скачать книгу бесплатно
He caught her gaze. “Brooke, go to sleep.”
She nodded but still followed him. “Thank you, for everything.”
He gripped the edge of the door as he looked back at her, and she found herself focusing on the lean muscles in his tanned forearm. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Trust me, you did.” She wished she could tell him just how much his small kindnesses meant to her, how they’d kept her propped up when she’d been on the verge of collapse.
He seemed to accept her words. “Good night, Brooke.”
“Good night.”
Despite being more tired than she’d ever been in her life, she slipped out onto the bunkhouse’s porch and watched as Ryan made his way down the road, until the night swallowed him.
The moment she could no longer see him, the deepness of the night grew ominous. She told herself it was only the paranoia taunting her again, but she still hurried inside and locked the door behind her. At the end of her ability to think clearly, she stumbled into the first bedroom she came to. She didn’t even change before falling onto the bed.
As her eyes closed and sleep started to overtake her, her brain replayed the sight of Ryan walking down the road in the dark. Only this time, he turned just before stepping out of sight and smiled at her. Warmth wrapped her in its embrace, and her heart drifted weightless as a child’s balloon. Her lips curved in a return smile as the last light of consciousness went out.
IN THE MORNING, he’d have to find his brain, because he’d obviously lost it sometime since meeting Brooke Vincent. How many times had he told himself to steer away from her since the punch of that first unexpected meeting in the kitchen? So what did he do instead? Suggest she stay at the ranch.
But the idea of her spending another night at the Rochester made his skin crawl. That place wasn’t safe, not for a woman with big doe eyes and a vulnerable smile. His fists clenched as he reached the area outside his parents’ house.
“Man, what’s up?” Simon asked as he descended the front steps. “I go to the john for five seconds and you make off with my girl.”
“Your girl?” Ryan tried to keep his tone light, but it was damned hard.
“What, is she yours?”
Ryan stopped walking and faced his brother. “She’s not anyone’s. Geez, dude, she just got here. You letting Mom’s matchmaking get to you?”
“This has nothing to do with Mom and everything to do with that gorgeous new cook. You did notice her being pretty, right?”
Ryan started walking again. “I’m not blind.”
Simon stopped at the back of his truck. “Are you interested in her?”
Yes, you fool.
“You know me, would rather be on my own.” Ryan met Simon’s gaze, well-practiced at not showing what he was really feeling.
And what was that? Anger? Frustration? Jealousy? How could he be jealous when he’d known Brooke less than a day? Maybe it was anger that he no longer considered himself fit for a romantic relationship, nothing more than a casual date, anyway.
Simon seemed to accept his assertion at face value. “So, think she’d go out with me?”
“Not if she’s smart.”
Simon laughed. “You’re no help at all. Man, I wish I had a sister.”
And Ryan wished his mom had hired a safe woman, one old enough to be his grandmother.
We don’t all get what we wish for, do we?
“Want a ride?” Simon asked.
“What is it with people thinking I can’t walk two feet?” Ryan muttered.
“What?”
“No, I’m good.” Before he managed to make a complete idiot of himself, he headed toward home.
But when he got there and undressed, sleep remained elusive. Despite a long day in the shop, he stared at the ceiling as awake as he’d been at noon. Might as well get some more work done. He put his clothes back on and trudged out to the shop. He consulted his list of orders but didn’t feel inspired to work on any of them.
He sank onto the wooden stool next to his large workbench. He reached for the one thing that got him through nights when sleep refused to pay a call. The block of wood revealed only the hint of an angel’s outline. He closed his eyes and mentally scanned the shelf of angels that sat in his bedroom, remembering their details, each one different. When he opened his eyes and ran his fingertips over the surface of the wood, he fixed an image in his mind and started to carve, chipping away to find the angel buried inside the wood.
An hour passed with the chip and scrape of his carving tools against wood the only sound. He lifted the new figure toward his lips and blew away the shavings. An angel stared up at him—an angel with big doe eyes.
Chapter Three
Someone had painted her eyes shut. Or glued the lids together, because they refused to obey her brain’s command to lift. Somewhere in her memory lay a reason why she needed to open her eyes, to move, to wake up.
