The Rancher's Second Chance (8 page)

Melanie tilted her head.
Bridezillas, that’s who
.

“How is business?”

She shrugged. “Not bad, but new business takes a while to really turn a profit. I mean, even though I’m bringing in money, I’m servicing debt, and I’m running out of time to pay it all off.”

“Daddy doesn’t help with that?”

There it was. That chip on his shoulder. The assumption that she was a certain type of person because of her family. She had let him think what he wanted, because if she had to clarify, it would mean letting him in on her past, something she never wanted to do. She didn’t want sympathy or pity, and she certainly didn’t want judgment, because maybe he’d think what she did was wrong. That would be unbearable, because there were many nights she’d lie awake at night thinking she’d made the biggest mistake. Maybe
she’d
been the wimp, not her mother and her sister. Maybe they were stronger for staying. She’d spent so many times alone, while Meredith and her mother were together.

“No, Daddy doesn’t help. This is my business. Built by myself, for myself. I wanted to know I could stand on my own two feet,” she said with a fervor she couldn’t hide as she stared into the flames. The fire crackled, sparked as a log fell forward, the only sound in the cabin. She knew Cole’s eyes were on her, but she stared straight ahead. He removed the ice pack, his warm fingers pressing slightly on her ankle. “That’s admirable,” he said, his voice low and tinged with something that sounded like respect.

She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “Not a big deal.”

He was silent for a moment. “It is a big deal.”

She shrugged again, uncomfortable with where this conversation was going. She didn’t want him to start probing. She needed to talk about something else. “My ankle is feeling much better.” She pulled it off his leg and curled her legs on the couch.

He stood and walked over to the fridge, placing the ice pack back in the freezer. “I’ll reapply that in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

He gave her a short nod, and she forced herself to maintain eye contact as he stood in front of her looking like some magazine centerfold. Only there was a personality to him and heart. A heck of a lot of heart.

“I bet the view from that window is gorgeous during the day.”

He gave a short nod and sat back down beside her. “It is. I picked that spot for it because of the view of the mountains.”

“It’s very…private.”

Silence again. “I wanted a place of my own. I never had a problem living at the ranch, but after Sarah died everyone would watch me twenty-four-seven and I got tired of pretending I was fine. Here I could just be myself.”

Her stomach dropped, and she turned to look at him. He was staring at the fire, his profile all he offered. She stared at the lean, well-defined lines of his face. She didn’t know what to say. He finished off the whiskey in his glass and her mouth went dry as she watched him swallow. He motioned for the bottle. She handed it over, and maybe she was imagining things, but it felt like his fingers lingered for a moment on hers. But when she looked over at him, he wasn’t looking at her at all. He poured himself another glass and handed her the bottle. She took a long swig and cursed her overactive imagination. Of course his fingers didn’t linger on her hand. Why would they?

“Well, it’s very mountain-mannish,” she said, trying to sound neutral.

His deep laughter brought a smile to her face. “Not your style?”

“It does have sort of a rustic charm…”

His bark of laughter cut her off, and she looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“It’s a guy place. No shaving, cooking, showering.”

“Ew.”

“Right. Exactly. I just eat jerky and drink whiskey.”

“No.”
She closed her eyes. He was ruining all her fantasies about him.

“Yup. And I don’t have to worry about smiling at anyone.”

She gave him a pointed look. “You smile?”

Again that laugh, and this time he even tilted his head back on the back of the sofa. Good God, why had she mentioned smiling? She had never seen him really laugh. She looked over at him and then turned away hastily. He was paying her no attention. The laughter seemed to transform him. Rippling muscle moved, lines around his eyes creased, and she was on the side of the damn dimple that had resurfaced. It was like watching the summer sky come alive with fireworks.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his laughter subsiding.

“N-nothing,” she lied, shooting him a glance.

“Your face is blotchy.”

She sighed and leaned her head back against the cushions again. The admiration obviously wasn’t mutual. “It’s amazing I’m not shunned by society as I walk down the street with my stubby, short legs and blotchy skin. Oh and I guess now I can add a limp like Igor.”

