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Vern returned, and Shelby left them alone. A few minutes later, the elderly veteran waved her over and asked for the check. Shelby went into her usual dialogue about the special veterans plan. Vern thanked her, then the two men stood and shook hands.
“Been a real honor to spend time with you, sir.” Nick nodded at him.
Beaming, Vern saluted him. “Same here, sailor. You ever need someone to jaw with you about the service, I’m your man.”
Vern left, his shoulders a little less stooped, his gait a little less unsteady.
Shelby began clearing the table of Vern’s dishes as Nick sat down and asked for his own check.
“That was so nice of you,” she told him.
“You’re the nice one, Sweet Pea. Vern knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you pay for his dinner every Friday. Thank you, Shel.”
Her gaze met his dark one and in the depths, she felt something stir. Not mere desire, but something deeper, and more lasting.
“Shouldn’t you be working instead of wasting the customer’s time?”
Shelby stiffened. The honey-sweet voice hid the acid behind those words. She didn’t need to turn around to know that the owner stood behind her. The woman had been in the kitchen an hour ago, barking orders and giving the evil eye when Shelby asked the head chef about a cake recipe with cinnamon.
With her cascading wispy blond curls, big blue eyes and stylish clothing, Natalie Beaufort caught many male eyes in small-town Barlow. Big Chuck Beaufort, her wealthy dad, spared no expense on his youngest daughter. Natalie boarded her show horse, Fancy, at the Belle Creek, so Shelby had to force herself to be polite. The ranch needed the fees to survive. It was no secret Big Chuck coveted the ranch’s lush four hundred acres for some pie-in-the-sky amusement park called Countryville. The man had been bragging around town about his latest plan.
Maybe Nick didn’t care about the land that had been in his family for five generations, but she did. The thought of seeing the rolling hillside, the duck pond where she’d gone swimming on many a hot summer day, the horse pasture, the faded red barn and the rambling outbuildings turned into a tourist trap made Shelby nauseous. And furious.
Natalie slid into the booth across from Nick, pretty as you please, pushing Shelby aside. “Well, hello, stranger,” she cooed. “Nice to see you again. And what are you doing here at my restaurant?”
“Leaving.” Nick gulped down his tea and slid out from the booth, his gaze centered on Shelby. “I’ll see you later, Shelby.”
Silently laughing, she nodded at Nick.
He dropped several bills into the check folder and then looked at her with those sleepy bedroom eyes, now sharpened, as they centered on her mouth. He touched her cheek and she startled, the contact sizzling between them like a crackling electrical line. Nick gently stroked a thumb over her trembling lower lip.
“Maybe I should have stuck around ten years ago and finished what I started with you.”
Whistling, he jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and strode off.
Natalie pouted so much she looked twelve instead of twenty-six.
“Get back to work,” Natalie told her in a sullen voice.
Humming, Shelby cleared the table and dumped the dishes in the wait station near the bar. The recent troubles came back to haunt her. Nick was staying at the ranch. He’d been away for ten years and had no idea of what he was waltzing back into on the Belle Creek.
As she headed into the kitchen, a dreadful thought struck her. Nick returned for the funeral, but what if Silas left the entire ranch to his son?
Impossible. Dan had faithfully remained on the ranch as foreman, aiding his uncle. Silas and his only son, Nick, had been estranged for years.
Silas would never leave the Belle Creek to Nick, the man who wanted nothing to do with the ranch and would probably sell if it was his.
And if he was the new owner of the Belle Creek, she faced a real possibility of being homeless once more.
Chapter 2
Nick had never wanted to set eyes on the Belle Creek Ranch again.
Ten years ago, he’d thought the same about Shelby Stillwater, and not for the same reasons.
Sweet Pea Shelby. Damn, the girl had turned into a woman, and what a fine-looking woman. One night, upset over yet another fight with Silas, he’d come home and saw her sitting in the cabin, where he’d gone to sleep off the Jack Daniel’s. He hadn’t cared she was barely sixteen and he was old enough to know better. She looked so lost, as forlorn as he’d felt, so he’d kissed her. Her mouth had been warm and sweet, and the kiss had seared him to his very bones, so much that his dick had turned as hard as stone in his jeans and he knew if he’d stayed, he’d have done something very, very wrong.
