* * * * *
Dinner was a complete success. Nan had set the meal up in the formal dining room, taking advantage of the bigger table. The fancier digs didn’t stop the rodeo crew from being on their rowdiest behavior. Elise
loved
it! They were in high spirits as they passed around the bowls of food and told rodeo stories about Cade and even some about Colt.
She sat next to Colt and, near the end of the meal, while he ate his apple pie and ice cream, he laid his hand on her thigh under the table. It was a thoroughly intimate gesture, meant to be private, but the warmth of his hand, the feel of his fingers cupping her inner thigh affected her.
As she’d taken a bite of her own dessert and some of the ice cream dripped from the spoon to her lip, Colt surprised her when he ran his finger along her bottom lip, then sucked the ice cream off his finger. She’d been so caught up in his smoldering, deep blue eyes staring at her mouth that it took a moment for her to realize the entire table had gone quiet as they watched her and Colt.
Embarrassed to return her gaze to Colt and with heat rising up her cheeks, Elise picked up their empty plates and carried them into the kitchen.
While she scraped off their plates, she smiled when she heard Colt giving a send-off speech for the crew. He was a
good
man. One she was proud to know.
“He’s a good man,” a deep voice came from behind her, echoing her thoughts and startling her from her reverie.
She turned to look into Cade’s indigo blue eyes. “I couldn’t agree more.”
His dark gaze narrowed for a moment as if he were assessing her again. She could tell trust didn’t come easily for him either.
“I wanted to say goodbye before I headed out,” he said in a gruff voice.
Awww, these
tough
Tanner men made her want to take care of them all. With her emotions running high, Elise impulsively reached over and hugged Cade. His body stiffened when her arms encircled his neck, making her realize she must have made him uncomfortable. As she started to pull away, Cade’s arms came around her and he gave her a tight hug, pulling her full against his body. He whispered in her ear, “He’s a tough sonofabitch at times, but my brother’s got a heart of gold. I hope you’re here permanently when I return at the end of rodeo season.”
Elise didn’t know what to say. She pulled back with tears in her eyes and a tremulous smile on her lips. Cade gave her one of his rare, devastating smiles and said, as he chucked her gently on the chin, “I’ve always wanted a sister.” Turning on his booted heel, he walked out of the kitchen, leaving her thoroughly speechless.
Nan and Marie joined her in the kitchen to help clean up while Colt said goodbye to everyone. When Colt came in the kitchen twenty minutes later, he took the dishtowel from Marie and said, “I’ll take over. Why don’t you stay the night? Nan will make up a room for you.”
“Thanks Colt, but I like to sleep in my own bed,” Marie said as she walked up to hug Elise goodbye.
“Where’s Mace?” Elise asked Colt with a grin, knowing Mace would do anything to avoid kitchen duty.
Colt snorted. “Where do you think? He’s gone over to Rockin’ Joe’s with the rest of the boys to send everyone off with ‘a proper goodbye,’ so he says.”
“I’m heading out since the reinforcements have come. Take care, sweetie,” her aunt said as she hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll come visit again in a couple of days and I’ll bring my cruise pictures with me next time.”
“You do that,” she encouraged as she walked her aunt to the door.
After Marie left, Elise joined Colt at the sink. The sight of him rolling up his chambray shirtsleeves, revealing his tanned arms, the veins and muscles in them, drew her attention and appreciation. She smiled and turned to the sink as Nan added another pot to the suds. While they worked, Elise teased Colt about several of the rodeo stories the crew had told about him. Colt tried to distract her with whispered suggestions of what he wanted but still hadn’t had a chance to do to her.
A knock at the screened back door had Nan, Colt and Elise looking at each other in surprise. It was eight-thirty at night.
Colt set down the towel and moved to the door. When his entire framed stiffened, Elise knew something was wrong.
“Hello, Colt. You look a lot like your daddy,” a woman spoke through the screen.
Colt’s face turned to stone and he replied in a cold voice, “What are you doing here,
Sha
ron?”
