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“Fine, fine,” he muttered gruffly. “Suit yourself. You’re staying for supper at least, aren’t you? I asked James here so he could go over a few of the legalities with you. He’s got papers for you to sign, and we could start all of that now—”
“I have a hundred things to do still, so no. Next time. The legalities can wait until the money is transferred, I’m sure.” She smiled—not from happiness but from habit, an automatic coping mechanism she hadn’t stopped using now that her smile lost its power. “I’d better get going.”
Her father shrugged, then stepped forward and enclosed Isabel in a strong hug. “It’s good to see you, Princess.”
“I missed you, too,” she whispered, squeezing him back.
Turning toward the door, she heaved a sigh of relief. She’d been dreading this first visit home after her move back, and now she could tick that off her list of uncomfortable obligations. All she wanted right now was to get as far from this house as possible.
Dad’s having another child.
She knew things were different, but seeing Britney’s pregnant belly had hammered that fact home. Everything—absolutely everything—had changed.
* * *
JAMES WATCHED AS Isabel left the room, her low-heeled pumps tapping against the hardwood floor. Her long dark hair swung halfway down her back, a few inches above her close-fitting blue jeans. She hadn’t lost her ability to dress for her figure over the last decade, and James was reminded of the Isabel from high school—the girl with whom a hundred teenage boys fell in love from afar. He had, too, but she hadn’t been a terribly compassionate person back then. She’d known how much power she wielded over the male population, and she’d used it regularly. Sweet smiles or scathing criticism—she’d use whatever helped get her way. He’d recognized that smile she’d shot her father—he could still see Haggerston’s exploitive beauty queen beneath the scars.
The front door opened and shut, leaving the room in awkward silence.
“It looks like you won’t be needing me, after all,” James said, glancing toward Mr. Baxter. The older man shrugged.
“Actually, there is something you can do for me,” Mr. Baxter replied. He patted Britney’s shoulder, and the young woman hesitated for a moment.
“I’ll leave you boys to the business chatter,” she quipped, and headed for the door. “I thought I’d go shopping this morning, Georgie...”
“Good girl.” Mr. Baxter smiled fondly in his wife’s direction, but he waited until the door was shut before he spoke again. “I need you to keep an eye on my daughter.”
“Isabel?” James couldn’t hide his surprise. “Why?”
“She’s—” Mr. Baxter stopped, frowned. “How to say this... She takes after her mother more than me. She’s not exactly business minded.”
James swallowed a laugh. “Doesn’t she have a bachelor’s degree in business from Yale?”
That constituted some business sense in James’s mind.
Mr. Baxter batted his hand through the air in dismissal. “A degree and an actual instinct for business are two different things. She tried to start up a line of natural soaps and creams a couple of years ago, and it tanked. I’d told her that the market was saturated, but she wouldn’t listen. Hers would be better, she said. Even if they were, it didn’t matter. There was no more interest in skin-care start-ups by fashionistas. Before that, it was a line of scarves, I think—those wispy things women accessorize with. She insisted that all the girls wanted to be like her, and now they could—for the low, low price of thirty-five bucks. She spent a few weeks in front of a sewing machine until she realized she hated sewing, and apparently no one outside this town wanted to be just like her. I could have told her that much, but would she listen to me? Never. She needs guidance with the money I’m signing over to her, and she might not be willing to accept it from me—directly, that is.”
“So you want me to give her your advice?” James clarified.
“And keep me informed.”
This was very quickly inching beyond the scope of his job description, and James glanced around the room while he gathered his thoughts.
“I won’t follow her,” he said, bringing his attention back to Mr. Baxter. “I’m your lawyer, not a private eye.”
“I thought you’d be willing to be somewhat flexible.”
James smiled grimly. He’d never been described as flexible in anything, least of all matters of conscience. “Not that flexible, sir.”
Anger simmered in Mr. Baxter’s eyes, but he nodded and turned away for a moment. “Fine. But give her advice so that she doesn’t do anything stupid, would you?”
