Christmastime Cowboy
Maisey Yates
It’s Christmas in Copper Ridge, and love is waiting to be unwrapped…Falling for a bad boy once is forgivable. Twice would just be foolish. When Sabrina Leighton first offered her teenage innocence to gorgeous, tattooed Liam Donnelly, he humiliated her, then left town. The hurt still lingers. But so does that crazy spark. And if they have to work together to set up her family winery's new tasting room by Christmas, why not work him out of her system with a sizzling affair?Thirteen years ago, Liam’s boss at the winery offered him a bribe—leave his teenage daughter alone and get a full ride at college. Convinced he wasn’t good enough for Sabrina, Liam took it. Now he’s back, as wealthy as sin and with a heart as cold as the Oregon snow. Or so he keeps telling himself. Because the girl he vowed to stay away from has become the only woman he needs, and this Christmas could be just the beginning of a lifetime together…
It’s Christmas in Copper Ridge, and love is waiting to be unwrapped...
Falling for a bad boy once is forgivable. Twice would just be foolish. When Sabrina Leighton first offered her teenage innocence to gorgeous, tattooed Liam Donnelly, he humiliated her, then left town. The hurt still lingers. But so does that crazy spark. And if they have to work together to set up her family winery’s new tasting room by Christmas, why not work him out of her system with a sizzling affair?
Thirteen years ago, Liam’s boss at the winery offered him a bribe—leave his teenage daughter alone and get a full ride at college. Convinced he wasn’t good enough for Sabrina, Liam took it. Now he’s back, as wealthy as sin and with a heart as cold as the Oregon snow. Or so he keeps telling himself. Because the girl he vowed to stay away from has become the only woman he needs, and this Christmas could be just the beginning of a lifetime together...
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates
“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”
—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy
“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”
—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy
“Yates writes a story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won in the second Copper Ridge installment... This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”
—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy
“The setting is vivid, the secondary characters charming, and the plot has depth and interesting twists. But it is the hero and heroine who truly drive this story.”
—BookPage on Bad News Cowboy
“Yates’s thrilling seventh Copper Ridge contemporary proves that friendship can evolve into scintillating romance... This is a surefire winner not to be missed.”
—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)
“This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”
—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy
Christmastime Cowboy
Maisey Yates
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982),
Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. The spirit of the season—love, joy and togetherness—makes the winter seem brighter and miracles seem possible.
Liam Donnelly and Sabrina Leighton are in need of a miracle. Years ago Liam broke Sabrina’s heart, and she hasn’t been able to move on. But now that she and Liam have to work together to make a new business venture a success before Christmas, they might end up with a holiday miracle of their own.
In this book I’m excited not only to welcome you to Christmastime in Copper Ridge, but also to spread the cheer to the neighboring town of Gold Valley—home to true-blue cowboys, family-owned wineries and rustic ranches. More Gold Valley novels are on the way in 2018, but don’t miss the special bonus novella included in this volume, which introduces you to the town and some of the people in it. In Cowboy Christmas Blues, Cooper Mason dreads going home for the holidays—but when he reunites with childhood friend Annabelle Preston, his future in Gold Valley has never looked brighter.
I hope you’ll enjoy these two festive new holiday reads, and keep an eye out for a new Gold Valley book, Smooth-Talking Cowboy, coming soon to a bookstore near you.
Happy reading,
Maisey Yates
Contents
Cover (#uad53fedd-e75c-5dcd-b203-ee88c51c0270)
Back Cover Text (#ud30a6c42-9e48-5bcc-9c29-740ac44b1d98)
Praise (#u81a298fb-30a5-53ad-be5a-465cedb64ee6)
Title Page (#ua5c62227-17a9-5208-a769-c6a4c7859cbb)
Dear Reader (#uad285264-c186-5e4f-971a-6cbe9b3f21dd)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua3e1bcd1-0b33-5650-bfa0-30656a47cc33)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9c9c7d1d-7677-5764-a9aa-eecc29283e18)
CHAPTER THREE (#u542d4489-154c-5f53-9279-1ba2646f5d91)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u6bdef813-1137-5b06-98db-044894b929b9)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u999cc5ea-6324-5610-b6aa-23cf727bd789)
CHAPTER SIX (#u18870ea4-4855-5461-82a6-1d68dc97ee9b)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
LIAM DONNELLY WAS nobody’s favorite.
Though being a favorite in their household growing up would never have meant much, Liam was confident that as much as both of his parents disdained their younger son, Alex, they hated Liam more.
As much as his brothers loved him—or whatever you wanted to call their brand of affection—Liam knew he wasn’t the one they’d carry out if there was a house fire. That was fine too.
It wasn’t self-pity. It was just a fact.
But while he wasn’t anyone’s particular favorite, he knew he was at least one person’s least favorite.
Sabrina Leighton hated him with every ounce of her beautiful, petite body. Not that he blamed her. But, considering they were having a business meeting today, he did hope that she could keep some of the hatred bottled up.
Liam got out of his truck and put his cowboy hat on, surveying his surroundings. The Grassroots winery spread was beautiful, with a large, picturesque home overlooking the grounds. The winery and the road leading up to it were carved into a mountainside. Trees and forest surrounded the facility on three sides, creating a secluded feeling. Like the winery was part of another world. In front of the first renovated barn was a sprawling lawn and a path that led down to the river. There was a seating area there and Liam knew that during the warmer months it was a nice place to hang out. Right now, it was too damned cold, and the damp air that blew up from the rushing water sent a chill straight through him.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept on walking. There were three rustic barns on the property that they used for weddings and dinners, and one that had been fully remodeled into a dining and tasting room.
He had seen the new additions online. He hadn’t actually been to Grassroots in the past thirteen years. That was part of the deal. The deal that had been struck back when Jamison Leighton was still owner of the place.
Back when Liam had been nothing more than a good-for-nothing, low-class troublemaker with a couple of misdemeanors to his credit.
Times changed.
Liam might still be all of those things at heart, but he was also a successful businessman. And Jamison Leighton no longer owned Grassroots Winery.
Some things, however, hadn’t changed. The presence of Sabrina Leighton being one of them.
It had been thirteen years. But he couldn’t pretend that he thought everything was all right and forgiven. Not considering the way she had reacted when she had seen him at Ace’s bar the past few months. Small towns.
Like everybody was at the same party and could only avoid each other for so long.
If it wasn’t at the bar, they would most certainly end up at a four-way stop at the same time, or in the same aisle at the grocery store.
But today’s meeting would not be accidental. Today’s meeting was planned. He wondered if something would get thrown at him. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
He walked across the gravel lot and into the dining room. It was empty, since the facility had yet to open for the day.
The place was totally in keeping with current trends. Old made new. A rustic barn with a wooden chandelier hanging in the center. There was a bar with stools positioned at the front, and tables set up around the room. Back when he had worked here there had been one basic tasting room, and nowhere for anyone to sit. Most of the wine had been sent out to retail stores for sale, rather than making the winery itself some kind of destination.
He wondered when all of that had changed. He imagined it had something to do with Lindy, the new owner and ex-wife of Jamison Leighton’s son, Damien. As far as Liam knew, and he knew enough—considering he didn’t get involved with business ventures without figuring out what he was getting into—Damien had drafted the world’s dumbest prenuptial agreement. At least, it was dumb for a man who clearly had problems keeping it in his pants.
Though why Sabrina was still working at the winery when her sister-in-law had current ownership, and her brother had been deposed, and her parents were—from what he had read in public records—apoplectic about the loss of their family legacy, he didn’t know. But he assumed he would find out. About the same time he found out whether or not something was going to get thrown at his head.
The door from the back opened, and he gritted his teeth. Because, no matter how prepared he felt philosophically to see Sabrina, he knew that there would be impact. There always was. A damned funny thing, that one woman could live in the back of his mind the way that she had for so long. That no matter how many years, or how many women he put between them, she still burned bright and hot in his memory.
That no matter how he had prepared himself to run into her—because he knew how small towns worked—the impact was like a brick to the side of his head every single time.
And no matter that this meeting was carefully orchestrated and planned, he knew it was going to be the same.
And it was.
She appeared a moment after the door opened, looking severe. Overly so. Her blond hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and she was wearing a black sheath dress that went down past her knee, but conformed to curves that were more generous than they’d been thirteen years ago.
In a good way.
“Hello, Liam,” she said, her tone impersonal. Had she not used his first name, it might have been easy to pretend that she didn’t know who he was.
“Sabrina.” The word came out neutrally enough, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that he could taste it. Like honey on his lips. Sweet. Enticing.
Something he hadn’t tasted in far too long.
Sabrina didn’t seem to feel the moment at all. Her expression remained cool. Her lips set in a flat line, her blue eyes looking through him.
“Lindy told me that you wanted to talk about a potential joint venture. And since that falls under my jurisdiction as manager of the tasting room, she thought we might want to work together.”
She finally smiled.
The smile was so brittle it looked like it might crack her face.
“Yes, I am familiar with the details. Particularly since this venture was my idea.” He let a small silence hang there for a beat before continuing. “I’m looking at an empty building at the end of Main Street in Copper Ridge. I think it would be a great opportunity for both The Laughing Irish and for Grassroots. A tasting room that’s more easily accessible to the tourists who come to Copper Ridge.”
“How would it differ from Lane Donnelly’s store? She sells specialty foods.”
“Well, we would focus on Grassroots Wine and Laughing Irish cheese. Also, I would happily purchase products from Lane’s to give the menu a local focus. It would be nothing big. Just a small lunch place with wine. Very limited selection. Very specialty. But in a town like Copper Ridge, that works well. People want to wander the historic main street and shop in boutiques. A place that offers the chance to sit and have a short break is perfect.”
“Great,” she said, her smile remaining completely immobile.
He took that moment to examine her even more closely. She was more beautiful now than she had been at seventeen. Her slightly round, soft face had refined in the ensuing years, her cheekbones now more prominent, the angle of her chin sharper.
Her eyebrows looked different too. When she’d been a teenager they had been thinner, rounder. Now they were stronger, more angular.
