At Wolf Ranch (19 page)

“Does she make you smile?”

As the oldest, he’d been the most serious of them. Always taking on the chores his little brothers couldn’t do to help out his dad. He’d been the one they counted on to always look out for Blake, Caleb, and Dane when they couldn’t, and he’d taken working with his dad and watching out for his brothers seriously. He was the one who gave up Friday night football games in high school, or going to a dance to stay home and help out. Not that his brothers hadn’t stepped up as they got older and shouldered their load, but he’d been doing it so long, he had a tendency to drop other things in favor of doing his work. Yeah, maybe he’d given up some of the fun, but he’d learned a hell of a lot working by his father’s side.

“She makes me smile every time I think about her, or look at her.”

“Bring her to supper,” his mother coaxed, trying her best to hide how much she wanted to meet Ella. She didn’t want him to pull back, now that he’d admitted so much.

He surprised everyone when he asked, “Ella, Mom wants us to come to dinner soon. You up for it?”

Ella’s eyes went wide, and she stared at her piles of papers in front of her. The paper trail of her uncle’s deceit. She had a job to finish, but she needed to find a way to see a future for herself. He just gave her something to think about and plan for the future where her uncle was behind bars, and she was with him. He held his breath and hoped she said yes.

“Dinner would be lovely.”

“She’s in, Mom, but it’s going to have to be down the road. Ella has some business that may take her back to New York soon. So I’ll let you know.”

“Are you putting me off, Gabe Bowden?”

“Not at all. I can’t wait for you and Dad to meet her. Until then, you can grill Blake for information about her. Now that Blake’s settled down, he can’t stop staring at her.”

Blake quickly looked away when Ella looked up from her computer screen. “What? I’m just trying to figure out what the hell she’s doing with you. There’s got to be something wrong with her. But you’re right, she smells really good.”

Ella laughed again. “Okay, stop, it’s just getting creepy now with you guys smelling me all the time.”

“Can’t help it,” Blake said. “I spend my days with horses. You don’t smell anything like them.”

“Thank God,” Ella said, rolling her eyes and staring back at her computer, making Blake laugh.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Mom. Say hi to Dad.”

“I will. And Gabe?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Gabe handed the phone back to Blake and smacked him on the side of the head.

“What the hell was that for?”

“Coming out here to spy on me.”

“You knew someone would show up when everything you’ve been working your ass off for goes up in smoke.”

“Can we stop talking about it already? It’s bad enough I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to figure out what comes next, and what I’m going to do.”

“Don’t make any plans yet,” Ella said. “I’ve got something in the works that might suit you better.”

“What’s that?” he asked, and Blake turned in his seat to face her for the answer.

“You’ll see.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m working on it, but first I need to do something else.” She held her hand out to Blake. “May I use your phone, please?”

Blake handed it over. “Who are you calling?”

“Hey, Cheryl, this is Ella. Yeah, I borrowed a friend’s phone. Thank you. I miss her so much,” Ella said, her eyes glassing over, a single tear slipping past her lashes and rolling down her cheek. “I know he and the police are looking for me, but I’d appreciate it if you kept this call confidential. I hate to put you on the spot, things are happening right now that I need to handle privately. Yes, we’ll hold a memorial service as soon as I return. The bastard who killed her will be put in jail very soon.”

Ella raised her shaking hand to push her hair out of her face, trying to keep her composure. Gabe circled the table and clamped his hands on her shoulders and leaned down and kissed her on the head. “Listen, I need you to put together a gift basket and send it to Montana. Include the moisturizing body butter and a variety of the other lotions, cosmetics, and include the Serenity perfume.”

“Oh God, please don’t make my mother smell like you,” Gabe pleaded, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

“That’s just creepy,” Blake added.

Ella laughed and the tears in her eyes cleared. “Change the perfume to one of the others. Something soft and light. Yes, the Primrose is perfect.”

Gabe and Blake both sighed with relief, and Ella let out a soft laugh.