Brooke sat up so quickly the resulting head rush made her blink and press the base of her palm against her temple. Once her vision cleared, pieces of memory switched her unfamiliar surroundings into familiar. She was in Texas, the Vista Hills Guest Ranch, at her new job.
Her job! She looked out the window, at the strong sunlight pouring into the bedroom. She leapt from the bed and raced to her suitcase for clean clothes. No time to shower. As she stripped off the previous day’s clothes, she searched the kitchen cabinets for a glass then rinsed her mouth. She paused in putting on a fresh blouse to search her purse for a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth.
Her hairbrush, along with the toothbrush and toothpaste, was back at the Rochester, so she finger-combed her hair as she raced for the door.
Please, don’t let me have lost this job before I’ve even really started.
She yanked the door open then yelped when she almost crashed into Ryan. Instinct made her lift her hands, and they made contact with his chest in the same moment he grasped her upper arms.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m late,” she said as she tried to catch her breath. She stepped back, breaking the contact between them. “I can’t believe I’m late on my first day. I’m never late.”
When she skirted Ryan and ran down the steps toward her car, he kept pace with her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Mom figured you’d need today to rest and get settled.”
“But we made plans last night for me to cook breakfast for the guests this morning.”
“She took care of it.”
Brooke still didn’t pause as she rounded the back of her car. Ryan slipped into the passenger seat as he had the night before. Why was he here?
“You can slow down,” he said as she started the car.
“I can’t lose this job.” She hadn’t meant for her desperation to go verbal, but her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
“Mom isn’t going to fire you.”
“You don’t know that. Being late on the first day doesn’t look good.”
“I do know because she’s the one who sent me out here to leave you a note saying it was fine if you wanted to start tomorrow.” He held up a folded piece of paper.
So he hadn’t appeared on her doorstep on his own.
Good. If he wasn’t interested in her, that would make interacting with him way easier than with Simon, who’d kept up a constant barrage of flirting the night before. Of course, neither brother was her chief concern at the moment. She raced down the dirt road, leaving a whirl of dust in her car’s wake.
“You might want to—” Ryan didn’t get the rest of his sentence out before she hit a pothole so hard her teeth slammed together.
“Sorry,” she said as she spared a glance for Ryan.
“That’s okay. I like whiplash.”
Horrified, she slowed to a near stop. “Did I hurt you?”
“Here’s a tip. We tend to joke a good amount, so you’ll want to learn to tell when we’re teasing.”
“So, you’re okay?”
He leaned against the door. “Yes.”
Brooke returned her attention to the road then drove the rest of the way to the main house and parked. She didn’t even look at Ryan as she bolted from the car, simply tossing a “‘Bye” over her shoulder. If he responded, she didn’t stick around to hear.
When she hurried into the kitchen, she found Merline putting away dishes.
“Good morning,” Merline said in a cheery voice. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m so sorry I overslept. It’ll never happen again.” She stepped forward to take over putting the dishes in the cabinets.
Merline placed her hand atop Brooke’s. “It’s okay. Didn’t you get the note I sent?”
“Ryan told me about it, but you and I made arrangements last night, ones I’ve already failed to fulfill.” Her mother had taught her at a young age the importance of fulfilling one’s responsibilities, so by being late she felt as if she were failing not only Merline but her mother as well.
Merline squeezed Brooke’s hand. “Listen to me. Everything is fine. Your job is secure unless you suddenly poison all the guests. That would certainly be bad for business. I saw how exhausted you were last night and should have told you then to take today off.”
“Really, I’m ready to work.”
Merline smiled. “Of that I have no doubt.” With a final squeeze, Merline returned to her task. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can make lunch for the guests. They’ll be back from a wildflower tour then.”
“Thank you.”
They worked side by side the rest of the morning, preparing lunch for the twenty guests. Brooke’s heart twinged because the situation reminded her so much of days spent in the kitchen with her mother. The two women looked nothing alike. Merline had a silver bob and remarkably smooth skin for a woman her age. Brooke’s mom had looked more like an older version of Susan Sarandon, but with a tougher life. Despite the differences, Merline’s kindness started to fill the hole left by Brooke’s mom’s death.