“Great,” he returned. “I guess we can go down and have a look at everything sometime this week. Gage West is the owner of the property, and he hasn’t listed it yet. Handily, my sister-in-law is good friends with his wife. Both of my sisters-in-law, actually. So I’ve got the inside track on that.”
Her expression turned bland. “How impressive.”
She sounded absolutely unimpressed. “It wasn’t intended to be impressive. Just useful.”
Her lips twitched, like she was holding back a smile. But not a particularly nice smile. “Well, aim for what you can achieve, I suppose.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t be impressive if I had the mind to be,” he said, unwilling to let that dig go.
Her lips twitched again, but this time he sensed a lot more irritation than he had before. “That won’t be necessary.” She cleared her throat. “Lindy and I had discussed a shop front in Gold Valley, since it’s slightly closer to the winery, and at the moment retail space is cheaper there. Why are you thinking Copper Ridge? Aside from the fact that it’s closer to your ranch.”
“I just told you. I have the inside track on a good deal. Plus, Gold Valley isn’t as established a tourist spot as Copper Ridge. It’s definitely on its way, but it’s not there yet.”
“But it’s on its way like you said. Property values are only going to go up.”
“Property values in Copper Ridge already have. And oceanside real estate isn’t going to get cheaper. At the price Gage is willing to sell for we’ll come in with equity.”
She looked irritated, but clearly didn’t have another argument ready. She sighed slowly. “Did you have a day of the week in mind to go view the property? Because I really am very busy.”
“Are you?”
“Yes,” she responded, that smile spreading over her face again. “This is a very demanding job, plus, I do have a life.”
She stopped short of saying exactly what that life entailed.
“Too busy to work on this project, which is part of your actual job?” he asked.
She looked calm, but he could sense a dark energy beneath the surface that spoke of a need to savage him. “I had my schedule sorted out for the next couple of weeks. This is coming together more quickly than expected.”
“I’ll work something out with Gage and give Lindy a call, how about that?”
“You don’t have to call Lindy. I’ll give you my phone number. You can call or text me directly.”
She reached over to the counter and chose a card from the rustic surface, extending her hand toward him. He took the card, their fingertips brushing each other as they made the handoff.
And he felt it. Straight down to his groin, where he had always felt things for her, even though it was impossible. Even though he was all wrong for her. And even though now they were doing a business deal together, and she looked like she would cheerfully chew through his flesh if given half the chance.
She might be smiling. But he didn’t trust that smile. He was still waiting. Waiting for her to shout recriminations at him now that they were alone. Every other time he had encountered her over the past four months it had been in public. Twice in Ace’s bar, and once walking down the street, where she had made a very quick sharp left to avoid walking past him.
It had not been subtle, and it had certainly not spoken of somebody who was over the past.
So, his assumption had been that if the two of them were ever alone she was going to let them have it. But she didn’t. Instead, she gave him that card, and then began to look...bored.
“Did you need anything else?” she asked, still looking determinedly cheerful.
“Not really. Though I have some spreadsheet information that you might want to look over. Ideas that I have for the layout, the menu. It is getting a little ahead of ourselves, in case we end up not liking the venue.”
“You’ve been to look at the venue already, haven’t you?” It was vaguely accusatory.
“I have been to the venue, yes. But again, I believe in preparedness. I was hardly going to get very deep into this if I didn’t think it was viable. Personally, I’m interested in making sure that we have diverse interests. The economy doesn’t typically favor farms, Sabrina. And that is essentially what my brothers and I have. I expect an uphill fight to make the ranch successful.”
She tilted her head to the side. “And yet, our winery is well established and very healthy.”
“But Lindy wants to expand, I’m not incorrect about that. She was very interested in this proposition, and not only that, she’s started hosting weddings and farm-to-table dinners, right?”
“You know you’re right,” she said. “Like you said, you do your research.”
Her friendliness was beginning to slip. And he waited. For something else. For something to get thrown at him. It didn’t happen.
“That I do. Take these,” he said, handing her the folder that he was holding on to. He made sure their fingers didn’t touch this time. “And we’ll talk next week.”
Then he turned and walked away from her, and resisted the strong impulse to turn back and get one more glance at her. It wasn’t the first time he had resisted that.
He had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last.
* * *
AS SOON AS Liam walked out of the tasting room Sabrina let out a breath that had been killing her to keep in. A breath that contained about a thousand insults and recriminations. And more than a few very colorful swear word combinations. A breath that nearly cut her throat, because it was full of so many sharp and terrible things.
She lifted her hands to her face and realized that they were shaking. It had been thirteen years. Why did he still affect her like this? Maybe, just maybe, if she had ever found a man that made her feel even half of what Liam did it wouldn’t be so bad dealing with him. The feelings wouldn’t be so strong.
But she hadn’t. So, that supposition was basically moot.
Everything that had been beautiful about him then had only magnified in intensity since. That square jaw more firm. Gold-tipped hair she wanted to run her fingers through. Green eyes that seemed to see directly inside her.
The worst part was the tattoos. He’d had about three when he’d been nineteen. Now, they covered both of his arms, and she had the strongest urge to make them as familiar to her as the original tattoos had been. To memorize each and every detail about them.
The tree was the one that really caught her attention. The Celtic knots, she knew, were likely a nod to Irish heritage, but the tree—whose branches she could see stretching down from his shoulder—she was curious about what that meant.
“And you are spending too much time thinking about him,” she admonished herself.
She shouldn’t be thinking about him at all. She should just focus on congratulating herself for saying nothing stupid. Well, except the thing about the can opener. So, she had almost said nothing stupid. But at least it hadn’t been specific. At least she hadn’t cried and demanded answers for the night he had completely laid waste to her every feeling.
So, that was that.
“How did it go?”
Sabrina turned and saw her sister-in-law, Lindy, come in. People would be forgiven for thinking that she and Lindy were actually biological sisters. In fact, they looked much more alike than Sabrina and her younger sister, Beatrix, did.
Like Sabrina, Lindy had long, straight blond hair. Bea had freckles all over her face and a wild riot of reddish brown curls that resisted taming almost as strongly as the youngest Leighton child herself did.
That was another thing Sabrina and Lindy had in common. They were predominantly tame. At least, they kept things as together as they possibly could on the surface.
“Fine.”
“You didn’t savage him with a cheese knife?”
“Lindy,” Sabrina said, “please. This is dry-clean only.” She waved her hand up and down, indicating her dress.
“I don’t know what your whole issue is with him...”
Because no one spoke of it. Lindy had married her brother after the unpleasantness. It was no secret that Sabrina and her father were estranged—even if it was a brittle, quiet estrangement. But unless Damien had told Lindy the details—and Sabrina doubted he knew all of them—her sister-in-law wouldn’t know the whole story.
“I don’t have an issue with him,” Sabrina said. “I knew him thirteen years ago. That has nothing to do with now. It has nothing to do with this new venture for the winery. Which I am on board with 100 percent.” It was true. She was.
There had been no question about whether or not she was going to side with Damien or Lindy in the divorce. And unfortunately, what Damien had done necessitated picking sides. Though, more accurately, the ensuing legal battle over the winery had been the major thing that necessitated taking sides.
It had been a simple thing in Sabrina’s mind. Her relationship with her father was so difficult already that aligning herself with Lindy had really only confirmed more of what he thought of her anyway.
Part of her understood her parents’ reactions to all of this. She did. In their minds, Grassroots was theirs. But they had foolishly given the entire thing to their oldest son, not considering their daughters at all. And then, said son had gotten married, and they had drafted a prenup designed only to protect him. Of course, that prenup, with its clause about infidelity, had backfired on Damien, not on Lindy.
Yes. Sabrina had a hard time feeling sorry for her older brother or her parents.
“Well,” Lindy said. “That’s good to hear.”
She could tell that Lindy didn’t believe her. But, whatever. “It’s going to be fine. I’m looking forward to this.” That was also true. Mostly. She was looking forward to expanding the winery. Looking forward to helping build the winery, and making it into something that was truly theirs. So that her parents could no longer shout recriminations about Lindy stealing something from the Leighton family.
Eventually, they would have made the winery so much more successful that most of it would be theirs.
And if her own issues with her parents were tangled up in all of this, then...that was just how it was.
“Looking forward to what?” Lindy’s brother, Dane, came into the room, a grin on his handsome face. A grin that had likely melted even the iciest of women into puddles. For her part, Sabrina was immune to him. He was like a brother to her.
He was only back at the winery to offer Lindy support during his off-season. Sabrina could tell that he was more than a little antsy to get out of here about now. Shockingly, handing out small samples of cheese was not in his wheelhouse.
“The new tasting room venture,” Sabrina said, doing her best to make sure that her words sounded light. It was starting to feel a little bit crowded in here. She needed a chance to have a post-Liam comedown. Which was impossible to do with Lindy and Dane looking at her so intently.
“Oh, right. That’s going well?”
“Well, it’s getting started,” she said to Dane.
Those thoughts swirled around in her head, caused tension to mount in her chest, a hard little ball of anger and meanness that she couldn’t quite shake. Didn’t really want to.
“I guess that’s good news,” Dane said, rocking back on his heels.
Lindy and Damien had been married long enough that Dane felt like family to Sabrina too. He’d been in her life for ten years, and he really did feel like a brother to her. In some ways, more than Damien did. Even more so now as it was difficult to reconcile with a brother that had betrayed someone she cared for so much.
“Great news,” Lindy said brightly. “It’s exactly what we need. More forward motion. More... More.”
“Until you have a swimming pool full of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck?” Dane asked.
Lindy narrowed her eyes. “This has nothing to do with money. It’s about making the winery successful. And okay, it has a little bit to do with money, because I do like food. And having a roof over my head.”
“And sticking it to your asshole ex by living underneath the roof that used to be over his head?” Dane grinned.
The corner of Lindy’s mouth quirked upward, and Sabrina could clearly see the resemblance between her and Dane. “It’s not unpleasant.” She cleared her throat. “I really want the goal to be that we have this tasting room up and ready to go for the Christmas festivities this year.”