“That I can do,” James agreed.
“She wasn’t raised to survive in this world without that pretty face, James. I spoiled her, and I let her think that she was doing things on her own when she never was. I had friends buy two thousand dollars’ worth of scarves with my money. She needs more help than she realizes.”
James was more familiar with his boss’s daughter than the older man even realized. He’d been in her graduating class, and his cousin had dated her. Everyone knew Isabel Baxter.
“Understood, sir.” He glanced at his watch. “Now, unless you wanted to move into another billable hour, I’d best be on my way.”
Mr. Baxter shot him a grin. “All right then. I’ll be in touch.”
The housekeeper showed James to the door, and as he stepped out onto the spacious veranda, he was mildly surprised to see Isabel sitting in a shiny black sedan, the windows down and her head leaning against the headrest. She glanced toward him as he trotted down the stairs. He grimaced inwardly. While he was curious to see if Isabel had changed at all since her disfiguring accident, she still wasn’t high on his list of favorite people. He couldn’t just walk by, though, so he angled his steps toward her car.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
“My car won’t start.” She glanced toward the house. “And I can’t go back in there.”
He nodded. He could understand that, at least. The tension in there had been unmistakable.
“Want me to take a look?” he asked, jutting his chin toward the hood of the car.
She arched a brow—a look she’d perfected years ago, but when she did it now, it tugged at the damaged skin along her temple. “You fix cars, too?” she asked incredulously. “I thought you were the lawyer.”
“I am, but my dad’s a mechanic. I picked up a few tricks.” She really didn’t seem to recognize him, and he wondered why that even surprised him. She’d flirted her way into having him fix her car after a fender bender back in high school, too. But that was when she was “secretly” dating his cousin, Andrew. Of course, she couldn’t tell anyone about their relationship, but she could cash in on James’s skills to hide her bad driving from her father.
She leaned forward from the driver’s seat, stretching to reach something, then the hood clicked and released. She opened the door and got out, meeting him at the front of the car. A waft of vanilla perfume tickled his senses as he took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He tossed the jacket over the side mirror and lifted the hood.
“So you’re a Yale grad,” he said.
“Hmm.” She leaned closer, watching as his fingers moved over the engine, looking for the issue. He spotted the loose wires almost immediately.
“How long are you back in town?” he asked.
“For as long as I need to. I don’t have a leaving date yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”
James raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he tightened the connections. So the prodigal daughter had returned—for now. He doubted that many people in this town would be happy to hear that. Isabel had been a beauty, but she’d also left her mark, Andrew being just one of her casualties. Andrew claimed they were dating for months, but there was no outward sign of it. James had thought his cousin was making it all up until he actually spotted them together one evening. Andrew was a math whiz, and Isabel had needed some tutoring. Apparently, it panned out, because she’d gotten into Yale. James had always suspected she got more than just the tutoring out of Andrew, because she’d continued with the relationship for a few months after the SATs. It was when her friends found out she was dating a poor boy from the raggedy side of town that she’d dumped him and told the school that it was nothing more than tutoring—that Andrew had made it all up. Andrew had been heartbroken and left for boot camp before prom. He was sent to Afghanistan and never did make it home.
We’ll take that road trip together before I go, his cousin had promised... It hadn’t happened.
“Your father hired me as the family’s legal counsel,” James said, dropping the hood back down with a bang. “That includes you.”
“I might be better off getting my own lawyer,” she said. “To protect my interests.”
“Against Britney, you mean,” he clarified.
“Yes.” A spot of color appeared in her cheeks. “You have to admit that things are complicated. I’m not entirely sure that my father has my best interests at heart right now.”
“My job is to offer you legal advice,” James said. “I’m not interested in playing sides. I’m a lawyer, and a good one. Your father is footing the bill. I’ll never tell you his private business and I’ll never tell him yours. If you hire another firm, legal fees will cut into that nest egg your father is signing over to you, but it’s up to you.” He straightened and nodded toward the driver’s seat. “Try again.”