“Make it really big and beautiful. Maybe get some chocolates from the confections shop next door. Lovely. Please send the basket to Mrs. Bowden. I’m handing the phone off to my friend, he’ll give you the address. I’ll be in touch soon. Right now, keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll talk soon about the big launch in March.”

Ella handed the phone to Blake, who rattled off their mother’s address and said goodbye.

“That was a really nice thing to do,” Gabe said.

“It’s nothing,” she said, looking away from both of them. “You guys are really close to your mother.”

“Have to be. She gets really pissed when we don’t call and sends Dad after us,” Blake said.

“Must be nice to have family who cares about you like that.”

Blake gave him a look that said he got it. Ella didn’t have a mother or a father, and she just lost the only family who cared about her.

He brushed his hand down her hair, leaned down, and kissed her on the head again. She fell back in her chair and took his hand, holding it against her chest. Her heart thrashed against his hand. She wasn’t as calm as she appeared.

“So, are you making dinner?” Blake asked Ella.

“The only thing she makes is reservations. Dinner’s on you and me. Come on. Let’s get it done.”

Gabe filled Blake in on Ella’s story and how her uncle killed Lela and the plot he hatched to frame and then kill Ella too. Ella worked quietly at her laptop, head down, following her uncle’s trail, hoping it led to the evidence she needed. Blake kept eyeing her, looking at her in a whole new way the more Gabe told him about her. When they all sat down to dinner together an hour later, Ella put away her past and her plans for the future and focused on the present. Before they ate, Gabe stopped beside her chair and leaned down and gave her a soft, lingering kiss. She smiled up at him, her eyes filled with such warmth and affection he swallowed back the lump in his throat.

“So, you like the horses?” Blake asked to start the conversation with Ella.

“I love them. Gabe’s got some real beauties out there.”

“Do you ride?”

“As often as I can. I’ve got two horses at my country estate in New York, outside the city of course.”

“Tell him their names,” Gabe coaxed, hoping she took the hint.

“Cristal and Jimmy Choo. Arabians. You’d love them.”

“You named your horses after champagne and shoes. Rich women really are different.”

Ella laughed, but Gabe about lost it when he saw the look of disbelief on his brother’s face.

“Their names are Angel and Belle. One white, and one black.”

Blake laughed, knowing the joke was on him. “Are you going to bring them here and live on your ranch?” Blake asked the one question Gabe wanted to ask Ella since the day he met her.

Her gaze found his, and they stared at each other for a long time. “Maybe,” she finally said, tying him in even more knots. She turned back to speak to Blake. “If I’m not dead by my birthday, and my uncle is behind bars, I’ll definitely have to do something with all those cattle and the ranch.”

Her gaze found his again, but he couldn’t read the look.

Gabe got the hint when she didn’t give either of them a straight answer. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Despite the fact he wanted her here with him always, stuck in the back of his mind was the reality that she didn’t fit on a ranch in Montana, and he’d never fit in a big city. The thought gnawed at him, making his insides raw, but he couldn’t pull back. Not when everything inside him wanted to hold on and keep her. For as long as he could.

“Some of the pictures in the papers showed you at the Oscars in L.A. Do you know a lot of celebrities?” Blake asked her.

“Some.”

That line of questioning and the stories Ella told took them into the evening. By the time Blake left, she had him eating out of her hand. Gabe liked seeing her this way. Joking, telling stories about her life—which was way different than the papers portrayed it—and giving him an in-depth glimpse at the life she’d led. So different from his, but rooted in longtime friendships with people who were more like family.

When he thought of the pictures he’d seen of her with a crowd of people sitting around a table filled with food and wine, he thought of a family gathering now. The same faces surrounded her, not random people she met out on the town, but the usual crowd. Out here, you had potlucks and community meetings where people gathered. In New York, he guessed, you had dinner out with friends at a swanky restaurant. Instead of barn dances and saloons, you went to a club.