Shelby was too nice for his brand of wicked.
And now she was legal. Very legal. With those big green eyes, thick brown curls with a hint of honey and sunshine spilling past her shoulders, all those curves and that spark in her eye, she made him think of hot, wet kisses in the night, and things men wanted to do to women who roused them to the point of madness. Long, slow sex. Fast, hard sex.
When he’d touched her, the past rushed back like a tornado. Her skin felt warm and soft as satin, and her mouth...
Nick pushed Shelby out of his mind. Tomorrow was the funeral, and then he’d be gone again, this time never coming back. He’d never return to Shelby or the ranch. Odd, he’d thought the old man would live forever, for Silas Anderson was one tough bastard.
Not too tough for the pneumonia that rattled his lungs and ultimately claimed him.
Nick parked his Harley in the curved driveway of the two-story white farmhouse and adjusted his backpack. Two elegant carriage lights tastefully accented the front porch, with its rows of white wicker rocking chairs and baskets of flowers. House...? Hell, this was a mansion compared to some places he’d slept.
He whistled. When he’d left, last time for good, the farmhouse had weathered paint, finicky plumbing and heat, and wood floorboards that creaked when you tried to sneak up the stairs. This kind of renovating took plenty of money. He knew, too, because over the past year since he’d left the teams, he’d found odd jobs doing construction and flipping houses.
His gut curling into a knot, he walked up to the double doors with the half-moon windows above them and rang the silver bell. Soft chimes sounded inside. Even the doorbell had changed from the sharp, annoying buzzer. He half expected a butler named Jeeves to open the door.
Instead, his cousin Dan did, and stood for a moment silently assessing him. Nick did the same. Five years older than Nick, Dan looked a little thicker around the waist than last time, and there were threads of silver in his dark hair. No welcome in his blue eyes, either. Once they’d been close. No longer. Not since the day Nick packed all his things and left for good. Abandoning the family, Dan had called it.
Survival, Nick termed it.
In a starched white shirt, black trousers and polished loafers, Dan looked more like a banker than a cowboy. Nick became aware of his shabby jeans, the faded black T-shirt beneath his collared chambray work shirt.
“Hi, Dan. Good to see you.”
“Nick. You’re here, finally.”
Dan engulfed him in a hug that felt stiffer than a new board. Nick hugged him back a little more enthusiastically. He wasn’t going to be a jerk, even if Dan wasn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat.
“Come on in. You can hang your things in the hall closet. Felicity doesn’t like jackets strewn about the house.”
Nick shrugged out of the frayed backpack containing all his worldly goods and then removed his leather jacket, placing it on a padded hanger in the closet. A black Stetson with a turquoise band sat on a shelf. Nick removed it and stroked a thumb along the brim.
“I remember this well,” he mused. “Bought it at a rodeo when I was sixteen.”
The remark made Dan thaw a bit. “You used to wear it in school.”
Nick grinned. “Wonder if my head has shrunk since then.”
Dan’s smile faded. “Felicity doesn’t like hats worn inside the house. But you can take it with you upstairs to your room and wear it on the ranch. Come, I’ll introduce you to my wife and children.”
The hallway was lined with white marble, and elegant framed paintings hung on the cream walls. The entry to this house wasn’t stacked with boots caked with mud and horse droppings. The antiseptic atmosphere made him feel as if he should have wiped his feet more before entering.
Dan led him into a living room with overstuffed brown leather furniture, a stone fireplace and gold lamps. A pretty but brittle blond woman dressed in a severe navy-blue dress was perched on the edge of the sofa. Next to her were two young boys with buzzed-cut brown hair dressed in neatly pressed trousers and white shirts.
Dan introduced the woman as his wife, Felicity, and their two sons, Mason, eight, and Miles, six. The little boys looked solemn.
Nick shook Felicity’s hand, which felt as damp and listless as the Southern heat. He sat on the leather chair opposite them.
“Thanks for letting me bunk here tonight,” he told her.
She gave a desultory wave of one hand. “It is your home as well, Nicolas.”
Dan stood by the sofa, as stiff as his starched shirt. “Did you eat dinner yet, Nick?”
“I ate at the Bucking Bronc earlier. Didn’t want to impose.”
