A SEAL's Oath (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 1) (12 page)

Riley halted and Avery nearly tripped over her. “Look at him down there,” Riley said. “So smug. So… righteous. He’s going to save the world, huh? And to hell with us?”

“He’s passionate about his cause, that’s all.”

Riley stared at Boone as he returned to his stakes and twine. Savannah and Nora caught up and gathered around her.

“Westfield was supposed to be mine!” The emotions she’d managed to hold at bay overnight finally crashed down around her. She blinked furiously to stave off the tears that threatened to fall. “I’ve loved this place my entire life. It isn’t fair.”

“Why did your uncle sell it so suddenly? Did he tell you?” Nora wanted to know.

“No,” she said truthfully. “I didn’t know until it was done. Why would he do that?” It was the question that haunted her. She’d had no reason to doubt his word—until now.

“If he’d promised it to you, he was probably ashamed of himself for changing his mind,” Savannah said.

“It was a good thing Boone’s the one who ended up with it. Can you imagine if Russ had sold it to a stranger? We wouldn’t have had anywhere to go,” Avery said.

Her words made Riley feel even more alone. They didn’t know Boone would kick them out unless she married him. She wiped away her tears. He might have ruined everything for her, but she’d be damned if she let him steal the time her friends needed away from the world.

“Boone should understand he’s changing a place you love,” Nora said to Riley. “He should have more respect.”

“Maybe you should go talk to him again and tell him how you feel. You might be able to persuade him,” Savannah said hopefully.

“Maybe.” But she doubted it. Boone had already shown how far he was willing to go to make his plans work. “I’ll talk to him tonight.”

“Come and eat,” Avery urged her. “Then it’ll be time to paint.”

“Go on ahead. I need a minute.”

She watched her friends turn toward the house again. Regaining her composure, Riley realized she had to make a decision. If she accepted Boone’s offer and traded a fake marriage for free lodging at Westfield for her friends, she would have to accept that he was going to change the ranch. If she couldn’t do that, she needed to confess everything to her friends and plan to move on—and know that Boone would still change the ranch after she left.

Two things kept her from wanting to choose the second path. One was the fear that without Westfield, there’d be no Jane Austen experiment. She wanted the chance to devote time to her painting, but more so she wanted Nora to be safe, Savannah to resume her career as a pianist, and Avery to get the chance to write that screenplay she was so excited about. If they had to go somewhere else and pay rent, they wouldn’t have time for those things. They’d be right back to square one.

The other reason was far more complicated. It was a mixture of things, really. Nostalgia for the ranch—it would be hard to leave it again. A feeling that if she remained she could mitigate the damage Boone did. Curiosity about his plans. As much as she hated to admit it, she sympathised with his cause and wondered how he’d pull it off. Curiosity about Boone, too. For all she hated the way he’d treated her at the end, she also remembered all the good times they’d had when they were young, and she had to admit a strong chemistry popped and fizzed between them now. She couldn’t help wondering where that might go.

She watched Boone toil at the building site. If she was being honest, her body responded to him every time she saw him. That kiss he’d pressed into her palm still made her skin tingle.

As if sensing her gaze, he turned to look up the hill at her and touched his finger to his hat in the same half-mocking, half-acknowledging way he’d always done. Riley crossed her arms and stared back down. After a minute, he shrugged and went back to work, but Riley didn’t move. Should she stay or should she go?

She couldn’t decide.

When Boone looked over his shoulder at her a minute later, and again a few minutes after that, she realized her steady gaze was getting to him. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She’d made him nervous.

Good. The SEAL was too damn cocky.

She kept her position until Boone nonchalantly set down his twine and stakes and walked away. She wasn’t fooled. When he didn’t return, it confirmed she’d won. Boone had a weakness, after all.

But as she trudged up the hill toward the manor, she realized what an empty victory it was. Boone still owned Westfield.

And she didn’t want to leave.

‡

O
nce more Boone
crouched over the fire he’d lit in the rough, stone-lined circle some distance from the bunkhouse. Irritation tensed his muscles as he cooked a quick meal. Since breakfast, he’d done another quick survey of the ranch, settled on a housing site, staked out a number of imaginary houses and photographed the slope and other features of the ranch, then sent the images to Jericho, Clay and Walker. Jericho and Clay both sent back detailed responses about the pros and cons of his choice, along with lists of questions about the ranch they wanted answered. Walker had responded with his usual brevity: “Good.”

All in all, it was a fine day’s work and he should have felt energized by the progress he’d made. Instead, he was as jumpy as a bronco with a burr under its saddle. When he’d left the manor this morning, he’d thought he had the upper hand in the situation. But when Riley had come marching down the hill like an avenging angel it had all gone to hell. It hadn’t occurred to him she’d object to the location of his houses. The truth was, he hadn’t given a second thought to the manor when he’d set up his plans. That old-fashioned monstrosity was superfluous to the community he was building.

It wasn’t to Riley, though.

Now he didn’t know what to do. After she’d stood up on that hillside and watched him work for a while, he’d felt like ants were crawling over his skin. He didn’t understand it. He’d kept his cool in all kinds of situations under the scrutiny of men far more dangerous than that bonnet-wearing Austenite. But this was Riley. He cared what she thought.

When he’d stood back and pictured the cluster of houses he’d designed, for the first time he saw the way it would look from the manor.

A slash of ugly industrial buildings across what once had been a pastoral view.

Boone swore again in memory of the revelation. He was drawn to steel and glass structures and he’d been enamored of the designs he’d cribbed from online plans. The idea was to reclaim shipping containers and trick them out with scrap metal and glass. It worked from a sustainability standpoint—reuse, repurpose and all that.