“That is...awfully quick, Lin,” Dane said.
“Sure,” Lindy said, waving a hand. “But it isn’t like we’re a start-up. It’s just a new, extended showroom. And with the plans that Lydia West has for Christmas this year, we can’t afford to not be open. It’s going to be a whole Victorian Christmas celebration this year with carolers and chestnuts roasting on...well, probably not open fires because of safety. But we need to be there with hot mulled wine and cheeses and goodwill toward men!”
“Did you want to add world peace too?” Dane asked. “Because with all that you might as well.”
Dane wasn’t wrong. It was a very tall order. But they knew exactly what they wanted the showroom to have, and they already had stock at the winery. They would just be moving some of it to town. So it might be tricky, but not impossible.
And suddenly Sabrina wanted it all to work, and work well. If for no other reason than to prove to Liam that she was not at all the seventeen-year-old girl whose world he’d wrecked all those years ago.
Sabrina had to admit she envied the tangible ways in which Lindy was able to get revenge on Damien. Of course, her relationship with Liam wasn’t anything like a ten-year marriage ended by infidelity. She gritted her teeth. And she did her best not to think about Liam. About the past. Because it hurt. Every damn time it hurt. It didn’t matter if it should or not.
Didn’t matter if it was something she should be over. It was stuck there, a thorn in her heart that she wasn’t sure how to remove. If she could have figured that out, she would have done it a long time ago.
At least, for a while, she hadn’t thought about him all the time.
She had tried to date. She’d really tried when she’d been working in Gold Valley and had been exposed to men she hadn’t known as well at school in Copper Ridge. But it just hadn’t worked. Inevitably, there would be comparisons between the way Liam made her feel and the way those guys made her feel. Which was... Well, there was no comparison, really.
But now that he was back in town, now that she sometimes just happened to run into him, it was different. It was harder not to think about him. Him and the grand disaster that had happened after. The way it had ruined her relationship with her father. And that thorn in her heart constantly felt like it was being worked in deeper.
That first time she had run into Liam when he had come back...
She had walked into Ace’s bar, ready to have a drink with Lindy after a long day of work, and he had been there. She hadn’t even questioned whether or not it was him. He looked different, older, deep grooves bracketing the side of his mouth, lines around his eyes.
His chest was broader, thicker. And there had been tattoos covering the whole of his arms. But it was Liam. It was most definitely Liam, and before her brain had been able to process it, her body had gone into a full-scale episode.
Her heart had nearly lurched into her throat, her pulse racing and then echoing between her thighs, an immediate reminder of how it had always been to be near him. A tragic confirmation that her memory had not blown those feelings out of proportion.
Because, after enough years of unexciting good-night kisses and attempts at physical relationships that hadn’t gone any further than a man putting his hand up her shirt while sitting on his couch, she had started to wonder if she had really ever felt anything close to the intensity that she’d associated with Liam. For sure, she had started to think, her memory had exaggerated it, and was actively sabotaging her now.
But such hopeful notions had been demolished when she had seen him again.
And with that attraction had come anger. Because how dare he? How dare he show up in her part of Oregon again, after abandoning her the way that he had. How dare he come back to Copper Ridge and invade her space like this? He was supposed to stay away.
Mostly, she was angry that he had the nerve to come back even sexier than he’d been before. If there was any justice in the world he would have lost his hair, gotten a beer gut and had his face eaten off by a roving band of rabid foxes. Yeah, those things combined might have worked together to make Liam Donnelly less appealing to her.
But there were never any rabid roving foxes around when you needed them.
The door to the winery tasting room opened again, and in walked her sister, Beatrix, who was holding a large cardboard box that she was staring down into worriedly. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles, a leaf attached to one of the wayward curls.
At twenty-two, Beatrix sometimes seemed much younger than that, and occasionally much older. She was a strange, somewhat solitary creature who defied any and all expectation, and was a source of incredible frustration for their parents.
Sabrina had spent a great many years trying to be exactly what her parents wanted her to be. Beatrix had never even tried. And somehow Bea wasn’t the one their father wouldn’t speak directly to.
Not that she could hold it against Bea. No one could hold anything against Bea.
“What do you have in the box, Bea?” Dane asked.
“Herons,” Beatrix responded. “Green herons. They got kicked out of their nest.”
Lindy’s forehead wrinkled. “Beatrix, could you not bring wildlife into the dining room? We have food in here.”
“I just wanted to see if you had an extra dropper. I have one, but I can’t find the other one.”
“I don’t think I have a dropper in my dining room,” Lindy said.
“The kind you use for medicine,” Beatrix pressed.
“Yes,” Lindy said, “I actually did understand what you meant.”
Beatrix looked fully bemused by the idea that Lindy did not have a dropper readily at her disposal.
“Okay. I guess I’m going to have to go down to town.” Which, Sabrina knew, Beatrix didn’t like to do.
“I have to go down later,” Dane said. “I’ll get one for you, Bea.”
Beatrix brightened, and her cheeks turned slightly pink. “Thank you.”
Sabrina occasionally worried that Beatrix did not see Dane as a brother, which was fair enough, since he wasn’t even actually their brother-in-law. But Dane was not the kind of guy for a sweet girl like her, and anyway he was far too old for her. About ten years and a whole other lifetime of experience.
She would worry more than occasionally if she thought that Dane returned Beatrix’s feelings at all. Fortunately, his attitude toward her was entirely appropriate. He saw her as a younger sister, as he should.
But that didn’t seem to change the fact that Beatrix’s entire face illuminated whenever he spoke to her.
“Come on, I’ll help you find a safe place for your herons so you can stick close to them today.” Beatrix followed Dane out of the tasting room, leaving Lindy and Sabrina alone.
Lindy didn’t say anything, but she did lift one eyebrow. Sabrina had a feeling she wasn’t the only one who had observed Beatrix’s response to Dane.
In some ways, it hurt Sabrina to see it. She had to accept the fact that she might actually be projecting. Because there had been one summer when she had followed a man around like that. Looked at him like the sun rose and fell on his broad shoulders.
And she had confided in him. Her hopes, her dreams. Her secret fears. And they hadn’t mattered to him at all.
In the end he had made a fool out of her.
She looked at Lindy again, and noticed that her sister-in-law had some fresh lines on her pretty face. She had to wonder if she was having similar thoughts right now too.
“Good thing we know better,” Lindy said finally. “Huh?”
Sabrina laughed, and even she thought she sounded a little bit bitter. “I suppose so.”
But that was the thing, she did know better. It was the one good thing about everything that had happened with Liam all those years ago. She had trusted her heart’s wants. Fully. Completely.
And no matter how her body might react to him now, she had learned her lesson.
She would not be making that mistake again. Ever.
CHAPTER TWO (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
BY THE TIME Liam pulled back into the Laughing Irish Ranch he was feeling pretty good about the venture with Grassroots. As far as he could tell Lindy was a good businesswoman, and she had something to prove, which would help fuel the fire.
Liam wasn’t immune to the need to prove things. He’d come back to town and swung by Jamison Leighton’s lake house—which had turned out to be a home built near a man-made lake, in a neighborhood along with about twenty other homes, not a cabin set in the pristine wilderness, and it was splitting hairs to notice, but Liam did, because he was pissed and willing to be petty—to write the old man a check. To pay him back, with interest, for the money he’d gotten to leave in the first place.
The look on his face had been worth the trip out to Copper Ridge all on its own.
He pulled up in front of his family’s ranch house and his truck skidded to a stop, the fine coating of ice over the gravel making traction a bit of an issue. He got out and looked up to see his brother Finn standing by the porch smiling, a gold wedding band gleaming on his left hand.
Liam had never seen anyone so happy to be tied down. Except for maybe his older brother Cain, and his younger brother, Alex. They were pretty damn happy to be tied down too.
Liam was...well, kind of ambivalent about all the romance he was surrounded with at all times.
Alex and Clara had moved to her ranch, though Alex continued to work at the Laughing Irish. Cain and his wife, Alison, and Cain’s daughter, Violet, lived in another house on the property that Cain had refurbished for them out of an old barn.
Which left Liam, Finn and Finn’s wife, Lane, in the main house.
It wasn’t really bad. Lane was a fantastic cook, and Liam got all the benefits of having a wife without actually having to have one. Well, except for the sex.
Not that he wanted to have sex with his brother’s wife. Even Liam Donnelly had his limits.
“How did it go?” Finn asked.
Of the four of them, Finn had been at the ranch the longest. He had worked with their grandfather from the time he was sixteen years old. The place was in his blood. And this expansion both excited him and made him nervous. Mostly, Liam felt like Finn wanted to kill him with his bare hands.
If Finn had his way, he would essentially keep the status quo. But between Lane and Liam he’d encountered a constant push for change. For growth.
He knew that Finn hated that. But Liam was good at it. He was good at start-ups. He was good in investments. And, if the expansion of the Laughing Irish went to hell, he had a shit-ton of money to back it all up.
Money that just kind of sat there now. Money that didn’t seem to mean anything or accomplish anything. He didn’t have much else to offer. He had capital. Which, when you were kind of an asshole, was always the smart thing to lead with.
“It went well. I’m going to be working with Sabrina Leighton on the project.”
He started to walk past Finn up the porch and into the house, then turned and caught sight of his brother’s expression. It was just a little too hard. A little too insightful. “Did you have a comment, Finn?”
“I have a lot of comments. But because I’m not entirely sure what went down with you and Sabrina—or really, what went on in your life at any point when you weren’t on the ranch—it’s tough for me to pare it down to the most effective one.”
“Good. You’re easier to deal with when you’re at a loss for words.” Liam let out a breath. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have a history with Sabrina. I do, in that she hates me.” It wasn’t that he didn’t know why. And, no matter how committed he was to the denial of having led her on, he did have to admit at least to himself that he hadn’t been neutral about her.