His shout of laughter interrupted her and she waited to continue. He looked over at her. “What?”

She had to quell the auto-drool that threatened as she took in the expanse of taught, bare skin. Weren’t their clothes dry yet? “I’m just not used to you laughing. I think I’m in shock.”

“I do smile, on occasion. It took me a while, after Sarah,” he said gruffly.

Melanie looked down at the bottle in her lap. “I can’t even imagine. She was a wonderful woman,” she whispered, her fingers tightening around the bottle.

“She was my best friend,” he said in a voice she’d never heard. He stretched his long legs, propping them on the small coffee table. She held her breath, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t. He motioned for the bottle and she poured him another glass. They both drank in silence, and Melanie watched Cole from the corner of her eye.

She wondered if he was going to speak at all anymore, or if she was irritating him. The last thing he wanted to do was have chitchat with his little sister’s friend, but she didn’t do silence well. Silence was the precursor to yelling. Silence was always expected at the dinner table. Silence was what her father demanded of her. Silence was the obvious gauge that she should make herself scarce.

Melanie drew a long breath and stood. She was going to make herself scarce. But Cole’s deep voice broke the silence and she sat down, relieved for so many different reasons, the most prominent being that he was not dismissing her. “Sarah and I met in high school and just clicked. First we were just friends. Our families knew each other; both of us came from hard-working ranching families. She practically grew up in the saddle, just like me and Cori. Then after high school, we’d spend most our weekends riding, hanging out. Neither of us thought twice about getting married. It was obvious for both of us.”

Cole took a long drink, finishing the contents of his glass before continuing. “As you already know, my parents died shortly after we were married, and Sarah helped me and Cori through it. She was a rock for both of us. We moved into the ranch and spent the best years of my life. I ran the ranch and she was out there every day by my side. Weekends we’d camp out under the stars, both of us hooked on the outdoors. She was amazing, one of those people that had boundless energy. Most mornings she woke even before I did, cooking or planning out the day.” He glanced over at her, a slight smile on his lips as he spoke of Sarah.

“She sounds like she was the perfect woman for you,” she said, meeting his eyes for a moment and then looking down at the bottle of whiskey.

“She was,” he said with a small shrug. “We always assumed we would have decades in front of us. Kids, everything. When she got sick, it came out of left field.” He rose abruptly from his sofa and walked to the only kitchen cupboard that had anything in it.

“More jerky?” he asked his back still to her.

“Uh, no thanks. “ It felt odd having him talk to her and open up to her. She couldn’t believe he was telling her this. About Sarah. Cori had told her he never spoke of Sarah. Come to think of it, Cole didn’t really speak. One-liners here and there. Maybe it was the whiskey.

He didn’t sit back down again; instead, he stood by the fire. She took a rather large gulp of whiskey, since his back was to her, desperate for something to numb the ache that was weighing her heart. Her eyes roamed him freely, knowing he couldn’t see her. She took in the dark, mussed-up hair, the wide breadth of his shoulders that tapered to the narrow waist and lean frame in the low-slung jeans. She scrambled for something to say. She needed to break the silence again. “May I have a glass of water? I’m kind of thinking all this whiskey on an empty stomach might be a bad idea.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Yeah, except this is the only glass I have.”

“Oh. Right.” She chewed her lower lip while she deliberated how to offer advice without offending him. “Maybe Mrs. H will let you bring some extra glasses and dinnerware.”

He gave a brief chuckle. “I did it on purpose. If I only had one of everything, it would be a quick way for me to remember Sarah was gone. It was just me up here. Only needed one glass, one plate, one fork and knife,” he said with a shrug, looking into the fire.

Melanie rubbed her arms, the goose bumps pricking the palms of her hands. Cole had always been sweet to Cori, and she knew he and Sarah had been in love, but she hadn’t counted on the depth. It was in every word that he spoke about her. The pain he felt, the loneliness he felt, it was palpable. She could never compare her life to his or her loss to his, but she could understand the loneliness.

