Coming Home (6 page)

Audibly sighing, Wyatt turned away from his annoying cousin and looked at her. "You're late."

"I'm not," she shot back. "I was here five minutes ago, you were just too busy shouting to notice."

She sauntered closer, and Wyatt couldn't help appreciating how good she looked in the casual clothes. Without the pricey suits and silky blouses, wearing rugged shorts and boots, she looked more like the girl he remembered. And he again wondered if he'd made a big mistake in agreeing to let her come out to the ranch.

"Well, well, if it isn't Nicole Ross."

Wyatt heard the insinuating tone in his cousin's voice. Brady walked away from him, as if they hadn't been in the middle of a heated argument, and approached Nicole. "My, how you've grown," his cousin said as he looked her over from head to toe. “How about a kiss for an old friend?”

She frowned. “I don’t recall us being that friendly.”

"Seems to me you used to think we were very friendly," Brady said with a knowing smile.

Wyatt saw the confusion in Nicole's eyes. She didn't know what his cousin was talking about. Wyatt understood immediately, of course, but Nicole had probably never been told. Certainly her mother wouldn't have informed Nicole of what really happened all those years ago...that the reason Wyatt hadn't contacted her when he was in Europe was because his cousin Brady had been the one called home. Wyatt often wondered what might have happened if his grandfather hadn't gotten confused about which of his grandsons was the father of Nicole’s baby.

Too late. It didn't matter now. The past was long gone, and the baby with it.

"Get out of here, Brady. We've got work to do," Wyatt said as he took Nicole by the arm. He ignored the glare his cousin cast at him. Wyatt was so used to it he didn't know if he'd recognize Brady with any other expression. They had been at each other's throats for as long as he could remember.

Brady's resentment was the reason Wyatt and Nicole had needed to hide their relationship that summer so long ago. Nicole had begged Wyatt not to tell anyone they were together, worrying how his cousin would respond if he found out. And, he suspected, not wanting to be talked about as the girl who got dumped by the blonde, angelic cousin and then immediately took up with the devilish dark-haired one.

Brady hadn't wanted her once he figured out she wasn't going to have sex with him, but he'd have hated it if he'd found out she and Wyatt were together. Wyatt hadn't cared, saying there was nothing Brady could do to them. But he hadn’t been able to say no to her, and she’d been pretty insistent. So he had agreed to keep quiet for the remainder of the summer. The following year, he'd insisted, the whole world would know that they were a couple.

Who could ever have imagined how different their lives would be the following year?

"See you later, Nicole," Brady said. "I hope we can get together and catch up on old times."

Brady sauntered out of the barn as if he hadn't a care in the world, acting like he was still the heir apparent, and Wyatt still the bastard. That might have stung him twenty years ago. Fortunately, Wyatt had actually grown up. Maybe someday his cousin would, too.

"He hasn't changed much," Nicole said when Brady was gone.

"Still a bully. Still an ass," Wyatt muttered.

"It must have given you a tiny bit of satisfaction when your grandfather left you in charge."

"Tiny?" he said with a loud bark of laughter. "I laughed until tears came out of my eyes! God, Nick, you should have seen the look on his face. I mean, once his father, my Uncle Clay died, Brady walked around this place like he was lord of the manor. Two years later, when grandfather died, he was prepared to step in and kick me off the property. Can you believe it? He informed me after the funeral that he wanted me gone."

"Oh, wow, would I have liked to have been a fly on the wall during that will reading."

Wyatt laughed out loud again. "I have to admit, it gave me some malicious pleasure to torture him for a half an hour or so while I pretended to decide whether he could stay or not. Of course, I had to let him. He does own nearly half the ranch, after all." He paused and crossed his arms across his chest with a self-satisfied nod. "But I own the bigger half."

"I'm happy for you, Wyatt. You were born to run this place. Your grandfather was a wise man."

