When they got back to the ranch, they showered in separate bathrooms, then Carter gave Carolyn a soft kiss on the cheek before he returned to his bedroom. She wasn’t disappointed he hadn’t invited her to sleep with him, was she? She was still so shocked by what had happened at the bar that she didn’t think she would be able to fall asleep next to him anyway. But perhaps it would have been nice to be invited.
The next morning, Carolyn reflected that it probably wouldn’t have mattered what bed she was in, because she’d barely slept. After the craziness in the Charlie’s bathroom, she wasn’t at all sure what to do about Carter. And after what her body had done, something she’d never seen but had only heard about before last night, how could she even show her face downstairs?
When the smell of something delicious made its way up to the second floor, Carolyn washed her face and put on clothes of the non-silky-pajama variety, knowing she was going to have to be brave to get a plate full of whatever smelled so good.
When she walked into the kitchen, Jeff, Paul and Carter were already seated at the table with their plates stacked with French toast. Jester was curled up by the door, as though ready to go out, and when he saw Carolyn he whined.
“Good morning, Jester.” He dropped his chin and stared at her intently, as though trying to decipher this new command. “Do you need to go outside and go potty?”
When he stood and angled his nose toward the opening of the door, Carolyn opened it for him, and he dashed outside. Then she turned her smile to the men, and all it took was one look at Carter to make her cheeks heat. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
The ranch hands greeted her. “I have to admit,” Jeff said to Carter, “the dog looks happier since Carolyn has been working her magic on him.”
Carter nodded but didn’t comment, and Carolyn wondered if it really did bother him to let the dog in the house or if it was him regretting last night. He met her eyes. “I saved some French toast for you, if you want any.”
“Thank you. That would be great,” she answered. Carter went to get up from the table, but she touched a hand to his shoulder as she passed. “I can get it. Please sit and eat.”
She returned to the table and sat with the men after grabbing her breakfast. It was fun just listening to them talk about their plans for the day and what needed to be done. Living on a working ranch was vastly different from anything Carolyn had experienced.
“So what are you up to today?” Jeff asked her.
She smiled at the older man. “Just working on my designs. I need to finish some things before the show.”
Jeff nodded. “Well if you need a break, you should go with Carter to check on the new calf that was born yesterday. It’s a cute little thing.”
Her brows rose. “You didn’t tell me there was a new one, Carter. Is it a boy or a girl?”
He rested his elbows on the table. “It’s a heifer.”
“Oh, good. That’s good, right? For your breeding program?”
Paul stuck a bite in his mouth and chewed. “The more females, the better. That’s what I always say.” He gave Carolyn a wink.
Carter’s nostrils flared, and he speared Paul with a look before returning his attention to Carolyn. “If you’re up for it, I wouldn’t mind the company. But first I was going to sort through a couple more boxes and try to clear a little more office space for you this morning for the new table. Would it bother you to work while I’m in there?”
She swore she was blushing again, and she hoped the men wouldn’t see it. “Sure, that sounds great. And I’ll let you know if I get enough work done to go with you to see the calf.”
They went back to eating and talking about the ranch, but Carter’s presence filled the room, and she couldn’t draw a full breath. It had felt so good to move on the dance floor while being held in the safety and strength of his arms.
When Jeff and Paul said their goodbyes and opened the door to go, Jester ran back in and planted himself by the table, looking from Carolyn to Carter. Carter had finished his breakfast, but Carolyn was still working on her last slice of battered bread.
“This is really good,” she told him. When he reached out and placed his hand over hers, she froze and looked up at him.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I want you to feel safe in this home with me.”
He was sorry? Now her humiliation was complete. “I do feel safe with you, Carter. It’s not a problem.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand, then moved his own hand to his lap. Her skin felt cold without the warmth from his fingers.
“I’m glad. I just wanted you to know that I won’t be shoving you up against a wall again anytime soon.” He laughed as though to make light of what they’d shared the night before.
“Just so you know, I didn’t mind that you did.”
