sister had a thing,” her mother said evasively.
Sarah Ashley was just like her younger sister, Nicole Marie. The two always had a thing when work was to be done.
“I have a thing too,” Grace said. “A call that starts in fifteen minutes.”
“A call? Oh, Grace.” Her mom waved her hand toward the front door. “We deal with our customers in person like we’ve always done. Whoever needs to call you can easily come on down to the store to talk to you and then buy some impulse merchandise.” The hand wave shot toward a display of marked-down Easter chocolate.
Grace pulled out a peppermint candy from her pocket to keep her mouth from spilling secrets she wasn’t ready to share. Her caller wasn’t a Brewster customer, so there was no reason to encourage Isaac James Sr. to visit the store.
Mr. James owned IJ Farms on the way to Billings and needed tax advice. Grace intended for her advice to transition into Isaac hiring her as his new accountant. Grace crunched the candy into pieces and glanced at Ethan. “My office is over here.”
Grace dropped her purse on the small desk in her makeshift office. She shared the crammed retail space with pig feed, goat kid milk replacer and alfalfa pellets. At least, she had a door that closed and locked. Not that she’d had a reason to lock herself in yet.
But having Ethan in here with her made the already minimal breathing space shrink until Grace swore they were both holding their breath to conserve oxygen. It wasn’t long before she inhaled, deep and long, to prove to herself that she could handle the hurdles of the big wide world, including Ethan Blackwell.
Ethan shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, rocked back on his boot heels and rushed to speak. “Grace, I know I shouldn’t ask for your help, but I need it. Big E’s motor home has hit the road, the heifers are going into heat, Helen and Pete Rivers retired and the books are total chaos.”
Grace popped another peppermint in her mouth and tried to translate Ethan’s fragments. Nothing she’d heard hinted that he was there to resume where they’d left off three months prior. Not that she wanted that. She just wanted him to know about the baby.
Now was her chance. Her turn to talk. Her turn to confess.
Grandma Brewster had always told Grace that the fork in the road had to stab her to get her to move. Or, in this case, speak. She’d swear the sharp twinge in her chest felt eerily close to the jab of a fork’s tines. And she could swear she heard her late grandma Brewster’s boisterous laugh. If only she could find her voice instead of her inner mouse. “How exactly can I help you?” And how exactly do you want to learn about your child?
“I can’t figure out the ranch books.” Ethan stepped forward. “I was hoping for your expertise.”
Her expertise. Not her heart. “You want me to work on the Blackwell Ranch’s accounting.”
“We’ll pay you for your time and discretion.”
Discretion should be her middle name. No one, other than her doctor in the next town over, knew about her pregnancy. Grace took off her glasses and ran her fingers across her eyebrows.
“I can bring everything here if it’s more convenient. Or drive you up to the ranch.” Ethan moved to the edge of her desk within kissing distance. “I remember you mentioned preferring not to drive at night.”
She could touch Ethan without any real effort now. Instead, she sank her hand into the peppermint candy bowl on her desk and wondered what else he remembered from their night together. Did he remember how they shared things no one else knew? Or recall how much they’d laughed about their childhoods? Did he treasure those moments? Or was she just as foolishly sentimental as Sarah Ashley? “That’s fine.”
“Then you’ll help?” Surprise softened his voice and relief relaxed his mouth into a smile that made even the peppermint swirl churn through her insides.
Her phone chimed, alerting her of her upcoming call with Isaac and reminding her to focus.
Ethan twisted the door handle. “I’ll get out of your way and let you work.”
Grace looked at him and willed her mouth to open and the truth to come out. But it didn’t happen.
“I’ll bring the books by tomorrow morning and then we can put together a strategy to stabilize the ranch’s finances?”
Grace nodded, clinging to her plan. A baby plan. One that did not include Ethan as more than an absentee parent. And one that definitely did not involve her heart.
ETHAN STOPPED HIS truck and stared at the white house with forest green shutters until his gaze blurred and all he saw was the land and home from his childhood. The house had so many good memories for him prior to his parents’ fatal accident. The twin rocking chairs on the wide front porch and banging screen door. The lawn scattered with sticks from his brothers’ sword fights, plastic army men and laughter.
He’d never wanted his home to change and wanted it back even more after he’d left his childhood at his parents’ gravesite.
Too many potholes since, they littered memory lane and tripping in those craters now solved nothing. That home was gone and had been for quite a while. A two-winged, thirty-bedroom log cabin, more manor estate than quaint lodge, squatted nearby, surrounded by barns and outbuildings painted red as if cheerful about the massive guesthouse intrusion.
Like it or not, the Blackwell Ranch had expanded to also become a dude ranch and there was no turning back the clock. In Ethan’s mind that left one option: sell the ranch that was no longer his home. No longer anything he wanted. What he wanted was the money from its sale to pay off his debts and buy his entry into a veterinarian clinic in Kentucky or Colorado, but definitely not in Falcon Creek.
First, he had to fix the accounts with Grace’s help.
Ethan cut the truck engine, but not his guilt. That kept running like a high-speed train making up time for a late departure.
He shouldn’t have asked for Grace’s help in the first place. He should’ve apologized.
He shouldn’t have searched for those familiar copper flecks in Grace’s green eyes when she’d removed her glasses. It was futile to try to prove the vivid memory wasn’t his imagination. Those same copper flecks had sparked under the chandelier lights on the dance floor at her sister’s reception and continued to burn through him whenever he thought of her. He should’ve never agreed to Jon’s suggestion to approach his accountant or stepped inside Brewster’s.
Ethan shouldn’t have come home.
He gripped the steering wheel, imprinting the leather into his palms. He should’ve called Grace the morning after their night together and every day after that until she’d answered. But instead he’d excused his behavior because she’d walked out on him first. How pathetic that he cared who’d left first, as if she’d dinged more than his pride. Yet Big E hadn’t raised his grandsons to be weakhearted fools.
And yet, his mother had raised him to be a gentleman, not callous and selfish. She would not be proud of him today.