It would look like ass here at Westfield.

It infuriated him Riley could lay bare his inadequacies with just a few words and a judgmental glare. He’d worked hard to consider every angle when he designed his community.

Except beauty.

Boone’s shoulders slumped. What if he’d missed other things? What if he failed—he who had one of the best records for successful missions in the SEALs? What if Montague destroyed Westfield?

This was all a huge mistake.

Still, it wasn’t fair to fault him for not spending time on luxuries like beauty. He was trying to set an example for the rest of the world to follow. Beauty as an abstract notion was all well and good, but too often the pursuit of it was an excuse to spend money on things that never should have been manufactured in the first place.

He remembered Riley talking about all the outfits she’d owned. He’d bet she and her friends had rented storage containers to stuff with all the things they hadn’t brought with them to Westfield. The bathrooms in the manor were probably filled with makeup, hair products, perfumes and the like. She certainly had no right to judge him.

He and his friends needed women who found beauty in nature rather than artificial things. Who thought the face God gave them was good enough.

He frowned. Had Riley been wearing makeup when she confronted him? Had any of them?

He couldn’t recall. He’d been far too busy… talking.

Boone shifted to dispel an uneasy feeling that trickled through his veins, sure that Jericho would have some comment on his bossiness. To hell with that. They had definitely been wearing makeup. And if he searched the house he’d find evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their pledge to live like Jane Austen characters was frivolous and wasteful—nothing like his own goals.

But maybe he should look at those house plans again. Or better yet, let Clay do it.

Discouraged, he finished his simple dinner of soup, baked beans, and a couple of protein bars, and cleaned up after himself, the familiar motions and quiet surroundings working their magic on him. The sun was low in the sky. Soon it would be time to head up the hill and pick Riley up for their date, but if he didn’t want to frighten her with his manly stink, he needed to rinse off after a long day’s labor.

He grabbed a towel and a bar of soap from his bag, but instead of heading to the bunkhouse to shower, he set off the quarter mile to Pittance Creek, which ran through the property on its way to connect with Chance Creek.

As he strode past the stakes and twine he’d used earlier to designate possible housing sites, he couldn’t help but glance up the hill across the way to the high ground Riley had stood on earlier when she’d folded her arms and watched him work, her displeasure all too clear even across that distance. No one was in sight. No doubt the women were eating a four-course dinner up there off of newly purchased plates.

He squared his shoulders and kept walking, refusing to bend to an urge to look back again. When he reached the creek, it gurgled and chuckled over rocks as it flowed through its curving banks and bit-by-bit, Boone’s mind emptied of his troubles and filled with a kind of contentment he hadn’t known in a long time. A memory bubbled up—another hot summer day when they were kids and Riley had decided to dam up the creek with a stone wall. She’d figured they could corral fish like they corralled horses. Boone had known it wouldn’t work, but he struggled on gamely to move rocks under her command. He had no idea what had possessed him to become Riley’s laborer that time when normally she was the one to carry out his orders. Maybe he’d instinctively known the balance of power between them was unfair and was trying to put it back somewhat to rights.

In any case, it was one of the happiest memories he had. The dam hadn’t worked, but they’d goofed off and laughed throughout the afternoon. What he’d give for that kind of peace again.

Or at least to be alone with Riley for a couple of hours.

His body responded to that idea and with a growl of frustration, Boone stripped down, stepped into the shallow, icy water and bent down to splash himself. The sting of the cold spray felt good, but it wasn’t enough to shake the vision of Riley in his arms. He’d need a full dousing in this cold water to accomplish that. He surveyed the creek, but didn’t see a deeper pool.

He decided to head upstream.

Riley stumbled down
a path from the manor she hadn’t traversed since she was a teenager, so deeply lost in thought she barely noticed where she was going. She and her friends had spent the afternoon at their separate pursuits, but Riley had found it hard to concentrate on her sketches. She’d tried several versions of the landscape outside the windows, but she kept arguing with Boone in her head and at one point she looked down to find she’d sketched him instead of the pastures and mountains. She’d ripped the drawing from her sketchbook and balled it up.

As the afternoon waned, her nervousness grew. Boone would want an answer when they met tonight, and she didn’t know what to tell him. She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her—or if it was worth it to enter a legal entanglement to secure the manor for a short time period.

On the other hand, the thought of leaving Westfield and giving up on their experiment was too awful to bear. When it had finally been her turn with the phone, her heart had raced when she’d seen there was an answer from Russ.

Riley,

I was out of town when your first e-mail came, so I couldn’t warn you that I’d sold Westfield. I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing. I have exciting news, however: I’m finally getting married. I need to buy a fitting house for my wife and can no longer afford to carry Westfield while it sits idle.

Your parents report that you are happy with your life in the city. We’ll both hold fond memories of Westfield as we move ahead, won’t we?

I wish you luck in all your endeavors.

Uncle Russ

Riley had been so appalled at the message she’d had to leave the room and pace the kitchen until she’d regained her composure. How could he back away from a promise he’d made her without even missing a beat? Why did she figure so little in everyone else’s thoughts? The three women who’d come to Westfield with her were the only ones alive who truly cared about her at all. Neither her mother nor her father had much to say when she’d informed them she was moving to Montana for six months.

Meanwhile, Savannah, who’d been thrilled to find Riley’s grandmother’s baby grand piano in the drawing room, had spent the whole afternoon practicing, despite the fact it needed to be tuned. Avery and Nora had each slipped away to their rooms and came down at dinnertime equally energized.