DESPITE TELLING HERSELF she needed to make more moves toward convincing her dad to sign over the ranch to her and Dean, perhaps as a wedding gift and solid acknowledgment of Dean as a part of the family, more than just the ranch foreman, she kept avoiding it. Every time she said she’d start the next day, she ran into a mental wall of how to do so without it being painfully obvious what she was doing. And without guilt gnawing at her.
Instead, she focused on work—for her job, taking care of the twins, helping out her dad and the various local irons she had in the fire. To her and her dad’s surprise, the first travel piece and associated special menu night at Trudy’s had gone over amazingly well, so much so that Eileen had asked her to do a series of talks at the art center with photos of the same locales. Sunny didn’t know if people were really interested in Thailand, the article topic that Maya had chosen to run first, or there weren’t many other local entertainment options. Whatever the reason, her first presentation at the art center was packed, as well.
On top of all that work, she also found herself repeatedly going back to the master document she’d made of marketing and business strategy ideas for the ranch. She’d be in the middle of driving down the road or feeding the twins and another idea would pop into her head. She’d get so excited about it that by the time she had her laptop in front of her again, she couldn’t type up everything fast enough. Dean was going to have to have help implementing even a fraction of what they’d mapped out.
She tried not to give too much thought to how every time she pictured someone else, perhaps a female someone, helping him make those ideas become reality, her mood soured.
There were times when she thought perhaps Dean was having similar thoughts, but she always ended up attributing it to her imagination giving more meaning to simple kindnesses than was there. No doubt the forced proximity of living in the small house together wasn’t helping in keeping imagination and reality separate.
She should be thankful for nights like tonight when she had space to herself while Dean was at her dad’s house for a poker night with Billy, Carlos, AJ, Dean’s dad and Tom Rifkin. It had started out as an effort to alleviate some of her dad’s boredom but had turned into a battle for bragging rights that was likely to go late into the night.
She’d decided to decline the half-hearted invitation from her dad in favor of quality time with her niece and nephew and then some quiet for knocking out a chunk of quality work for her actual job. Hopefully it would prevent unwanted questions from Mike about when she was going to ever make an appearance in her LA office again.
But she kept getting drowsy. Granted, lying stretched out on the couch with the laptop propped against her upturned legs didn’t help. Neither did the sound of rain on the roof that had started a few minutes before. She kept shaking her head and blinking, determined to stay awake long enough to get through a proposal for a potential client in Norway.
Norway, land of long, cold nights perfect for curling up next to a fire with a good...book...and...
She jerked awake, grabbing for her falling laptop. Only it wasn’t falling. Dean had his hands on it, lifting it from her lap to the coffee table. When his gaze met hers, she realized how close he was. Too close, so close she could feel his breath. And he didn’t look away or put more distance between them. Instead, he slowly lifted his hand and pushed some strands of her hair off her forehead.
His fingers barely touched her skin, but she was nevertheless vividly reminded of that kiss they’d shared on their wedding day. Had that kiss opened up something within her that now saw Dean as a man, an attractive man, instead of only a friend she’d known all her life?
“How did poker night go?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. This moment seemed to demand quiet, as if speaking normally would break some sort of magic spell.
“Your dad cleaned us out.” Dean also spoke softly, and she looked at his lips before she could think to stop herself.
When she lifted her gaze to his, her breath caught. And as he started to lean closer, she could not find a single word to stop him.
She didn’t want to stop him.
It was a light kiss, soft, tender, what she had expected at the wedding instead of the very real kiss she’d received instead. For the space of a heartbeat she thought she sensed him about to deepen the kiss, but instead he broke contact and offered a little smile.
“I think it’s time you go to bed and get some sleep.”
You, not we.
“Oh yeah.” After he stood to his full height and stepped back, she quickly swung her feet to the floor and grabbed her computer to her chest like armor. “Sorry I fell asleep in your space.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have come back so late.”
Instead of telling him that he did not have to coordinate his schedule with hers, she simply stood, said good night and barely kept herself from running to the bedroom, then barricading herself inside. Not to keep him out but to put up barriers that would at least force her to think while removing them if she was tempted to go out and kiss him some more.
DEAN STOOD STARING at the door, halfway wanting Sunny to come back out and halfway wanting her to stay safely on the other side. He’d only had one beer at Jonathon’s, wanting to have a clear head for poker—not that it had done him a lot of good—so he couldn’t even blame alcohol for that impulsive kiss.