“What’s that smile?” she asked, when he stared at her too long, letting his thoughts spin out to find a way that she wasn’t so different than him.

She grabbed his beer and took a sip. He’d offered to get her one of her own, but she’d spent the night sipping off his. Even his brother noticed.

“You keep stealing my beer.”

She pulled the bottle down from her lips and swallowed. “Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.”

“My drinking your beer makes you smile.”

“Yes. And the fact that you’re happy to have steak and lobster with five-hundred-dollar bottles of wine with your friends and have Southwest chicken with rice and black beans and drink my beer with me and Blake.”

“Dinner was really good. The company even better,” she said, winking at Blake. His brother was lost. So was he. She hadn’t flirted. Not her style, but somehow she’d endeared herself to both of them with just her sweet, open, and honest personality.

He and Ella saw his brother to the door. Blake turned and took Ella’s hand. “I’m real sorry about your sister. I hope I get to see you again soon.”

“Thank you, Blake. I really enjoyed meeting you and the stories you told about Gabe when he was little.”

“I’ve got lots more embarrassing stories to tell.”

“I look forward to hearing them.” She smiled at his brother with such genuine affection and sincerity Gabe hoped she meant that she’d stay long enough to do it.

Blake released Ella and gave him a bear hug. He stood back and stared at him before walking away. “She’s not what I expected for you, but she’s perfect.”

Gabe understood exactly what he meant. Ella wasn’t the kind of woman who’d stay at home, cooking his meals and raising his kids, content to live on a working ranch with the cattle and horses. The kind of woman he thought he wanted until he met her. That wasn’t Ella. Would probably never be Ella’s way, but she fit him perfectly. He just didn’t know if he fit her.

Chapter 22

G
abe’s mouth covered hers, swallowing her gasp as he pulled her out of yet another nightmare and straight into a fantasy come true. His warm, hard body covered hers. His hips pressed snugly between her thighs. The thick head of his penis nudged at her entrance, but he didn’t fill her. He used it and his mouth to get her attention and draw her to him and out of the depths of her despair.

“Gabe, honey, I’m awake.”

“Good. That makes this fun instead of creepy.”

She giggled, but it turned into a deep sigh when he blazed a trail of kisses down her neck and over her breast and took her hard nipple into his mouth. She combed her fingers through his dark hair, kept her eyes closed, and enjoyed every touch, lick, kiss he lavished on her body. His big hand slid down her side. She relaxed into the moment again and ran her hands over Gabe’s shoulders and down his strong back.

“Everywhere I touch, you’re hard.”

“I am for you, darlin’.”

She loved the rumble in his voice when he teased her like that. Even more, she loved the way he played her body like an instrument, knowing just when to speed up and slow down. Like last night after Blake left. Gabe knew she missed her sister and the connection they’d shared. Gabe left the dirty dishes and took her to bed, loving her long into the night with soft kisses and sweet words that made her melt and fall so hard for him that she’d cried. Not for her sister and all she’d lost, but because of the depth of emotion this man evoked in her, something no other man had ever done. While her mind worked on the problem of finding the evidence and taking down her uncle, her heart conjured dreams of being with this man, and how she’d make that work.

She couldn’t stop thinking about taking down her uncle, running the business, doing the huge national launch for her cosmetics company, dealing with the ranch and the cattle, and finding a way to keep Gabe and have it all. Did she even want it all?

Right now, she wanted him.

“Stop thinking,” Gabe said, a second before his mouth pressed to hers, and his tongue dipped into her mouth to taste and tangle with hers.

“Make me,” she said against his lips.

He joined their bodies in a slow glide. “My pleasure.”

No, it was all hers. The man had a way of reading her, anticipating her, and knowing just what she needed most. Right now, she needed him close.

His chest pressed to hers. Their bodies moved together in a push and pull that created a lovely friction between them that stoked the fire and sent out ripples of heat through her body. She wrapped her arms around his back and held tight, his hips pumping into hers as they made love with soft kisses and warm caresses. Her thoughts melted away with the heat between them intensifying. She spread her thighs wider, took him in deeper, pressed her aching breasts to his hard chest, and gave herself over to this man, whose heart beat with hers.

