CHAPTER SEVEN
If it hadn’t been for his promise to show Blythe a real rodeo, that dress and those boots never would have seen a bull.
Hunter leaned on the fence separating a selection of hand-picked bulls from the ring and eyed every cowboy who dared drop a glance at Blythe. She was something new and different, and that fact alone brought her more attention than what made him comfortable. Then there was the fact that Blythe had legs that went on for miles, and the boots only made them more incredible to watch. But seeing her in his grandmother's boots−the ones Gramps had made special−made his protective side flare up.
He'd noticed the looks every other guy near the shoot gave her. They were all thinking about sticking their cocks up that dress and having those boots wrapped around their waists. The thought almost made him primal with anger.
She wasn't a child, and she wasn't his. Hell, he'd known her a total of two days. Two fucking days, and yet here he was ready to go all protective boyfriend on a gang of rustlers he didn't even know.
Having Blythe around was dangerous. She made him feel things he didn’t want to feel and think thoughts he had no reason to think. Possessive. Protective. All characteristics he’d learned to tamp down and forget years ago.
He fought the urge to wrap a defensive arm around her shoulders when the announcer called one of Gramps’s bulls to the holding pit.
“This is the bull I wanted you to see.” He pressed his hand into the small of her back and led her away from the eye fucks of the surrounding riders.
Mine. He shot a heated glance back, staking his claim.
“How do the riders pick the bulls?” Blythe asked, taking the seat he directed her to. He took the arena in through her eyes. Years ago, he had wanted nothing more than to put places like this in his rear view mirror. Now, seeing it through Blythe’s wonder, it held a certain appeal.
“They draw names out of a hat.”
She turned sharply to him. "Seriously? All this skill and training and what bull you ride is left up to a name on a slip of paper?"
“The bulls all have different rankings, so chance is the best way to decide who gets to ride what.”
Blythe watched on as the wranglers penned the first bull and the rider settled onto his back. “So the most novice rider could draw the most skilled bull?”
He laughed. "That's what's called the luck of the draw."
The gate opened, and the young cowboy's body flung around the bull's narrow back like a rag doll from a dog’s mouth. “Or worst luck ever,” she added. “How does he not break his back?”
"Training. Bull riders know how to rock their bodies along with the bull."
“But they still get hurt, right?” The concern in her voice got to him. “Did you ever ride rodeo?”
He hesitated. The subject had been off limits for so long; no one ever dared bring it up with him. "It's what my family hoped I'd do."
Her full attention was on him now. “But not what you wanted for yourself.”
He pushed his hat up on his head and blew out a breath. “I wanted something more. That didn’t sit will with Gramps and my dad. Ranching is all they’ve ever known.”
“But you’re working on your own ranch?”
Hunter dropped his head until the brim of his hat brushed his fingers. He’d never talked about his time in the Marines, about wanting nothing more than to put Fort Mavis behind him until he had a taste of the world. He didn’t ever want to think about the day he’d come crawling back, feeling like less of a man for choosing the comfort of home over the adventure of a life outside of ranching.
“My dad got sick and then my grandmother. The family needed me to work with them and I did.”
The timer buzzed the end of the eight-second ride, and number one-twenty-three jumped off the bull’s back and sprinted for the protection of the fence.
“My parents hoped I’d be married with little mini-mes underfoot by now,” Blythe said.
He glanced at her. "You're what, twenty-four? Twenty-five? You're way too young to be saddled with your parents' dreams of grandchildren.”
“Twenty-seven, but thanks for the ego boost.” She turned back to the rodeo clowns luring the bull back to the holding shoot. “Marriage and kids have never been my dream. I want them someday, yes. But I can’t shake the feeling there’s something more for me to do first.” She turned back to him. “Something to finish before I start a family.”
He had to hide his shock at the comment. She'd been so pro-family when she had met Beau and Molly. Everything about her screamed housewife with kids riding her hip. It didn’t add up that she didn’t want those things now. Or was it that she hadn’t found the right person to share them with?
“There’s an adventure out there with your name written all over it,” he said.
She looked up at him. “I hope so. I don’t know how much longer my parents can hold out before they start trying to adopt grandchildren instead of waiting on me.”
****
Blythe didn't want to ask about Hunter’s plans when they left the fairgrounds. Instead, she sat in the truck and watched the endless open fields roll by in silence.