No matter what she’d thought, when he’d left he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t regret the way he’d done it either. She might be mad at him, and he could even understand that. But it had been the right thing to do. The fact that she was still angry at him thirteen years later for about the most honorable damn thing he had ever done didn’t really seem fair.
Honorable and self-serving, maybe. But the honor was definitely present.
“And you’re going to be able to work with her in spite of that history?” Finn asked.
“I don’t think it’s the history you think it is. When I worked for Grassroots she was seventeen, Finn. I never slept with her. She got her hopes up that I would. That’s it.”
“So she turns and runs the other direction every time she sees you coming because she had a crush on you thirteen years ago? That’s it?”
Liam gritted his teeth and spread his hands. “That’s about the size of it. Apparently, I’m ruinous to women even when I don’t have sex with them.”
“I feel like you meant that to sound badass, but mostly, I just think it’s true.”
Liam shrugged, not even caring if his brother was insulting him. Not even caring if his words had been chosen poorly enough that he’d insulted himself. “We had a meeting today, and everything seems like it’s going to be fine. I don’t think she’s going to spend the entire time plotting my downfall.” He took a few more steps and walked into the house. Then stopped and turned. “Unless this is all an elaborate ruse to get revenge on me by destroying the Laughing Irish. In which case, Finn, I’ll go back to New York and leave you here in the smoldering wreckage.”
Finn glared at him and slammed the door behind them, enclosing them in the large entryway of the custom log cabin their grandfather had built about five years ago.
“The funny thing, Liam,” Finn said, sounding like he found nothing at the moment funny at all, “is that I think you believe that. But I know you wouldn’t. I know that you actually want this to succeed. Maybe not because you love the ranch. Maybe not because you love me. But most definitely for your damned stubborn pride.”
Liam rubbed his chin. “I do like my pride.”
“Yeah, you do. And I don’t think you would ever allow a ghost from your past to be responsible for your failure.”
They were just ribbing each other, and Liam knew it. But there was something a little too close to the truth in those words, and they gouged him in tender places. “Whatever the reason,” he said, “I’m not going to hang you out to dry.”
“You’ve gone soft.”
“If I have, it’s because of your wife’s cooking,” he responded. Then he slapped his hand against his stomach—which was still rock hard, thank you very much—for good measure.
“What’s your timeline to get the shop up and running?” Finn asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest, clearly done with the banter. Finn had limited patience for banter when it came to discussions of the ranch.
“I’m not sure. We’re going to look at property sometime this week. I have to get in touch with Gage West. I think once we start in on it we should be able to get the sale to go through quickly. But if something happens with the loan, I have the cash to front it.”
“I’m not having you do that, Liam,” Finn said. “I’m not putting your finances at that big of a risk.”
Liam bit back a frustrated curse. His brother didn’t understand because to him, that amount of money had more value. And Liam could understand that. He’d come from poverty. But now he had money. And he didn’t know how the hell else he was supposed to contribute. “What do I care? Do you see me spending money?” He looked down at his boots and lifted them up, tapping them on the floor, a sprinkling of mud landing there on the hard wood. “How old do you think these boots are?”
Lane, Finn’s wife, appeared from the kitchen, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her brown eyes glittering. “I don’t know how old your boots are, Liam Donnelly, but if you want to live to be any older than you are, I suggest you clean up that mud mess because I sure as hell am not going to do it. I’m not your maid.”
He bit back a comment about her being the cook. He had a feeling that right now, she would launch rockets from her eyes and leave him reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash. He didn’t know what the hell Lane’s problem had been lately but she’d been in kind of a mean mood for a while.
“I’ll clean it up,” he said. Though, not anytime soon. “I was just telling your husband that I don’t need all the money I have sitting in my bank account. I can afford to invest in the expansion of the ranch.”
That turned Lane’s focus to Finn.
Finn shot him a deadly glare. “Just because you can doesn’t mean I’m going to let you. This venture is ours, it’s equal. We can all put the money back into the storefront that we’re making on the ranch. We don’t need you to invest that much capital up front.”
“But I can,” Liam said.
And damn it, there had to be some use for that money. For that money that just felt like a weight. He had busted his ass, worked himself blind from the time he had been given the money to go to college. Twenty years old, coming in late, working up from a deficit, and he had done every damn thing he could to make sure that he succeeded. He didn’t graduate early. He didn’t graduate at the top, but it didn’t matter, because when it came to work, nobody was more willing to beat their knuckles bloody pounding the pavement than he was.
He worked long, and he worked hard. And he had amassed a fortune for himself working at large corporations and major cities. Investing in start-ups that became wildly successful, funding businesses and increasing profits.
And then one day he had stood in that corner office and looked out over Manhattan, in a position in life a boy from the sticks certainly had never imagined he’d be in, wearing a custom suit and honest-to-God Italian leather shoes and he had felt...
Exactly the same as he had twelve years earlier.
He didn’t feel better. He didn’t feel different. He didn’t feel healed. He didn’t feel any different from the boy who’d been stuck in his home. Afraid to make too much noise. Afraid to breathe wrong in case it brought his mother’s wrath down on him.
That was when he had gotten word that his grandfather had died and left him a quarter of a ranch in Copper Ridge, Oregon, and he had thought it might be time for him to go back.
For him to go back for the first time since Jamison Leighton had sent him packing with a bribe.
There was more here. More here than in that corner office. He wasn’t exactly sure he liked it or wanted it, but at least it offered a change of pace.
And his brothers.
He hadn’t grown up with Finn or Cain, and living with them, getting to know them had been... Well, there was something in that. Being around Alex again, the brother he had been raised with... That was always a little bit of a mixed blessing.
Not because he didn’t love Alex, he did. Alex’s happiness was the proof that he had done something right early in his life.
Their life growing up had been awful. But Alex’s had been a little less awful. Because Liam had been the lightning rod. And Alex had never even known it.
So yeah, he felt like he was on the right track here. And after all that emptiness, that seemed like a pretty good deal to him.
“Fine,” Liam said, “using my money won’t be the plan. But if loans or anything like that hold stuff up, let me do it.”
Finn opened his mouth to argue.
“Let me, Finn,” Liam said. “Let me give you this.”
His brothers seemed to give with themselves all the damn time and he couldn’t figure out quite how they did it. He knew how to create things. Knew how to make money. And he knew how to give money.
That was what he did.
“Fine,” Finn relented. “If we get into dire circumstances, I’ll let you throw some cash at it.”
“What’s the point in having a rich brother if you don’t use him?”
“I do use you. For hard labor. Which frankly I find more useful, Liam. I can earn more cash. I can’t grow another pair of hands.”
Liam shrugged, then started to walk toward the stairs. “Liam!” Lane called after him. “Clean up the mud! I’m trying to plan a Thanksgiving menu and you’re tracking mud all over the place.” She whirled around and went back into the kitchen, leaving a trail of sulfur in her wake.
“Boy,” Liam said, “she’s about as fun as a bee-stung wolverine at the moment, isn’t she?”
Which wasn’t fair. He knew that Lane was putting a lot into her and Finn’s first married Thanksgiving. Even though he was a jackass, Liam understood that.
“Hormones,” Finn said.
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Hormones?”
A slow smile spread over his brother’s face. “She’s pregnant.”
“Holy hell.”
Finn laughed. “Definitely putting that one in the baby book. What your uncle Liam said when we told him you were going to be born.”
“Why haven’t you told us yet?”
“Lane wanted to wait. You know, something about the second trimester, or something. But it’s close. And, I don’t want to keep it a secret anymore. So, congratulations. You’re going to be an uncle.”
“I’m already an uncle,” Liam said. “It’s just that my niece is almost an adult.”
“I wonder what Violet is going to think,” Finn said with a grin.
“A baby cousin might be something she can’t play it cool about.” Cain’s daughter was in the throes of teenage snark and angst, so it was difficult to guess how she’d react to much of anything.
As far as Liam went, he was happy for his brother. But it kind of underscored the fact that everyone around him was living in a completely different phase of life than him. A different phase of life than he was ever going to live. Marriage. Family. Babies. None of it was his cup of tea. Not at all. All that happy family stuff was just a load of crap as far as he was concerned.
Yeah, he knew some people were happy. But it had never been him. And he didn’t know why he would sign on to that kind of thing. Not again. He had grown up in a house with a mom and dad. They had been in love.
And it had been awful. Vile and toxic.
Full of drama and cheating. His mother taking her anger out on her sons—most especially him—and eventually the inevitable meltdown of the relationship.
Still, he hoped that Lane and Finn would be happy. They would keep being happy. As far as he could see, they were. And it wasn’t some kind of Leave It to Beaver fantasy. Where everybody acted like they had a lobotomy just because they had fallen in love and gotten married. No. They were real people still. They were just people who seemed committed to making a life with each other. People who really loved each other. But Finn and Lane had been best friends before they had fallen in love.
As for his brother Cain and his wife, Alison, it was a second marriage for both of them. They both knew what hadn’t worked the first time around, and they seemed settled this time. He figured if you were going to do it again, you had to be pretty damn sure.
And Alex... The youngest of the Donnellys had recently gotten engaged to his fiancée, Clara. And Liam thought that Clara particularly was a little young for all of that. But like Alex always was, he was happy. Reckless and certain. Liam was glad that Alex had that certainty even after their growing-up years.
Liam didn’t. More than that, he didn’t want it.
It didn’t mean that watching all this happiness unfold in front of him didn’t make his chest feel weird though. Didn’t make him feel like he was in a strange space of longing for something he knew wouldn’t actually suit him. Like being allergic to peanuts and wanting a Snickers bar.
It was a reminder. A reminder of that small, bright window of time where he had thought that maybe, just maybe, he could have something more. More than what he had ever imagined. More than what he had thought someone like him could ever hope to touch.
That summer with Sabrina.
He’d made the right choice then. He was confident in that.
And he didn’t like dredging up all this old crap.
But, since he was trying out having a family rather than existing in isolation, he figured he had better smile and say something that wasn’t profane. “Congratulations,” he said finally. “That’s great.”