“That must have been so hard,” she whispered. He gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. She frowned when he downed another glass. It appeared that Cole became a talker when he was drinking. If she wanted to, she could entertain the idea that maybe it was something about her that caused him to open up like this.

“How’s your ankle?”

Ankle? Good God, as if she was thinking about her ankle now. “It’s fine. I think whiskey might even be better than ibuprofen.”

He had already retrieved the cold pack from the freezer and sat down beside her again. “Well, let’s just be safe anyway. Give me your ankle.” Of course, she did as he asked and inwardly cursed her sorry state. She was pathetic, especially when she almost sighed out loud when he grasped her bare skin again and settled her leg on his thigh. He motioned for the bottle and she refilled his glass, concentrating on making her hand steady.

Melanie took another long drink herself and struggled to find something to say. “Cori always told me how much she loved Sarah like a sister. It wasn’t fair, what happened to her.” She didn’t know if her sympathy or words would be appreciated.

“Sarah was, uh, too young. Too young to go that fast. You know you’re living your life, taking for granted that you’ll see tomorrow. She was fine one day, and the next we were getting a cancer diagnosis at the hospital. And she fought because she was tough. A fighter. She wasn’t one of those women who was afraid to get dirty, to get a chipped nail or care that her hair was out of place. Designer clothes and manicures and all that crap meant nothing to her. But even she wasn’t strong enough to fight this. And I used to look at her and think why couldn’t some asshole be the one to die? Some murderer or rapist in jail? Why her? She was a good person.” Melanie closed her eyes against the emotion in his voice and when she opened them again Cole was staring at her.

He shot her a half smile that was filled with emotion. “Pretty bad, huh?”

Melanie shook her head. “I’d say that sounds like a normal reaction. I’m sure you’re not the only one who thought like that.”

“When she died, I wanted to go with her. I remember standing there thinking I wanted to jump into that grave with her. I didn’t want to leave her alone. I didn’t want to be left alone,” he said, looking down, the honesty making her breath catch.

“It took me a year to realize she was gone for good. A year for my instincts to remember. It’s like I had to remember that when I rode home, she wouldn’t be there, that the dinner table would be missing someone. That every damn morning I’d wake to an empty bed. It took me a year to get rid of her things. I used to go to her grave every day just to be close to her, to talk to her. Tell her what was happening with the business. I’d bring her flowers.” He stopped talking for a moment and just looked at her. Melanie quickly wiped the tears from her face and crossed her arms.

“And on the one year anniversary of her death, I sat at her grave and drank. Gage found me, late at night, and I thought he was going to convince me to leave, give me some garbage about not honoring her, but instead he sat down beside me and finished off the bottle of whiskey. Stayed with me the entire night. Then Cori came and found us the next morning and hauled our sorry asses home. And
she
gave me the lecture of not honoring Sarah’s memory. That was the last day of my self-pity. I knew I either had to sink or swim. So I learned how to live without her. I was married five years, and I’ve been single since. I’ve gotten used to it. I like it. I know Cori and Mrs. H think it’s because I haven’t moved on, but they’re wrong. I have learned how to live without Sarah, but that doesn’t mean I want to be married again,” he said, looking her squarely in the eyes.

Melanie swallowed the whiskey she’d been holding in her mouth as he spoke. She was waiting for him to finish so that the burn in her throat when the whiskey went down would dim in comparison to his words.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t,” she stumbled for the right words, “I mean obviously I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you. But sometimes people can live on memories. I think if she was your soul mate, the love of your life, it makes sense not to want to seek that out again,” she whispered, breaking the intense stare. She looked at the bottle with its diminishing supply and frowned. She felt privileged he was opening up to her like this. She knew it was probably the alcohol talking, but still, she knew how private he was.

She was an idiot. She didn’t even believe in marriage, so why should his stalwart declaration that he never wanted to be married bother her? And like he’d ever even entertain the idea with her. He could barely tolerate her. She was the opposite of the woman that he had adored.