Felicity seemed to sit even straighter. “It is no imposition. We already ate, but there are leftovers. Breakfast will be ready at seven o’clock sharp tomorrow. The funeral home requests family be there at nine thirty. We arranged to have two limousines. You may ride in one, unless you would rather provide your own transportation.”
“I have my bike,” he offered.
Her nostrils flared in apparent distaste. “You may ride in the second car, then. We expect promptness and we must respect the funeral director’s wishes. The services will begin at eleven sharp. We have a few house rules. No shouting, running, hats worn inside the house or jeans at the dinner table. We dress for dinner, which is six o’clock sharp. Boots with spurs are worn outside only.”
With all this “sharp” grating sharply on his last nerve, Nick wished he’d booked a room at the local motel. Then he remembered there was a country-music convention in town and there were no rooms. Maybe the barn. Might be a tad warmer sleeping with the horses than in this cold house.
He glanced at the dusty Western boots on his feet. “This is still a farm, right, Felicity?”
Felicity blinked. “Of course it is. But we are civilized people, and we must adhere to the rules in order to act as civilized people, not wild hooligans.”
A dull flush crept up his neck. Damn if she didn’t sound like old Silas himself, with the rules and the “hooligan” accusation. Maybe the old man had rubbed off on her. Or he’d died earlier and his ghost possessed this woman.
“I won’t be much in your way.” He gave her a pointed look. “After the funeral, I’m gone.”
He’d think the idea would have pleased her. Instead, she kept twisting her hands together. What was wrong with this woman?
“Where’s Timmy?” he asked. “I saw Shelby at the restaurant and she said you’re babysitting.”
Felicity sat straighter. “He’s downstairs in the recreation room.”
Recreation room? Dollar signs began pinging in his head. He wondered how much money Silas had sunk into this house. Unease gripped him. The old man had always been frugal, but this house cost money. Maybe the rumors he’d heard of the ranch being in debt were more than rumors.
Not your problem.
Dan stood and gestured to him. “I’ll show you to your room.”
He thanked Felicity again, and followed Dan up the sweeping staircase to the second-floor landing, his boot heels stomping firmly on each step.
At the hallway’s end, Dan opened a door. Nick blinked. Once this had been his room. No longer.
The bedroom had been converted to a guest room with a white queen-size bed, a pink ruffled spread, pink walls, white girlish furniture and a white rocking chair with bright pink cushions by the window. Nick gave a rueful shrug.
“Felicity thought you might like to be in your old room.” Dan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Except we did some redecorating, thinking you’d never come home again.”
“No worries,” he said easily. “I’m not staying long and I’ve stayed in worse places. Maybe not as pink, though.”
Dan flashed a brief smile at the joke as Nick dumped his pack on the white carpeted floor.
“Bathroom is through that door.” Dan pointed to a connecting door. “No one else is on this floor, so you don’t have to worry about interruptions.”
“Just my boots,” Nick joked.
Dan jammed a hand through his short hair. “Ah, about the boots, don’t worry about it. Felicity makes the rules mainly for the staff, who come into the house to use the office downstairs. Not family.”
Am I still family? The question hovered on the tip of his mouth, but he only nodded.
“Where’s Jake?” he asked.
“He’s at his girlfriend’s, but will meet us at the funeral home.”
Lucky bastard. Maybe his girlfriend had a spare room for Nick. A room with less frills and less Pepto-Bismol decor.
“I’ll need a suit for the funeral,” Nick told him.
“Already taken care of. You can wear one of Jake’s—you’re about the same size. Felicity hung it in this closet.”
As his cousin made to leave, Nick sat down on the pink chair. He was twenty-nine now, no longer the rebellious teen who looked up to his older relative for advice. “Stay a minute, Dan. Tell me what’s been going on. All I heard was rumors about the ranch having financial trouble.”
Dan stood by the bed. “There’s been a lot that’s happened since you left, Nick. Maybe if you had stuck around, if you had cared enough, things would be different.”
Tension squeezed his guts. Once he and Dan had been close. No longer, for the cold anger flaring in his cousin’s eyes told him everything. “I couldn’t.”
No use getting into the past, how Silas had browbeat him until Nick felt smothered, and how if he hadn’t left, he’d have either turned into a ghost of himself, or he’d have gone mad. The old man had kicked him out when he was only sixteen, telling him to “learn to straighten out and you can return.”
