True Love at Silver Creek Ranch (2 page)

“Not for the last six months. I left after my enlistment was up.”

Tearing open an antiseptic towelette, she leaned toward him, feeling almost nervous. Nervous? she thought in surprise. She worked what most would call a man's job and dealt with men all day. What was her problem? She got a whiff of smoke from his clothes, but his face was scrubbed clean of it. She tilted his head, her fingers touching his whisker-rough square chin, marked with a deep cleft in the center. His eyes studied her, and she was so close she could see golden flecks deep inside the brown. She stared into them, and he stared back, and in that moment, she felt a rush of heat and embarrassment all rolled together. Hoping he hadn't noticed, she began to dab at his wound, feeling him tense with the sting of the antiseptic.

Damn it all, what was wrong with her? She hadn't been attracted to him in high school—he'd been an idiot, as far as she was concerned. She'd been focused on her family ranch and barrel racing and was not the kind of girl who would lavish all her attention on a boy, as he seemed to require. Brooke always felt that she had her own life to live and didn't need a boyfriend as some kind of status symbol.

But ten years later, Adam returned as an ex-Marine who saved her horses, a man with a square-cut face, faint lines fanning out from his eyes as if he'd squinted under desert suns, and she was turning into a schoolgirl all over again.

Adam stared into Brooke Thalberg's face as she bent over him, not bothering to hide his powerful curiosity. He remembered her, of course—who wouldn't? She was as tall as many guys and probably as strong, too, from all the hard work on her family ranch.

A brave woman, he admitted, remembering her fearlessness running into the fire, her concern for the horses more than herself. Now her hazel eyes stared at his face intently, their mix of browns and greens vivid and changeable. She turned away to search the med kit, and his gaze lingered on her slim back, covered in a checked Western shirt that was tucked into her belt. Her long braid tumbled down her back, almost to the sway of her jeans-clad hips. It's not like he hadn't seen a woman before. And this woman had been a pest through his childhood, too smart for her own good—seeing into his troubled life the things he'd tried to keep hidden—too confident in her own talent. She had a family who believed in her, and that gave a kid a special kind of confidence. He hadn't had that sort of family, so he recognized it when he saw it.

He wondered if she'd changed at all—he certainly had. After discovering his own confidence, he'd built a place and a name for himself in the Marines. His overconfidence had destroyed that, leaving him in a fog of uncertainty that had been hovering around him for half a year now.

Kind of like being in a barn fire, he guessed, feeling your way around, wondering if you were ever going to get out again. He still didn't know.

After using butterfly bandages to keep the wound closed, Brooke taped a small square of gauze to his face, then straightened, hands on her hips, to judge her handiwork. “You might need stitches if you want to avoid a scar.”

He shrugged. “Got enough of those. One more won't hurt.”

He rose slowly to his feet, feeling the stiffness in his leg that never quite went away. The docs had got most of the shrapnel out, but not quite all of it. The exertion of the fire had irritated the old wound, but that would ease with time. He was used to it by now, and the reminder that he was alive was more than he deserved, when there were so many men beneath the ground.

After closing the kit, Brooke turned back to face him, tilting her head to look up. They stared at each other a moment, too close, almost too intimate alone there. Drops of water still sparkled in her dark lashes, and her skin was fresh-scrubbed and free of makeup. She looked prettier than he remembered, a woman instead of the skinny girl.

Adam was surprised at the sensations her nearness inspired in him, this awareness of her as a woman, when back in high school she'd barely registered as that to him. He'd dated party girls and cheerleaders—including her best friend, Monica Shaw—not cowgirls. Now she held herself so tall and easily, with a confidence born of hard work and years of testing her body to the limits.

She cleared her throat, and her gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth, then his shirtfront. “You have a limp,” she said. “Did one of the horses kick you?”

“Had the limp on and off for a while. Nothing new.”

She nodded, then stepped past him to return the med kit to the bathroom. When she came back out, she was wearing a fixed, polite smile, which, to his surprise, amused him. Not much amused him anymore.

“I'm glad you're not hurt bad,” she said. “You did me—us—a big favor, and I can't thank you enough for helping rescue the horses. How'd you see the fire?”

