Red Hot Rancher Read online

  Emma frowned as one more weight settled on her shoulders, but she told herself that was a problem for another day. She looked at her sister and said, “We’ll finish this later.”

  “Oh,” Gracie told her, “we’re finished.”

  Taking a breath, hoping for patience, Emma headed to the kitchen.

  * * *

  The drive from the Double H ranch to the Williamses’ place only took about twenty minutes. Once upon a time, he and Emma had talked about one day cutting a road directly across their adjoining fields, to directly link the ranches. But that, like so many other things, had never happened.

  At any other time, Caden might have noticed the fall colors erupting on the trees lining the wide road. But now, all he could see were the images replaying in his mind, of Emma’s eyes the night she said goodbye.

  * * *

  “I have to go, Caden,” she said plaintively, trying to make him understand. “I have to try. I can’t do what my mom did. She gave up on her dreams. You remember what a great singer she was, right?”

  “I do, but—”

  “She never did anything with it and before she died, she told me that was her one regret. That she’d never found out if she could make it or not.”

  Panic was rising in his chest, but Caden fought it down. He and Emma had been together a long time. He’d always believed that they were working toward the same goals. This had come out of nowhere for him and he didn’t know what the hell to think. “What about the dream of building up my family ranch?”

  “That’s your dream, Caden,” she said simply and tore a hole in his heart.

  That was a slap. She’d had plenty of ideas, had jumped in enthusiastically with plans. “We’ve been talking about this for years,” he reminded her. “We were going to do it together. Create something special.”

  “I know.” She touched him and her hand on his arm was like a fire that was bone chilling. “But this is important to me, too, Caden. I have to find out if I’m good enough.”

  Couldn’t she see that she’d never be as important in Hollywood as she was right here? To him?

  “So you’re just leaving.”

  “You could come with me...”

  He laughed at her. “I can’t leave.”

  “And I can’t stay,” she said. “If I don’t go now, neither one of us will be happy.”

  * * *

  He cut off the memories and buried them under a layer of fury. She’d made it seem like she was doing him a favor by walking away. As if the dreams they’d forged together for years hadn’t been as important as the ones she’d nurtured all to herself.

  Well, she’d ripped his heart out that night and he’d had to shut himself down to get through it. But he had. He’d made a damn good life without Emma and it was only going to get better. And once he’d faced her and had his say, he could get back to it.

  When he steered his top-of-the-line, black Dodge Ram truck up the drive to her father’s ranch, he noted the peeling paint on the fence rails and the weeds choking out the front flower bed. The Williams place had been slowly going to hell since Emma left. Just another black mark against her.

  Frank Williams had pretty much given up when his oldest girl had run off to Hollywood. He’d expected her to take over, to merge their ranch with Caden’s as they’d always planned.

  Emma had torn up a lot of dreams when she left to find her own.

  Still, Caden felt a pang of guilt. He should make more time to check in on Frank and do what he could to help out. Frowning to himself, he made a mental note to send a few of his ranch hands over in a day or two to paint the corral fence. Get it done before winter, he told himself, or the damn wood would rot and warp and the whole fence would have to be replaced.

  “The perfect metaphor,” he muttered. When Emma left, they’d all had to rebuild. She’d taken off to chase a dream and left the rest of them wondering what the hell had happened. Now she was back.

  With a baby.

  He parked the truck, turned off the engine and just sat there for a minute, staring at the house where he’d spent so much of his life. It was old and sturdy, yellow, with white trim because that’s how Emma’s mother had liked it best. There was a big front porch and a second story where the bedrooms were. He knew this house as well as he knew his own.

  He and Emma had been a couple since the year she was a freshman in high school. He’d been a “manly” junior and took substantial mocking from his friends for being interested in a “kid,” but he hadn’t cared.

  Emma was all he’d been able to see back then and until the night she’d walked away, that hadn’t changed. But things were different now. Emma had left once before. Why should he believe she was here to stay now? No, what was between them had curled up and died five years ago.

  Yet even as that thought rose up in his mind, his body was tightening at the prospect of being near her again.

  While he sat there, watching the house, the front door flew open and Gracie, Emma’s younger sister, raced toward him. Caden got out of the truck in time to catch her when Gracie threw herself at him.

  “I can’t believe this,” she muttered against his chest. “She just showed up last night like it was nothing and we’re supposed to be happy she’s here.” She pulled her head back and glared up at him. “I’m not. I’m furious.”

  At twenty-five, Gracie was a beauty, with short, curly brown hair and green eyes a shade paler than her sister’s. He’d been a big brother to Gracie all their lives and he could see that there was pain as well as fury in her eyes.

  He knew how she felt. “Gwen ran into her at the market this morning. Said she’s come back to stay.”

  Gracie let him go, took a step back and swiped a solitary tear off her cheek. “That’s what she says, but why should we believe her? She left before, didn’t she?”

  He didn’t know if it was good or bad that Gracie was pretty much echoing his own thoughts on the matter.