Hunter hadn’t spoken much since their conversation near the shoot at the rodeo, and she didn’t feel like starting small talk for the sake of comforting her nerves.
“Will your Gramps mind that I’m wearing his wife’s hat and boots?” she finally ventured.
She studied the features of his face, expecting to find conflict. Instead, he grinned. "I think he's going to appreciate someone using them. He had those boots custom made behind her back. She always complained they were too flashy to wear in public. Grandma liked beautiful things, but she never saw herself as someone who needed to embellish what God gave her.”
By his answer, she’d learned two things. One, she would have loved to have met his grandmother, and two, if Hunter was half as kind as his grandfather, he had a heart of gold buried under all that frustration.
Now that he’d opened the conversation gate she couldn’t help the rush of small talk from spilling out. “Has your family always lived in this area?”
“My great grandfather built the house Beau and Molly live in.”
“So, your family’s always been into ranching?”
"Until my father became too sick to continue keeping his place up." He flexed his jaw. "They moved to Huston a couple of years ago to be closer to the care he needed. Beau and Molly took over the ranch."
"Why not you?" It had been on the tip of her tongue. She thought she'd managed to suppress it back down, but the question came flying out anyway. "No. That's personal. Not my business."
The cab filled with silence for several long minutes, where she hoped she'd be able to hold her tongue. Talking had always been her way of fixing things, but talking with Hunter only seemed to get her in trouble.
Hunter turned the truck off the paved road and onto a gravel path much like the one leading to his place. He didn't talk again until he came to a stop beside a large, wood-sided ranch house with a porch similar to his and three trucks already parked in the front yard.
"This place looks so much like your ranch," she said.
Hunter killed the engine. “Gramps modeled my ranch house after this one the year he met my grandmother. She had fallen in love with my great-grandfather's house. Gramps thought if he built one just like it, she'd marry him."
“I guess it worked.”
Hunter glanced at her. “Just like the boots. He was always making things to mirror the beauty he saw in her, and she always denied she had any right to own such things." He smiled at her with a warmth in his eyes that made her insides turn to goo.
“That’s beautiful.”
He reached for the door, “That’s a lot to live up to.”
It took a second, but she could see his point. Love like that happened once in a million relationships, and having it so close by, comparing every relationship to it, must have been hard for him.
She waited for him to grab her door and then walked beside him down the stone path leading to the porch. She reminded herself she’d dug deeper into his personal life than she agreed to already, but the question wouldn’t leave her alone until she had an answer. “With all of the love surrounding you, you’ve never found the one?”
His eyes flashed to the porch; something weary and unsure sparked in them, but then Molly’s sweet voice called out.
Blythe had picked up on something between them before at the ranch, but hadn’t been able to put her finger on exactly what that something was. Until now. Watching him look at Molly with a pain-filled gaze that spoke of a shared past, her stomach flipped. He was in love with his brother’s wife. And from the way Molly regarded him, the feeling was entirely mutual.
Blythe sucked in a breath and tried to calm her nerves as she followed Hunter up the porch steps and allowed Molly to wrap her in a hug.
Hunter walked to the other end and sat on the bench swing.
She could be wrong. No. There’s nothing wrong about the way they just looked at each other.
“You must have worked your magic, Blythe. We’ve been trying to get Hunter back to the old homestead for over a year.”
Blythe forced a smile, though inside, she was bubbling with uncertainty. What kind of family love triangle had she just interrupted?
No personal life. She forced herself to remember their deal and focused on Molly. “He wasn’t so hard to persuade.”
“Maybe not for you, but he has blown me off ever since Beau and I took over the house.”
Somehow Blythe doubted he was blowing her off as much as he was respecting his brother. This wasn't the kind of close family bonding she'd hoped would happen for Hunter tonight.
Maybe she still had a chance to get him out of dinner. She’d been the one to insist that he attend. She could fake a stomachache or a migraine. Wasn’t that what Southern women did to avoid conflict?
Beau stepped out on the porch with a tray of tea glasses and beer bottles, followed by Gramps with a cheese plate, and she watched her chance of escape vanish.
Beau offered her a drink. She opted for the tea, in case she had to drive the truck as a getaway vehicle when Beau caught on that his brother was in love with his wife and vice versa.
Damn, had she stepped her foot in the shit pile this time.