His expression went from friendly to on guard, as though Carolyn had just put her index finger on the trigger of a gun and pointed it right at him.
“That’s great you’re not upset about last night, but it can’t happen again. I may not be a professional bodyguard, but your brother is paying me to keep you safe. I can’t do that if I’m more focused on getting in your pants than on what’s going on around us.”
Carolyn sighed. “I appreciate that, but honestly, I don’t think I’m really in danger. This is just a precaution. I mean…I’m not arguing that you should take me up against a wall. I’m just saying that if you were so inclined, I don’t think we’d get sniped or anything.”
Carter leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Shit, Carolyn. Don’t talk like that. I’m trying to do the right thing here. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, like I’m the poor little rich girl, too damaged to know what I want?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She crossed her arms over her middle. “Well…maybe the person you should be worrying about is you. What if I just want to have some fun while I’m here and then move on?”
Carter leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Is that what you want? Fun?”
“Maybe,” she answered.
“Because just so we’re clear after what happened last night, I’m not the type of guy who dreams of falling in love and starting a family. And you’re the type of woman who deserves it all—babies, a husband who wears a business suit, a happy, normal life.”
“A normal life? The last time I went to a nightclub with my girlfriends we were thirty minutes late because our driver had to lose all the paparazzi that followed us from the gates outside my house. I’d say a bit of sex and affection would make my life more normal, not less.”
“I’m not going to use you for sex if I can’t give you the whole package.”
“Do you ever wish you could spend some time in a warm set of arms?”
“Hell, yes. But that’s not how it works with the women in this town. You go on a few dates and they’re planning what colors to have at the wedding. I mean, there are a few who just want sex, but I can’t sleep with someone who’s been with half the guys I know.”
“You never get lonely?” she asked him.
Carter shrugged and pushed up from the table, taking both their plates to the sink and running water over them. “I don’t see what it matters if I’m lonely. I have enough work for ten lifetimes. And still, I find time for fun, too. I have a fine life.”
Carolyn grabbed a dishtowel and dried the plates Carter had washed. “So you never wanted kids?”
Carter laughed and began to wipe down the counter. “I’ve told you enough about my dad that you should know I have no example to go on when it comes to being a father. And I don’t think twelve years in the Marines prepared me much, either. I’m just not cut out for it.”
She put the plates in the cupboard and set the rag on the counter. “You’re telling me all the reasons you don’t feel qualified. But what I asked is if you ever wanted children. I mean, every new parent starts with no experience, and yet here we all are.”
“Maybe I wanted them. It doesn’t matter. I’d only want to go down that road if I was married to the right woman and could give the kids a good start. I’m not, and I can’t, so I don’t dwell on it much.”
“So when you’re gone, Halston Ranch will cease to exist?”
She could tell he was squirming on the inside, like she’d jabbed a hot poker into his man parts, but she was trying to understand this noble, broken man.
“It was my old man’s dream, not mine.”
“And yet here you are, breeding your own cattle and building the next generation. I think Jeremiah is symbolic for your hopes and dreams of family and legacy.”
Carter shook his head. “You want me to lie down on the table, Doc, so you can cut me open and see what I’m made of? I think you might be disappointed.”
“I don’t think so. But if you want to lie down on the kitchen table, by all means…” She grinned, showing him the playful glint in her eye. She wasn’t really trying to irritate Carter—she simply saw something special in him and wanted to understand how he didn’t see it.
“I get where you’re going with this,” he said, “but I’m not the guy you want me to be. Don’t romanticize a man who was burned out on life by the time he was twenty-four years old. I’ll only hurt you.”
“Deny it all you want, but I can tell a good man when I see him.”
Carter hung the dishtowels and faced her. “And I can tell a good woman when I see her. You’re sweet, Carolyn. You want to imagine the best in people. Maybe you even want to fix me. I don’t want to be fixed. The stuff I’ve seen…” His gaze went distant. “You don’t heal from that. You just survive it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to poke at your wounds, Carter.”