“Gabe.”

She called his name, and he answered, thrusting hard and deep. She spread her fingers wide on his back and dragged them down over his ass, pulling him close again and again. His breath came out hard and fast at her neck. She pressed her cheek to his and let go of everything but the feel of this man pressing down on her, covering her, keeping her safe and showing her heaven.

Gabe’s big hand clamped onto her thigh, shifted it higher, his hips grinding into hers as he thrust deep again and sent her flying. He followed her with his body vibrating against hers as he let go and held on all at the same time.

His weight on her felt like a safe harbor. Someplace she could rest and feel safe from the turbulent seas she faced in her life right now. But was she hiding away, getting lost in this man and the easy relationship she’d found with him?
No
, her heart shouted. It went deeper than distraction and holding on to someone who made her feel so much more than the pain, fury, and loneliness of losing her sister. His lips touched her neck just below her ear in a soft kiss, and her heart swelled and sank on a sigh. Somehow, in the middle of all this madness, she’d found a man she could love. She did love him. In all her grief and despair, there’d been this rising tide of something that kept her going and made her believe that when all this was over, she wouldn’t be alone.

Gabe rose above her on his hands and stared down at her, a lazy smile on his face. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

She stretched her arms up over her head and pulled him close with her feet hooked over his thighs. His eyes went soft when the motion brought him deep inside her again. She set her hands on his shoulders and slid them down his arms, squeezing his massive biceps. “Morning.”

“You keep doing stuff like that, and we’ll never leave this bed.”

She raked her fingers back up his shoulders and down his chest. “Promise?”

He leaned down and kissed her, letting her know how much he’d like to stay right here with her. He pressed back up on his hands. “I need food and so do the horses and cattle. Want to come out and help me feed them?”

“Sure.”

Gabe settled beside her on his side, his head propped on his hand, and stared down at her. “What’s that face?” He used his free hand to cup her cheek and turn her head to face him.

“Will you take me to see my sister this morning?”

“Is there any way I can talk you out of that?”

“No. I need to see her.”

“Ella, it’s too dangerous. I don’t want anyone to see you and turn you into the police for the reward. What if your uncle’s men are watching the place, hoping you’ll show up?”

“I’ll be careful. I need to see her. Maybe if I do, it’ll help me understand what she wanted me to know.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had that twin thing. We could say so much with a look or a few simple words. We finished each other’s sentences. I knew how she felt just by seeing her. Sometimes, I’d come home and she’d be waiting for me, saying she had a weird feeling I needed to talk to her. I did the same to her many times. When my uncle attacked her, I know she was trying to tell me something. I just can’t seem to figure out what it was.”

“You saw her die, honey. That’s traumatic in itself, but to watch your uncle kill her, that’s something you’d never expect or accept. Family is supposed to protect each other.”

“Maybe in your family. My uncle has never been anything but a man who lives in my house, uses my father’s things, and only took an interest in my and Lela’s lives for appearances’ sake, but nothing more. The whole time he’s been stealing from us.”

“Do you think he planned to kill Lela?”

“Not in that way. Shooting her was impulsive. He wanted the location where she hid the evidence and lost his temper.”

“So where would she hide the evidence here?”

“On the ranch, but you cleaned out the house and didn’t find anything.”

“I cleaned out the house, but I never touched the stables, the guesthouse, or other outbuildings on the property. Maybe she hid it somewhere else.”

“We used to love to play in the barn loft. Maybe it’s up there. Dad built us a tree house on the property in the woods. I’m not even sure I could find it at this point, but it’s worth a look.”

“We’re in for a warm spell over the next few days.”

“You mean it will get up in the forties.” Her words came out overly bright with faked enthusiasm.

Gabe shook his head. “City girl. You are so pampered.”