“I was at the boardinghouse and saw the smoke out the window.” If the trees hadn't been winter-bare, he might not have seen it at all, which made him think uneasily of Brooke, battling the fire alone. “Where are your brothers? They might have come in handy if I hadn't seen the fire. I assume they still work on the ranch?”

She nodded. “They're at the hospital with my dad, visiting my mom. Did you remember she has MS?”

He shook his head. “I never knew.”

“She never talked about it much, so I'm not surprised. Most of the time, she only needs a cane, but she's battling a flare-up that's weakened her legs. The guys took their turn at the hospital today, while I rode fence. Guess I found more than I bargained for.” She eyed him with speculation. “So you're back to visit your grandma.”

She put her hands in her back pockets and rocked once on her heels, as if she didn't know what to do with herself. That stretched her shirt across her breasts, and he had to force himself to keep his gaze on her face.

“Grandma's letters were off,” he admitted. “She seemed almost scattered.”

Brooke focused on him with a frown. “Scattered?
Your
grandma?”

“My instincts were right. I got here, and she was a lot more frail, and she's using a cane now.”

“A cane? That's new. And I see her often, so maybe I just didn't notice she'd slowly been . . .” She trailed off.

“Declining?” He almost grumbled the words. Grandma Palmer was in her seventies, but some part of him thought she never changed. She'd been the one woman who could briefly get him away from his parents to sleep on sheets that didn't smell of smoke, to eat meals that didn't come from a drive-thru. He was never hungry at Grandma Palmer's, whether for food or for love. There weren't holidays or birthdays unless Grandma had them. All he'd been to his teenage parents was an unwanted kid, the result of a broken condom, and they blamed him for making so little of their lives. He saw that now, but at the time? He'd been relieved to enlist in the Marines and start his life over.

Now he and Grandma Palmer only had each other. His parents had died after falling asleep in bed with cigarettes a few years back, and he hadn't experienced anywhere near the grief he now felt in worrying about her. He might have only seen her once or twice a year, but he'd written faithfully, and so had she. The packages she'd sent had been filled with his favorite books and food, enough to share with his buddies. He felt a spasm of pain at the memories. Some of those buddies were dead now. Good memories mingled with the bad, and he could still see Paul Ivanick cheerfully holding back Adam's care package until he promised to share Grandma Palmer's cookies.

Paul was dead now.

When Adam was discharged, it took everything in him not to run to his grandma like a little boy. But no one could make things right, not for him, or for the men who had died. The men, his Marine brothers, who were dead because of him. He didn't want to imagine what his grandma would think about him if she knew the truth.

“Those old women still seem strong,” Brooke insisted. “Mrs. Ludlow may use a walker, and your grandma now a cane, but they have enough . . . well, gumption, to use their word, for ten women.”

He shrugged. “All I know is what I see.”

And then they stood there, two strangers who'd grown up in the same small town but never really knew each other.

“So what have you been up to?” Brooke asked, rocking on her heels again.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing much.”

In a small town like Valentine Valley, everyone thought they deserved to know their neighbor's business. Brooke wouldn't think any different—hell, he remembered how she used to butt into his in high school, when they weren't even friends. She'd been curious about his studies, a do-gooder who thought she could change the world.

She hadn't seen the world and its cruelties, hadn't left the safety of this town, or her family, as far as he knew.
He'd
seen the world—too much of it. There was nothing he could tell her—nothing he wanted to remember.

“Oo-kay then,” she said, drawing out the word.

He wondered if she felt as aware of the simmering tension between them and as uneasy as he did. He wouldn't let himself feel like this, uncertain whether he even deserved a normal life.

“What am I thinking?” she suddenly burst out, digging her hand into her pocket and coming out with a cell phone. “I haven't even called my dad.”

She turned her back and stared out the window, where the firemen were hosing down the smoldering ruins of her family barn. For just a moment, Adam remembered coming to the Silver Creek Ranch as a kid when his dad would do the occasional odd jobs for the Thalbergs. He'd seen the close, teasing relationships between Brooke and her brothers, the way their parents guided and nurtured them with love. Their life had seemed so different, so foreign to him.