He raised a brow. “Poke all you want, beauty, because that’s my point. I don’t bleed anymore. I’ve got nothing left inside.”
Carter sorted through a box that contained his father’s best belts and boots, putting most of it in the giveaway pile. He was trying not to stare at Carolyn while she worked at her new table, but it was hard. She had one of those butterscotch suckers that she loved, and glimpsing her sucking it between her full lips was almost painful.
She’d unsettled him in the kitchen, not by exploring his views on fatherhood or his plans for the future, but by how she believed he had depths to explore in the first place. She seemed to see something in him that he was pretty sure didn’t exist. How she’d made it through an asshole of a father and an abusive bastard of a husband and still retained her belief that people were inherently good, he didn’t know.
Carter wasn’t a hero, and he didn’t want her thinking he was. Any illusions of being a hero had died along with what was left of his childhood in the first month of his deployment to Iraq. How could he tell her that he’d held friends while they’d bled out…that he’d killed in the name of duty and he could still see the faces of those men whose lives he’d taken.
He’d gone to Iraq thinking it would be like the movies—brotherly bonding and fighting for the greater good. But if it were a movie, then it would have been horror…one of those pointless slasher flicks that leaves you disturbed and hollow with no promise of a happy ending. And yet she wanted to think there was still something soft inside Carter, like a sweet and magical bloom ready to spread its petals for the sunlight fairy. And Carolyn was sunlight. He couldn’t deny that. But there was nothing in him she could shine her light on.
Carter picked up a big silver buckle and held it up to the light. It read If you ain’t cowboy, you ain’t shit. It was a god-awful, gaudy thing, but Carter still remembered back to when he was seven and the day his father had won the buckle at the local rodeo.
Tuck Halston was by no means a professional bull rider, but they’d had amateur night and he’d thrown his name into the hat. Tuck had drawn a big, mean bull, and Carter had worried about what would happen to his dad if he fell off and the bull got him. Tuck had been the only one to hang on a full eight seconds, fueled by pure ire no doubt, but Carter had been so proud when the announcer had called the Halston name and had handed the buckle over to his father as first prize.
The next day, Carter had gone into his father’s bedroom and held the buckle up to his waist. When Tuck walked in and saw him, he beat Carter until Carter was a bruised and bloody mess.
Carter snickered and tossed the buckle back into the box. Who wanted any of this shit? It was all tainted. And yet, the beating didn’t quite wash away the moment he’d been proud. He hadn’t been proud of his father very often.
“Can I see?”
Carter almost jumped when Carolyn’s gentle voice sounded to his right. Since when had he let people sneak up on him? “See what?”
The lollipop dangled from her fingers. “That buckle. I was just curious what it said since it’s the only one you’ve really looked at.”
He raised his brows. “Are you watching me, beauty? Do I have a hot little stalker on my hands?”
She cocked a brow back at him. “Stop deflecting. Can I see it?”
He handed her the buckle, and she read it out loud. “If you ain’t cowboy, you ain’t shit.” She paused, as though trying to find the deeper meaning. “Hmm… Is that a saying in Texas?”
He shook his head. “Nah. It’s just a lousy buckle.”
“And you’re getting rid of it?”
His teeth clenched. “Yes.” He wasn’t obligated to keep one damn thing of his father’s and he wouldn’t feel guilty. It wasn’t as though he would ever have a son to pass these things on to. And if by some strange chance he did, why would he want to give him any piece of Tuck Halston?
“Looks like it might be real silver,” she said.
“I think it might be. It was the grand prize in a contest.”
“And you’re giving it away? You could sell it.”
“Jeezus, woman. What is this, Antiques Roadshow? Don’t you have some fabric swatches to coddle?” Jester perked his ears when Carter said fabric. “And what have you done to that dog? He’s a working dog, you know.”
“I’ve already told you—he is working. He just happens to like my line of work better than yours.”