Chapter Seventeen
Whoa!
Elise thought, her heart jerking in her chest.
Colt’s long-lost mother showing up out of the blue?
“I tried to knock on the front door, but no one answered, so I came around to the kitchen door.” She gave a soft laugh. “Some things never change.”
Colt folded his arms over his chest, an impassive expression on his face. “Why are you here?”
She gave an exasperated sound. “Aren’t you at least going to invite me in?”
“No—” Colt started to answer, but Elise decided she’d better intervene.
“Of course he is,” she replied brushing past Colt and pushing the screen door open.
As the tall, elegant woman with dark hair showing the beginnings of gray walked inside, Elise put out her hand, “I’m Elise Hamilton.”
“
Sha
ron Tanner,” the woman replied, her expression wary as she assessed Elise.
Nodding to Nan she said, “Hello again, Nan.”
“
Harumph
,” Nan snorted and turned to put a pot in the cabinet.
“You didn’t answer my question,
Sha
ron.” Colt’s voice sounded cold, emotionless.
When
Sha
ron smoothed her hand over her bob haircut, the gesture told Elise just how nervous she was despite her aloof appearance.
“I received a phone call the other day from a woman who told me the ranch was being sold.”
Who the heck called? Elise wondered, but when she met Colt’s gaze, she realized they both knew the answer.
May.
Sha
ron continued, “The woman said if I had anything I wanted to keep, I’d better come claim it.”
Elise’s heart jumped at
Sha
ron’s words and her spirits soared for Colt.
“I have some things…a couple of family antiques I left behind I wanted to collect,”
Sha
ron continued, dashing Elise’s hopes that she’d come back to see her boys…to make amends for deserting her family.
“Get your stuff,” Colt ground out, turning away from her as he dropped his arms.
“I was hoping…that is…well, I just flew in and I drove all the way out here. My flight out isn’t until tomorrow morning. Can I stay here?”
“No,” Colt unequivocally replied as he turned to face his mother once more.
Elise stepped between them, her back to Colt. “Of course you can stay one night. Colt wouldn’t turn you out.”
“Like hell I wouldn’t,” he ground out from behind her.
Elise’s temper began to rise. He may resent his mother, but she’d been raised with certain manners and with his emotions riding high, he seemed to have forgotten his…common decency and all.
She turned to face him and said in a calm tone, “Colt, surely she can spend one night before she has to leave tomorrow morning.”
Colt’s hands were balled into tight fists, his entire body tightly wound. He looked down at her, his expression livid. “No.”
Sighing, she turned back to
Sha
ron. “You were misinformed. The ranch is not being sold. As part owner of the Lonestar I say you can stay one night—”
She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth before she heard the back door slam behind her. She glanced back to see Colt had walked out.
“Thank you,”
Sha
ron said in a quiet voice, drawing her attention.
Elise faced her. “I didn’t do that for you. I did it because it was the way I was raised.”
A sad, disappointed look crossed the woman’s face, making Elise feel guilty. She had no reason to dislike this woman other than the hurt she’d caused her sons and their father.
Tempering her voice to a lighter tone, she responded, “I believe it would be best if you collected your belongings and left before Colt arrives to work on the animals in the morning.”
Turning she started to ask, “Nan, would you show—”
“I’ll show
Sha
ron to the
guest
bedroom,” Nan interrupted in a disgruntled tone.
Oh boy, Elise thought. Not only had she pissed off Colt, she’d also alienated a woman she’d come to respect. She knew Nan thought of the Tanner boys as her very own. Elise hoped Nan would eventually forgive her.
* * * * *
Feeling very sad, Elise walked outside. She felt for Colt, for what he’d been through in his life. How would she feel if the situation was reversed? Yeah, she’d be pissed, but she’d want someone whose emotions weren’t so closely involved to keep her from being a complete ass. Noting Colt’s truck was missing, she ran to the office, collected her purse and keys, and climbed in her car.