No, it had been entirely his attraction to her combined with how much he had to constantly hold himself back from revealing it. To be honest, he was surprised she’d never scolded him for the kiss at their wedding. Maybe she’d thought it better to pretend it hadn’t happened at all.
When he’d come home tonight to find her lying along the couch where he normally slept, illuminated only by a single light spilling out from the kitchen, his ability to keep his distance had cracked. But judging how quickly she’d retreated to the bedroom, he’d be lucky if she didn’t wake up in the morning and start divorce proceedings. Considering he didn’t think they were any closer to his gaining the ranch and her convincing her dad to move with her to California, this whole fake-marriage thing might have been for nothing. Well, nothing other than making him want her even more than he had before.
Buzzing drew his attention but he quickly realized it wasn’t his phone since it was in his pocket and not vibrating. He spotted a lit-up screen on the couch. He picked up Sunny’s phone and saw the message was from her boss. Why was the man texting her after eleven at night? Well, he could just wait until the morning for a response. He placed the phone on the coffee table and sank onto the couch, then ran his hand over his face.
His lips still tingled from where they’d touched Sunny’s. He wondered if she’d once again pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened. Or would she wake up in the morning upset with him for acting outside the boundaries of their agreement?
A part of him wondered if he should just spill the truth about how he felt. What’s the worst that could happen? She was planning to leave Jade Valley for good anyway.
You might not ever get to talk to her again.
Maybe that would be the healthier outcome. If there was no true future for them, then cutting all ties would make it easier to move on. All those hours in the saddle riding the ranch’s acreage had given him a lot of opportunities for self-reflection. He hadn’t had to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars to a therapist to figure out that the reason he’d never had a lasting relationship with any other woman was because he was still attached to Sunny. When she drove away the final time, that attachment needed to have been severed.
That or he had to muster all his courage and confess his feelings in the tiny hope that some of them might be reciprocated.
THE MORNING AFTER Dean kissed her, Sunny went into full avoidance mode because she still didn’t have a clue how to act around him. Had he been caught up in another moment as a result of them living together, the same as she had? Or did he harbor actual feelings for her? When she thought about asking him outright, the thought of either answer made her nerves spasm all throughout her body.
So she did what she always did when she didn’t want to face difficult-to-navigate situations—she threw herself into work, even more so than she had before.
It seemed every day she was being asked for advice from someone new. Even a former classmate, Matt Lyons, had insisted on buying her lunch at Trudy’s and had agreed to help out with the building of some decorations for the festival in exchange for her advice on how he could best market his wooden carvings. She’d ended up spending a good three hours at Trudy’s, well beyond the lunch rush, helping him map out a plan because she was so impressed with his work. He’d been so thankful he’d offered her one of his pieces. She’d chosen not to examine too closely that a box containing a carving of a cowboy astride a horse, a birthday present for Dean, now sat beside her suitcase in Dean’s bedroom.
Dean seemed to be on the avoidance train, as well. He always left early in the morning, but he was coming home later each evening too. He evidently was catching up on miscellaneous upkeep in the barn or so she’d heard from her dad, who’d given her a curious look that seemed to ask why a newly married man was avoiding going home. She could have used the opportunity to tell her dad things weren’t going to work out with Dean and she wanted her remaining family to move to California with her, but it was too soon. She was beginning to think that her dad’s passing comment about Dean only gaining access to the ranch through marriage to her had only meant sometime in the distant future when her dad passed away.
Her impulsive actions really were making her feel like an idiot now. Still, she had to salvage the original plan. She and Dean needed to talk about what steps they should take when, how she might get her dad on board with the transfer of the ranch, but she kept putting it off whenever Dean came home and looked so tired each night.
But she couldn’t put it off any longer. She didn’t like the new, distant wariness between them since that soft kiss had sent her emotions and any semblance of coherent thought reeling. Had caused her to miss him at the same time she was actively trying to avoid too much time together. She was not someone who was often confused, but that was exactly what she felt when she thought about Dean.
When it started to rain yet again, she decided to make a big pot of chili and thick grilled-cheese sandwiches. And she texted Dean to let him know so that he wouldn’t spend extra time finding things to do that kept him away from his own home. Their avoiding each other was making that kiss into more than it had been.
Even though he’d acknowledged her text with a simple okay, it was still after dark when she heard his truck pull up outside. She stirred the pot of chili then glanced over her shoulder as the front door opened. In the same moment, Dean sneezed three times in quick succession.
Sunny dropped the lid back onto the pot and walked toward him.
“Are you sick?”
He looked up as if he was surprised to see her there then shook his head.
“I’m fine. Just a little chilled from the rain. The wind shifted and it’s cooler than normal.”