Wyatt suddenly stopped smiling and stared at her. "About some things, maybe. But, he had his failings. He made his share of mistakes. He gave me a lot, but he cost me a lot, too."

She looked at him quizzically. He could see she didn't understand. There was no way he would enlighten her. Because, intentionally or not, his grandfather had cost him the most important thing in his life.

Her.

Two hours later, Nicole felt sweaty, dirty and thoroughly happy to be back to work. She wasn't used to inactivity, and the last several days spent in hospital waiting rooms had taken their toll. Surprisingly enough, she and Wyatt had fallen into a comfortable camaraderie while they worked. Ignoring the past seemed to have lifted the tense, angry wall between them.

"You have some beautiful animals here,” she told him. “My mother would be green with envy if she could see Sultan's Daughter."

"That I'd like to see," he said with an unpleasant chuckle. "I don't imagine your mother's ever wanted something she didn't find some way to get."

Nicole heard the bitterness in his voice. She didn't understand it, since Wyatt had never met her mother. Perhaps he had picked up some prejudices in his friendship with her father. Dad was never nasty, but he definitely had a sarcastic streak when it came to Mother. "She's not so bad."

He stared at her, hard. Nicole felt herself squirming under his glance.

"She's not?" he finally asked. "Tell me, Nicole, has she ever let you out from under her thumb? Did you go more than fifty miles from home to go to college? Have you lived anywhere but at her estate, other than those summers with your father?"

She flushed and replied, "I am an adult, Wyatt. Yes, I live on Mother's estate, not because she demands it, but because she's done a great deal for me. She helped me with some very difficult times in my life. But beyond that..."

"Yes?"

"She needs me," Nicole replied, almost defying him to disagree with her.

"She needs you," he repeated slowly, drawing out each word. "That woman's never needed anyone in her life."

"How would you know? You've never even laid eyes on her."

Wyatt sucked in his breath. Nicole didn't know. Her mother had never told her about their one and only meeting.

He’d never considered that, but now, looking back, it made sense. He’d been furious when he left the rich Baltimore estate where Nicole had been raised. But her mother wouldn’t have taken any chances that the two of them might end up getting back together, even without the baby to entwine their lives. So of course she’d have kept his visit a secret.

"Right," he finally muttered. "You know her much better than I do."

It probably didn’t matter that Nicole had never found out he’d come for her. By the time he'd shown up in Maryland, she had already made her decisions about her future. The baby was gone, Nicole off in college. Wyatt had been raw with emotion and anger. So it probably wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference.

"My mother has no one else in her life, Wyatt.”

“There’s a surprise…”

“It’s very sad,” Nicole insisted. “Her parents died when I was a baby, her marriage to my father was short-lived and miserable. She married again and that lasted less than a year. She's a wealthy woman who's led a lonely life. I'm her only child. Isn't it natural that she'd want to keep me close?"

Wyatt listened as she tried to explain. How typical for Nicole to come to the defense of someone she loved. She was intensely loyal, even to those who didn't deserve such loyalty.

For many years Wyatt had forced himself to picture Nicole growing more and more like her mother. When he let his thoughts dwell on the past, he found their faces overlapping until he practically remembered them as one person. And the anger—no, rage—he’d felt toward the older woman had somehow transferred onto the daughter.

But seeing her again had forced him to acknowledge the truth—Nicole was far more like her good-natured father than her spiteful mother. When he'd known her, Nicole Ross had been a sweet, gentle girl who wanted nothing more than to please the people she loved: her parents, and Wyatt. From what he'd seen the past few days, she hadn't changed much.

It had taken a while, but Wyatt had finally acknowledged how difficult it must have been for her that summer...only seventeen, feeling as if he'd used and abandoned her, leaving her to face her parents with the pregnancy. Even with her father’s love and support, Nicole would have had a hard time standing up to her controlling mother. Hell, Josh had never been able to stand up to his ex-wife, and had moved to Florida just to get away from her after their divorce. So how could Nicole have stood firm against such a force of nature?