“I’m not sure you really think it’s great,” Finn said, a slight smile on his lips.
“It’s great for you,” Liam said. “I want a wife and kids like I want a suspicious rash.”
“Given your behavior, the suspicious rash is a lot more likely.”
Liam flipped his brother off, then continued up the stairs. He needed something. To change before he went outside and worked. To take a hot shower. Something. Something to keep his head on straight. He had to call Gage West and figure out when he and Sabrina could meet up to deal with that real estate stuff. Which meant seeing Sabrina again.
He had gone thirteen years without seeing her, and it had worked out pretty well. Seeing her, he supposed, didn’t really have to mean a damn thing.
If he kept repeating that to himself, he might just start believing it.
CHAPTER THREE (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
SABRINA WAS SURE that Liam was out to ruin her life. Because not only did he manage to make their appointment to go look at the building the very next day after she had already shared the same airspace as him, but he made the appointment at 7:00 a.m.
Scowling, she charged into The Grind and shook the dampness from her boots, curling her toes and trying to stave off the chill. The coffeehouse always had a warmth about it, with its exposed brick walls and rough-hewn floor. It created a stark contrast with the stormy gray outside.
There was a line, because it was six forty-five, and she supposed that everybody was rushing to get their caffeine fix before they went about their days. Though there were also some retirees sitting, using social media on their tablets or playing crosswords in the newspaper. As if they had all the time in the world. Sabrina supposed they did.
There were a few people that look like they might be students, or graphic design types, wearing flannel with messy buns tied high on top of their heads. Men and women alike.
She envied them. She wanted to sit in the coffee shop all morning by herself on her computer. She did not want to contend with reality. She did not want to deal with Liam Donnelly, and yet, here she was about to be dealing with Liam Donnelly at far-too-early-o’clock.
She wrapped her arms around herself and hopped in place, distracting herself with her movements more than actually needing the warmth.
When she reached the front of the line, the girl behind the register smiled. Sabrina didn’t think she possessed the ability to smile at the moment. “Just a coffee,” she said. She was tempted to add that the girl was welcome to hold the cheer. “Room for cream.” She made no comments about cheer.
That was the worst part about living in a small town. You really couldn’t let yourself have a bad day. Because if you did, inevitably the person whose head you bit off today was the daughter of someone you needed to approve a permit tomorrow. Or the person writing up your bank loan.
Or just uncomfortably, someone you had to see day in and day out forever after and pretend that you never had a tantrum wherein you acted like a petty child that one time.
Small-town politics were a thing. A thing that left very little room for cranky faces and sharp remarks.
Though she was ever grateful for the etiquette that allowed two people to ignore each other as long as they could successfully not make eye contact. The tacit understanding that you could both pretend you hadn’t seen each other so that you could get on with your day.
That brought to mind the shock of running into Liam. That first time. They had definitely made eye contact. There was no way she could pretend she hadn’t seen him. And so she had fled Ace’s bar like a scalded cat.
Her pride had yet to recover from that. Because she had some difficulty explaining it the next day to her sister-in-law.
Not that she had given much explanation.
Frankly, the whole story with Liam was just more embarrassing than anything else. Embarrassing because she had been an idiot. Embarrassing because it still hurt. Because she had gone all-in on what her teenage heart had imagined was love, and caused a permanent rift with her father that hadn’t healed yet.
Just looking at Liam hurt. She didn’t know why, but it was all as tender as if it had happened yesterday.
Because when he had broken her heart, he had truly broken it.
She would love it if there was a more dramatic story. If she could claim that he had callously taken her virginity and ruined her for all other men, etc. etc.
Sadly, all she could really say was...that he had humiliated her. Made her feel like a fool. Made her feel as though she couldn’t trust a single instinct that she had. It had been the gutting loss of a friend and first love all in one. She’d laid herself bare to him—literally—and then he’d rejected her and disappeared. From her life. From town.
Then, not content to let that be the last of it, she’d confronted her father, who had confessed to her he’d told Liam to go. That he’d paid him to leave her alone.
Discovering that Liam had put a dollar amount on their friendship had been intensely wounding. Almost more so than his rejection.
But not even that had been enough for her in her seventeen-year-old despair. No, no. She’d had to get wasted at an event at the winery for the incumbent mayor of Copper Ridge and make a total ass of herself in front of every influential person in Logan County.
And loudly revealing her family’s worst secrets to hurt her father the way he’d hurt her...
Well, that wasn’t really about Liam anymore. Even if he was the root cause.
Of her estrangement with her dad and her eternal humiliation over playing the part of wounded opera heroine so publicly. As she put her pain and the depth of all her feelings on display for everyone.
Just remembering it made her skin crawl with humiliation.
She took a deep breath, trying to dispel the tightness in her chest. Trying her damnedest to smile when the girl behind the counter handed her her cup of coffee. She took the lid off, and the dark, scalding liquid spilled over the edge and onto her skin. She growled and stuck her thumb into her mouth, trying to alleviate some of the burn.
“Not a great morning?”
She bit down on her thumb, then jerked it out of her mouth, not wanting to turn and confirm what she already knew. But she had to.
She turned slowly, curling her lip upward into what she hoped resembled a smile. “Liam. I thought we were meeting down the street.”
“We are,” he said. He smiled. “I just had the same idea you did, apparently.”
Today, he was dressed in a button-up shirt that was open at the collar and a pair of dark-wash jeans and a belt. His shoes were...nice. Very nice.
“You look like...well, like you’re headed to a business meeting.” She wanted to bite her tongue off for that. Because of course he was headed to a business meeting. They were having a business meeting. And, she too was dressed up. It was just that yesterday he had not been so dressed up. Which meant he was dressing up for Gage, but didn’t see the point in dressing up for her.
That was fine with her. She didn’t want him to dress up for her. She didn’t want him to do anything for her except maybe jump into the sea and float way the hell out of town.
She, of course, had simply dressed up because it was what she did. Not because of him. Never because of him.
“I could say the same about you,” he said, deadpan. “I’m just going to order a coffee. We can walk over to the building together.”
She wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary. Actually, she wanted to hit and spit and act like she was choking so that he could fully understand her displeasure. But she wasn’t going to do that, because she was mature.
So there.
“Great,” she said, adding a sugar packet to her coffee and stirring it absently while Liam walked over to the counter. He placed his large hands flat on the surface, leaning in slightly, making rather intense eye contact with the girl behind the register as he proceeded to order.
Sabrina felt something curl in her stomach, and she continued to stir her coffee absently, tearing open another sugar packet and dumping it in without thinking.
The girl fluttered, her cheeks turning a particular shade of pink as she tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear.
Sabrina blinked, her upper lip curling without permission as she grabbed another sugar packet. She was stirring when she realized what she had done and sighed. It was too late, and now her coffee was two packets of sugar too sweet, and she was standing there acting like an idiot watching Liam flirt with a girl who had to be twenty-two.
At thirty, Sabrina did not find that amusing.
Of course, she shouldn’t care, because she shouldn’t care about anything that Liam Donnelly did. She should be more than happy to watch him flirt with another woman. He could crush somebody else’s self-esteem underneath his extremely nice shoe sole. He was not going to crush hers. Not ever again.
She deserved better than that.
She deserved...
Well, she deserved to get this tasting room up and running for her sister-in-law before Christmas. She deserved to have a lovely, cozy place to work in town where she could extol the virtues of Grassroots Wine and interact with customers, which was what she really liked to do.
Of course, that would mean not hanging out with her friend and fellow winery employee, Olivia, as much, because Olivia lived in Gold Valley and would definitely not be working the Copper Ridge tasting room. But they could still get together after work sometimes.
Her other friend, Clara, had quit working at Grassroots shortly after she had gotten engaged to her boyfriend, Alex. Which had been shortly after the bison had arrived at their ranch, and they had gotten busy with their new venture.
She was happy for her. She really was. But it meant she didn’t see her as often. But then, considering she was now the only single friend in that group, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Olivia was perennially dating Bennett Dodge her boyfriend of several years, whom Olivia seemed convinced was about to propose at any moment.
Definitely for Christmas, she had said.
Privately, Sabrina was afraid that Bennett had no plans to propose anytime soon. But since Sabrina was an abject failure at relationships she was never even tempted to voice that concern.
Though a woman standing there with a stomach that had gone acidic while watching a man who had never been into her flirting with somebody else had no call giving commentary to anyone.
Liam took his coffee from the register girl’s hands and their fingertips brushed, and Sabrina couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. She smoothed out her expression as Liam made his way over to the cream and sugar. He dumped one packet of sugar in his cup, stirred it slightly, then popped the lid back on. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
They walked out the front door and back onto the wet, frigid street. In a couple of weeks, it would be decorated for Christmas, and there would at least be some glittering lights to pierce the eternal fall gray that had descended upon the coast. Right now, it was just cold and wet. Sabrina lifted her shoulders to her ears, trying to brace herself from the chill, and not at all trying to fortify herself against Liam’s presence.
“You should be careful,” she said, unable to keep the words back.
“With...what? I’m not running with scissors, I’m walking. With coffee.”
“It’s hot coffee. I burned myself when I opened the lid.”
“Sorry about the burn. But I think I can handle walking and drinking. Maybe you were just distracted.”
“Me? Hardly. More like you were the distracted one. That girl was making a fool of herself over you,” she said, keeping her eyes determinedly fixed straight ahead on Main Street. Most of the shops weren’t open yet, and wouldn’t be for a couple of hours. Right now, only Pie in the Sky bakery was also up and running. The other shops, full of artisan gifts, vintage clothing and specialty foods, wouldn’t open until closer to ten, when the tourists were up and around.
“I didn’t notice,” he said.
That made her want to take the lid off her overly sweet coffee and splash it in his face. Because of course he didn’t notice. That was his MO. Make a young girl fall in love with him and then act like he hadn’t realized. Act like it was shocking and horrifying when she propositioned him.
“Right,” she said stiffly.
“Sabrina,” he said. “Are you going to spend our entire working relationship acting like you want to cut me open and feast on my liver?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Liam. I don’t like liver.”
