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Maybe it was what had driven the wedge between Mason and her. But the truth was, she had nowhere else to go. She’d rung her friend Abby, who lived in San Francisco, but she’d just started a relationship with a new guy and thought it would be weird if Crissanne moved in with them.
She had a good relationship with her brand manager at one of the large luggage brands that sponsored most of her vlogs and gave her most of her work, but she didn’t want to call her up and ask to live with her. She had needed a friend and someone who wouldn’t judge. And Ethan was that.
Also, he was busy. As an attorney, he was in court a lot so she’d have some quiet time to figure out what was next. She would make this work. Because staying in the house she’d shared with Mason after that horrible fight where things were said that could never be taken back was something she simply hadn’t been able to do.
She wanted to be someplace where she felt accepted and Ethan always made her feel like she was someone. Not a girl who had been abandoned by her crack-addicted mother or passed from foster home to foster home because she was too quiet and weirded people out.
“This is your room,” Ethan said when they reached the second-floor landing and he opened the third door on the right.
She stood in the doorway of one of the most luxurious bedrooms she’d ever seen. She’d never visited Ethan before; he’d always come to the West Coast. The house had a lot of Spanish design influence, from the tiles in the entryway to the large sweeping arch that led into the great room, but this room had more of a rustic Western feel. The carpet was thick and lush, and as she stepped into the room she wished she’d taken her shoes off so she could feel it on her bare feet. A large four-poster bed with dark navy drapes and a canopy on it dominated the space. The nightstands on either side of the bed each had a lamp. There was a sitting area with two overstuffed leather armchairs, a small table between them, and a landscape painting depicting the Texas Hill Country on the wall.
“This is a gorgeous room,” Crissanne said.
“Glad you like it. There’s a desk in the alcove over there leading into the walk-in closet and then to your private bath,” he said, gesturing toward them. “If you need anything at all just let me know.”
“I’m really low-maintenance, so I don’t think I’ll need anything,” she said.
“Hey, you know, I bet once Mason lands in Lima he’s going to be on the phone apologizing,” Ethan said.
She didn’t think so. Mason couldn’t get away from her fast enough when she’d suggested maybe they should get married and think about a family. She’d expected him to balk a little, considering their life together was meetings in airports and nights together in the different apartments he owned in major cities around the world. But the outright rejection had stung.
When they’d talked, he’d said he didn’t want to have a family...well, that had changed things for her. A family of her own had always been her dream, especially after her rough, lonely childhood.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Crissanne said.
“Well, like I said, you’re welcome as long as you need to be here,” Ethan said. “Take your time settling in. I’m going to be in my study working. I have to be in court early tomorrow and want to go over my notes again.”
“We can skip dinner if that would be better for you,” she said.
“No. I was planning to eat out. And my daddy would kick my butt if he knew I served you cereal after you came halfway across the country,” Ethan said with that crooked grin of his.
“How are things on the Rockin’ C?” she asked.
“Not too bad. Dad is retired but that doesn’t mean anything to him,” Ethan said. “He still sticks his nose in all the time, making Nate crazy.”
Ethan was one of four brothers. Nate was the oldest. He’d taken over running the family ranch, the Rockin’ C, and was the CEO of the company that had interests in oil and mineral rights. Another of his brothers, Hunter, was a former NFL wide receiver who had recently been exonerated in a scandal that dated back to college. And then there was Derek, who was a surgeon in Cole’s Hill.
Ethan was way too sexy to be an attorney. She felt no guilt whatsoever in thinking that. He had thick, dark blond hair that curled onto his forehead despite the fact that he had styled it to stay back. His tailored shirt hugged his frame, showing off his muscled arms and hugging his lean abdomen.
“Does he make you crazy, too?” Crissanne asked, realizing she’d spent too much time staring at Ethan.
“At times,” Ethan admitted. “But luckily Nate’s daughter, Penny, is a good distraction. Having a granddaughter kind of calms Dad down. So it’s not just me here at the house in addition to my housekeeper. I have a...manservant. Saying that makes me feel way too Downton Abbey, but butler sounds pretentious as well. Anyway, his name is Bart and he lives here and takes care of the house, the pool and the yard.”
“You need two helpers to keep your house?” she asked.
“I probably don’t need them but I am gone a lot. And Bart needed a job and no one would hire him because he had a record. Mrs. Yarnall used to work for my parents until they moved into the small house and didn’t need her anymore. Now that it’s just Nate at the Rockin’ C, there isn’t a need for two housekeepers at the main house. She has five or so more years before she retires, and I could use the help here.”
“Weren’t you worried about hiring Bart?” she asked.