She pointed down the short hallway to the bathroom. “Go take a hot shower then come eat.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
While he was in the bathroom, she fed the twins and played with them, dutifully laughing every time they stacked then knocked over a few of their soft fabric blocks decorated with letters and animals. When she heard the shower shut off, she caressed Lily and Liam atop their heads then left them to amuse each other within the safety of their playpen.
After Dean was dressed in dry clothes and emerged from the bathroom, she heard him sneeze again. She needed to get some hot food into him to finish driving out the chill.
As soon as he sat down at the table and she placed his food in front of him, her phone rang. She started to ignore it but then saw it was her boss. Considering he typically texted, she figured she should pick up.
“Sorry. Duty calls.” She took the phone and retreated to the bedroom.
“Hey, Mike. What’s up?”
“You, on an airplane soon.”
She resisted sighing at Mike’s no-filter way of speaking. He only managed to filter himself when speaking with clients.
“I’ve been doing my work satisfactorily from here, right? And by me taking a break from traveling, it’s giving others more experience in the field.”
“While all true, you’re going to want to come back soon. A position is opening up that will allow you to build a new division and pick the type of clients you want.”
A surge of excitement shot through Sunny. “Really?”
“But you’re going to have to work for it. It’s company-wide, so you will be competing with the top people from other branches. Each of you will be presenting a proposal for the new division, and the executives will choose the one they like the best and let the new division head launch their proposal.”
“How long do I have to prepare?” Being in charge of an entire division built by her was more than she’d dreamed of for the immediate future.
“That’s still being discussed. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear, but I wanted to give you a heads-up so you could start working up a killer plan.”
Her excitement dimmed a fraction. She was already so busy, but this was a huge opportunity.
One that would take her away from Jade Valley sooner than she’d expected.
When one of the twins let out a wail, she thanked Mike again then ended the call. But by the time she took the few steps required to return to the living room, Dean already had Lily up in his arms, bouncing her gently as he talked in a soothing voice.
“Your aunt’s on an important call,” he said as if Lily would understand what he was saying. “We need to be quiet so she can talk.”
Sunny stopped and stared at the picture they made together. If she didn’t know Lily was her brother’s child, she could easily assume Dean was her father. He seemed so at ease with the twins, as if he knew exactly how to speak to them in order to bring calm to their little world.
He spotted Sunny but didn’t stop his movements meant to soothe his tiny companion.
“Sorry, I should have shut the door before I came to pick her up.”
Sunny shook her head. “No, I was at the end of the conversation when she started crying. I should check her diaper.”
“I checked. She’s not wet. I think she just missed being able to see my handsome face.”
The comment was so unexpected, especially after how she and he had been keeping their distance since the kiss, that she didn’t immediately react. But when she saw his teasing grin, she laughed. Then she directed her attention to her niece.
“Lily, never date a man who is full of himself. Nothing but trouble.”
Dean made an exaggerated expression of shock, which alleviated more of the tense feeling Sunny had been walking around with lately. She stepped forward and took Lily from him then pointed at the table.
“Finish your dinner.”
Lily continued to border on being fussy, so Sunny held her in her lap as she ate her own food and listened as Dean talked about how the mountain lion that had given everyone a scare on their wedding day had been trapped farther up the valley and relocated to a more remote area to protect not only residents and cattle but the lion itself.
“That’s a relief.”
“Now if Mother Nature would cooperate. I don’t want a drought, but I’d like to not have to swim through my days either.”
But as the next few days progressed, the unusual rain seemed to have settled in for a good long stay. Sunny felt bad that her job allowed her to stay dry and warm indoors while Dean got wet on a regular basis despite his inclement-weather gear. Despite trying to keep her focus on taking care of the twins and the various projects she had going, her thoughts strayed to him often. Strayed to the kiss that hadn’t been given for the benefit of a crowd they needed to convince of their relationship.
After a long session at her computer communicating with festival committee members, writing her next travel piece for Maya and working on her proposal she planned to present to the company in hopes of earning the promotion, she quickly loaded Lily and Liam in the car and headed to her dad’s house. She and Dean had started having family dinner with her dad a couple of times a week, and each time she had to try to ignore how domestic and easy it felt.
“First day it isn’t raining, I’m going to grill so much meat I’ll be able to feed the county,” her dad said as she set about fixing dinner. He stood staring out the window at the gray day outside.
“Sounds good to me.”
When Dean arrived and left his wet coat, hat and boots on the front porch, she asked if he wanted to go home to shower and change before eating.