“Are you going to spend our entire working relationship—”
Sabrina stopped walking and turned to face him. “If you lecture me on my behavior, Liam Donnelly, I really will kill you. I have no problem working with you in a professional capacity, because I am a professional. But the fact is, you don’t know me. You knew me thirteen years ago. And even then, you didn’t know me that well. So, you have no idea whether how I’m behaving is just the way I behave, or if it has something to do with you. Because you don’t know me. Remember that before you lecture me again.”
* * *
THE THING WAS, he did know her. At least, he had back then. He wasn’t going to say that though. But the fact of the matter was, there was a point in time when he had known Sabrina better than just about anyone. Because they had talked. At first, because she had followed him around with an obvious crush, but then gradually because he had come to enjoy her company.
That had been the problem with Sabrina from the beginning.
It was part of the problem with her now. Because, no matter that he should feel nothing for her, she was far too beautiful for her own good, for his own good. Just like always.
And when she’d kissed him...
Well, when she’d kissed him he’d felt like the sun had come out from behind the clouds for the first time. Something about that kiss had made him feel deep, Far more raw, far more real, than he was prepared for.
He was older now, and he doubted she could conjure up that stunning response in him again if she tried. He was also a little more jaded when it came to arousal, and still, she got to him.
Even though she was vibrating with irritability, her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, her posture rigid, as if she was doing an impersonation of a very indignant plank of wood, he still thought she was beautiful.
He wasn’t sure what the woman he’d ordered his coffee from had looked like. The woman Sabrina had accused him of flirting with. That was the funny thing. Sabrina had been seething at him about how he could never know her, all the while assuming she knew him.
He wouldn’t point out the hypocrisy, though, because there was no point. She was already mad at him. He would wait to throw something like that at her when she was relaxed and fine. That, at least, would result in a little more amusement.
Not that he should try to make Sabrina angry, or enjoy it in any fashion. But he found that he did.
“Sorry,” he said, not feeling sorry in the least.
“I don’t believe that.”
“That’s okay. A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing.”
She made a strange scoffing sound and tapped the top of her coffee cup. “Oh, I know. Believe me.”
They walked on in silence. Until Sabrina cleared her throat. “So, what have you been up to for the past...well, since I’ve seen you?”
He chuckled. “I don’t actually think you’re interested in that, Sabrina.”
“I am interested in that, Liam. Do you know how you can tell? Because I asked. If I wasn’t interested, I wouldn’t have.”
“Well. You have seen me a couple of times in Ace’s bar, and you didn’t ask me then. In fact, if memory serves, you just left.”
“Right. Well, I remembered that I had somewhere else I wanted to be.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere? Root canal?”
“Surprisingly, you’re not the first woman to say she’d rather get a root canal then be around me.”
Sabrina laughed, a short, somehow-unamused sound that was more than a little bit forced. “Well, I do hate to be unoriginal. Maybe not a root canal then. Maybe getting towed behind a fishing boat by my big toe?”
“That I haven’t heard.”
He didn’t answer her question, and she didn’t press. And then they had reached the end of the street, arriving at the vacant corner building he thought would be the ideal location for the showroom. They would catch most of the traffic as it came through Copper Ridge, and quite a bit of foot traffic too.
Anyone headed down to the beach would most likely come this way, and anyone headed out toward the winery itself, or to the town of Gold Valley, would pass through as well.
He could tell Sabrina all of that, but she was smart enough to figure it out on her own, and to see the advantages the location would bring to Grassroots. He had a feeling that any resistance she was putting up was just for the sake of it. Because she was still pissed at him. Which he had known, because of the aforementioned running out of the bar when she had seen him. Not that his own reaction had been neutral.
But that was the thing about her. The thing that he could never quite figure out.
He could forget women he’d had sex with. He had forgotten women he’d had sex with. More than once. He wasn’t exactly proud of his behavior in that particular arena, but it was what it was.
And before Sabrina, he had never gotten close to a woman without getting naked with her. And even then, there had been a limited emotional connection. He had his reasons for that, and they were good reasons, in his opinion.
Still, Sabrina had defied everything he’d known about himself. At least, in the end that was what it had added up to.
He hadn’t seen it coming. Not from the beginning. That was the important part. Meeting her hadn’t felt like anything special at all. It had seemed safe. Easy. If he’d had any idea what his feelings for her would turn into, he would have pushed her away a hell of a lot sooner.
But then he probably wouldn’t have gotten a full ride through school, so he supposed everything happened for a reason.
Still, he had not expected seeing her to feel like a punch in the chest. She had walked into Ace’s, those beautiful blue eyes widening as they had met with his. Like a magnet. The moment she had walked in he had looked, and she had found him.
As if there was no space between them at all. As if there weren’t thirteen years between them. Thirteen years and some hard decisions and some hurt.
And then, just like that, the moment had snapped in half, reality coming down on it like the fall of an ax. And she had run right out the door.
It had damn well ruined his night. He had been determined then that he was going to break the dry spell that he’d been in the midst of since he’d come back to the ranch. But then, of course, all he had been able to think of was Sabrina.
“This is it,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys.
“Are we meeting Gage here?”
“Nope.” He jammed the key into the lock and turned it. The lock was gold, ornate and old-fashioned. Not original to the building, he didn’t think. But possibly from the 1930s. Which was an odd thing to be focusing on, but it was that or continue to ruminate on Sabrina.
He pushed the cranberry-colored door open and gestured for her to go in first. She did not. Instead, she stood there, staring at him.
“I got the keys from Gage last night. He said it was fine if we had a look around.”
She was still staring at him.
“He’s not a real estate agent,” Liam said, walking into the building since it didn’t seem like she was going to. “He has other things to do that don’t entail hovering over us while we look around. Anyway, I thought you might appreciate the chance to speak freely.”
He could tell by the tentative steps that Sabrina took inside that she had been hoping Gage West would be here to act as a buffer between them. Liam had been hoping for no such thing. He didn’t want her to have a buffer. He didn’t want a buffer at all.
He didn’t need one. He was more than capable of dealing with the situation. Actually, he relished the chance to do this. Because he might have taken a deal a long time ago to stay away from Sabrina, but now, no man owned him. Least of all Jamison Leighton.
Which meant he could be here with her if he wanted to be. And actually, she was the one who had to play nice with him. The Leighton family didn’t hold a single damn thing over his head anymore.
He turned a slow circle and looked around the room. It was clean and in good condition. There was no furniture in it of any kind. It was just big and empty. Picture windows looked out over Main Street and out toward the Chamber of Commerce, the Crab Shanty and, beyond that, the ocean.
It was the best of Copper Ridge, all visible there from the shop.
They would need a counter, some coolers and a seating area. But, given that they planned to keep everything simple, it should come together pretty quickly. He had done a lot more with less.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
And then, a moment later he realized his mistake. Because there was no way Sabrina was going to let this be that simple. If he had voiced a complaint, he would be much more likely to get her on board.
Her lips twitched, and then her left shoulder. “I don’t know about that. And really, I think that Lindy should come and look at everything before we make decisions.”
“I was under the impression that Lindy had enough on her plate, and that she wanted you to handle it.”
He could see that Sabrina wasn’t used to being challenged directly. It was another thing that was interesting about her. Another difference. When he had known her she had been a lot more open. Sweeter. A lot more likely to crumple if pressure was applied.
Now she might be more outwardly brittle, but he had a feeling it would take an iron squeeze to get her to crack.
And when she did... Yeah, he was afraid she would shatter. And he had no intention of shattering her. Messing with her a little bit while they worked on this project was one thing. But he wasn’t a total dick.
“It’s a big decision though,” Sabrina said, “so, I think it’s definitely something she should be a little more involved in, no matter what she might think now. Right now... She’s just very focused. Very, very focused.”
“On?”
“Making my brother sorry he crossed her, I think.”
Liam frowned. “Yeah, what happened with that?” Lindy Parker hadn’t been in the picture back when Liam had worked at Grassroots, so he had no idea about the history between her and Damien Leighton.
“He cheated on her,” Sabrina said simply. “Ten years of marriage, and he had an affair. I’m not happy with my brother, Liam. Not at all. Lindy is like a sister to me, not just in law. Just because she and Damien got divorced doesn’t mean my connection with her is gone.”
“Hey, I’m all for a little revenge and retribution.”
Sabrina’s expression turned to stone. She was thinking about them again, and he knew it. He hardly thought it was fair for her to compare what he had done with what her brother had done to his wife. Because Liam had never cheated. Mostly because he had never made any promises.
“Go ahead,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“What?” she asked, blinking rapidly.
“Go ahead and yell at me. You want to. You’re mad at me. I get it. So we can keep on tiptoeing around it, or you could just go ahead and shout at me. Here and now. The room is empty, and I bet it has great acoustics.”
Sabrina’s eye twitched. She looked...well, she looked completely torn. And a little bit shocked. Both like she really wanted to take him up on his offer, and like she was wishing there was some furniture she could scurry underneath.
“Okay. How about I go first?” If there was one thing he didn’t mind, it was facing something head-on. “I saw you naked, I turned you down and you’re still mad.”
“I... That is not... You make it sound like...”
He shrugged. “I’m going to go ahead and make it easy for you. I’ve seen a lot of women naked. Before you, after you. I’m not picturing you naked when I look at you now.” That was a lie. But he didn’t really mind lying either. “So whatever you imagine is happening on my end, it’s not.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said.
She turned away from him and began to pace the perimeter of the room, paying closer than necessary attention to things like crown molding.
“That’s it?”
“I’m going to do exactly what we came here to do. Which is evaluate whether or not the building is suitable for our purposes. I wouldn’t say that it’s perfect,” she said, giving him a hard glare. “But I suppose it will work.”
“You’re ready to do this, then?”
“I still think that Lindy should drive down and have a look before we confirm, but I can’t imagine finding a better place.” She seemed almost downtrodden about that. Probably because this had been his idea.
