to stay?
“Why not?”
“Seeing him was a shock. I needed time to process.”
“No doubt. For what it’s worth, he seems nice.” A moment of silence stretched between them on the line. “You are going to talk to him more while he’s here, right?”
Yes. But what if it opened a can of worms he’d rather be left shut? What else had Ma and Pops lied to him about? How much of his past was true and how much was false?
“I think so,” he said.
“Good. This is your family. You should get to know him better.”
“Yeah. It’s a lot to take in.” A lifetime of wanting a sibling pulled hard on his heart. What if he got to know—and love—his brother only to lose him the way he’d lost his grandparents and Mia? Nothing good stuck around his life for long.
Except Noah. Mason trusted God would always take care of his son.
“I’ll pray about it, and you should, too.” Muffled sounds came through the line. “Prepare yourself, though. Babs saw him on the way to his room and thought it was you. He set her straight.”
A sinking sensation slid down to his stomach. Babs O’Rourke was the owner of Mountain View Inn and could only be described as a busybody. In her early seventies, she had flaming red hair, talked a mile a minute and noticed everything—and everyone—in Rendezvous. The entire town would know he had a twin before dawn.
“Can I let you go?” Gabby asked. “I’m being summoned.”
“Sure. Talk to you later.”
He got up and poured himself a glass of water. Gabby was right. He needed to pray. Between juggling single fatherhood and managing his ranch, he was full up on problems. This fall he’d had to make tough decisions about his cattle herd. The payment plan for Mia’s medical bills didn’t allow any wiggle room in his budget. Until he paid them off, he needed the ranch to bring in more income than it currently was.
And now this...
Maybe his tattered baby book would have some answers. Or the boxes of old photos in the attic might hold some clues.
One thing was certain—whatever he decided to do about Ryder, he’d be doing on his own. As far as he was concerned, he’d had enough of Brittany Green for another ten years.
Rendezvous was a middle-of-nowhere town where dreams died. That’s what her mother had always told her, anyway.
The next morning, Brittany slipped her feet into fuzzy slippers and padded into Nan’s kitchen for a cup of coffee.
Rendezvous hadn’t always been the dream killer her mother claimed. Until Brittany graduated high school, it had been more like a welcoming hug—a place to catch her breath each summer. But she couldn’t deny her mom’s words. One of her dreams had died here a decade ago. And the others had no shot at coming true in these parts. A small town in Wyoming wasn’t the place to put together an elite competitive dance team, that was for sure.
California had been the right choice ten years ago.
The kitchen window revealed a pastel glow in the early dawn sky. After scooping grounds into a coffee filter, she filled the carafe with water and pressed the On button. Nan wasn’t up yet. Strange. Her grandmother had always been an early riser. She must be more tired than usual.
Brittany had rearranged her schedule to spend two weeks here—just until after Christmas. It had been a long time since she’d been back. A year at least. Maybe two.
Had it been three years since she’d visited?
She listened for sounds of her grandmother. Silence. Maybe she should check on her.
She peeked into the bedroom where Nan slept peacefully. She looked...older, smaller than Brittany remembered. When had Nan gotten so frail?
Brittany used to call her every Sunday, but Nan’s hearing wasn’t the greatest, so she’d been skipping the calls to write letters instead.
She shouldn’t have stayed away so long.
After closing the door carefully, she padded back to the living room. Gurgles from the coffee maker told her it wasn’t finished brewing. Wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, she ticked through a mental list to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything back home.
It had been hard to juggle her schedule and finances to make this trip. For as long as she could remember, she’d been working three jobs. Besides the diner gig and freelance data entry work, she rented rehearsal space in an established studio to teach classes. The arrangement didn’t allow her to hire more teachers, expand her class offerings or put together a competitive dance team, though. So far all but one bank had turned down her application for a line of credit to open a studio in Santa Ana’s expensive market. She’d be hearing from them soon.
A window overlooked the porch of Nan’s weathered one-story house. Jagged reddish mountains with thin, horizontal white stripes jutted in the distance. The snow-covered prairie seemed to whisper, and clumps of bare trees dotted it here and there.
This land was quiet, unforgiving—and breathtaking.
Like Mason.
She’d fallen hard for him as a teen. Actually, she’d had a crush on him for years. Not surprising, since they’d been inseparable every summer.
The minute she’d arrived in Rendezvous after graduating from high school, she knew something had changed in their relationship. The glint in Mason’s eyes had set her heart pounding wildly. A sweet kiss had sealed it. The rest of the summer had been spent holding hands, hiking, hanging out, laughing and talking.
And the longer it went on, the guiltier she’d felt.
No one had known she had a boyfriend back home. For months she’d been hoping Parker would take the hint and end things with her, but he wasn’t a take-the-hint kind of guy. She should have broken up with him before coming to Rendezvous.
Why hadn’t she?
Because Mom had actually approved of him, and her mother never thought much of anything Brittany did.
Ancient history. She tossed the blanket off her shoulders. What was taking the coffee maker so long? And why was she thinking about that summer, anyhow? She must be in caffeine withdrawal.
But the memories kept coming. The final night here was seared in her memory like a scarlet A. On Nan’s front porch, Mason had asked her to stay in Wyoming instead of going back to California. She’d stood there in silence trying to figure out how to explain. She was going to become a professional dancer. He knew she’d already been accepted into UCLA’s dance program. How could she do those things in Rendezvous?
Then disaster had rolled up in a Porsche. Her boyfriend, Parker, sick of her avoiding his calls, had shown up at the worst possible time. Mason’s face had said it