Carter smiled. How was it that Carolyn had only been at the ranch two weeks now, and yet it felt so right to have her here? Like she’d always been a part of his life. Those kinds of feelings were dangerous for a man like him. He might forget to keep her at arm’s length. He might lead her to believe he needed her. And then they would both get hurt. Carter used to think nothing could hurt him, but seeing Carolyn in pain would do the trick, and knowing he’d caused it would be infinitely worse.
“He’s yours for as long as you’re here. Just please, don’t start dressing him up or anything. I have my reputation in the community to think of. I don’t want him greeting the auctioneer with a bedazzled pink bandana around his neck.”
Carolyn rolled her eyes. “I do not bedazzle anything in my clothing line. The closest I’ve come is a removable broach and sash at the waist of my signature lavender tulle gown.”
Carter looked to the dog. “Help me out, buddy. What did she just say?”
Carolyn’s cell phone rang, vibrating against the surface of her worktable. “Hold that thought,” she said to him. “Then I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about tulle.”
She walked across the room in her dainty heels like a princess. Seeing the long hours she put into her work was the only thing that convinced his brain that she wasn’t some ethereal creature he’d dreamed into being.
Carolyn looked down at the phone and frowned, and the way her brows drew low, Carter was instantly on alert. She set her lollipop on its wrapper and waited through three rings, as though deciding whether or not she wanted to answer, until finally she touched a finger to the screen and said, “Hello?”
Carter wished she would put it on speaker, because the slant of her shoulders, curving inward on herself, told him it must have been one of two men. And both were at the top of his shit list.
“I’m never coming back, Richard,” she said into the phone. “We’re finished. The day your fingers left bruises on my neck was the last day you would ever touch me.”
She listened again, and Carter could see her beginning to tremble from several feet away. He rose to his feet, fighting the desire to take the phone out of her hands and deal with this himself. The fact that the arrogant asshole had hurt Carolyn was unforgivable, but that he was trying to get her back made Carter want to kill him dead.
“Yes, that’s my final answer,” she said. And then a moment later, her expression went from fear and anxiety to utter desolation. “You can’t do that. That money was mine before we were married.”
Carter could hear the sound of an angry voice coming from the phone, then Carolyn responded, “You make a very good living. Why would you try to take something that was never yours?”
She listened for another minute, and Carter’s hand itched to grab the phone from her and tell Richard Helmsworth exactly what he would do to him if the man was ever unfortunate enough to cross paths with Carter.
“How could I have married a man like you? Where’s your pride?” The man’s voice hissed across the line, and Carolyn went white as a sheet. “You’re never going to get the chance to lay another hand on me. I may not have pressed charges, but I have enough photos of what you did to me over the months we were together that I should have no problem getting a restraining order. And then, if you get close enough to even shake my hand, you’ll go to jail—where I should have sent you months ago, you sick and pathetic man.”
Richard’s voice got so loud then that Carter could almost make out the words. With clenched fists, he reached for the phone, but Carolyn hit the end button and disconnected the call.
He and Carolyn just stared at each other for several seconds, their eyes locked. Both were shaking, but Carter supposed it might be for different reasons. Him because he wanted to end that man more than he wanted to breathe, and Carolyn because she was reliving the hell of what Richard had done to her.
But at the same time, the tilt to her chin said she was a survivor. The straightening of her spine said she might be scared but she was choosing to be brave. And in that moment, Carolyn Ashford wasn’t a princess anymore—she was a queen fighting for the sovereignty of her kingdom. And Carter was the court fool who had just realized that despite his best intentions, he was in love with her.
He swallowed, knowing he was making the biggest mistake of his life giving in to what he felt for her. But he couldn’t not hold her. He walked closer and held his arms open to her, praying she would come to him, knowing he would never be worthy of her time or her love. But if she wanted him while she was here, he was hers. And as broken as he was, if his arms could give her comfort now, he would gladly endure the hell of losing her later. “Come here, beauty. Let me show you how a man’s supposed to touch you.”