She took a seat on the bench swing next to Hunter and kicked one leg up and down with nervous energy.
Gramps sat down his tray and took the chair beside her. “Are those…” he started, staring at her shaking foot.
“Look like they were made for her, don’t they Gramps?” Hunter patted her hand.
The older man’s eyes misted. “It’s fitting. She would have loved you.”
Blythe felt strangled. These people barely know me. I barely know them. The guilt of being pulled into a family she had no business being a part of sat on her chest like a ten-ton bull.
“Blythe?” She glanced at Molly who’d called her name with a strange expression on her face. Blythe realized she must have called her name several times before she’d heard. She’d been too deep in panic mode to acknowledge. “Would you like to help me in the kitchen? It’s cooler in there, and I'm sure we're not interested in the guys' ranch talk."
As much as she hated leaving Hunter alone after requesting he come, Blythe hated the idea of him with Molly even more. “Sure. I’d love to help.”
She followed Molly through the wood-beamed front entry flanked with walls covered in Cole history. She recognized one of the men in a portrait of a young couple as a younger version of Gramps. The picture below showed the same couple, though a few years older, with three children and a baby.
“That’s Beau. Wasn’t he a cutie?” Molly stopped in the hall. She pointed at another picture. Two boys on the back of a shaggy pony in what looked like the yard of the ranch house. “Here’s Beau and Hunter. It’s hard to tell them apart as boys. They were so close they could have been twins.”
Blythe looked at the photo. Molly was right. If it wasn’t for Beau’s fuller face, and the slight age difference, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the boys apart.”
“How are you at snapping beans?” Molly asked.
Blythe pulled her attention away from the photo and followed Molly into the kitchen. She’d set up a bowl on the counter next to a stool and waved Blythe over to it. “I used to sit here and snap beans while Grandma Cole cooked the most amazing Sunday dinners. We would work in here for hours while the men finished up on the ranch. I’d always complain they smelled like sweat when they came in, but Grandma Cole said they smelled like money. She was a fantastic woman.”
“She sounds like it from what Hunter has told me.” Blythe picked up a bean and imitated what she'd seen on television, breaking off the ends and hoping she was doing it right.
"She was a marvel.” Molly picked up a bowl and wooden spoon and started stirring what looked like mashed potatoes. “She made my wedding dress by hand in six weeks, all while nursing Beau and Hunter’s dad back to health and keeping Gramps from trying to run the place alone. Beau was riding on the circuit and coming home when he could. It was all hands on deck, and Grandma Cole's hands counted double."
Blythe broke apart another bean and popped the ends into a smaller bowl on the counter. “What about Hunter? Wasn’t he able to help?”
Molly stalled her stirring. “Hunter wasn’t here. This was all during his finding himself with the Marines phase, as Beau calls it.”
“Oh,” she said and focused on another bean, trying not to appear confused. “I didn’t know Hunter ever left Texas.”
Molly leaned back on her heels and glanced out the opening to the den before speaking again. “I guess he’s never mentioned his time in the military to you?”
“No.” Again a surprise but not shocking. Lots of men tried to find themselves in some branch of the military.
“His parents were fit to be tied when he up and left. Gramps had a full on temper tantrum that took us three days to clean up after. If it hadn’t been for Beau stepping up and taking over Hunter’s place on the ranch, I don’t know what we would have done.”
Blythe finished the last bean and walked the bowl of discarded ends to the trash. Once there, Molly offered her a glass of wine. “It took me years to understand I wasn’t to blame for him leaving, but a part of me still believes if I’d been honest with him, he still would have gone.”
“Honest about you and Beau?” Blythe asked as if she’d been given all the pieces to a puzzle but one, and now she needed to find the missing part.
Molly dropped the wine bottle to the counter, the look of shock widening her eyes for a second. Had she really thought the family secret had forever been buried? Had Blythe just mistakenly dug it back up? “No. About not wanting to marry a man who didn’t see himself working a ranch the way my daddy and my granddaddy had. I’m sure it sounds strange to you, but this life gets into your blood. It becomes a part of who you are. Once I realized this wasn’t the life Hunter wanted anymore, I knew he wasn’t the right Cole brother for me.”
Bitch. Blythe could taste her anger. The metallic tang of it on her tongue made her stomach knot. Those weren’t secret heated glances Hunter and Molly exchanged on the front porch. They were remnants of the past they’d shared before Hunter had decided to become something different than what his family wanted him to be.