And now Brooke would never be able to understand the life he'd been leading. So he turned and quietly walked out the door.

Chapter Two

B
rooke stood beside the ruins of the old barn, arms crossed, her chin tucked down inside the wool lining of her coat. The firemen were gone, and she was alone, staring at the remains, which hissed and steamed, even as ice flowed down cooling wood beams like frozen waterfalls. A few blackened timbers rose out of the debris, fingers pointing up at the blue sky. Incongruous against one another, really, she thought, feeling almost distant with disbelief.

And then the parade of pickups came barreling down the road on the other side of the pasture. Black Angus cattle raised their heads to look, then dropped them again, searching for grass tufts free of snow. Their grunts and lowing were the sound track of Brooke's life, always playing in the background. She could see Josh and her dad in one truck, Nate and his fiancée, Emily Murphy, in the other. Brooke smiled, relieved that Emily had come along, too. Something about her just . . . settled Nate. Nate had always been a genial workaholic, driven about the ranch, especially the business end of it, a man who helped everyone even when they thought they didn't need it. That tendency had kept him away from long-term commitments until he met Emily. “Helping” her had become loving her, and though both Nate and Emily had resisted, they'd each decided that love was worth taking a risk.

Brooke envied them. Valentine Valley had worked its magic, bringing the two of them together although they'd fought it worse than a calf at branding time. Despite living in Valentine her whole life, there'd been no romantic magic for Brooke, not yet anyway.

Nate and Emily jumped out of their pickup first, followed by Scout, Nate's herding dog with black-and-white patches across his coat. When they saw the barn, they reached for each other's hand, their faces full of dismay. Scout gave a little whine and gingerly went forward to investigate the scent.

Nate was tall, with their mom's black hair and his biological dad's green eyes. Doug Thalberg had adopted him when he was only five years old after falling in love with his divorced mom, Sandy. Emily was much shorter than Nate, strawberry blond hair back in the ponytail she favored when she worked at Sugar and Spice, the bakery she owned.

Emily didn't spend much time staring at the ruins—she ran to Brooke and hugged her, then pulled back and gripped Brooke's upper arms. “Are you okay?” she asked, her gaze roaming her face as if searching for signs of injury. “Your clothes are covered in soot.”

Brooke looked down at herself. “I'm okay.” She wasn't sure if the sudden realization that she could have died was making her weepy, but she gazed on Emily like the sister she'd never had, so grateful to have her in her life, to have her care.

Then her dad gave her a bear hug that almost crushed her rib cage.

“Oh, Brooke,” he whispered, the sound rough.

For the first time, she felt a sting of tears. But she was okay, she reminded herself, and so were the horses . . . because Adam had helped her. “I'm fine, Dad. I'm so sorry about the barn.”

He broke the hug and cleared his throat, not bothering to hide the dampness in his eyes as he scanned her face. “The barn? What do I care about the barn as long as you're all right?”

Beneath his Stetson, Doug Thalberg's hair was the same plain brown as hers and Josh's, but his was graying, along with the full mustache above his lip. His eyes, usually twinkling as if he knew life's hidden amusements, now studied her soberly. “I called Hal after talkin' to you. He says you ran into the barn yourself and saved the horses. That was too dangerous, Cookie.”

Brooke felt a flush of warmth at her dad's use of his childhood nickname for her. “Any of you'd a done the same thing,” she countered.

“Always said you were brave,” Josh said, his grin lopsided.

As usual, he was unshaven and sleepy-eyed, as if he'd just rolled out of bed. For some reason that escaped Brooke, women seemed to like that look.

She shrugged, suddenly feeling a bit too warm at the praise, although the winter wind continued to tug at her braid, and a few strands of hair danced in front of her eyes. To her surprise, Josh threw his arms around her for a quick squeeze, then passed her off to Nate, who almost lifted her off the ground.

“Okay, okay, I'm fine,” she said, hearing the quiver in her voice and hoping no one else noticed.

Keeping an arm around her, Nate looked back at the ruins, as if by staring he could make things better. “We hear you had help. A stranger driving by?”

