Hold Me (29 page)

Her chin rose. “Tell me how that’s bad.”

Oops. “It’s, ah, not. Women should have a bar where they can be comfortable. But so should guys. That’s all I was doing.” He thought about the town and how involved everyone was. “I didn’t think about talking to you. I’m not from here.”

“Not much of an excuse. You should learn how to have a conversation. Words matter.”

He was starting to see that. They’d mattered with Carter, they mattered with Jo. Didn’t it make sense they would matter with Destiny, too? She’d told him she loved him, and what had he said in return? Not a thing.

He thought about everything that was wrong right now. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. I should have. For what it’s worth, you’ve won. My partners have pulled out, and Nick says we can’t make it solely on tourist dollars.”

Jo shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah, well, about that. I might have made a few phone calls. I wanted to make a little trouble, but I didn’t anticipate how seriously my friends would take my concerns.”

“You didn’t mean to shut me down?”

“Hell, no. I was going to talk to you. Jo’s does a good business, but I’m tired of working sixteen-hour days. I have a hot husband at home I’d like to spend more time with. I’m going to call off the ladies. Your partners will come slinking back. Jo’s Bar is going to be open five days a week and close at seven in the evening. You can have the nights.”

She held out her hand. He shook it. “Remind me never to go up against you again,” he said.

“You got that right. Tell Nick to expect a crowd tonight. I’m going to make some calls.”

* * *

D
ESTINY
CROSSED
THE
shallow stream. On the other side, she confirmed the GPS signal was still strong. While she enjoyed a day hike as much as the next person, she didn’t want to have to retrace her steps.

She paused for a drink of water. Tall trees offered shade overhead and kept the temperature comfortable, but she was in her third hour of hiking and getting a little tired.

She was out of shape, she thought. She hadn’t been exercising as regularly. That was going to have to change. She had to stay healthy for two. Something she couldn’t mention to Kipling, she thought with a smile. Before she finished speaking, he would have designed a program and signed her up with a trainer.

No, he wouldn’t, she thought, her smile fading. Because they weren’t together anymore. She’d ended things pretty abruptly, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

She missed him, she admitted. A lot. There was a hole in her life and maybe in her heart. A Kipling-size one. She missed how he visibly brightened when she walked in the room. How he listened and then offered advice whether she wanted it or not. She liked how easily he’d adjusted to being a mere mortal after years spent being a ski god.

He was a good man, she thought wistfully. Funny, charming, caring. Instead of getting mad when he’d found out she’d been a virgin, he’d wanted to help her learn to enjoy sex. He was dependable and caring. If only he loved her. Because without loving her, without her being able to—

Destiny stopped in midstride. She slowly lowered her raised foot to the ground and let the swirling thoughts settle. When they did, she nearly fell over from shock.

She was still doing it. She was still running from something—just like she always had. She’d run from her parents when she’d been younger. She’d run from her emotions, her passions, her talents. She’d built up walls and hidden behind them, and she was still doing it. Right this second.

How did she know Kipling didn’t love her? She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t given him a chance to talk or explain or even think. They’d never talked about their marriage or explored what either of them expected or needed to make the relationship work. She’d simply told him she wanted a divorce.

Running away from something wasn’t the same as running to something. She’d spent so much of her life thinking about what she didn’t want that she’d forgotten to figure out what was important to her. She was so worried about being unhappy that she never bothered to find what made her happy. Or who.

She loved Kipling. She knew that for sure. But did he love her? Maybe this was a good time to be asking that question. And not just of herself.

“What have I done?” she asked out loud.

There was no answer. Just the hum of insects and the call of a hawk.

She glanced down at her screen. Her exact location showed as a tiny dot. She could see the most direct route back to her car and immediately headed that way.

* * *

M
EN
HAD
BEEN
making fools of themselves over women for centuries, Kipling thought cheerfully. He was just one in a long line. If he was going to lose Destiny, he was going to do it in style. With everything on the table.