If he’d been around? Yes. She could have.
They
could have.

But Wyatt hadn’t been around when she needed him.

And that was what most haunted him about the whole ugly mess.

He hadn’t been there to support her. Hadn’t been there to make sure she took care of herself—and their baby. If he had been, he sure as hell wouldn’t have let her do any dangerous trick riding in the early months of her pregnancy.

He hadn’t wanted to believe she’d done it intentionally—taken chances with her health that had resulted in her miscarriage—despite the fact that her mother hinted that had been the case. And it hadn’t taken long to convince himself her scheming mother was lying through her teeth. So he couldn’t hate Nicole for the loss of their child.

Resent her? Yes. Be angry with her for not trusting him, not believing him, despite the bullshit lies she’d been fed? Oh, hell, yeah.

But he didn’t think there was enough malice in the world that could have made Nicole risk something so precious.

“All right, let's just agree to disagree about your mother," he said finally. "We can both agree, however, that your father is one terrific man."

Nicole smiled slightly, watching as the tension eased out of Wyatt's stiff body. He even smiled back, something he didn't seem to do much of lately. That crooked grin brought every emotion she'd thought she'd buried for the past decade flooding into her mind. Nicole took two steps backward and leaned against the wooden railing, astounded that one honest to God smile from this man could make her knees weak.

Wyatt leaned closer to a graceful horse standing next to him and ran a flat palm across the mare's chocolate brown flanks. Watching his firm stroke, Nicole swallowed hard. Her mouth felt dry as she saw the tender way he stroked the horse's face, his touch looking almost like a caress.

"You're a beauty,” he whispered to the horse.

She shivered in spite of the intense heat of the day, hearing the echo of similar words, spoken by this incredibly attractive man at a much more intimate moment.

You’re beautiful
. He'd murmured that in her ear, his unshaven cheek scraping against hers. His touch had been as tender and soft on her body as it appeared to be on Sultan's Daughter. His hands had explored parts of her that she'd never even known she had, arousing feelings she didn’t know she’d been capable of experiencing.

"I'm hot," she muttered out loud, trying to tear her eyes away from Wyatt's strong hands.

"Let's go up to the house and get something cold to drink."

Nodding wordlessly, Nicole hurried out of the stables. The heat outside assaulted her immediately. Her clothes, crisp and new when she'd arrived, hung wilted and limp on her body. Though the stables were climate controlled, she'd gotten overheated through her exertions...and, she had to concede, through her own overly vivid imagination.

"Listen, we don't have to go up to the house," Nicole said quickly. "I can wait until I get home to get a drink. I'm sure you've got more important things to do."

Nicole really didn't want to spend any more time with Wyatt. While they worked, she'd almost been able to forget who it was she was spending the afternoon with. But those last few minutes, watching him stroke that horse, had reminded her of every last moment they'd shared. Good and bad. In his company, it was hard to hold on to the bad and force the good out of her memory.

"I need to go up to the house anyway. Come on, I want to show you how different it looks."

Wyatt saw her bite at the corner of her lip in indecision. He didn't give her a chance to argue. Turning on his heel, he walked to his truck and waited for her to get into her father's SUV. She followed him up the driveway.

As he drove, Wyatt wondered if he was crazy to ask her to come up to the house. The afternoon hadn't exactly gone as he'd expected. She'd surprised him. Wyatt had to admit that one reason he'd let her come to the ranch to help out was so he could see what kind of animal doctor she'd turned out to be. She was good. Better than good. He'd somehow expected that the Nicole he'd met at the airport, self-possessed and assured, would remain cool and aloof, not wanting to get her hands dirty.

He was wrong. Some of his horses, bred for racing, were skittish and temperamental. There hadn't been one she couldn't conquer. She charmed animals the way some women charmed men, flirting, cajoling, touching and flattering. Wyatt found himself as susceptible to her as his horses were.