“Not a stranger. Adam Desantis.”

Nate's eyes widened. Brooke expected Nate to start in on Adam's past and felt strangely defensive on Adam's behalf. Nate had never approved of Adam's antics or arrogance. But to her surprise, Nate tugged on her braid, gave a relieved grin, then let her go.

“I'll have to thank him personally for keeping my little sister safe.”

She blinked at him, even as she rolled her eyes. “Maybe I kept
him
safe.” But she couldn't help glancing at Emily with amazed respect, knowing the other woman was responsible for the gentling of Brooke's big brother.

“I didn't know Adam was in town,” Doug said. “But his arrival was certainly lucky for us.”

“He saw the smoke from the boardinghouse when he was visiting his grandma.” She still felt a little surprised at the memory of getting off the phone with her dad, only to find that Adam had gone. She had seen his old battered pickup truck driving off toward the boardinghouse and felt both regret and interest.

“Whose grandson is he?” Emily asked with interest.

“Mrs. Palmer,” Brooke said.

“Ah.” Emily nodded. “Does Adam resemble her?”

Josh chuckled before Brooke could say a word, and even she had to smile at the thought of a male version of Mrs. Palmer. She had a thick Western drawl, a big, blond wig, a penchant for clothing with outrageous prints and colors, and a nose for everyone else's business. The latter she had in common with her widowed friends.

Then they all sobered as they turned back to the smoldering ruin.

Brooke sighed. “Hal said he doesn't think the fire was deliberately set.”

“According to his preliminary report,” her father corrected. “There's been some vandalism in town recently.”

“Graffiti on the town gazebo hardly equates to starting fires,” Brooke said, knowing she sounded like she was defending whichever teenagers were involved.

“And let's not forget that we did have a case of arson last year,” Nate pointed out.

Brooke met Emily's curious eyes. “He's right. Cody Brissette was eighteen when he started a fire at the park along Silver Creek, and ended up burning down a pavilion. He claimed it was an accident, that they'd only been trying to get warm, but it didn't matter. A kayaker was injured when he tried to retrieve his equipment from the blaze. The kid's still in jail.”

Emily winced.

“He's a man, not a kid,” Josh said mildly. “He had to accept the consequences.”

“So he couldn't have started this fire,” Brooke said. “This is an old barn. Maybe the wiring went bad.”

“If only we'd been here,” Nate said with a sigh, turning back to the pile of blackened, steaming timber.

“And what would you have done?” Brooke asked patiently. “I was riding fence, and by the time I saw it, it was too late.”

“I know,” Nate said.

He always thought he was Superman, so she didn't take it personally. She'd ridden beside her brothers from the time she was ten years old, doing everything that needed to be done on a ranch, from guiding cattle to pasture to changing tires. She'd long since proven herself a man's equal.

Doug draped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I'm just glad you're okay,” he whispered gruffly.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and they all went back to silently studying the wreckage.

“What did you tell Mom?” Brooke asked her dad, suddenly worried about how this trauma could affect her mom's recovery.

“About the fire?” He hesitated. “I tried to minimize your involvement, but I'm afraid she figured me out. I think she's okay, but—”

“I'll go visit her, put her at ease.”

“A good idea,” Doug said with relief.

Nate glanced at Josh. “I never did like to use this barn much once we built the new one—too far away from the main house.”

Josh rubbed his chin. “Mighty cold walk in the winter.”

Brooke rolled her eyes, knowing there'd be a lot of discussions later. She glanced at Emily. “You want to come to the hospital?”

Emily grinned. “Can we stop at the Widows' Boardinghouse? Your grandma will be worried, too.”

When Emily had first come to town last spring, she'd had no place to go, and Nate had taken her there, where the widows had made a fuss over her and insisted she stay until her building was habitable. The building had been vandalized by the last tenants, and Emily—with Nate's help—had made the repairs herself. Instead of selling and going back to San Francisco, she'd stayed to open her own bakery, a dream she hadn't known she had.

Brooke thought Emily's idea to visit the widows a good one, and she tried to tell herself it wasn't because Adam Desantis was staying there.

