Letting Hearts Heal (23 page)

The kiss was hard and bruising and everything Mason had tried to tell himself that he hadn’t been dreaming about since the last time his lips had been crushed against Dean’s. Latching onto him was like taking a breath for the first time in hours. Days. The uncoordinated mess of tongues, teeth, lips and stubble was perfection—perfection Mason never wanted to end.

But then he remembered himself and everything in the world that was not Dean Walker’s hard body, wandering hands, and agile tongue. Taking a step back was one of the hardest things Mason could remember doing, but he did it nonetheless.

Breathing hard, he refused to meet Dean’s gaze, knowing that he probably wouldn’t like what he’d find there. “We should….” He stopped, not knowing what he was going to say, and then tried again. “We should get back. Anna and Wyatt are waiting.”

Without waiting for Dean, Mason fled the barn like a coward. He cursed at himself as he followed the snowy path to the house. He wasn’t supposed to give up on his plan just because Dean was tempting as hell. That was just who Dean was. Mason knew that when he proposed cooling things so he could focus on some mending, healing, and figuring things out.

Mason wasn’t sure if he even was hurt or mad about the incident in town anymore. The more time he had to think about it, the harder it was to imagine Dean being ashamed of anything that he’d chosen as part of his life. His fear of Mr. Walker and Mason’s parents was as long gone as the people themselves.

Mason deliberately avoided the kitchen when he came inside and waved to Anna and Wyatt before going upstairs to his room. He needed a moment to catch his breath and get himself under control. Jumping Dean during dinner was not an option under the current circumstances. Well, under any circumstances really, considering a kid lived in the house. But still.

“Mason.” Wyatt’s voice cut clear through the house and Mason’s thoughts. “Daddy says to tell you that dinner is ready.”

“Coming.” Mason called back and glanced in the mirror on the way out of the room. He didn’t quite feel like himself, but he looked exactly the same. Snorting at himself for expecting different, he almost wished he were crazy enough to give himself a pep talk in the mirror. Dinner might be difficult to get through if Dean was set on tempting him.

“Anna put peas in the case and roll,” Wyatt informed Mason when he stopped in the doorway, not certain he wanted to enter the one room in the house he both loved and hated.

Dean chuckled, but by the time Mason registered what Wyatt had said, the moment had passed.

Mason reminded himself to be brave and walked into the kitchen. “Can we light a fire in the fireplace tonight?” he asked Dean. “It’s kind of chilly.”

Enjoying the look of surprise on Dean’s face, Mason sat down and smiled at Wyatt. Then it dawned on Mason that he’d have to sit through at least an hour, possibly more, of being in a room with a fire. Being brave sucked. He almost told Dean to forget it, but Dean beat him to the punch.

“Sure. We can have dessert in front of the fire. The cobbler from earlier wasn’t burned.”

“Great.” Mason grimaced as he lied through his teeth. When had his life become a frustratingly complicated mess?

D
EAN
COULDN
’
T
help but worry about Mason. Maybe pushing him wasn’t such a good thing, after all. These days Mason actually seemed more ragged and scattered than the guarded man who’d first moved in. Though perhaps it had been the guards that had kept him together. Dean couldn’t tell, but he felt that Mason was pushing himself unnecessarily. Everyone had issues, and working through them was part of life. Issues didn’t have to be gone before something good could happen. Nothing good would ever happen to anyone if that were the case.

Excusing himself when the phone rang, Dean was surprised to hear Mason’s brother, Graham, introduce himself when he answered the call. “Is Mason there? I need to talk to him.”

“Sure. Hang on a moment.” Dean went over to offer Mason the phone.

Mason took it, seemingly without thinking. A few seconds after he’d said his name, his face hardened, and he stood up abruptly and left the kitchen.

Wyatt looked at Dean when they heard Mason yelling from somewhere else in the house.

“It’s okay, Mason’s just a little upset. Eat your dinner,” Dean told him.

“I don’t give a shit what you want, and I’d rather be dead than spend any kind of time with you and your precious family.” Mason shouted from what Dean suspected was the living room. However, Mason could be in the stables and still be heard in the house.

Mason stormed back in, slammed the phone onto the kitchen counter, and sat down at the table. “If he ever calls here again, please tell him that I’ve moved to Siberia and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

“Got it,” Dean replied. “I should have told you who it was. Sorry.”

Mason said nothing. A storm was brewing in his eyes, and Dean was at a loss.

After dinner, Mason disappeared again. Dean lit a fire in the fireplace and settled down on the couch with Wyatt to eat cobbler and watch a cartoon before his bedtime. To Dean’s surprise, Mason came back in, plate of cobbler in hand, and sat in a chair. His eyes were glued to the flames in the fireplace, but he stood his ground and even managed to finish his dessert.

When Dean came back after tucking Wyatt in, he half expected that Mason would either have bolted or doused the fire with a bucket of water. He was still having his staring contest with the flames, though. Dean sat down quietly, hoping Mason might want to talk and get his anger off his chest. Dean couldn’t imagine the ranch or his life without Mason in it—couldn’t even understand how he’d survived for years on his own without a stubborn man and a smart little boy for company.

“When people hate you, why don’t they just leave you the hell alone?” Mason’s question came after a long silence.

“No idea. What’d he want?”

“To get the whole family together. He didn’t say why. I just told him that I wasn’t part of his family and that he should forget he ever knew me.” Mason punched a throw pillow. “I just wish he didn’t get to me the way he does. He thinks less of me than he does of the dog shit under his shoe.”

“You guys were raised as brothers. Hard to just erase something like that. We’ll block his number and hope you don’t run into him in town again. As far as I know, he doesn’t even live here anymore.”

Laughing brokenly, Mason fell back in the armchair. “How come that, out of everyone I’ve met in my life, the only one who hasn’t screwed me over is you?”

