindedly denuded of grass. “What is it, Dix?”

“She’s the reason I moved back here. Mom couldn’t take care of her by herself anymore.”

A quick squeeze of hurt for her had him covering her hand with his. “That sounds bad.”

“Pretty bad, yeah. She has Alzheimer’s.”

Stunned, Cole just sat there. He’d met Dixie’s aunt just once, at the same time he met her mother. But Jody Belleview was the kind of woman who left an impression. He remembered her laugh and her quick, restless intelligence. “I can’t imagine…isn’t she younger than your mother? Only fifty or so?”

“Fifty-four. I’m still in denial. Which is not as easy to do on this coast as it was while I was across the country.” She gave him a brittle smile, then gathered herself and rose to her feet.

He stood, too. “Dixie—”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it.”

When she walked away she was moving fast, not strolling, her back straight and stiff. And Cole just stood there and let her go, feeling as if the earth had shifted under him.

She couldn’t talk about it? That didn’t sound like Dixie. Maybe she meant she couldn’t talk about it with him…but that wasn’t what she’d said. It wasn’t what he’d felt radiating from her with the kind of buried intensity he knew only too well.

He was the one who stuffed things into compartments, banged the lid shut and sat on it to keep them there. Dixie had always possessed a terrifying honesty, with herself as well as others. She lifted lids and peeked inside. She didn’t turn away from painful truths.

At least, that’s how he remembered her.

Cole stood there a few moments longer, frowning at the path she’d vanished down. Then he went looking for his sister.

Chapter Four

At ten o’clock that night, Dixie stood on a drop cloth in the center of her temporary living room, slashing color across a canvas. The light was lousy for painting, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t really painting. She was venting. No one but her would ever see this.

Red roiled with brown in a muddy whirlpool at the lower right, while a mountain of black and gray reared over a pale green center like a granite wave about to crash. It was lousy art, she thought, stepping back to look it over. But damn satisfying.

The knock on her door brought a frown to her face. On the couch, Hulk lifted his head, lazily contemplating the possibility of company. To Hulk, company meant someone who could be cozened into rubbing his jaw or chin. To Dixie, it meant conversation.

She didn’t want to talk. She considered not answering, but it probably wouldn’t work. Scowling, she snapped, “Just a minute,” then poked her brush into the wire loop that held it in the cleaner. She grabbed a rag and wiped some of the paint from her fingers as she headed to the door.

Cole stood on her stoop with a frown to match her own—and a small leather tote in one hand, like an overnight case.

She eyed that tote, eyebrows raised. “Not exactly subtle, Cole.”

“It doesn’t hold my shaving gear. No full-court press tonight. No moves, no passes, no fouls. May I come in?”

She studied his face. It didn’t tell her much. “Why not?” she said at last, and stepped back.

“I did some research,” he said as he entered. “Nothing you haven’t already read, probably, but…” Words and feet both drifted to a stop as he saw her easel in the center of the room. And what sat on the easel.

In spite of her mood, his expression tickled her.

“Interesting,” he said after a moment in a careful voice. “I thought you didn’t do that kind of abstract art.”

She chuckled. “That isn’t art, it’s therapy. My version of smashing crockery.”

“That would be why it looks like crap, then.”

“Probably. I’ll scrape the canvas and reprime it later.” She cocked her head to one side. “You aren’t here to inspect my visual therapy.”

“No, I…” Hulk had abandoned the couch and was rubbing against Cole’s leg, making like a chain saw. Cole bent and rubbed behind his ears. “Hello, monster.”

Dixie ambled over to retrieve her brush, which needed to be washed. She’d made the canvas about as ugly as it needed to be. Might as well shut down for the night and find out what Cole was up to.

In the tiny kitchen, she turned on the tap and worked soap into the soft bristles. “Hulk appreciates company, no matter what the hour. I’m not in the mood.”

“Tough.” He’d set the mysterious tote on the coffee table. “You probably know all this,” he said gruffly, taking out a fat folder, “but I wasn’t sure how far your denial extended, so I thought I’d pass it on.”

She put down her brush and returned to the living area, curious. He handed her the folder. Inside, she found pages and pages of information—about Alzheimer’s. Organized into sections, with neatly printed tab tops dividing them: Stages…Treatments…Theories…Caretaker Support…

“That’s all from reputable sites,” he told her. “There’s a lot of information out there, but not all of it is reliable.”

“This must have taken hours,” she murmured, paging through the printouts.

“I wanted to know about your aunt’s condition, and you weren’t talking. Which brings us to another question.”

She looked up. “Us?”

“All right, me. It brings me to another question.” He moved restlessly, paused to frown at her visual therapy, then looked back at her. “Why aren’t you talking about it?” he demanded.

“Just because I didn’t talk to you—”

“You haven’t unloaded on Mercedes, either.”

“I told her about Aunt Jody,” she protested.

“Yeah, and that’s all. You haven’t…you know.” He waved vaguely. “Talked about your feelings.”