The two women went back to the main house, so Brooke could shower, then drove Brooke's Jeep to the boardinghouse on the edge of the property overlooking Silver Creek. The house was a white, three-story Victorian, with pretty gingerbread trim and wraparound porches where you could always find a perfect view of the mountains. A sign out front said
WIDOWS' BOARDINGHOUSE
as if they took in guests. Not paying guests, but they certainly sheltered the occasional lost person who needed a home. As if Emily was thinking the same thing, the two women shared a grin.

“I still miss it here,” Emily said, as they drove around behind and parked near the back porch.

“Really?” Brooke asked in disbelief. “You have your own apartment, no one to report your every movement to.”

Emily smiled. “I felt cared for.”

Together, they crossed the porch and entered the kitchen. Brooke never failed to smile when she saw all the cow decorations, from the horns on the wall where she now hung her coat, to the cow and bull salt and pepper shakers, to the pastoral scenes of grazing cows during all four seasons that lined the walls.

The three widows were gathered in the breakfast nook, papers spread across the table, but they all looked up with various exclamations of surprise and relief when they saw their visitors. Adam wasn't among them, and Brooke felt a little disappointed, although she told herself it was natural to be curious about him.

The widows tried to unobtrusively gather together their papers, as if they had something to hide. Brooke exchanged a glance with Emily, who pressed her lips together to conceal a knowing smile. Brooke wondered what new project the widows were working on for the Valentine Valley Preservation Fund. They were the most active ladies on the committee, from handling the grant applications to dealing with possible investors. But they always kept their projects private until they were ready to reveal them. And then sometimes all hell broke loose.

Grandma Thalberg rushed forward first, her hair unnaturally red and curly above a face skillfully highlighted with makeup. She wore crisp jeans and a turtleneck, with a corduroy vest for added warmth. Her eyes filled with tears. “Brooke!” she cried, throwing her arms around her granddaughter. “Oh, you brave, brave girl!”

Hugging her back, Brooke found herself sniffing at the powerful emotions that surged between them. Her grandma spent more time at the ranch than not, the home she'd once ruled over with Grandpa Thalberg. Brooke remembered countless hours on her knees weeding the garden at her side, hearing the stories of the ranch from the silver-boom days, tales that had been passed down through the generations.

Brooke looked over her shoulder at the other two ladies. Mrs. Ludlow resembled someone's perfect vision of a grandma, with her cloud of white hair, pressed slacks and blouse, and her smooth use of a walker. Then Brooke saw Mrs. Palmer, and she remembered Adam's concern. Mrs. Palmer's blond wig was still perched atop her head like a crown. Her face was devoid of her usual makeup, making the lines of age starkly visible, though she was wearing a bright red-and-green polka-dotted dress as a token of the approaching holiday season. She had a cane over her arm, but at least she didn't use it as she rose smoothly from her chair.

“Oh, Brooke, I was so worried about you!” Grandma Thalberg said, managing to give Emily a quick hug before continuing her scrutiny of Brooke.

“When Adam saw smoke,” Mrs. Palmer said excitedly, “he just ran off before I could ask anythin'.”

She didn't
sound
any different, Brooke thought with relief, and her stride was brisk as she approached.

“Everyone is okay.” Brooke towered over the three old women and Emily, and felt like a mother duck trying to reassure her ducklings.

“I could hardly stop to explain.”

Brooke heard the deep male voice, and her breath gave a little hitch of surprise. Adam was standing in the doorway that led to the first-floor bedroom suite the widows used for guests. He was wearing only a t-shirt and jeans over boots, and his short, sandy hair was damp and wavy. The bandage was a white patch on his tanned cheek. His shoulders seemed to touch both edges of the doorframe, then he leaned against one side and crossed his arms. His somber eyes regarded the newcomers, and she felt flustered. That, she thought, was an alien word to her—“intrigued” was far better.

Emily gave the sweetest smile and walked toward him, hand outstretched. “Adam, I'm Emily Murphy, Nate's fiancée.”

“Adam Desantis. A pleasure to meet you, ma'am,” he said, as they shook hands.

Then his gaze slid past her to Brooke, unreadable, but enough to make her nervous. And she was never nervous.