Isabel got back into the car and turned the key. The engine coughed to life.
“Thank you,” she said, the old smooth voice again, a cool mixture of sweetness and indifference. She paused, cleared her throat and changed her tone. “What did you do?”
“Reconnected loose wires on the starter. It happens sometimes.”
“Well...” She smiled. “I’m grateful.”
“No problem.”
She eyed him for a moment. “What are they like?”
“Who?”
“My father and... Britney.”
“Happy,” he said with a shrug.
“You have to say that, don’t you?” Bitterness laced her tone.
“I don’t have to say anything,” he replied. “And I can’t say more than that. Like I said, discretion is part of the job.”
“Of course it is.” She smiled tightly. “Well, thanks again.”
She put the car into gear and pulled away, her tires crunching along the drive.
James was no longer a smitten teen. He’d never acted on his crush on Isabel because Andrew was dating her, but her cruelty was what doused his feelings for her. She was heartless and self-centered.
Would it have been different if she’d had the compassion to sit down and talk to Andrew instead of publicly mocking him? People broke up all the time, and it didn’t end their lives. Would Andrew have made different choices, maybe been more careful over there in the war zone, if her cruelty hadn’t pushed him out of town early? She hadn’t remembered him—and it made him wonder if Andrew had slipped from her memory, as well.
He’d do his job. He’d give her the advice her father wanted her to have, and he’d provide legal counsel should she require it. But after that, Isabel Baxter was on her own.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a5e14d89-1ce0-5d21-a4fc-ed96bd7e8601)
HAGGERSTON WAS A TOWN that landed like a splatter in the middle of open prairie, cut through by a highway, and left on its own in the patchwork of Montana’s fields and pastures. It was large enough to have the main amenities—a supermarket, a hardware store, a veterinarian clinic—but small enough that everyone still knew each other.
Isabel had been born here, and when she left home to go to college, she never thought she’d return. Not like this. She’d always imagined her homecoming to be a triumphal entry—a successful, beautiful woman come back for a quick weekend where she showed off her husband and kids. She’d be the topic of local gossip, word of her arrival spreading faster than the flu.
She had the gossip part down, she realized wryly, but not the way she’d hoped. Life had a way of turning full circle and swallowing a person whole.
When she’d graduated from Yale and moved to New York for her first job—a desk job in a marketing company—life had seemed shiny and exciting. And it was. For a young woman with family money, New York had a lot to offer.
One rainy evening after work last year, Isabel had headed out to catch a cab home. As she’d stepped out into the street to hail one, a bike had swerved around her and pushed her into oncoming traffic. She didn’t remember the car hitting her at all, but she did recall waking up in the hospital, in agony from head to toe. Her face had been badly cut, and from that moment on, she knew that her life would never be what she’d imagined.
After that first surgery, she could remember feeling like a heavy weight was on her chest, refusing to let her inhale. It was like being smothered from the inside, and when the doctors told her that she’d nearly died on the table, she knew she wouldn’t have another surgery. Vanity wasn’t worth dying for, but the adjustment to becoming ordinary when she’d been used to being stunningly beautiful was a difficult one. No one jumped to open doors for her anymore. No one checked her out in the street—unless one wanted to count the double takes from passersby when they saw the scars. They weren’t looking with admiration. They stared in pity, then dropped their gazes.
So when her father suggested that she might come back to Haggerston for a while, that old yearning to finally be a part of the family business—maybe even take it over—resurfaced. New York was a big and scary place for a woman who’d lost her beauty, and she’d already been passed over twice for a promotion at her marketing job. She’d gotten her education, had four years of work experience under her belt, and she was no longer the beauty queen who’d left town eight years ago. Perhaps a shot at Baxter Land Holdings wasn’t as out of the question anymore. So she packed up her things to make the move.