In the past hour he’d had a call from five of his business partners asking to be a part of The Man Cave again, and a text from Nick saying he was expecting a big crowd. Felicia Boylan, Carter’s mother, had found him and hugged him, all the while telling him how happy she was that he’d shown Carter the complete cycle of a male exchange, from misunderstanding to threatened violence, to apology and resolution. When he’d tried to explain that hadn’t been his intent, she’d brushed off his comments.

He stood there, in the center of the festival, surrounded by people, and all he could think was that he wanted to tell Destiny all about it. Not just tell her, but have her share in it. He wanted to laugh with her and touch her and take care of her.

But the telling was important, too. Talking to her. Words. It came back to those damn words.

He got that actions were significant. Promising to be faithful was meaningless if you went out and cheated. His father hitting Shelby had a whole lot more meaning than the times he’d sworn he loved her. But maybe, just maybe, he’d taken the lesson he’d learned just a little too far. Maybe he’d dismissed the words too quickly. And if that were the case, he just might have a chance at winning Destiny back.

In the time it took him to jog home and grab the keys to his Jeep, he came to several more realizations. He realized that just because he’d never been in love before didn’t mean he was necessarily flawed. He hadn’t been holding back because he didn’t believe saying he loved someone made a difference—he’d been waiting. For the right woman. The only woman.

Destiny had said she loved him, and now all he wanted was to say it back to her. Then convince her, because action was always going to be his thing. But he would say it, too.

Destiny loved him, he loved her, and there was no way he was going to let her go. Not without a fight. And if he made a fool of himself because of it, so be it.

He headed out of town. A quick call to Cassidy gave him the starting point. He had his tracking equipment and working knowledge of the STORMS program. He was supposed to be some kind of search and rescue expert. It was time he put that title to the test.

He pulled off into the rest area parking lot and pulled up next to Destiny’s car. After getting out, he checked his equipment then started entering data. She was an experienced hiker, on a day trip. He knew the grid she would cover, just not which part she would be in right now.

“Looking for someone?”

He glanced up and saw Destiny heading toward him. He opened his driver’s door, flung in his tablet then walked toward her.

There were so many things to say, he thought, but none of them mattered right this second. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. She wrapped her arms around him and hung on as if she was never going to let go.

“I love you,” he said when they came up for air.

“I had no right to say I wanted a divorce— What?” Her green eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“I love you. A lot. I have for a while. We’re not getting a divorce without talking about it first. Once you agree to that, I’m going to convince you to stay with me for always.”

“I do love a man with a plan.” Her lips trembled. “Real love?”

“The forever kind.” He kissed her again. “The kind that means I’m not leaving, so you should consider sticking around, too.”

“I will. I am. I’ve been running away from what scared me for so long that I forgot what it was like to run to something. To you.”

He held her close and breathed in the scent of her.

“Marry me,” he whispered. “Not because you’re pregnant or because it’s the right thing to do. Marry me because you can’t imagine spending another day without me. Marry me because we’re a family. You, me, Starr, the baby. Marry me so we can be together always.”

She looked into his eyes. “I already did, Kipling.” She leaned against him. “I already did.”

Kipling led her to his Jeep. She climbed inside. They would deal with her car later. They would deal with a lot of things. But the decisions would be easy, because they were together.

It wasn’t flying down a mountain at seventy miles an hour, he thought as he started down the highway. It was better.

She took his hand in hers. “I’m going to write a song about this.” She grinned. “After we have sex.”

He was still laughing when they drove into town.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from KISS ME by Susan Mallery.

