Homecoming Ranch (12 page)

The Stakeout, Madeline assumed, was a restaurant. “Is it very far? My feet are killing me,” she admitted as she accepted the aspirin bottle from Dani.

“Just pull on a pair of jeans. Living in the mountains is a whole lot easier if you leave the heels in your closet.” She winked at Madeline.

But Madeline hadn’t brought jeans. She had another pair of slacks in her bag. Slacks that went with these shoes and this blazer. She hadn’t planned on recreational wear, she’d planned on three days of what she thought would be meetings. “It’s okay,” she said, and forced a
smile. “I’m not staying long. Thanks for the aspirin,” she said, shook two from the bottle, and made her way to her room.

The Bear Cub was definitely a lodge room, with low, beamed ceilings, an adobe fireplace, and a four-poster bed with a quilt cover. And, naturally, the obligatory bearskin rug. The room was certainly cozy, just as Dani had said when Madeline had checked in. Perhaps too cozy—Madeline felt as if she were sleeping in a bear’s den.

She kicked off her shoes first, and one of them ended up on the snout of the bearskin. She took the aspirin, then collapsed back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

She was exhausted. Emotionally, physically, all of it.

Madeline, who always had a plan, who had every moment of her day mapped out, didn’t know where to go from here.

She did not like the way uncertainty felt.

She, Emma, and Libby had argued about what to do, punctuated by generally unhelpful advice from Jackson Crane. Luke hadn’t said much. She could sense he wanted to hold someone responsible for his father’s poor decisions, and she felt for him in that regard, she truly did—she was no stranger to a parent making bad decisions. But she’d been making up for bad parents all her life, and she didn’t want, or even know how, to make up for his.

A faint beeping filtered into her thoughts. Madeline dug her cell phone out of her purse and noticed that she had missed two calls.

Both from Stephen.

She winced, tossed the phone into her purse.

She would call him, she would. But right now she was starving. Madeline sat up, looked at her shoes, and with a wince, stuffed her feet back into them.

She could hear the din of the Stakeout before she realized it was coming from the blue western building with the wooden porch and the swinging saloon doors. From the look of the packed gravel parking lot across the street, everyone in Pine River was here. Madeline dreaded
going to restaurants alone; it seemed to give off a lonely, cat lady vibe. But then, she couldn’t remember ever being this hungry before. Ravenous! With a little salt and pepper, she would eat the railing.

She stepped in through the swinging saloon doors to the hostess desk.

“Table for two?” the hostess asked without looking up.

“One,” Madeline said.

The young woman glanced up, her gaze flicking over Madeline. “This way.” She picked up a menu and started walking through the crowded room, past the bar where people stood shoulder to shoulder, past tables where food had been served family style.

She finally stopped at a small two-top near the back of the restaurant, just outside the kitchen and next to the wait station. “Drink?” she asked, and put a menu on the table as Madeline squeezed into a chair between the table and the wall.

“Wine,” Madeline said. “A big glass of red wine.”

“You got it,” the woman said, and disappeared into the crowd.

Only a few minutes later, a young man appeared carrying a bowl of wine on a stem. “Would you like to hear the specials?” he asked. “We have buffalo steaks tonight.”

As Madeline had been raised on cans of Chef Boyardee and ramen noodles, she was not particular about food—anything was good. And buffalo sounded wildly exotic. “I’ll have that,” she said.

The waiter whipped out his pad and jotted it down. “How would you like it cooked?”

“Umm… medium?”

“Sides?”

“Whatever you have,” she said, smiling. “Thanks.” She picked up the enormous glass of wine and sipped. She closed her eyes, felt the wine filtering down to her toes. She’d relaxed from the pent-up explosion of anxiety she’d felt building in her all day. Now, she felt nothing but a low-grade headache and a bone-deep exhaustion.…

Until the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle.

Madeline suddenly felt as if someone was standing just beside her. She opened her eyes and let out a small gasp of surprise—there
was
someone standing beside her. His arms were crossed, and a beer bottle dangled from two fingers. His weight was all on one hip, and his gray eyes shone with a hint of amusement.

Madeline couldn’t help herself; she smiled. Those eyes inspired a lot of internal fluttering. A lot. “Hello, Luke.”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Hello, Madeline.” He lifted his beer bottle in a sort of half salute, then drank. “Seems like you and I had the same idea.”

There was something about Luke Kendrick that made her feel quivery. Madeline definitely understood that he was the kind of guy who, under much different circumstances, could make a woman like her do backflips. But the circumstances weren’t different, and Madeline dropped her head back and looked at the ceiling with a loud sigh. All she wanted to do was eat and then collapse into bed and nurse her head.

She slid her gaze to Luke again. He was calmly staring down at her, one brow cocked with amused curiosity above the other. Madeline wasn’t a fool. Luke was, in essence, an adversary. This was a real estate deal—he knew it, and she knew it. He was standing here because he wanted her and her sisters to sign that ranch back to him for a fraction of its value. But Madeline had not flown all the way to Colorado to just hand it back to this guy—okay, well, the jury was still out on why, exactly, she had flown out here—but nevertheless, the realtor in her would not allow it, not without a few questions, a few understandings, a few beneficial agreements.

Luke gestured with his head to the empty chair at her table, then shifted, leaning over her so a waiter with a full tray could pass. “Mind if I join you?”

“I
knew
you were going to ask that.”

“I will take that as a yes,” he said congenially. He plopped himself down in the chair, stretching one muscular leg out alongside the table, effectively trapping her between the wall and his motorcycle boot. “Are you having dinner?”

“I already ordered,” she said quickly, lest he have any ideas about dining together.

