True Love at Silver Creek Ranch (17 page)

Her voice broke a little, and Brooke felt a pang of answering sadness that brought tears to her eyes.

Mrs. Palmer held up her hand and gave a trembling smile as she went on. “I was her reward to him. When he was good and docile and did everythin' around the house, he was allowed to visit me for a night. His clothes were too small and smelled like cigarette smoke”—she bowed her head and had to lay her hand on the table—“but if I gave him new things, he and I were both punished.”

“Oh, Mrs. Palmer,” Brooke said, putting her arm around the woman's trembling shoulders. “How terrible for you.”

Mrs. Palmer stiffened and composed herself. “Not nearly as terrible for me as for Adam. He lived a neglected childhood, and I couldn't do a thing about it. He almost ruined his life, but with the kindness of other adults, he found his way. Somethin's wrong now—and I can help. Let me keep helpin', Brooke, dear. Don't tell him I'm well, or he might get it into his head to leave, thinkin' I don't need him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But I do need him. It's been so wonderful havin' him home.”

Brooke didn't need to think long. “I won't say anything, I promise.”

Mrs. Palmer briefly closed her eyes. “Oh, thank you. Now you better go before he gets suspicious.” She looked around frantically. “Ah, here's Connie's coffee cake. Take some to your mama, and that'll be a good excuse for dawdlin'.”

After she'd put half on a paper plate and covered it in foil, their hands met as they exchanged the cake.

“Thank you so much, Brooke,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I hope the lies don't weigh on you.”

“They won't.” But she wondered . . .

When she climbed back into the pickup truck, Adam looked at her with concern. “I almost came in. She didn't fall, did she?”

When he studied her closely, she only gave him a bright smile and stared out the windshield. “Nope, she just wanted to give my mom some coffee cake.”

On the drive home, she thought about her promise to remain silent. It wasn't hurting Adam to think his grandma was getting feeble. She was in her late seventies and not the same as she used to be. And Brooke was getting lots of practice misrepresenting herself, lately.

But if she had any doubts, all she had to do was conjure up the images Mrs. Palmer had evoked, of Adam so neglected as a child. She knew he was keeping something from her, something that weighed on him. She would keep this truth about his grandma to herself in response and hope that Mrs. Palmer had it right.

Chapter Fifteen

S
unday afternoon, Brooke drove into Valentine and parked in the alley behind Sugar and Spice. She knocked on the back door, and Emily let her up the rear staircase to her second-floor apartment. Brooke walked down the little hallway, past the two bedrooms and the galley kitchen into the long room that was part dining room, part living room. Monica sat folding boxes from flattened cardboard into usable containers.

A huge picture window overlooked Main Street. Emily had several fake candles in the windows, little ceramic Christmas decorations on the tables, and a Christmas tree in the front corner. The decorations actually looked handmade, to Brooke's bemusement.

Emily sighed. “Guess I should have waited on the tree. But I like to have one the weekend after Thanksgiving.”

“You and Nate can cut down another one at the ranch,” Brooke said, putting her arm briefly around Emily's shoulders. “Leave this one here. I imagine you'll be up here occasionally during the workday, right?”

“Of course,” Emily said, obviously relieved. “Smart thinking.” Then she sat down on the couch beside Monica and let her shoulders slump.

“Okay, what's wrong?” Brooke demanded, coming to sit in the chair across the coffee table from them.

Monica put down the packing tape. “Spill it, girlfriend.”

“Poor Steph,” Emily began.

Brooke thought of the girl driving that horse trailer from one ranch to another, across town. “She didn't get in an accident, did she?”

“Oh, no, no—it's actually her . . . friend, Tyler.”

“They looked pretty close Friday night,” Monica said. “Like more than friends.”

“I know,” Emily said grimly. “And that's what makes it worse. My father said he caught Tyler joyriding on one of his ATVs at the Sweet Ranch. He ran into a rock hidden under the snow and bent an axle. His ‘friends' abandoned him on other ATVs, also stolen, but later found undamaged. Dad was pretty upset. He couldn't just let him go—there was damage done.”

“Of course he couldn't,” Brooke soothed. “Tyler has to learn the consequences of his actions.”

“So Dad called the sheriff, and a deputy took Tyler away. I didn't want Steph to hear this as a rumor, so I went to her privately and told her what had happened. She started to cry, and begged me not to tell our father she'd been seeing Tyler. She believes he can come around and that she can help him, but if Dad forbids it . . .”

Brooke groaned and ran a hand down her face. “Oh, this is my fault. When she first told me about Tyler, I suggested she invite him to the Chess Club. I practically threw them together.”

“You couldn't have known, Brooke,” Monica said with sincerity.