She wondered where he would go as she drove down the ranch’s long driveway. More than likely he wouldn’t go to the bar because he was in a thunderous mood. Home. He’d go home.
Turning in the direction of his ranch, she stiffened her spine, unsure what kind of reception she’d get from him. Her stomach knotted when she thought of the fact that Colt had just started to open up a bit to her right before this happened.
Sighing, she gripped the wheel and thought of a statement her Aunt Marie had made about relationships. “Every relationship has its ups and downs. It’s the weathering the storms that shows the true strength of the relationship in the end.” Elise knew that as strong-willed as she and Colt both were, they’d have many storms to weather, but she also believed in their relationship. She hoped Colt did too.
When she pulled up to Colt’s house, she turned off her engine and lights. Her heart sank to see the entire place pitch-dark. She got out, peeked in the garage window, and saw it was empty. Where was he?
Feeling depressed, she walked back to her car. As she opened the door, she glanced at the house then let her gaze scan the surrounding property. When she spotted a large shadow out in the field behind Colt’s house, her heart leapt. It had to be Colt’s truck.
Her stomach knotted as she walked around the house and approached his vehicle. Colt sat on the toolbox, leaning against the window inside the back of his truck.
Elise walked up to the truck and put her hand on the side, looking up at him. He didn’t turn or even acknowledge her presence. Just when she started to say something, he spoke.
“I’ve spent all my life forgetting about her, resentful that she left my dad, hurt him the way she did. But the hardest damn thing was having to comfort Mace whenever he got hurt or had a bad nightmare and cried for her, or to try to reason with Cade when he got in fights at school just for fighting’s sake.” He paused and sighed heavily. “Thank God my brothers weren’t here tonight.”
The bitterness in his voice conveyed the heavy weight of responsibility he must’ve carried. It tore at her heart. Guilt swept over her as she swiped silent tears away.
“Colt, I’m sorry for your past. I can’t change it, though I wish I could. You’re a good, honorable man and I know you well enough to know that in your heart you would’ve felt like a heel if you had turned your mother out, no matter what she’d done. So I took the heat.
I
became the bad guy. That’s what—” she paused over the word, not knowing best how to categorize their relationship, “partners do. They look out for one another.”
When he didn’t look at her but kept staring into the woods, Elise took a deep breath and climbed up into the back of the truck until she stood directly in front of him.
Colt didn’t look up at her but instead stared at the center of her chest, an impassive expression on his face.
Elise squatted down and put her hands on his knees. Looking up at him, she let her emotions for him pour into her words, “I care what happened to that young teenage boy in the past, but I care more about the man you are today and the person you’ll become in the future.”
Colt looked down at her, the night shadows hiding the expression in his eyes. Elise’s hands felt clammy and her heart rammed in her chest as she awaited his response. Had she totally destroyed the tenuous trust they’d worked so hard to build with one another?
Without a word he swiftly pulled her between his legs and speared his fingers through her hair. She set her knees on the floor of the truck as he cupped the back of her head and pressed her head against his chest, burying his nose in the thick mass of hair between his fingers.
Elise clung to his waist, snuggling as close as their position would allow. Tension flowed from her body as she pressed her nose against his shirt and inhaled his fresh, masculine scent.
Colt reached over and slid one of the windows open to pull out a blanket from the backseat of his truck. Elise helped him spread the soft, thick material out across the truck’s bed. When he laid down on it to stare up into the sky, she crawled up beside him and settled her head on his shoulder.
He gathered her in his arms and finally spoke, “Whenever I felt my lowest, I’d walk to an open pasture and lay down in the grass. While I stared up into the stars, I thought about all the people who had lived and died before me and basically gave myself a pep talk about how my lot in life could be worse. I still had my dad and my brothers. We had our health and we weren’t dirt poor.”
After that, Colt didn’t speak again. She understood. He was sharing his time with her—time he normally sorted things out in his mind, alone. She ran her hand over the hard planes of his chest, giving him the best comfort she could—closeness and companionship.