No wonder Cole family dinners were so rare. And she’d just forced him into one, thinking she was bringing a damaged family back together. Thinking she was doing a good deed for the man who had taken her in when she needed help the most.
“He blames me.” Molly leaned on the counter and rubbed a palm over her belly. “He left Fort Mavis to become something more than his father and grandfather had, and when he returned, Beau and I were married.”
And he should blame you. Blythe bit her tongue to keep from saying the thought out loud. The Coles weren't her family, and it wasn't her issue to get involved in, but she had to show some support for Hunter−at least after he'd taken her in and she'd unfairly judged him. "He left thinking he was becoming the man you wanted and returned to find you had decided you wanted the man he’d been all along. I’m sure it was a shock to the system."
Molly opened her mouth to speak, but an explosive yell from the front porch interrupted her. “They’re at it again,” she said, pulling off her apron and turning for the door.
"But you didn't ask me because if you had, I would have told you there wasn't enough money in the kennel accounts to hire someone." Hunter was standing over his grandfather on the porch, his face flush with anger.
Beau stood and stepped between the two men. “Gramps's point in hiring a new manager was to figure out just how far off the wagon the kennel had fallen since Grandma died, and that deadbeat manager took over. He was trying to get you out of there and back on your ranch.”
Blythe watched Hunter lock his jaw and weigh his words carefully. "It wouldn't have taken much for someone to review the books before offering a job to an overpaid manager. As it stands now, we'll be lucky as hell to pay for water this month, much less electricity and supplies and Sydney's salary."
“I did look over the books,” Gramps grunted.
“Not very well,” Hunter retorted.
Molly covered her mouth with her hand and gasped, and Beau stepped fully between Gramps and Hunter.
Blythe took her spot next to Hunter. She had no idea what had sparked the argument, but he needed someone on his side. It was the least she could do after forcing him to the dinner that started the debate.
"You mean…" Gramps stood. His face was tight and his tone harsh. "Not very well for an uneducated farmer."
"That's not what I meant," Hunter said.
“Oh, I think we all know what you meant, son. No one in this family measures up to you.”
Molly teared up and pleaded for them to stop, but only Blythe could hear her over the shouting of the men.
“Enough.” Blythe stepped into the center. “You’re all grown men. Can’t you sit down and talk this out without yelling at each other?”
The three Cole men stood in silence, stunned by the short brunette.
Hunter was the first to back down a step. He scratched at his chin and took his seat back on the swing. When she settled in next to him, Beau moved to Molly, and Gramps took his chair next to Hunter.
No one spoke for several tense moments until Molly piped in with a reminder to baste her turkey and disappeared into the kitchen with Beau, followed shortly by Gramps.
Alone, Blythe’s hand ventured onto Hunter’s. He flinched but grabbed her fingers and dropped the tension in his shoulders. “Some family dinner, right?” he said.
She forced an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry. I never should have forced you. You asked me to stay out of your personal life, and I didn’t.”
Hunter looked out onto the open fields instead of at her. “This argument was going to happen whether you stepped in the middle of it or not. I would have just rather had it at the kennel tomorrow instead of here tonight.”
Afraid she had ruined what little of a relationship they’d built, she began to slide away from him on the swing.
Hunter turned to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her back in. “You figured out the truth, didn’t you?”
Blythe looked at her hands in her lap. “About you and Molly, yes.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said and let out a deep sigh.
“It was a horrible thing to do to a brother,” she added and glanced at his face. “If I had known, I never would have asked you to bring me here.”
“If you had known…” The sadness in his eyes warmed to a soft twinkle. “You would have forced me here to face my demons.”
He smiled, and she laughed, though the weight of his sorrow still made her shoulders ache.
Before she could speak, he covered her mouth with his for a surprising kiss. When he pulled away, the anger that had coated his eyes was unrecognizable. He cupped her cheek in his hand and searched her eyes.
“What do we do now?” She pressed her cheek into his hand, reveling in the warmth of him and the instant forgiveness of her mistake.
"Dinner." He beamed. "But after that, you owe me." The smile that brightened his face seemed to be made of pure evil. She read the exact meaning of what he expected in return, and she was willing to take his punishment.
Actually, she looked forward to it.