Ethan shook his head. “He’s a good man who just grew up with bad influences. And I’ve seen a real change in him since he was paroled.”
If she needed a good example of the kind of man Ethan was, this was it. He cared about everyone. He saw the person, not all the other junk like upbringing or record or age. Not that many people took that kind of time to really make sure everyone had a purpose the way he did.
Though she’d come here knowing he sort of liked her, she didn’t kid herself that it would turn into something more than just curiosity. Mason was his friend, and Ethan was loyal. Not blindly loyal, but the kind of man who lived by his own code.
Then again, he probably had been crushing on her because she was forbidden fruit. And that made her sad, because she wanted Ethan to be the perfect man she always imagined him to be.
He strode toward the door and then hesitated. “The balcony overlooks the pool and grounds. It connects to the other rooms,” he said.
“Where is your room?” she asked.
“Two doors down,” he said before leaving and closing the door behind him.
She stood there in the nicely appointed room, trying very hard not to feel like she was lost. It had been a long time since she’d had this feeling, but she was flashing back hard to the foster homes of her youth and feeling adrift, like she wasn’t sure where she was going next. She was on her own again. She’d gotten used to being part of a family with Mason, and she knew that it had been a false feeling. He’d liked the noncommittal state of the relationship, and she’d been able to fool herself that it was something else. Something more. And she promised herself she wouldn’t do that again.
* * *
Rubbing the back of his neck, Ethan entered his study and closed the door, leaning back against it. His brothers were all settling down and getting their lives together, but what did he have in his life that mattered? One thing was his job, the career he loved and would never give up. And the other was a woman who thought of him as her friend.
Hell and damn.
He walked to his desk, sat down in the big leather chair his mom had helped him pick out, and glanced down at the photo of him and his brothers that had been taken at Nate’s wedding. His life always looked ideal, perfect from the outside. And that had made him struggle.
He knew his weaknesses and never shied away from them. So he knew ignoring this thing with Crissanne wasn’t the solution. He had to face it, deal with it and then let it go.
He’d texted Bart earlier to let him know that Crissanne was here. Ethan wondered if they’d met and introduced themselves yet.
He left his office, following the sound of music playing to the kitchen. Not Bart’s usual MO, but perhaps he’d been charmed by Crissanne, too. There was something about her, a sadness lurking in her eyes, that had always made Ethan want to cheer her up.
But Bart wasn’t in the kitchen. It was just Crissanne, singing to Jack Johnson while she sat at the island typing on her laptop. Her back was to him, and he stood there watching her.
He tried to tell himself it was sweet, that there was nothing remotely sexy about her as she worked. Yet she still tempted him. He decided then and there that the only solution to this was to try to think of her like one of his sisters-in-law.
She glanced up from her work and turned slightly. When she saw him standing in the doorway, she stopped singing.
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I got carried away and was singing out loud.”
“You were,” he said. “I liked it.”
“You did?”
“You don’t sound nearly as bad as Hunter. That boy has a lot of talents but singing isn’t one of them,” Ethan said, thinking of his younger brother, the former NFL football player.
“Your family always sounds so...”
“Big and annoying?” he asked.
“Nice,” she said at last. “I don’t have any siblings.”
Ethan leaned back against the countertop. “They can be a pain in the backside. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I were an only child.”
“But you don’t still feel that way?”
He shook his head. He was glad he had his brothers and that he lived so close to his family.
“I was thinking while you are here, you might want to do a feature on Cole’s Hill for one of those travel blogs you write for in addition to doing your vlogs. We have the SpaceNow and NASA Cronus training facility here now. I marked them on a map for you while I was in my office,” he said, going over to the desk in the kitchen and picking up the map he’d drawn for her.
He handed it to her and she arched both eyebrows at him. “You seem to have put a lot of time into this.”
“It didn’t take much time,” he said. “I figured you’d want to keep busy. I know that’s how I felt in the past when my relationships ended.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I thought you were the one-night man.”
“No need to ask where you heard that,” he said. Mason always called him that. “I’ve had a few relationships that lasted longer.”
“I kind of want to dig into that and find out why you never let yourself get involved for longer,” she said, then winked at him. “But that would be too prying.”
“It would be,” he agreed. He’d have to make up something if she did try to probe more deeply, because she was the reason he’d never gotten involved with anyone for the long term. It had never seemed fair to get involved with one woman when he was obsessed with another one.
She gave him one of her sweet smiles and then came around the counter and hugged him. He held himself stiff at first but then put his arms around her and hugged her back, even knowing that he shouldn’t. He closed his eyes and breathed in the flowery scent of her hair, and then forced himself to step back.
“I’ll let you keep your secrets for now,” she said.