Nick survived six months being homeless, living by his wits, until the bitter cold weather drove him back, humiliated and ashamed, to his father. He remained at home another three years and then joined the navy.
No one knew the real reason he stuck it out. He preferred to keep that reason private.
Still, Dan should know his decision wasn’t capricious. “You remember that day when I was fourteen and I found the puppy by the roadside? How I begged Silas to keep it?”
His cousin nodded. “Always thought it was a bad deal that the dog was so sick you had to put it down. Tough call, but Silas said it was for the best.”
Nick gave his cousin a level look. “The dog was fine. I secretly brought him over to the vet to have him checked over. He didn’t need anything more than a deworming, Dan. Silas wanted me to shoot it because he said I needed to grow a set of real balls, and not get all ‘female’ over a damn stray dog.”
Dan blanched. “Silas would never do that.”
Nick gave a grim smile. “Oh, he would never do that to you. But me, he did crap like that all the time. Guess you’ll never understand. But before you go judging me for leaving here, understand I had my reasons.”
His cousin looked away, but not before Nick caught a flash of guilt on his face. “Silas could be tough, yeah. But if he didn’t take us in after my dad died, we’d have been really bad off, Nick. I guess that’s why I could forgive anything he did.”
“You had your reasons for staying, just as I had mine for leaving.” Nick stood and went to his pack, then unzipped it. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”
Dan started for the door. “Like Felicity said, it’s your home, too. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything. Make sure to lock your window before you go to sleep.”
Lock his window on the second floor? Nick looked up, but his cousin was gone.
Nick went to the closet and opened the door. A black silk suit hung there, the dry-cleaning plastic still encasing it. He tore off the plastic and then tried on the suit. A little tight around the shoulders, but it would suffice.
He hung it up and then went into the adjoining bathroom to shower. When he emerged, in clean jeans and a gray T-shirt, the two boys stood in the doorway. Nick waved them in. They entered, their big blue eyes wide.
They watched him as he unpacked and rummaged through his clothing.
“Daddy says you’re a hero. You’re a Navy SEAL,” Mason said.
Hero? The thought soured him, even as he appreciated his cousin’s compliment.
“I was a Navy SEAL.” Nick hung a hat on the bed’s post.
“Mommy doesn’t like hats on the bed,” Miles informed him.
Wonder if Mommy likes anything on the bed, he thought, and sighed. The boys stood opposite him, so stiff that they resembled wooden bookends.
He wasn’t good with kids, except his best friend Cooper’s family, and these boys looked too wary, too uncertain of this stranger in their home.
Their home, not his.
Nick dug into his knapsack. He removed his one good white shirt, wondering if Felicity had an iron he could borrow. Judging from the woman’s attitude, she probably kept a dozen.
The gun case was stashed at the bottom. He removed it and stared at the pistol encased within.
He’d have to keep his SIG Sauer locked up and wondered if Silas still kept his shotguns and rifles in the downstairs study. Ah, hell.
Bracing his hands on his knees, he felt a bout of piercing grief at what had been lost between himself and the old man. Silas had taught him how to shoot when Nick was ten. Took him hunting in the mountains, and had pride in his first kill.
The old man showed him how to be an expert marksman. Insisted he take care of his weapons, clean them and make sure they were locked up, away from curious fingers.
It was one of the few areas they had in common and didn’t clash about.
“Is that a gun?” Miles asked.
Nick nodded, replaced his sidearm in the backpack.
“Can we see it?” Mason said, his voice growing excited.
Giving his cousin’s son a long look, Nick shook his head. “Hands off. I never let another man handle my sidearm.”
The boy pouted a little until hearing the word man.
“Dad wants to take me hunting, but Mommy says guns are dangerous,” Mason said.
“They are, if you don’t know how to use them. Maybe your dad can convince your mom to let you go hunting next year, when you’re a little older.”
“Daddy keeps a gun under his pillow,” Miles told him, but clammed up when Mason frowned at him.
Odd. Dan had always been a bit squeamish around guns. Necessary on a ranch, but his cousin let Silas do the shooting. Why would he feel the need for home protection with a gun, especially with vulnerable children living here?
Next he removed a small black velvet box and opened it, studying the gold winking in the lamplight.