“It's not like they've done more than hang out a few times,” Emily insisted. “But . . . Steph likes him and wants to help. I understand her—hell, don't women
always
want to help? But I was so relieved she confided in me that I promised my silence without thinking things through. I did insist that the moment I thought Tyler could hurt her, the secret was done. And she agreed and hugged me and thanked me and said Tyler was trying to get away from a bad group of guys, and she wouldn't go anywhere with him, only see him at school—” It was her turn to groan. “I'm a sucker. Who knows if he's lying to her? How can I keep something from my dad when we're only just getting to know each other?”

Brooke leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Tyler
could
be lying to her—we all know that.”

Monica looked from Emily to Brooke. “And we all know someone who really was trying to get away from a bad crowd, and who stole a
car,
before getting his act together.”

“But as long as Steph doesn't go hang out with this bad crowd of Tyler's,” Brooke continued, “I don't think it'll hurt your dad too much for you to keep Steph's confidence. If she trusts you, she'll tell you things, right? If she's mad at both you and your dad, she might be worse off.”

“Do you think so?” Emily asked with hope.

Brooke tried to infuse reassurance in her smile. “She's a smart kid. I think you can give her the benefit of the doubt.
She
wasn't joyriding, after all.”

“You're both making me feel better,” Emily said. “All right, I'll cut Steph a little slack. But I'll keep an even closer eye on her.”

“From Nate's cabin?” Monica asked innocently.

“Maybe Steph and I can have a sleepover!” Emily said, as if she hadn't heard.

Brooke and Monica exchanged an amused glance.

B
rooke woke up to a foot of powder up on the hills Monday morning. She and Josh had a long-standing deal, alternating who got to go skiing and enjoy the occasional powder day in Aspen. They took turns covering for each other, and today it was her day to take off.

Josh and Adam had already loaded down the retriever with enough hay for the first couple pastures, and they'd be dropping mineral pellets as well, later on. She felt a little guilty—but not that guilty.

Carrying her skis over her shoulder, she ran into Adam in the yard.

“Aren't you the ski bunny?” he said.

He gave a slow, thorough examination of her body with half-lidded eyes. She was wearing pink ski pants and a blue shell.

“Those pants nicely accent your ass. I'll be thinking about it all day.”

She felt a rush of heated memory, and they kept staring at each other. It had been a few days . . . She found herself wishing she could invite him to go along, but besides the fact that he was working, she had their “no dating” rule to remember. And maybe he didn't even know how to ski—after all, it wasn't like his family had had the money. She imagined how it must have felt to know so many of your friends were doing what you couldn't. And here she was, rubbing his nose in it again.

But Adam was smiling at her, that cleft in his jaw so masculine, his eyes alight. She knew if she got closer, she could see the gold flecks in their centers . . . but no, she wasn't getting closer.

“Hey, you should have told me in the feed store that Josh's belts were for sale there,” he said. “I would have liked seeing the display. He told me all about it.”

“He's getting so popular. Have you been in Monica's Flowers and Gifts? He's got a whole display all to himself. He's even considering an offer from an Aspen boutique.”

Adam gave a low whistle. “Impressive. No wonder your dad hired me. Sounds like Josh could hit the big time.”

“I hope so!” She glanced down at Ranger, sitting patiently at Adam's feet. “Your constant companion nowadays?”

He lowered his voice. “Don't worry, you have first dibs on my bed.”

And then they were looking at each other again, yards apart, but the air between them seemed to smolder.

“Come to me tonight,” he whispered.

Almost breathless, she whispered back, “I promised I'd go out with Monica.”

“No problem,” Adam said, rubbing his hands together. He looked over his shoulder and saw Josh heading for the retriever. “Gotta go. Have a fun day.”

Brooke sighed and turned away, only to see Nate coming out of the truck shed.

He glanced at Adam, then her. “Everything okay?”

“Of course.”

“Is he going skiing?” Nate asked.

“And desert his post? Incur your wrath?” The she lowered her voice. “You know, he probably didn't ski growing up.”

He nodded, then arched a brow. “All concerned for him, are you?”

To her surprise, she felt more excited than nervous as she protected her secret rebellion. She'd never really had one before, an actual experience her family didn't share and couldn't express an opinion on. And she liked it. “Look, he's a friend who's going through some tough times.”

Nate nodded. “You're right. Have fun today.”

She almost let out a sigh of relief.

I
t was a strange day for Adam. He hadn't realized how much he looked forward to spending part of each day with Brooke. Even if they didn't feed cattle together, they had lunch as a boisterous group with her family, and more and more, he'd begun to feel at ease, even with her protective brothers. Yeah, he was keeping a secret, but they were all adults, and it was none of their business what their sister did.