He shook his head. “I’m okay. I’ll dry off in a few minutes.”
They’d barely taken their seats at the table when there was a knock at the door. When her dad called out for the person to enter, Carlos quickly stepped inside, concern on his face.
“What is it?” Dean asked, already getting to his feet.
“Billy just rode in, said there’s a break in the fence and the cattle are filing through.”
Sunny knew not only the logistical problems with getting all the cattle back into the pasture so they could fix the fence, but also the danger if the herd got too close to the swollen river. All the rain had the river higher than she’d ever seen it, even during spring runoff, and it was flowing fast.
As Dean headed for the door, she followed. She didn’t even need to tell her dad to take care of the twins.
“You don’t have to go,” Dean said when he noticed her intention.
“One more set of experienced hands will make this go faster. I might not have done it in a while, but I still know how to herd cattle.”
Thankfully her slicker, hat and boots were still in her room, so she prepped quickly. By the time she reached the barn, Dean had both his and her horses ready to go. Even wearing protective gear, the slanting rain made its way down her collar and she shivered as she rode alongside Dean. When they met up with Carlos, AJ and Billy, who had gone ahead with a utility vehicle loaded with fence-mending supplies, she realized that the incessant rain had probably loosened the soil so that some of the poles had toppled when brushed against by cattle.
Though it had been a while since she’d done this type of ranch work, it was still second nature. As AJ prepped the mending materials and Carlos and Dean rode farther out, down toward where the river was out of its banks, she and Billy herded closer to the break in the fence. When they had the cattle where they were supposed to be, they made sure the cattle didn’t stray back over.
A yell drew her attention toward the river, where Dean had lassoed a calf that had managed to get too close to the rushing water. She couldn’t look away as he struggled against the panicking calf. And then his horse stumbled, dumping Dean into the river.
“Dean!” She spurred her horse, racing toward where he’d disappeared below the churning brown water.
No, no, no! She couldn’t lose anyone else. She wouldn’t.
His head and an arm appeared above the water, and Carlos headed in that direction. Sunny followed in his tracks. She could barely keep her eyes open against the rain, but she was determined not to lose sight of Dean. Carlos quickly threw out a lasso, but it fell behind Dean and out of his reach.
Sunny spurred harder, hoping her own horse didn’t slip and fall. She had to get out ahead of Dean so that the timing of her own lasso would be right. Her heart beat faster than the horse’s hooves as she prayed her aim was true. When she let the rope fly, it honestly felt as if it moved in slow motion through the air.
Please, please, please!
At first Dean’s reach for the rope failed, but then the water swirled in the right direction and he latched on. Sunny didn’t even have time to sigh in relief before she quickly wrapped her end of the rope around the pommel of her saddle and started backing her horse up, not willing to take her eyes off Dean while he was still in danger. Though he was no doubt exhausted, he wrapped the rope tightly around his arm and kicked himself in the direction of the shore as she pulled.
She made the horse take a couple more steps back even after Dean was free of the water, irrationally worried that the rushing river would reach out and pull him back in. When he weakly held up a hand, she leaped to the ground and rushed toward him as Carlos, AJ and Billy joined them.
Dean was coughing up the water he’d swallowed during his brush with death, and she immediately helped him sit up when she dropped to her knees beside him. She didn’t ask if he was okay because that was a stupid question. Instead, she placed one hand against his back and wrapped the other around his upper arm. It felt like a decade passed before he finally stopped coughing.
Sunny fought tears even though they’d probably be indistinguishable from the rain rolling down her cheeks since she’d managed to lose her hat somewhere.
“Are you injured anywhere?” Carlos asked while Sunny wondered if the fear she’d just experienced had eradicated her ability to speak.
Dean shook his head, but his fatigue was obvious.
“How’s the horse?”
“Fine, calf too. Spooked but no injuries.”
“Stop worrying about the horse,” Sunny said, but her words were so quiet they were swallowed by the weather.
Dean started to push to his feet. “We need to get these cattle rounded up and the fence mended.”
“We’ll handle that,” Billy said.
Again, Dean shook his head. “Faster with all of us working.”
“Are you an idiot?” This time her words were heard loud and clear by everyone. All four men looked at her, but her focus remained on Dean, who coughed again. “You almost died just now and you want to go back to rounding up cows as if nothing more happened than a sneeze?”
Dean looked confused, as if he couldn’t understand why she was so angry.
“You’re going home, taking a hot shower, eating some hot soup and going to bed with every quilt in the house piled on top of you.”
“I’ll do all that once the work is done.”