“Great. So did I.” He lifted his hand; a waitress appeared from thin air. Luke reached for his wallet. “Would you do me a favor? Would you transfer my ticket from the bar over here? I’m going to have dinner with my friend.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re exactly friends,” Madeline pointed out.

“Not yet,” he said confidently, and handed the waitress a five.

“Sure,” the waitress said, all gooey-eyed as she smiled at Luke. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I’ll do that,” Luke said, and he winked.
Winked.
As if he were some handsome lead in a romantic comedy movie. He watched the woman hurry off to do his bidding before looking at Madeline again.

“That,” Madeline said, gesturing between him and the waitress, “will not work on me.”

His smile turned into a grin. “Duly noted—a five-buck tip will not work on you.” His gaze wandered over her a moment, lingering a little too long on the vee of her shirt. “So what does work on you?”

A stronger fluttering began to tease the bottom of her belly. “What are you doing here, Luke?”

“Me? I’m
from
here.”

“You know what I mean. What are you doing in this restaurant? At my table? You keep showing up wherever I happen to be.”

“Someone could say the same about you, Maddie—”

“Madeline—”

“No,” he said, his gaze wandering over her face and hair. “You are definitely a Maddie parading around in Madeline’s clothes.”

Why would he say that? Madeline self-consciously glanced down at herself and then up.

Luke was grinning. “I can picture you in a frilly dress.”

That caught her off guard because Madeline actually had a frilly dress at home. It was chiffon and it was blue, and she loved it. But she had never worn it anywhere. There never seemed to be a moment that she could be
that
Madeline. The Madeline of frilly, flirty dresses.

“And by the way, from where I stand,
you
are the one showing up on
my
turf. On the road to Pine River, in my town, and at my family home. But you’re cute, so I’m not going to make a big deal out of it.”

Madeline blinked. She laughed. “Are you
flirting
with me?” she asked incredulously.

“Nope,” he said, but he was smiling.

Madeline laughed again. “You
are
.”

“It’s just an honest observation.” He winked, took a swig of his beer. “I wanted a drink after the ordeal of this afternoon, just like you.” He made a point of looking at the boat of wine at her elbow.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, and picked up her wine and sipped. It felt good. It felt warm. Or was that his smile and the fact that he’d just called her cute?

Luke leaned across the table, glanced around them and said low, “Between you and me—is Jackson Crane a little nuts?”

Madeline laughed. “Oh my God,
thank
you! He is
completely
nuts. Or very good at what he does.” She paused. “What
does
he do, anyway?”

“Hell if I can figure it out.”

“And then,” Madeline said, leaning in, too, “he shows up to a meeting like that with Diet Coke and potato chips. Seriously?”

Luke laughed. “He should have at least come with chocolate and bourbon. As it was, I thought Emma was going to start building her own distillery.”

Madeline laughed. It felt good to laugh after the day she’d had. “Do you know Emma?” she asked.

“Never met her before today,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Madeline shook her head. “I never met her before today, either. What about Libby?”

“I know who she is,” he said with a shrug. “But I don’t know much of anything other than she recently broke up with a man here in town she dated for a long time. But that’s it,” he said. He eased back in his chair. “So you’re a realtor, huh?”

“I am. What about you?” she asked. “What do you do?”

“I’m a builder.”

“
Here?
In Pine River?”

He chuckled. “By the disbelieving tone of your voice, I think that you are underestimating our charming little town. But no, not here—
in Denver. I went to school there and ended up staying for the time being.”

Madeline had so desperately wanted to go to college, but her mother had blown through the small trust fund her grandparents had set up for Madeline’s education. The jobs Madeline had held barely covered rent, much less tuition. “So what do you build?”

“Houses,” he said, and helped himself to some bread the waiter put on the table as he breezed by. “I’m just starting out. I have an architecture degree and I’m working on my MBA. I was lucky enough to apprentice with a large builder as an undergrad, and now, in exchange for a share of the profits, they are partnering with me on three housing starts to help me get my feet and my business on the ground.”

Madeline’s interest was definitely piqued. She would not have guessed him to be a builder, much less an architect. Rancher, yes. Lumberjack, maybe. He had a muscular build, a virility that she did not associate with architects, at least none she knew. “Tell me about your houses,” she said, earning a curious look from Luke. “No, really. I love the idea of a house.”

“You love the
idea
of a house?”

“You know, what they represent.” She thought about her ten-year-old self and the shoebox. In her imagination, the house was full of her children, and the pictures they drew were tacked on the walls, and the dogs they insisted on adopting were sleeping in the patches of sun on the floor, and their rain boots and sports equipment littered the entry.

“Well, let’s see.” He obliged her, describing a couple of houses he’d designed and was building. He was enthusiastic as he spoke, but not boastful. He laughed at some of the mistakes he’d made, admitted to trying some new design ideas and not being sure they would appeal. His eyes lit when he spoke, the shine of pride that Madeline found very appealing.

He talked until the food arrived. Madeline was a little embarrassed to see that the buffalo steak she had so cavalierly ordered was the size of a small dinner plate, and the baked potato, loaded with everything in the kitchen, was only slightly smaller.

“Hungry?” Luke asked with a smile, and accepted the small piece of fish with rice and steamed vegetables the waiter handed him.

So that was how he kept so trim. Madeline picked up a knife and fork. “I’ve never had buffalo.”

“Not my favorite,” he said as he forked some salad. “All right, we’ve talked about me—now tell me about you.”

“Me?” She paused in the sawing of the buffalo to think. The steak felt like boot leather under her dull knife. “Well,” she said, “I am trying to get into high-end properties. So I took a listing for the biggest, ugliest house I have ever seen.”