He liked the different sides of Brooke he saw, from a woman unafraid as a bull charged her, to one who spent time on the household pursuits that her mother enjoyed, to the woman who enjoyed dressing up in pretty, figure-hugging clothes for an evening. He even appreciated her bossy side.

At lunch, Adam found out that Lou Webster, the ranch's part-timer, had come down with the flu. Nate asked Adam to take over being “on call” for the tourists, and sure enough, every time he got involved in a chore, the bell would ring. He wasn't too nervous about handling the team on his own because he'd been practicing. The worst was the trip he took with a couple newlyweds, so wrapped up in each other they barely listened as he pointed out features of the landscape, an ice waterfall down a mountainside cliff, several deer bounding through a far pasture. Instead, thinking he couldn't hear them, they murmured together about their dreams of the future, the children they would have, the home they wanted to save up for.

Adam had spent the last six months without any dreams. People usually had the next goal they wanted to achieve, and he'd gotten in the habit of never thinking beyond today. He'd thought he was too damaged for a family life, but he remembered Zach's rocks, and how he'd made sure to send them home to the boy from his father. That was a family connection he'd help make even when he was at his bleakest. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

Back at the house, the dreamy young couple strolled hand in hand to their car, and there was another parked alongside it. A man was getting out, as if waiting for his return.

“Adam Desantis? Is that you?” He came forward, hand outstretched.

Adam met him halfway to shake, knowing he looked familiar. He wore a bulky parka and jeans. His brown hair receding a bit above his temples might have made him look older but for his freckled, cheerful face.

And then the name clicked. “Deer, good to see you.”

Howie Deering Junior reddened, then glanced behind him as if to cover it up. “Haven't heard that nickname in years. My wife will laugh. I'm not quite as fast as I used to be.”

A short, chubby woman with a toddler by her side was taking a baby out of a car seat.

Adam suddenly felt old. “Two kids, Deer? Has that much time passed?”

“I started young, I know,” Howie said. “While you were off being a macho soldier, I settled into the family real-estate business. Tame stuff, I know you'd say.”

“Tame sounds good to me.”

“Give me a sec.” Howie hustled to his wife's side and took the toddler's hand, then said to his wife, “Tara, I'd like you to meet an old classmate of mine, Adam Desantis. He just got out of the Marines.”

Adam didn't bother to offer his hand to shake—hers were burdened with a wide-eyed baby who looked unable to walk yet. Tara had freckles like her husband, but bright red curly hair that the toddler had obviously inherited. His hat was falling off of his head, and he soon tossed his mittens, too.

“Howie!” Tara scolded the little boy.

Adam glanced at the older Howie, who spread his hands wide and grinned.

“My mom would have killed me if I didn't use the family name.”

When Howie III had his hat and mittens on again, Tara smiled at Adam. “Nice to meet you. I heard you call Howie ‘Deer.' So you were on the football team with him?”

Adam nodded. “We were both on offense, though he was much faster.”

Howie glanced at Adam ruefully. “I bet it's the other way around now.”

Tara blushed. “With the kids, it's so hard to find time to exercise. We both work and feel guilty for taking any time for ourselves.”

“That's why we brought them for a sleigh ride today,” Howie added. “A nice family outing.”

“Then let's get started,” Adam said.

Adam actually enjoyed the ride. Howie and his wife appreciated all the little tidbits he told them about the ranch and the town. They, in turn, explained it in simpler language to their son. The baby was so good, never making a peep, just staring wide-eyed. The toddler was thrilled when several deer bounded across their path.

When they arrived back in the yard, and Tara was putting the kids back in the car as it warmed up, Howie came back to Adam.

“You doing anything tonight?” Howie asked.

“Nope,” he said, glad to feel interested again.

“There's a pool tournament I've entered at Tony's Tavern. Very informal, nothing big. You'll see lots of people you know. You could stop by. It starts at seven.”

“Thanks, I'll see you there.”

A
fter a day of skiing, Brooke stopped at Monica's, who insisted she come to the pool tournament at Tony's and look for men. How could Brooke say she had her own already? So after Monica put long ringlets of curls in her hair, she donned her evening makeup and a tight little dress with high leather boots.

Brooke quickly realized what was going on as Monica innocently introduced her to LeVar Kirk, a friend of her brother, who was in the family plumbing business in Carbondale. He was a tall, lanky black guy with good arms he showed off in a polo shirt even though it was almost winter.

Before she could even comment on his name, he said, “Yeah, my dad was into
Star Trek,
and I'm not so upset about it anymore.”

At least he made her laugh although she wasn't laughing when Monica disappeared, leaving her alone with LeVar. Soon he began to tack “babe” on to the end of everything he said to her, like it was his pet name for her after one hour together. She should probably leave, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings, and the music was good, and heck, she knew almost everyone in the pool tournament.