She tried to get him to listen to reason but finally gave up, deciding that helping get the work done would get him home, dry and warm faster. By the time all the cattle were accounted for, the fence repaired and they’d ridden back to the barn, Dean was coughing and sneezing. Sunny would bet every penny she had he was shivering too.
“You get him home,” Carlos said when they reached the barn. “We’ll take care of the horses and let your dad know what’s going on.”
She looked toward her dad’s house, hoping he was coping with the twins okay.
“Don’t worry. The kiddos will be fine. I’ll help him out if he needs it.”
“Thank you.”
It was a testament to how bad Dean was feeling that he didn’t argue to take care of his own horse, instead letting her drive him home and get him into the house. All potential embarrassment fled as she escorted him straight to the bathroom after he discarded his slicker and toed off his sodden boots outside the front door.
“I can manage,” he said in a not very convincing tone.
“Hush.” She pushed his hands out of the way and proceeded to unbutton his shirt. Her heart rate kicked up again when his bare chest was right in front of her. She’d of course seen it when they were younger and they’d swum in the river, but it was the chest of a full-grown man now and nicely made. The chest of her lawfully wedded husband.
She shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” Dean asked, his voice tired but also holding a hint of teasing.
“You scared me nearly all the way to death.” She said those words to distract herself and him from any physical attraction on her part, but they were also painfully true.
Dean placed his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m fine.” But then he coughed, and she didn’t like how deep in his chest it was.
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound fine.” She spun out of his grasp and turned on the hot water in the shower. Before she could face him again, he hugged her from behind. Sunny froze and not because of how chilled his skin felt.
“Thank you for saving me,” he said close to her ear, then pulled away and pushed her out of the bathroom. “I’ll manage the rest myself.”
She turned around in time to see the door close in her face, which was probably for the best since the only thing he’d still been wearing that wouldn’t have been really embarrassing to remove were his socks.
A knock at the front door startled her from her thoughts.
Please don’t let something else have happened.
When she opened it, Maya stood there with two plates covered in aluminum foil.
“Your dad told me to bring you these,” Maya said. “He called me when you rode out, and Carlos just told us what happened. Is Dean okay?”
“He’s taking a hot shower. After he gets some food in him, I’m sending him to bed. He’s already coughing and sneezing, so I don’t want it to get worse.”
Maya gave her a look that Sunny was too tired to identify. Instead, she accepted the plates and stepped back so Maya could come in out of the damp air. But Maya shook her head.
“I’m just making the delivery. I’m going to go back and help your dad with the babies. I doubt Dean wants company right now anyway.”
“Thank you.”
“You know you don’t have to thank me for stuff like this. I love every opportunity I get to give your dad a hard time.”
Sunny smiled, knowing that both her dad and Maya loved their routine of good-natured teasing.
After Maya left, Sunny realized that Dean didn’t have any clean clothes in the bathroom. She deposited the food on the table then hurried into his bedroom to pull out something comfortable to sleep in. Right as she reached the bathroom door, the water shut off. She knocked lightly.
“I’m going to open the door to leave some clothes for you.”
“Okay.” Even that single word sounded as if it took a lot of effort.
She opened the door only wide enough to slip the clothes through and place them on the vanity. Her gaze lifted to the mirror, but thankfully it was fogged over.
If Dean didn’t need to eat, she would have sent him directly to bed as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Instead, she pulled out his chair then went to grab one of the quilts off the couch. She wrapped it around his shoulders but left his arms free so he could feed himself.
She didn’t initiate conversation, partly because he didn’t need to expend the energy but mainly because she didn’t think she could talk about what happened without crying. To be honest, she felt very close to the edge simply sitting across from him.
“I’m okay,” he said, unprompted, repeating what he’d said in the bathroom as if she either hadn’t heard him or hadn’t believed him the first time.
Against all her efforts, two tears broke free and rolled down her cheeks.
“I can’t survive losing anyone else,” she said, not looking up at him and trying not to think about how much he’d come to mean to her, more than he had even during their long friendship.
“You didn’t. I’m right here.” He reached across the table and placed his hand atop hers. When she tried to pull away, he didn’t let her. “Look at me.”
She hesitated, not quite sure why since she’d already lost the battle with her tears. When she finally met his gaze, he squeezed her hand.
“You’re not going to lose me.”
That’s where he was wrong. Whether she convinced her dad to come to California with her or not, she was eventually going back. Sooner rather than later because of the promotion presentation. And when she went, Dean wouldn’t be with her. It would be the beginning of the end for them.