“Gritty and magical, angst-ridden and sweet, this coming-home story by bestseller Mallery pulls no punches.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Barefoot Season

If you loved
Hold Me
, don’t miss these great titles in Susan Mallery’s charming Fool’s Gold series:

Kiss Me
(July 2015)
Thrill Me
(August 2015)
Until We Touch
Before We Kiss
When We Met
Three Little Words
Two of a Kind
Just One Kiss
Halfway There
(novella)
A Fool’s Gold Christmas
All Summer Long
Summer Nights
Summer Days
Almost Summer
(novella)
Only Us
(novella)
Only His
Only Yours
Only Mine
Sister of the Bride
(novella)
Finding Perfect
Almost Perfect
Chasing Perfect

Be sure to also catch the Blackberry Island series by
New York Times
bestselling author Susan Mallery, available now!

Barefoot Season
Three Sisters
Evening Stars

All available now in ebook format.

Looking for more? With more than one hundred ebooks available, you can also enjoy dozens of other memorable titles by Susan Mallery!

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EXCERPT

P
HOEBE'S FLIGHT TOUCHED
down in Sacramento a little after three o’clock on Wednesday. She’d spent most of the flight from Los Angeles calling both herself and Maya names. She absolutely could not believe she’d given in so easily. One or two protests and she was as unyielding as bread pudding.

Now she was going to have to explain her presence to a man she’d never met.

She headed for the baggage claim area to collect her two suitcases. Not knowing what June weather was like in the mountains, she’d brought plenty of clothes to layer, along with several pairs of jeans, and some boots she’d dug out from the back of her closet. The boots were a reminder of a brief but intense fondness for all things Western.

While waiting for the luggage to arrive, she tucked her headset into her carry-on. When she hadn’t been berating Maya and herself, she’d been listening to self-improvement audio books and working on her mind-centering meditation. Unfortunately the former tended to make her doze off and the latter had a three part breathing technique that started her coughing. Not something to endear her to her seatmates.

She glanced around, noting several men, but no one fitting Zane’s description. Maya had claimed he looked like Adam Levine. One of
People
magazine’s sexiest men alive.

Phoebe was skeptical and more than a little nervous. What was she going to say to an Adam Levine look-alike cowboy on the drive to the ranch? She’d tried to rent her own car, but Maya had insisted she would never find her way.

Five minutes later Phoebe had wrestled her two bags off the carousel and hooked them together so she could wheel them outside. She remained escort-less. Okay, so she would give Zane thirty minutes, then she would find a shuttle to Fool’s Gold and figure out her next move. If she had to she could always—

The sliding doors opened, and a man entered the baggage area. A tall, dark-haired man with incredibly broad shoulders, a cowboy hat and a gaze so penetrating Phoebe knew he could probably tell what color her panties were.

He moved with the kind of stride and purpose of someone who was never indecisive, confused or anything other than in charge. He was gorgeous. Adam Levine gorgeous. Of course.

Any small shred of confidence she might have cultivated from her self-help books went belly up like a zapped bug. She tried to brush off the last of the peanut dust from the front of her yellow T-shirt and wished for the millionth time in her life that she was tall, blond, blue-eyed and stunning. Actually, right now she would take any one of the four.

“Phoebe Kitzke?”

The man had stopped in front of her. He had a deep, beautiful voice that made her thigh muscles quiver. This close she could see the multiple shades of deep blue that made up his eyes. He didn’t smile. On the whole she would say he looked about as far from happy as it was possible to be while still breathing.

“I’m Phoebe,” she said, afraid she sounded as tentative as she felt. Why hadn’t Maya warned her? Saying Zane was good-looking was like saying summer in the desert was warm.

“Zane.”

He held out his hand. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to shake or take her luggage. She erred on the side of good manners and found her fingers engulfed in his.

The instant heat didn’t surprise her, nor did the melting sensation. Everything else was going wrong in her life—it made sense for her body to betray her, too.

She mentally jerked her attention away from her traitorous thighs and noticed that he had a really big hand. Phoebe tried not to think about those old wives’ tales. She tried not to think about anything except the fact that she was going to kill Maya the next time she saw her.

“Nice to meet you,” she said when he’d released her. “Maya says the ranch is some distance from the airport, and I really appreciate you coming all this way to collect me.”