It was then that she’d seen the ad for a tiny house for sale. It was beautiful—a miniature home on wheels like a trailer, but built to look exactly like a house, complete with sloped roof and a small porch on the front. Inside, it was arranged with artistic precision. The front door opened onto the wee sitting room, behind which were the kitchen and bathroom. Overhead was a sleeping loft, with long, narrow windows spilling light under the sloping roof. The entire inside was made of natural wood, softened by wax, and was at its most beautiful in the afternoon light.
Everything had to be carefully arranged so that not an inch was wasted, and that was part of what made Isabel fall in love with the tiny house. It forced her to reexamine her life and the items that she’d collected along the way and pare them down to the essentials.
Who was she underneath the makeup, the fashion, the money... What mattered most?
So she’d bought the house, hooked it up behind her SUV and began the long drive from New York to Montana.
Within a week after her visit with her dad, she’d been set up. Finding a place to park her little house had been easier than she’d imagined. Outside Haggerston, a local man had a piece of property with electricity and water all ready to hook up, and he charged her a miniscule rent for the pleasure of living on his land. It had a view of green pasture where horses grazed on one side, and on the other, the foothills sloped lazily toward jagged mountains. Just standing there, breathing in the pristine summer air made everything seem possible again.
Isabel pulled two grocery bags full of fresh produce out of the trunk of her car and was heading back to the house when the sound of an engine rumbled into the drive. She turned back, squinting against the afternoon sun. A black pickup truck pulled in, dusty from the road. It came to a stop next to her white SUV, and her father’s lawyer—James? Was that it?—grinned down at her out the open window.
“Hi,” he said with an easy smile. “This isn’t what I expected.”
She glanced back at the little house. No, she doubted that her living arrangements were what anyone expected from her, but at this point, she didn’t care. Life hadn’t been what she’d expected, either, so she figured they could all be mildly surprised together and then get on with things.
“How did you find me, exactly?” she asked. She hadn’t given him her address—she hadn’t given it to her father, either, for that matter.
“In Haggerston? Nothing’s as secret as you think,” he replied with a shrug. “I asked around a little. Didn’t take much.”
She didn’t doubt that for a minute. Haggerston was nothing if not efficient in its gossip. James opened the truck door and hopped out.
“What can I do for you?” she asked. She turned and climbed the three steps up to the tiny porch and opened the front door. Inside, she had everything arranged already—two wood-framed leather chairs on one side, an oval table between them that doubled as a place to eat and a place to visit. Across from the little table was another compact chair, this one upholstered in gold and burgundy, with a Tiffany lamp perched on a plant stand next to it. Afternoon sunlight slanted through a window, brightening everything into a cheery glow.
James ambled after her, pausing on the porch to peer inside. “Does your father know about this?”
She turned to eye him curiously. “Do I need his permission?”
He smiled wryly. “Sorry, that was just curiosity.” His gaze moved around slowly. “It’s kind of neat.”
“Thanks.” She moved toward the kitchen space. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“I take it you don’t remember me.”
“You’re my father’s lawyer,” she said, giving him a funny look.
“I mean from before.”
“No. Should I?” Her parents had always had a hundred business contacts, and she’d never been able to keep them straight. Perhaps James was the son of one of them. Although he didn’t come from money if his suits were anything to go by, so maybe a nephew. She pulled open the small fridge under the counter and began to unpack her groceries into it—peaches, pears, nectarines.
“I’m James Hunter.” He paused. “Jim Hunter. They called me Jim. We went to high school together.”
“Oh—” She stopped herself before she could pretend to remember. She certainly hadn’t been friends with a Jim Hunter, and she’d remember a guy as good-looking as this lawyer was. He was tall, broad and muscular, with green eyes and the faintest hint of freckles across his cheekbones as if he’d stepped off the farm and into a suit. His jaw was strong, and he met her gaze with easy directness. She shut the fridge and rose to her feet.
“It’s okay. We didn’t run in the same circles.” He smiled wanly, and for the life of her she wished she could remember him, put him into context.
“I’m really sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I stayed pretty busy in high school.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “I came to bring by those documents your father mentioned. I have a check for you here, and a few pages for you to sign.”
He put a folder onto the tabletop.