“You seem to lose yourself when you’re cooking,” Merline said as Brooke slid two cherry pies from the oven.
“I’m sorry. Did I miss something?” She could hear her mother’s voice, commenting on Brooke’s constant daydreaming. Back then, she couldn’t wait to leave home, see something new, be someone important. Now, she’d give anything to be able to step into her mother’s West Virginia kitchen and feel her comforting arms around her.
“No. I was just watching the look you get when you’re cooking, like you’re in another world.”
Brooke sat the pies on the island to cool. “There is something about it that takes me away.”
“That’s how I feel when I’m painting.”
“You’re an artist?”
“Evidently.” Merline laughed. “It’s a recent realization. We’re beginning to be overrun with creative types around here. I’m painting. Grace does interior design. Ryan’s furniture.”
Brooke nearly looked up at Ryan’s name but caught herself in time. She’d picked up on just how much Merline had talked about her sons throughout the morning, particularly the two unmarried ones. She wondered if Nathan’s recent wedding had Merline on the hunt for wives for Simon and Ryan. Brooke swallowed, wondering if she’d ever be able to trust a man enough again to be willing to get married. After all, she’d thought Chris was going to be that man.
How wrong she’d been.
If there was anything in her life to be grateful for, it was the fact that Chris had shown his true colors, the man he was behind the mask of his public persona, before she’d had the misfortune of marrying him.
Thankfully, the guests returned, and talk of available Teague sons was replaced with feeding hungry tourists. As she served food and made small talk, she relaxed even more. It felt a little like her old job, making convention guests happy. Only now she accomplished the task by preparing chicken salad and cherry pie rather than consulting with chefs on the fare for special events and hotel guests on the perfect meeting space.
She insisted on doing all the cleanup while Merline retreated to her home office to work. Once Brooke was finished and had planned for dinner, she spread out the local classifieds on the dining room table.
She skipped over the sections that held no interest before locating the For Rent listings. With red pen ready to circle possibilities, she started reading. As it turned out, she didn’t need the pen. What few availabilities she found came with pricey rental rates attached, no doubt a result of Blue Falls being a popular tourist destination.
Brooke closed the paper, already planning to seek information about neighboring communities. How far would she have to go to find something more within her budget? She feared she’d encounter the same problem throughout the Hill Country.
“Find anything?” Merline pointed at the newspaper as she walked into the dining room.
“Not yet. But I’ll get a room in town until I do.” And try not to cringe at the price of the temporary space to lay her head at night.
“Don’t be silly. I was thinking, why don’t you live permanently in the bunkhouse? It’s just sitting out there. You could fix it up however you like.”
The convenience beckoned Brooke. Plus, she liked the idea of not having to venture forth from the ranch more than necessary. She had to believe that the longer she was gone, the less Chris would look for her. Eventually, he’d stop. At least that’s what she told herself.
“Only if I pay rent.”
“I think we can work something out. Now, I’m running into town for a while. Do we need anything?”
Brooke shook her head. “I’m going to do some meal planning this afternoon and may shop after that.”
“Sounds good. See you at dinner.”
Brooke decided to use the sliver of free time she had to go check out of the Rochester. But when she walked outside, she noticed the right rear tire on her car was flat.
She sighed, imagining a day when everything would go perfectly—none of this one step forward, two steps back stuff. She straightened and took a deep breath. No focusing on the negative. She had a job and a place to stay. Compared to only a few short weeks ago, today was absolutely peachy.
Telling herself that things could be so much worse, she opened the trunk and started pulling out boxes and bags filled with pieces of her life. Winter clothes, books, childhood mementoes. By the time she reached the spare tire, sweat was rolling down her back and stinging her eyes.
“Come on, damn you,” she said as she tugged the tire out of the trunk. When it finally came free, she stumbled and nearly fell on her butt. The tire slipped from her slick fingers and landed with a thunk. She eyed the tire then mashed it with her foot. Also flat.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She kicked the useless ring of rubber.
“Careful. It might kick back.”