His only response was to pick up her luggage. He didn’t bother with the wheels, instead carrying the bags out as if they weighed as much as a milk carton. Uh-huh. She’d nearly thrown out her entire back just wrestling them into the car. While in the past she’d never been all that interested in men with muscles, she could suddenly see the appeal of a well-developed bicep.

Zane headed for the parking lot, and Phoebe trailed after him. He didn’t seem to be much of a talker. That could make the drive to the ranch incredibly long.

He drove a truck, which didn’t surprise her, but the fact that he held the passenger door open for her did. When her foot slipped on the metal step, he grabbed her elbow and gave her a little push into the cab. After stowing her luggage in the area behind his seat, he climbed in himself and settled next to her.

He towered over her as much while seated as he had while standing. Phoebe fastened her seat belt, then gave him a quick glance. Her heart did a one and a half somersault with a half twist at the sight of his profile. He looked good enough to be on a coin.

As Zane drove toward the exit, Phoebe searched frantically for a topic of conversation. Nothing brilliant came to mind. She nibbled on her lower lip as she considered risking the truth. When nothing better occurred to her, she decided to dive right into the cowboy-infested water.

“So this is really strange, huh?”

Zane glanced at her but didn’t speak.

She cleared her throat. “Me being here. I mean you don’t know me from a rock, and I’m going to be staying at the ranch for a couple of days. Maybe we should get to know each other, so the situation isn’t so awkward.”

“If you don’t feel like you belong, why did you come?”

She spent a good three seconds mentally swooning over the sound of his voice before processing his words. He wasn’t exactly welcoming.

“Well, um, several reasons,” she said, stalling, then couldn’t think of any but one. She sighed. “Maya guilted me into it.”

“What did she tell you? That I keep Chase locked in a tower and feed him bread and water?”

Phoebe winced. “Not exactly.”

“But close.”

“Um, maybe.”

Zane’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “She’s always had a soft spot for Chase.”

“He must be really smart. That must make you proud. I certainly couldn’t design a website and entice people to sign up for a cattle drive vacation.”

Zane’s ever-so-perfect mouth tightened. “He lied, stole and committed fraud. Pride doesn’t much enter into it for me.”

Phoebe hunched down in her seat. “If you’re going to put it like that,” she mumbled and turned her attention to the scenery.

Signs of civilization quickly gave way to rugged isolation. A mile marker along the side of the road announced that Fool’s Gold was forty-two miles away.

She’d read up on the little town last night. Their slogan was “The Destination for Romance.” She cast a sidelong glance at Zane. Somehow, she didn’t think the slogan would hold true for her. The man could not be less interested in her.

Mountain peaks rose in the distance. She caught glimpses of white-capped currents in a river that flashed between the thick trees along the side of the road. No doubt the area was teeming with wildlife. Phoebe liked little forest creatures as much as the next person, just so long as she didn’t have to worry about them scurrying across the road or showing up on a serving platter.

What would it be like on the ranch? She’d never been on one before, hadn’t even seen one except on TV or in the movies.

“So are there lots of cows?” she asked before she could stop herself. “On the ranch, I mean.”

Zane didn’t spare her a glance. “Some.”

“Like twenty?”

He glanced at her then, before turning his attention back to the road. “We run several thousand head of steers. Those are the ones that end up on your barbeque. I have another few hundred head of cows for breeding purposes.”

“No bulls?” she asked, unable to keep from grinning.

He sighed the sigh of the long suffering. “A dozen or so.”

“A dozen bulls for a few hundred cows?”

Mr. Hunk-in-a-hat, who had put his hat on the seat between them when he’d climbed into the cab, chuckled. “Yup.”

“Yet another example of our patriarchal society ignoring the rights of cows.”

“You worried about cows’ rights?” He sounded both incredulous and amused. “You a lawyer?”

“No. And I’m not concerned about cows’ rights. Of course I want them treated humanely, as any civilized person would, but I’m not crazy.”