  “Dad’s happy to see her anyway.” She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and tossed her windblown hair off her forehead. “He actually got out of bed this morning.”

  That was news. Frank had given up on life about a year after Emma left. Little by little, he’d withdrawn more and more from everyday life. He’d started out hoping Emma would see she’d made a mistake and come running home. But finally, the older man had realized that his girl was probably gone forever and all the life in him had just drained away. Not even Gracie had been able to coax him out of the depression he’d dropped into.

  If Emma left again, it’d probably kill her father this time.

  “She can’t be here, Caden,” Gracie was saying. “What if she finds out? She’ll tell Dad and then—”

  “You should tell your dad,” Caden whispered. He was the only person Gracie had trusted with her secrets and he’d never betray her. But he did think she was handling them all wrong and didn’t mind saying so.

  “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Especially not now.”

  “Hello, Caden.”

  Just like that, everything in him went still and cold. He hadn’t heard that low-pitched, sultry voice in too damn long, but it had the same effect on him it always had. He turned to look, saw Emma standing in the open doorway and his mouth went dry. His jeans were suddenly too tight and drawing a breath seemed near impossible.

  The last time he’d seen her was on his television screen. Emma had been starring in a vapid, ridiculous sitcom, and as hard as it had been for Caden to admit, she had been really good in it. So good, he’d watched the show exactly once, got stinking drunk and never turned the damn TV on again. She’d left him for Hollywood and it burned his ass that she’d done well.

  Now she was back, and why did she have to look so damn tempting?

  Her dark brown hair was longer, falling well past her shoulders now, in the wild, thick curl
s she’d always hated. She wore a long-sleeved red flannel shirt and a pair of black jeans that hugged her hips and long, shapely legs. Her old boots completed the outfit and somehow it felt to Caden as if she’d donned a costume to fit in.

  Maybe the Hollywood Emma was the real person now and this woman in front of him was the one acting out a part.

  And as much as he wanted her, Caden braced himself against old emotions, desires and faced her now with the cold, empty memories flooding his mind. Her greenish-gold eyes were still as clear and beautiful as ever, but as he met her gaze, Caden saw secrets there. Something he’d never seen before.

  He didn’t like it.

  “You’re not going to say hello?” she asked.

  The voice that had haunted his dreams. The woman who had haunted everything in his life. Caden felt a sharp stab of betrayal. She’d walked out on him five years ago and never looked back. Now she said hello like nothing had changed between them? Were they supposed to go have a drink? Catch up on old times? Maybe she’d ask him to babysit. Well, screw that.

  Beside him, Gracie had a death grip on his arm, her fingers digging into his skin right through the fabric of his heavy brown coat. Reminding him where his loyalties lay now. Gracie had stayed. Had taken care of everything that Emma had walked away from. So he’d stand with her against the woman who had left them both.

  “What’re you doing here, Emma?”

  She lifted her chin, kept her gaze fixed on his and said simply, “This is my home.”

  “Not for five years.”

  She chewed at her bottom lip and that action tugged at something inside him, too. Heat bubbled in his gut but Caden ignored it.

  “I’m back now,” Emma told him. “I’m not leaving again.”

  “Is that right?” He didn’t believe her.

  “It is. I’m done with Hollywood.” Her chin was still lifted in self-defense mode.

  She’d had success, though he didn’t want to admit it. So what had changed her mind? What had chased her home? And why the hell did he still care after all this time?

  “What changed?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

  “I guess I did,” she said.

  He nodded. “Right. You changed five years ago. And now you’ve changed again. When’s the next change coming?”

  “There won’t be one.”

  “Don’t believe her,” Gracie murmured.

  “Oh, I don’t,” Caden assured her and had the satisfaction of seeing Emma’s eyes flash. Anger? Insult? Didn’t matter which. As long as she knew where he stood.

  Even knowing he couldn’t trust her didn’t stop Caden from wanting her with a bone-deep desire that had never really left him. “Why don’t you go inside, Gracie? I want to talk to Emma.”

  She gave him a long, speculative look, then did as he asked, skirting past her sister still standing in the doorway.

  “Wow.” Emma’s gaze locked on him. “You and Gracie must be really close these days. She’s taking orders from you now?”

  “It wasn’t an order,” he told her. “It was a request.”

  “That she hopped to fulfill.” Tipping her head to one side, she kept her eyes on him. “What’s going on between you two?”

  Caden stared right back, and folded his arms across his chest. He hadn’t missed the temper in her tone. “You don’t get to ask that question, Emma. It’s none of your business.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  He laughed shortly. “You’ve been gone for years, Emma. All of a sudden now, you’re sisters?”

  “I didn’t leave the family, Caden,” she argued and her chin lifted a little higher. “I left Montana.”

  “And me.”

  She took a breath, nodded and said, “Yeah. And you. But I explained why I had to go.”

  Anger whipped through him like a lightning bolt. “That makes it okay that you took off? As long as you ‘explained’?”

  She took a breath, stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets and stared at him for a long moment before asking, “What is it you want from me, Caden?”