“Should I say thank you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Ready to go to dinner?”
She nodded. “Let me get my bag and phone.”
She walked out of the room and again he watched her go, knowing he was fooling himself pretending to be her friend. He was good at arguing a point in court and convincing juries to believe his point of view, but he’d never been able to bluff himself. He had always been very aware of his own weaknesses and if he was being completely honest, Crissanne felt like a dangerous vulnerability. There was no way he was going to ever be able to look at her and not want more, not want to feel her lips under his and not want her body twined with his all night long.
Two (#udb74f83f-ef8f-557e-80a9-3ee4aae3b85e)
The Peace Creek Steakhouse was conveniently located near the downtown area of Cole’s Hill. When Ethan was growing up, his family would rent the wine room in the back to celebrate major accomplishments. As he and Crissanne stood in the foyer waiting to be seated, he remembered how he’d get money from Babs, one of his parents’ housekeepers, to get mints from the machine in the front of the restaurant and how he and his brothers would all scramble to be the first one there.
It was in his childhood that Ethan learned to argue with his words and not his fists. He was never going to be stronger than Nate, who was two inches taller than Ethan. But Nate could be distracted by anyone who didn’t share his point of view. Of course, some of those early arguments had ended in a broken nose for him. But it had been worth it to be the first to the candy machine.
“What are you thinking about?” Crissanne asked.
He shook his head. “Fighting with my brothers to be the first to get a mint from that candy machine.”
“It’s so foreign to me that you’ve lived in the same place most of your life,” she said. “I bet everywhere you go there are memories.”
“There are,” he said. “Don’t you have places where you could go back to?”
“I guess,” she said. “The group home I lived in as a kid was torn down a few years ago, and then as a teen I was in a home in Northern California, but I hated it. I felt so...out of place in my Goodwill clothing. I think I’m better at looking to the future,” she said.
He started to reach out to squeeze her shoulder but stopped and dropped his hand. Desire had always been such a part of the atmosphere when he was around Crissanne. With Mason as a barrier to anything ever actually happening, he’d allowed himself casual touches that were much more dangerous now. He needed to be careful.
She was still off-limits, but it didn’t feel that way.
“That’s the best way to look at it,” he said. “You can’t change the past.”
She moved away to look at the pictures on the wall while he gave their name to the hostess, who was the daughter of one his cousins, Liam Shannon. He exchanged small talk with her as she promised him the first table that was available and then moved away from the hostess stand. Ethan had never noticed the framed prints before. They were all images of cowboys that were at least thirty years old, which he knew because there was one of his father when he’d first inherited the Rockin’ C, standing in front of his F-150 pickup with the Rockin’ C logo. His dad had been the one to take the ranch to the next level of production. The family company had the mineral rights that earned them a large part of their fortune, but Winston Caruthers had made the cattle ranching operation a contender in the portfolio.
“This guy... I love the mixture of confidence and bravado in his eyes,” Crissanne said as Ethan joined her.
“That’s my dad,” Ethan said. “One of his sayings is ‘he who hesitates is lost.’ He’s always just gone for whatever it is he wants.”
She turned to look at him. “You have inherited that. You never hesitate, do you?”
One time.
When he and Mason had both seen Crissanne across the quad and he’d stood there wondering if he should ask her out, while Mason, always willing to take a chance, had stridden over and done just that.
His dad was right.
Again.
He took a deep breath. “I have my ups and downs.”
“Seems to me that you have more ups than downs,” she said. “Your business is very successful.”
“Usually, but I don’t like to brag.”
She mock-punched him on the shoulder. Damn, her touch sent an electric current through him, even though he realized she was still touching him like a friend. He had hesitated...damn, he’d done it again. She rattled him.
He prided himself on being calm and in control, but she was messing with his restraint. He didn’t like it.
If he’d learned anything in his thirty years on this earth, it was that he didn’t do well without some sort of limits.
A strand of her hair fell forward, and he lifted his hand to tuck it back behind her ear. Her lips parted and she caught her breath. He couldn’t help rubbing his finger down the side of her neck—her skin was so soft—before he dropped his hand.
“Ethan...”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Caruthers,” the hostess called. “Your table is ready.”
Crissanne swallowed hard and then nodded and stepped around him to follow the hostess into the dining room. The dynamic had changed between the two of them.
He had changed it. He’d tried to be casual about touching her, but there was no way he could continue to hide the way he felt, especially now that Mason was out of the picture.
And while a part of him knew that caution would be the noble route, another part of him didn’t care about that, the selfish part that could only see the woman he’d always wanted walking in front of him to a table set for two. Her hips swayed gently with each step, her blond hair swinging back and forth as he watched.
But they were friends.