“What are you then?”

“What?”

He glanced at her. “If you’re not a lawyer, what are you?”

“Oh.” For a second she thought he’d been referring to her mental state. “I work in real estate.”

Fortunately Zane didn’t ask any questions about her career. She didn’t think that telling him she’d been suspended for litigation would improve his opinion of her. At least he was talking. She tried to think of more cattle-related questions.

“How long have you been in the ranching business?”

“All my life.”

Silence. Zane Nicholson wasn’t exactly chatty. Was it her or was it his personality?

“Do you ever sell the cattle for something other than food?”

Zane shifted in his seat. Had he been anyone else, she would have assumed the question made him uncomfortable. But he was too in-charge—too self-assured. Besides, what about it was embarrassing?

“Sometimes I’ll sell off a few cows if we have too many.”

“That makes sense. What about the bulls? Ever have too many of those?”

“Most of them become steers.”

She didn’t want to think about that. “So steers are boy cows?”

“That’s right.”

“What makes you decide who gets to have a really good life and who gets to be a burger?”

“Various factors. I’ve been working on genetically improving the herd.”

“So a new bull with favorable characteristics would get to stay a bull.”

He nodded.

“Sounds interesting,” she said, because it really was. Who knew that ranchers worried about genetics?

“You’re probably not going for things like eye color,” she said without thinking.

Zane didn’t even roll
his
eyes. “Not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I work with several universities. We have breeding experiments. I also sell to other ranchers.”

“Your bulls?”

There was that seat squirm again. “No.”

Not bulls? “Cows?”

“Sperm.”

Phoebe blinked. “From the bulls?”

He nodded.

“You sell bull sperm?”

He nodded again.

Wow. There really were infinite ways to make a living. So how exactly did one get the sperm from the bull? She shook her head. Not something she wanted to know, she decided. Although she was intrigued by the question of what sort of marketing campaign would be most effective. Still, some subjects were better left unexplored, and this was definitely one of them.

She tried to think of something else to say. Anything, really. But how did one top bull sperm as a conversational gambit?

Maybe it was better if one didn’t try.

* * *

T
HEY TURNED OFF
the main highway, and Phoebe sat up straighter in her seat, eager for a glimpse of Fool’s Gold. Zane had rolled down his window a few miles back, and fresh-scented mountain air filled the truck. A few years ago, a reality show had been filmed in the town. She and Maya had had a standing date to watch it together. Phoebe couldn’t believe the place was as quaint as it had seemed on TV, but Maya had insisted it was more so.

“Welcome to Fool’s Gold,” proclaimed a sign surrounded by lush red-and-yellow flowers in the shape of a heart.

Zane turned right on to Lakeview Drive.

Phoebe caught her breath. “It’s so pretty!”

To their left, Lake Ciara sparkled in the mid-morning sun. To their right, children played in a large park under the watchful gazes of their mothers and of the mountains beyond. A huge, old oak tree provided shade for a couple stretched out on a pink blanket with their baby.

Just past the park, downtown Fool’s Gold rose up, though it didn’t rise up very high. She didn’t see a building that was more than three or four stories tall, and only a few of those. The shops were neat and tidy. An American flag flew at every corner, and baskets of flowers hung from the other lampposts along the block. A banner spanned the width of the street, advertising the Summer Festival in two weeks.

Zane pulled into a parking spot in front of a two-story blue brick building with a yellow awning. “Mitchell Tours” was painted in bold, white letters on the shop’s window.

“I’ve got some business in here for a few minutes, to arrange for pickup of the other guests later this week,” he said. “Do you want to wait in the truck or walk around?”

“I’d love to see the town.”

By the time she got her seat belt undone, he was holding open her door. She felt a small flush of warmth as he helped her from the tall truck. Being short had its advantages, she thought. Although he might not be happy she was here, gentlemanly manners were ingrained in him. She had to admit she liked it.