Actually, she was capitulating much more easily than he had imagined, and it occurred to him that it was probably because she just wanted to get this project moving so that she could put any interaction with him behind her.
“What’s your timeline?”
She looked slightly sheepish. “Lindy wants it open before Christmas. She wants us up and running to take advantage of the festivities that are going to be happening around town. The sooner the better.”
That would mean long, intense days in Sabrina’s company. Whether she wanted that or not.
“We can do it,” he said. “But you are very busy, so I hear. So, you need to clear your schedule a bit so you can actually devote your time to serving my needs.”
The look she gave him was so dry it could’ve sapped all the moisture out of the heavy coastal air. “Poorly phrased. But then, I have a feeling you did it on purpose.”
“And you’re still not willing to clear the air between us.”
“There’s no air to clear. I don’t feel comfortable around you, Liam, and I would think it was fairly understandable why. You humiliated me. You were cruel to me. At the very least, you should have treated me like a friend. Because even if I did have the wrong idea about what was happening between us, we were friends. I...I told you about my relationship with my father and you still... I trusted you.”
Those simple words cut through every ounce of bullshit in him. He couldn’t give her a hard time, not after that.
“We were friends,” she reiterated. “I had a hard time connecting with people because of my family’s position in the community, and you knew that. I got close to you, closer than I was to anyone. And I made a fool of myself in front of you and then you disappeared.”
And when she found out exactly why, she wouldn’t be any happier with him than she was now. So, he wasn’t going to say a damned thing.
“I did,” he said. “Because that’s what I do. At least, that’s what I did. But I’ve spent the past few years figuring out how to finish what I start. And I’ve done a good job with it. I’m still terrible with people, to be clear. The emotional part. But I know what I’m doing in business. And I’m going to make this successful. I promise you that.”
“Are you going to apologize to me?”
In that moment, she looked like the Sabrina he had once known. Young, vulnerable and far too innocent for the likes of him. Like someone who actually believed that he was going to apologize. He almost felt bad.
Almost.
“I’m not going to apologize,” he said. “Because leaving you like that was probably one of the nicest things I’ve ever done. Because if I hadn’t left you then, I would have left you after. And I stand by what I said.”
Her cheeks turned scarlet, rage glittering in her blue eyes. “Right. Well, it’s emblazoned in my memory. So, there’s no reason to revisit it.”
“What exactly are you mad about? That I didn’t have sex with you? Or that I left?”
She sputtered. “That you... That you left. That you left and you didn’t say anything to me. I cared about you.”
“And you’re still mad at me.”
“Not every day of my life. But having you come back to town has been awkward.”
“Well, I never imagined I would end up back here either. But here I am.”
“Because of the ranch?”
“Yes and no. I never intended to come back. Not even with part ownership of the ranch on the table. I had a big job. I liked what I was doing. Until one day I realized that I actually didn’t.”
“Is that what happened with us? You were my friend until one day you realized you weren’t?”
“I was twenty years old, and I was an asshole. That’s about it.”
She looked...deflated by that.
“Was, as in past tense? As in you aren’t one now?”
He could tell she really didn’t want to let go of her anger. “I still am. But I would probably call before leaving town now.” That was a lie. He absolutely would not. And particularly not under those circumstances.
She looked begrudgingly amused. “Well, as long as we both know the score. Which is the real difference between now and thirteen years ago.”
“Which is exactly why I’m not the villain that you seem to think I am,” he said. “Because you didn’t know the score, Sabrina, and I didn’t take advantage of that.”
“Fine. Let’s let it go then, okay? I’m Sabrina Leighton, I work for Grassroots Winery. It has recently changed hands and is under new ownership, and I am helping the new owner realize her vision.”
“Liam Donnelly,” he said, sticking out his hand. She shook it reluctantly, those delicate fingers curling around his, and it shocked him how visceral the response was to that contact with her. “I’ve been living in cities for the past thirteen years. Chicago, mostly New York. I had what was arguably an early midlife crisis and decided to take my inheritance and live in a small town. But, apparently, I can’t just get used to ranching work, so I decided to take on this venture. Something to keep me busy. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” He released his hold on her. “Or so I hear.”
She didn’t say anything, but he noticed that when she lowered her hand back to her side she brushed her fingers against her pencil skirt, as if she was trying to wipe the impression of his touch off her. “That’s very interesting. And it seems like we should be able to work well together.”
He looked around the space. “I think we should. So, leaning toward this place?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I’ll see if Lindy can come down and have a look. Can I hang on to the keys? So that I can open it up when she has time?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Gage gave them to me.”
“Come on. Do you honestly think he’ll care?”
He smiled and then held the keys out. “No.”
She took them, quickly, being careful not to make any contact with him this time. “I’ll let you know what she says. I’m guessing she’ll be on board. And once she is we can start making plans. We’re going to need shelving and...”
“Seating. Refrigeration. Yeah, I have a fair idea. How elaborate is the menu going to be?”
“For now? Nibbles only.”
“Nibbles?”
She raised a brow. “Yes. Nibbles.”
“Okay. I suggest we maybe don’t call them that on the menu.”
“We call them that at the winery.”
“What’s wrong with appetizers?”
“Look, Donnelly, you can name your cheese whatever you want to name your cheese. But this is primarily a Grassroots venture. We are going to own most of it. Controlling share and stuff. So, I get to call them nibbles.”
“If you want to die on the hill of nibbles, be my guest.”
“I do, thank you. Surrounded by nice cheese platters.”
“Now, where cheese platters are concerned, I think we are on the same page.”
“Have you ever done this before? I mean, restaurants. Or, things like this.”
“No. Not specifically. But hotels, and there were restaurants in the hotel. So while I didn’t oversee food service specifically, I’ve definitely seen what works and what doesn’t. Though I’m sure that what works in Manhattan won’t necessarily be the gauge for what works in Copper Ridge. And there, you get to be the expert.”
“Because I’m so exceedingly local?”
“Yes.”
“Why does that not feel like a compliment?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Sounds like your baggage to me.”
She snorted. “All right. I’ll get in touch with you once Lindy gives her opinion.”
She moved past him, and he caught the scent of her. Vanilla. Just like always. And suddenly, he was thrown back to a different time, to warmer days...
He shook his head, ignoring the tightening in his gut.
“Do that.”
The sooner she did that, the sooner they could get started. And the sooner they got started, the sooner they could be done.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
MUCH TO SABRINA’S CHAGRIN, Lindy was ecstatic when they arrived at the shop later that afternoon. It was perfect as far as she was concerned, everything about it. She had absolutely no qualms and was ready to get the ball rolling immediately.
It was funny, because Lindy seemed to be fueled by her enthusiasm to make the winery a complete and total success and throw in Damien’s face the fact that she didn’t need him at all, and that in fact, she could do more without him around.
Sabrina, on the other hand, was fueled by something altogether different and that was her desire to work with Liam and emerge unscathed. She felt like she was continually reevaluating that situation. At first, she had wanted to avoid him, but if avoidance was the primary goal then it was difficult to make the case that she was all right. Difficult to make the case that she had moved on in any regard.
Not that she had ever pretended she had. Not to herself. And to other people? She just didn’t talk about it.
Maybe moved on was the wrong phrase. It was just... She didn’t trust herself. Her father had always told her to be cautious. To lead with her head, and not with her heart.
Back when he’d talked to her.
He had said that passion was faulty, and feelings were lies. And she had worked so hard to comply with that. To be quiet so that she could spend time with her dad, since he couldn’t handle endless chattering. To be the one who took after him. Not like Damien, who was always volatile like their mother.
She had rebelled once.
The first time she’d set eyes on Liam Donnelly—when he’d come to work at the winery—she’d been sure her chest would crack open and her heart would spill right out in front of him. Like every feeling, every need, every desire she’d shoved down all of her life had risen up to the surface and begged for release.
And then he’d looked at her. She had been certain, utterly certain, that he was the first person to truly see her.
She had known it was wrong. But he made her feel right, and after so many years of feeling like an alien in her own body, vying for her father’s attention the only way she knew how, it was magical to her.
Until the end. The end when everything had fallen apart, and then she’d set about to make everything around her as wrecked as she’d felt inside.
But it was over. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She really never had been. She’d had a moment of insanity, and that was done and never happening again.
Sabrina was going to handle being around him now. She was not going to give her sister-in-law any extra grief. Lindy had had enough. She didn’t need to deal with Sabrina’s baggage on top of everything else. Especially since Sabrina’s baggage was...well, stupid in a lot of ways, she supposed. Nothing was worse than having Liam confront her with what had happened between them. With him making her voice everything.
Because it made what had happened between them feel small. And in her mind it was so large. But she was reluctant to admit that he had a point. It wasn’t like the situation would have been any better if he had slept with her and then disappeared.
But that was the worst part, actually. It was the part that was so hard to explain to people, including him. Maybe especially him, because if she did it would make her sound even more like she was a pet-boiling whack job.
The lingering tenderness made sense to her though. And it hurt all the way down. She had trusted him with all of herself, and more than that, she had trusted in her own feelings for him. They had been wrong.
And that was the bitterest pill to swallow.
That the one time she’d decided to believe in herself, to trust her gut, her gut had been nothing more than a fluttery case of hormonal butterflies.
“This is amazing,” Lindy said, walking slowly across the wooded floor, her high heels clicking on the surface.
Sabrina pressed her fingertips against the door, right where Liam had put his hand earlier. She pulled it back.
“It is,” she said, stepping inside after her sister-in-law.
They had brought along the other tasting room employee, Olivia Logan, who was a funny little woman even though Sabrina quite liked her. She was a prim creature, with a lot of very lofty ideas about right and wrong, and sometimes got a little too judgmental for her own good, but she’d become a good friend to Sabrina over the years.
“This will be too far for me to drive every day,” Olivia commented, sniffing.
“It’s fine,” Lindy said. “Nobody will expect you to come down here. You’re welcome to continue working up at the winery. But, just in case, I did want you to come down and see it. Because I want everyone to feel like they have input.”