  Well, now, that was the question, wasn’t it? He’d come here to have his say. To set things straight with Emma and let her know exactly where he stood. But being here, with her, was making it hard to think.

  He looked her up and down, felt a stir of need and squashed it. When he held her gaze again, he leaned in and whispered, “Absolutely nothing.”

  Two

  Absolutely nothing.

  For the next several days, those two words echoed in Emma’s brain. There was a lot to do around the ranch and yet she couldn’t shake Caden’s voice.

  “No surprise there,” she muttered as she shuffled equipment around in the tack room. Caden had never been far from her mind. Yes, she’d walked away from him, but she’d had to follow her heart, right? Fight for her dream or end up an old woman, eaten by regret.

  “You’d think he’d understand that,” she said tightly. “The man has a one-track mind when it comes to his dreams. What? I’m not allowed to chase mine? Is that it? I can only have the dreams that don’t inconvenience him?”

  Absolutely nothing.

  But it seemed he wanted something from Emma’s sister. Gracie had gone to Caden’s place nearly every day. Why? Jealousy bristled in her chest and twisted around her heart, giving it a hard squeeze. Was Gracie sleeping with him? Had he moved from one sister to another without missing a beat? Was Gracie the one sharing in Caden’s dreams now?

  She had no way of knowing since her sister hadn’t really spoken to her since that first day. The two of them passed each other in the house locked in a strained silence that their father was either not noticing or actively ignoring.

  Frank was completely in love with baby Molly, though, and every day, he seemed to return a bit more to the man that Emma remembered. His granddaughter had given him a new lease on life, he claimed, and that worried Emma, too. There was simply too much going on. Too many things to feel. To think. To be anxious over.

  Why had she ever thought that coming home would be easy?

  She grabbed two shovels and slammed them into the corner. This whole ranch was a mess. The barn, the stable, the house. Oh, it was all still standing, but it looked to Emma like no one had been paying attention to what needed doing. Except Caden, apparently. A couple of men from his ranch had been over two days ago, to repaint the corral fences, and when she had told them they didn’t need his help, they’d ignored her, too. Said that they took orders from Caden and if she had a problem with it, she should take it up with him.

  As if she could.

  So now the fences had been painted, but the grass was too high, and the railing on the wraparound porch was wobbly. And the tack room was in shambles. “There are shelves for God’s sake. Why aren’t they using them?”

  Anger guided Emma as she picked up saddle soap, cloths and a million other little supplies that were tossed around. One by one, she straightened them out, lining them up on the shelves and giving it all a nod of satisfaction when she was finished. For a soul as organized as Emma, this place was torture.

  “And why is there an old saddle on the desk?” she asked no one.

  “It’s waiting to be repaired.”

  Emma spun around to see her younger sister standing in the doorway. “How long’s it been waiting?”

  Gracie shrugged. “A few months I guess.”

  “Months?” Emma shook her head, exasperated at the mess and her sister’s nonchalant attitude. “Why hasn’t Buck fixed it?”

  “Buck quit six months ago.”

  “What?” Buck Simpson had worked for them since Emma was a girl. He was a master at saddlery and had kept the ranch equipment in tip-top shape. “Why?”

  Gracie shrugged again and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. “He said he was getting too old to deal with ra
nching in winter. He went to live with his daughter and her husband on their ranch outside Billings. It still snows, but he doesn’t have to get out and work in it every day.”

  Another change she hadn’t known about and she didn’t like it. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could’ve emailed or something.”

  “Yeah, because we’ve been so close.”

  Emma sighed, shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and looked at the little sister who used to follow her around like a puppy. “You know, I tried to stay close. I left the ranch, I didn’t leave the family. I wrote to you, Gracie. I called. You never did.”

  “What was I supposed to say?” Gracie countered, pushing off the doorjamb. “Happy trails? Good luck with your perfect life while I’m here trying to hold a ranch together?”

  God. She would have laughed at that if she hadn’t felt like screeching.

  “Perfect? You think my life was perfect?” Emma actually felt her eyes roll. “Going to auditions and never getting the part? Being told that if you sleep with the producer, he’ll consider hiring you?

  “Being on your feet for a twelve-hour shift at a restaurant because the landlord just jacked your rent higher? Again? Having your ass patted by an old man when you bring his lunch order?”

  “Wait,” Gracie said, holding up one hand and looking around the room for effect. “Let me find a tissue.”

  “God, you’re a bitch.”

  “Said the queen bitch of the universe.”

  Frustration rippled through her. She kept trying and kept getting shut down. Her life in Hollywood hadn’t been anyone’s idea of a dream and there was plenty more that she wasn’t telling Gracie. Dark, hard things that she’d never told anyone and wouldn’t use to get a glimmer of sympathy now.

  “What the hell, Gracie?” Emma threw her hands up, faced her sister and demanded, “What is going on with you? This isn’t all about me moving to California. You can’t be this mad about me being gone for a few years. There’s something else going on.”