“I’m awesome like that.” Dean rolled his eyes, but was secretly overjoyed that Mason didn’t think he’d fucked up as much as the other bastards in his life. “I don’t know, Mase. I don’t think either of us has been very good at maintaining friendships over the years. Hiding, working hard, circumstances—maybe there’s a reason that we’re here together after all this time without a million people getting in our way. God knows we’ve got enough to worry about without people butting in to our affairs.”

“There is that,” Mason allowed. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know… traveling. Have you traveled over the years? I used to dream about it, but I never left New York even for a day until I left it for good.”

Dean recognized Mason’s avoidance tactic, but decided to humor him. “Not really. I’ve always been the most comfortable here. I spent a couple of weeks hiking in the Pyrenees right after I graduated college, but that’s it.”

“The Pyrenees?” Mason was spread out over the chair and turned his head to look at Dean, looking exactly like Wyatt did when Dean read him a story. “They’re in France, right?”

“The border between France and Spain, yes.”

“What was it like?”

Dean thought back to the two weeks of solitude he’d spent there, the ideas and impressions he’d brought home with him, and the decisions he’d made there. “The mountains are lush and green and gorgeous. I took about a million photos. And the small villages on the mountainsides were like still pictures of a time long gone. I met this old man there who made cheese. Between his broken English and my broken French, I asked him a thousand questions. I used what he told me when I started making cheeses and dairy products here on the ranch.

“Pierre always said traveling and experiencing other cultures makes a chef better.” There was a longing in Mason’s voice, but he shook himself out of it.

“It’s never too late to travel. Maybe you and I should take a trip somewhere. Wyatt too. I won’t let him grow up and be in college before he ever sets foot outside Montana.”

“I love when you talk about the future as if me being in it is the most natural thing in the world.” Mason quickly stood up and looked away as if he’d said more than he intended. “I think I’m going to go to bed. Good night, Dean. I hope we do get to travel someday.”

Chapter 19

“I
CAN
do this. I can do this. I can do this,” Mason muttered to himself as he mentally prepared to heat the oil for deep frying. Oil had caused the second fire—the one in the diner—and he hadn’t yet attempted anything with large amounts of it since.

The many root vegetables the season offered had inspired him to make fries. And fries had to be deep fried. At least they had to be when the oven baking hadn’t quite worked the way he wanted it to.

“Whatcha making?” Wyatt padded in, dragging Sweet Pea on a leash after him. “Can I help?”

Mason was torn. He wanted to say yes. He was always happy to introduce him to cooking—and not just because it was a nice distraction. But the oil freaked him out more than usual. “Not today, kiddo. It’s not safe.”

“Okay. Can I watch?”

“Sure. You can sit by the table.” Mason wanted to send the kid as far away from the kitchen as possible, but he knew that Dean was working in the office. Wyatt was probably bored.

Mason kept his full attention on what he was making, so he jumped when Wyatt spoke again. “I wanna cook food like you when I get bigger. And make veggies like Daddy. And then I want lots and lots of horses.”

Mason allowed himself a smile. He wondered if Dean knew about Wyatt’s plans for the future, though the next day he might want to be an astronaut or a fireman.

“I’m sure you’d be great at it.”

Wyatt hummed his agreement. “Do you think I can go visit Anna soon? She said she’d show me how to make paper snowflakes.”

“You should ask your daddy.” Mason bit his lip as he lowered the first batch of vegetable fries into the oil.

“How come you can’t just say yes?”

Mason glanced away from the oil quickly to see Wyatt’s frown. “Because your daddy’s the one who decides what you can and can’t do until you get old enough to decide for yourself.”

Wyatt sighed deeply. “That’s not fair.”

“Nope,” Mason agreed. He refrained from telling Wyatt that life was just like that.

Despite Mason’s anxiety, the vegetables turned out exactly as he wanted, and he added them to dinner.

“Go tell Daddy that it’s time for dinner, please,” he told Wyatt.

Wyatt ran off and came back a few minutes later dragging Dean by the sleeve. He was talking on his cell phone.

“You didn’t promise them anything, did you?” he spoke into the phone, looking concerned.

Mason finished setting the table and helped Wyatt fill a plate for himself. He was learning to go without peas for a night or two.

“That’s amazing, then. Thanks, Karen. I’ll talk to you later.” Dean ended the call and pocketed his phone. “Good news. Well, I hope it’s good news, anyway.”

“Do share.” Mason fixed plates for Dean and himself before sitting down. He could use some good news. The whole facing-his-fears thing was wearing him thin.

“Well, Karen took it upon herself to start asking around, kind of doing her own little survey, about catering. Seems like we’d get plenty of business.”

Mason felt like he was suffocating, but he forced himself to smile. “That’s great.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t mean there’s any rush. We’ll launch it when we’re ready. When we’re
all
ready. It’s nice to know that there’s a good chance we’d be successful, though.”

“Yeah.” Not convinced, all Mason saw was more pressure. He had to remind himself that he’d not only agreed to it, he’d volunteered to be Dean’s chef in the first place.

“Mase.” Dean waited until Mason’s curiosity made him look up. “I don’t care if we launch in a week, a month, a year, or a decade.”

“I do,” Mason muttered.

Dean sighed. “One step at a time.”

The rest of the dinner was quiet except for Wyatt’s chatter and Dean’s short comments. Mason brooded over his own failure, and then because stubbornness had grabbed him by the throat, spent an hour after dinner making shortbread. Whatever it took, he’d win back the ease in the kitchen that had once been as natural to him as breathing. Even if it killed him.

D
EAN
WANTED
to kick himself for mentioning the catering. Mason was pushing himself too hard. There were dark circles under his eyes and he walked around as if in a trance, startling whenever he heard a noise.