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SHE WAS QUIETER THAN he was used to. Nate threw a glance at her. “You okay? He didn’t upset you too badly, did he?”
She looked at him. He couldn’t see her in the darkness of the cab, but he suspected she smirked at him in that particular Perci way she had. “There’s nothing Clive Gunderson could throw out that I can’t handle.”
“I don’t have any doubt about that.” Still, she was like a hissing kitten facing a rattlesnake. Gunderson was far more dangerous than that. The idea that the sonofabitch had even looked at Perci sideways tonight pissed him off. “But I don’t trust him, and I don’t like how he was looking at you.”
“I’m not going to talk about him. Isn’t that the ranch you are moving into soon?” She pointed to the gate just a bit up the road from them.
“Yes. It’s almost ready.” When it was, he had no more excuses not to move in. Not that he had any question that he wanted to move to the home that was his. But with Perci and Ivy at Levi’s, Nate wasn’t in any true hurry. Not now.
Not unless he could bring her with him. Them, with him.
Impulse had him turning toward that gate. It had an electronic lock on it, and he had the remote in his glovebox. With a few movements he had the gate swinging right open.
“What are we doing?” she asked as he pulled the truck up in front of the three-story farmhouse that had been in his family for over one hundred years now.
He’d had new siding installed just last week.
“Just going to check the place. And you and I are going to talk without my mother overhearing. Or meddling. You don’t mind, do you?” He was in no hurry to take her back to Levi’s. He was especially in no hurry to be on the end of his mother’s knowing glances. Or to give Perci back over to the little girl who adored her.
No. He wanted the woman with him for himself for a while. Nate didn’t see a damn thing wrong with that.
***
DID SHE MIND? NOT AT all. Perci had made her decision when Clive Gunderson had so clearly illustrated the difference between a man like him and one like Nate.
When she had realized that she did trust Nate to be there when she needed him. That no matter what she said or did, he was there. All she had to do was take the hand he had held out.
She wanted him to be the man she depended on. The one she turned to when the world they faced got a little too grim for her to handle it alone. Not that she needed him. She could certainly survive without him.
But he gave her world a bit more fire than it had had for a long time.
It was time she went after what she wanted. A hot curl of anticipation went right through her.
Nate Masterson had no idea what was about to hit him.
She followed him up the driveway and onto the front porch. She hadn’t seen this property before, but keeping up with the places the Masterson brothers owned was nearly impossible. Levi owned several places, Matt was half owner in a few others with Levi, Matt owned his own horse ranch nearby, and Joel had a larger home nearer to town than the others and was also a part owner in all the others. She had never asked what Nate was involved in.
“Nice place.” It was four times the size of the house she lived in. There was a barn behind the house that was also in the process of being painted. She’d heard he’d been redoing the entire house to his exact specifications.
It was beautiful. It was also huge for a single man. Empty.
“It was my great-grandparents’. We bought it back a year ago. Levi manages the land around the house, but the house is mine.” There was real satisfaction in his words that she understood.
“You’re lucky. Our parents bought our ranch when Phoebe was a baby. On contract. They paid it off when I was eighteen. We’ve been making improvements bit by bit.” And it was getting there. Things were finally less tight, thanks to the initial settlement check the insurance company had issued the month before.
It wasn’t enough. And her father was talking about hiring an attorney with that money to ensure everything was handled the way it was supposed to be. Rectified. As much as it could be, anyway.
They’d finally had enough money to paint the exterior of the ranch, thanks to that check, and the money they’d earned being in Rowland Bowles’s movie.
Perci winced even thinking about what she’d had to do as a damned fairy princess in search of her lost twin.
But other than the premiere, she had no more obligations in that direction.
For the first time in a long while, she could breathe again. She didn’t have to work sixty hours a week for her family to barely squeak by. She didn’t have to worry any longer.
Some of the fear that had plagued her since the night her mother had died shifted. Lessened.
“I have some soda in the fridge. Not the healthiest of drinks, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”
She nodded. He didn’t have the place furnished except for a couch shoved up in front of the large front window. She could see the moon and stars—and the hills that separated them from the rest of his and Levi’s property. To imagine that the Masterson brothers owned everything in between was slightly overwhelming. Her family’s ranch was but a very tiny ranch in the scheme of things in Wyoming.
But it was home. The only home Perci had ever known.
“Thank you.”
He went into the kitchen, then returned. She watched him move, sudden nerves keeping her from acting on what she’d wanted in the truck.
It was one thing to be ready to be with a man; it was another for her to know how to make that desire known.
She masked her nerves by sinking onto the surprisingly comfortable couch. He followed her down. “We won’t stay long. I’m just not ready to deal with my mother tonight.”
She laughed lightly. “Afraid?”
“Of her? Definitely. No doubt she’s put Ivy to bed and is snooping through the house. I can’t wait until Pan’s back and gets custody of Mother. It’s bound to be hilarious.”
“Should I call my sister and warn her? Tell her that even the big bad Nate is afraid of his mother?”
“Don’t you dare. We figure Pan is the only one brave enough to deal with her—your sister married Levi, after all.”
“Funny.”
Sitting on a couch in formal wear with Nate Masterson beside her. Not a single bit of it made sense. “What are we really doing here?”
“We’re going to talk. You’re going to tell me why the very sight of Clive Gunderson makes you pale and shake and lose every bit of fire I know you have in you. What did he do to you that your family doesn’t know about?”