“Lela and I planned a birthday trip in May after the cosmetics launch to go to Bora Bora. Nothing but white sand beaches and crystal-clear water for a week.”

Gabe swiped the tear rolling down her cheek with his thumb. “I hate it when you cry.”

“You make me smile.”

“Then don’t make me take you to see your sister.”

“Let me borrow your truck, and I’ll go alone.”

“I may not want to take you, because I hate to see you cry, but I’d never let you face that alone, sweetheart.”

She rolled into him, and he wrapped her in his arms. Safe. Warm. Protected. So much comfort and support offered up without any expectation of getting anything in return. He simply wanted to be with her. Such a nice change from what she knew in New York where people tried to come into her circle of friends in hopes of using her name and theirs to move up in the world. She’d tired of that game long ago. Gabe was a breath of fresh air when she could barely breathe at all.

I love you
, her heart whispered, but she couldn’t find the words to say that to him. Not yet. Not when her life was in such turmoil, her future uncertain. But she’d find a way to be with him, because she didn’t want to lose anyone else she loved.

Gabe patted her on the ass. “Get up, lazy. We’ve got horses to feed and places to go.”

“Gabe.”

“Yeah, honey?”

“I wish I could stay right here with you forever.”

He traced her forehead, pushing a lock of hair off her face and behind her ear. “You can if you want.”

He gave her another of those soft, sweet kisses she’d become addicted to, rolled out of bed, and walked into the bathroom, her gaze following his very fine ass. God, the man was gorgeous.

She lay in his bed and thought about what he said. The shower went on in the other room. The monotonous sound relaxed her. Did she want to stay here with Gabe? Well, not in this room. The walls were a faded and drab off-white that made her feel morose. She liked his simple furniture. Clean lines. A nice deep, rich brown to contrast with the light blue sheets and sand-colored spread on the bed. She stared at the rodeo plaques and buckles around the room. He’d been one hell of a rider, winning all those awards. She thought of the scars on his body and guessed how he’d gotten them. He sometimes favored his right leg. Especially when he spent any length of time outside in the freezing temperatures. He probably hurt it riding bulls or broncos, earning the money to buy Wolf Ranch. She hated that she’d left the house sitting because of ghosts who didn’t live there but in her heart. Yeah, she wanted to stay with Gabe, but she could do a hell of a lot better than the twelve hundred square feet they’d been sharing the last week.

A smile spread across her face. She looked around the room again, noticing this and that of Gabe’s style. Yep. The man liked simplicity, but he might also like a woman’s touch of comfort and beauty mixed in.

“What are you smiling about, sweetheart?” Gabe walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, his dark hair dripping water onto his massive shoulders.

“Just plotting. And seeing you naked always makes me smile.”

Gabe pulled the towel free and held his arms wide, the towel dangling from his fingers. “Look all you want, honey, if it makes you smile like that.”

She laughed and rolled out of bed, walking right into his open arms. She hugged him close, her bare skin pressed to his. “You’re wet.”

“Give me two minutes, and I’ll say the same about you.” His big hands brushed down her back and covered her ass.

Flirting back, she did the same and squeezed his in return. “You have a very fine ass.”

“You have the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen and gorgeous green eyes.”

“Here, I thought my boobs held your attention.”

He stared down between them at her breasts pressed to his chest. “Oh, they do, but I really like your legs.”

She chuckled. “Is there anything about me you don’t like?”

“Your uncle. I really hate him.”

“The feeling is mutual. I’m taking a shower, you make the coffee.”

“I thought you’d make it while I showered.”

“Sorry. Guess I’m too used to Mary doing those things for me. And now you.” She gave his butt a smack and walked into the bathroom smiling.

“Can we call her and ask her to come and cook and make the coffee for us?” he called to her from the bedroom.

Just to see if he’d say anything, she shouted back, “I’ll set it up.”

Maybe he didn’t respond because he thought she was kidding, but he’d learn she meant what she said soon enough.