“What is that?” Mason asked.
Nick removed the pin and showed them. “That’s my Budweiser, my Navy SEAL pin. Only real Navy SEALs get these.”
The boys examined the pin with avid interest while Nick went to the window. He lifted the curtains with the back of one hand, peering into the darkness at the twin carriage lights on the garage. Shelby lived out there. Cute, curvy Shelby, who had turned his world upside down ten years ago with that killer kiss...
“If you’re sleeping here tonight, make sure to lock your window. We all have to make sure the house is locked tight before we go to bed,” Mason told him.
Nick recoiled. He glanced down at the ground two stories below. “Why?”
“So no one breaks in, like they did last month.”
Crime, here at Belle Creek? “What happened?”
“Someone went into Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom.” Mason looked troubled.
Nick squatted down by the solemn little boy. “What happened?”
“Daddy says not to talk about it outside the family,” Miles told him.
Nick smiled. “I’m family. You can tell me.”
Miles seemed to consider. “Someone stole Mommy’s favorite pen.”
“Pin,” Mason amended. “They went into our parents’ bedroom and took Mom’s jewelry. Her favorite pin. It had a silver horse with emerald eyes. It was right after that when Readalot died—”
“Daddy was real upset,” Miles interrupted.
“I’ll tell it, Miles.” Mason looked at Nick. “Readalot was our champion jumper. He won lots of competitions. Shelby went into the stables and Readalot was dead in his stall. He was our champion jumper. Hank, the ranch hand, say the horse was healthy as an ox. Someone killed him.”
He needed to find out what the hell was going on around here. Then he remembered he didn’t live here anymore.
Nick ruffled the boys’ hair. “Don’t worry about it. Do as your mom and dad tell you. I’m sure things will be fine.”
But they stared at him with those big eyes. “Will you stay here? Maybe if we have a real Navy SEAL stay here, the bad things won’t happen.”
Tightness formed in his chest. Bad things happened all the time, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent them. But these were young, innocent kids, and while they didn’t deserve lies, they also didn’t deserve adult worries. “We’ll see,” he said vaguely. “I’ll do everything I can while I’m here, okay?”
The words were more BS than the droppings in the pasture, but both boys looked relieved.
“Now, go downstairs to your mom. I’m sure she’s worried about you being up here with big, bad cousin Nick.” He winked at them and they grinned in pure male camaraderie of doing something they shouldn’t.
When the boys left, Nick fingered his SEAL pin. Hell of a price paid for getting it, but not as much as his brothers in arms, who had paid the ultimate price with their lives. The pin meant everything to him. But he’d left the teams after his hospital discharge, when he knew he couldn’t perform up to par, knew he would never be at the top of his game again.
And now he felt more lost than when he’d stormed away from the ranch and Silas’s iron grip when he was nineteen, never looking back.
No reason for him to stay now. But as he gazed out the window, he saw a car pull into the driveway by the garage. Light from the dual carriage lamps showcased a woman climbing out—a woman with dark hair and a gentle sway to her hips.
Shelby. The mouth-watering, kissable Shelby.
He watched her walk across the drive toward the house. Nick checked his appearance in the mirror, finger-combed his hair and went downstairs as the doorbell rang.
Miss Shelby Stillwater. His blood surged, hot and thick. He thought of that kiss and how it had made every cell inside him alive and aware.
Maybe it was time to stay. At least until he could figure out what the hell was going on around here.
Chapter 3
The funeral had been a quiet, dignified affair. No one shed a tear, except her.
But as she’d stood by the graveside, watching the others throw flowers on the casket, she saw Nick rub his eyes. Maybe he and Silas had been on bad terms, but the man was his father.
Shelby had sidled over to Nick, who was standing alone and looking lost, and clasped his hand. He’d looked startled, and then a little grateful.
Now, as they sat in Silas’s downstairs study in the farmhouse, Nick looked neither. Guarded, perhaps. No...wary. And quite uncomfortable, as was she. The last thing she wanted to do, after the emotion of the funeral and the strain of helping to host the reception at the house afterward, was to listen to the reading of the will. She only wanted to collect Timmy from the downstairs rec room, where he was playing with Mason and Miles, then go to her apartment. Maybe take Timmy riding on his pony later.