Lindy almost overinvolved the winery staff in her decision-making, in Sabrina’s opinion. Though she knew the whole “we are all in this together” thing was kind of part and parcel with her gaining control over the winery.
Damien had been much more about it being a Leighton family business. And only Leightons got a say in what happened. Her family was all about their standing in the community, all about their money.
Perhaps that was one reason she was sympathetic toward Olivia, even when she was a little bit difficult.
Olivia Logan was a member of the founding family of the county. The Logan family had been here since the 1800s, the first to settle both Gold Valley and Copper Ridge. They had come from Independence, Missouri on the Oregon Trail. And Olivia still carried their name.
Sabrina didn’t have a famous name, but she knew how family pride, a lot of interest and concern with family reputation and standing could shape you.
And what happened when you demolished said reputation.
Of course, Damien hadn’t exactly helped the reputation. But she’d always had the feeling their dad didn’t expect as much from Damien as he had from her once upon a time. As if he was given a pass because he was never supposed to do well. Sabrina knew her dad felt like the fact that Lindy had ended up with the winery was ample evidence that their son had made a mistake marrying outside of his class. That she had somehow taken advantage of him.
Sabrina just hadn’t been able to understand their take on it. Not in the least. Not when Damien was the one who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
Knowing what she did about her parents’ marriage made it all the more confusing in some ways, though not in others. Because what her dad believed in above all else was doing the right thing to avoid making waves. And that was where Lindy had sinned.
She had made a tsunami when she’d discovered her husband’s affair. And after the ground had dried from the storm, she’d left it scorched in her wake. She hadn’t just gotten mad, she’d gotten it all.
That unchecked emotion was what Sabrina imagined really irked her dad.
Sabrina hadn’t been able to imagine a scenario where she cut off a relationship with Lindy to preserve the fractured one she had with her mom and dad. So the choice—and she’d had to make a choice—had been pretty clear. What had surprised her was that Bea had ultimately sided with Lindy. It was possible that Bea’s attachment to Dane had played a role in all of it, but she doubted that her parents paid close enough attention to understand that.
“That’s nice,” Olivia said. “I mean it. It’s nice to feel part of something.”
Sabrina often wondered if Olivia didn’t feel much a part of her life in Gold Valley. Even though she had a boyfriend that she loved, she always seemed somewhat lonely. Distant. She was a funny, repressed little bird.
“I think that we can make this something,” Lindy said, turning a circle in the large, vacant room and holding her hands out. “It’s like girl power.”
“No one has said girl power since 1996,” Sabrina said, but she couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m saying it,” Lindy said, slapping her hands down at her sides. “Because I feel it. Because I’m optimistic.”
It was nice to see Lindy smile like that. Nice to see her excited. Nice to not see her heartbroken by Sabrina’s douchebag brother.
“I’m glad,” Sabrina said.
“I notice you didn’t say you’re optimistic too,” Lindy said.
“It’s not my job to be optimistic, Lindy,” Sabrina said. “It’s my job to make it happen. You don’t want optimism from me anyway. You want realism. Active realism.”
“Okay, my little active realist.” Lindy reached out and patted her shoulder. “Can you get everything accomplished in time for us to take advantage of the holidays?”
“I think we can,” Sabrina responded. “I think we can and we will. Because I’m determined.”
And because it regrettably seemed like Liam Donnelly knew what he was doing. Though, Sabrina supposed that since she did have to have her wagon hitched to him, it was best that he be a competent wagon partner. Because if she had to work with him and he sucked, it would be untenable.
Realizing he had grown into an adult man who was responsible, smart and resourceful was goading in other ways.
She was going to focus on the business aspect though. And from a business standpoint, Liam was exactly who she should want to work with. And really, what better way to strike back at Liam? To show him how competent and amazing she was.
She had just thought earlier that she and Lindy had different goals. That Lindy wanted to do this to stick it to Damien, and that Sabrina just wanted it done to get away from Liam.
But they were more similar than she had initially imagined.
Why not use this as an opportunity to show him that she was a kick-ass woman and not a girl he could just walk away from while she wept on the floor of the cabin he’d been staying in on the winery property.
“We can even get a Christmas tree. Christmas lights. It will be festive. The most festive grand opening Copper Ridge has ever seen!” Lindy said.
“Wait,” Olivia said, looking suddenly envious. “I kind of want to work here if there’s going to be a Christmas tree.”
“I’m sure we can schedule you for a shift. I bet Bennett won’t mind coming down to pick you up and see the new location.”
Olivia smiled. “You’re right about that. And I’m thinking he might even propose before Christmas. So that means he could do it here. It would be so picturesque. The photo you would, of course, take of the moment would be so perfect.”
Sabrina exchanged a glance with Lindy, and in that wordless exchange, Sabrina could tell that her sister-in-law thought much the same thing about Olivia’s boyfriend. That the proposal was likely not as forthcoming as the other woman hoped.
Still, neither of them said anything.
Lindy walked across the space, rubbing her hands together. “This is what I’ve always dreamed of doing. And Damien wouldn’t consider it. Not at all. He wouldn’t entertain any of my ideas.” She shot Sabrina a glance. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your brother.”
“Yeah, he’s my brother. But you know that I’m mad at him for what he did. You know that I don’t support him. I love him, I always will. But I can’t be comfortable around him and that woman. Whatever her name is.” Sabrina knew Brandy’s name. But she didn’t like to acknowledge it. Especially not in front of Lindy.
She could tell Lindy appreciated that. Even if she knew it was a put-on.
“Thank you. But you know it’s not like you have to choose between the two of us. I’m actually just happy that you still want to be in my life at all.”
“Family is about more than blood,” Sabrina said.
It was a difficult thing for families like hers, families like Olivia Logan’s, to acknowledge anything other than blood. But everything she’d been through in the last thirteen years had taught her that blood really wasn’t the be-all and end-all. It wasn’t even half of it.
“You know,” Olivia said, her expression turning mischievous—a side of her Sabrina thought she didn’t express enough. “Instead of putting up the first dollar we earn here at the tasting room, we could always put up a picture of your divorce papers. Since the loss of Damien is what made this possible in the end.”
Both Sabrina and Lindy let out a shocked laugh. “I suppose we could do that,” Lindy said. “Oh, your parents would have a fit.”
“Don’t worry.” Sabrina waved a hand. “You know that Jamison and Suzanne Leighton are never going to darken the door of this establishment. They have washed their hands of the winery and all it entails.”
“Unless they can get ownership back somehow. You know your parents’ lawyer called me again the other day. Asking if I was interested in selling.”
Sabrina’s mouth dropped open. “I’m completely shocked that my parents would broach the subject of buying something they believe is rightfully theirs.”
“They probably shouldn’t have given full ownership to Damien in the first place. And he shouldn’t have signed that prenup.” The corner of Lindy’s mouth lifted. “Not that I’m sorry about any of it. But why on earth he decided that in the event of infidelity the wronged party would get most of the assets is beyond me.”
“Well,” Sabrina said, lifting her shoulder. “You are the undesirable one. I mean, the one from the wrong side of the tracks. I’m sure that he assumed you would be the one to stray. Or that you wouldn’t be smart enough to know that he had.”
Lindy snorted. “Right. Of course. How could I forget that pedigreed Damien Leighton would never be so foolish as to get caught with his penis in the wrong honey jar.”
The color heightened in Olivia’s cheeks. “That’s descriptive.”
Lindy smiled. “I can be much more descriptive if the occasion calls for it. Believe me.”
“I trust you,” Olivia said, holding up a hand.
Then they all stood there for a moment, taking in their surroundings, and Sabrina suddenly felt wholly optimistic. Perhaps it was the vision of this place bedecked in Christmas decorations. Perhaps it was just being here with these women, determined to accomplish something. Whatever the reason, it didn’t feel as hard as it had earlier today. Right now, it felt possible. More than possible.
Liam Donnelly thought that he knew her. But he knew an insecure girl who had been easily wounded by his rejection. She wasn’t that girl anymore, and she wasn’t going to allow being around him to make her backslide. No. It was time for her to take a step forward. Time to shake it off, and all that.
She was going to make sure this was the best damn opening any business had ever had in the town of Copper Ridge. She was going to knock Liam Donnelly on his ass—metaphorically—with her awesomeness.
And if he was the one who left with a sense of unfulfilled longing after all this? All the better.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
“DON’T YOU LOOK FANCY!”
Liam looked over at his sister-in-law, Alison, and lifted a brow as he simultaneously raised his coffee cup to his lips. “Unlike your husband, I know how to dress for the venue.”
Alison smiled and looked over at Cain, who was currently scowling into his coffee. “If I had occasion to put on a monkey suit I would. In fact, I believe I even wore a tie when I married you, woman,” he said.
“Under such extreme sufferance you would have thought that I was asking you to put on a tie and then place your testicles in a jar for me to keep under my bed.”
Cain snorted. “Well. We both know that’s not true.”
“I keep them in my purse,” Alison said, grinning widely at Liam.
“Great. I feel much better now that I know the location of my older brother’s testicles. Why aren’t you two at your own house?”
“There’s an extremely teenage music situation happening,” Alison said. “Apparently, someone has late classes today.”
Liam grimaced. It was difficult for him to believe sometimes that his older brother had a daughter who was closer to being an adult than being a child. Considering the fact that Liam was not in a headspace to ever consider having children at all.
“A paperwork situation is about to be happening with me, so I’m not entirely sure that it’s better than being exposed to pop music.” It was only eight forty-five, but as far as Liam was concerned it was getting late. He and his brothers got up so early to take care of the ranch every day that it was a routine now.
At first, it had fully kicked his ass. He was used to a fairly early routine, but not getting up and outside by five. Now... After all this time, it was just part of life.
A life that felt tangible in a way his previous life had not. And yeah, he pretty much did think of them as two separate lives. When all was said and done, Liam Donnelly felt like he had lived quite a few lives. One of them, once upon a time, had been in Copper Ridge. Had been working at Grassroots Winery. Had involved Sabrina Leighton. And somehow, Sabrina Leighton was involved again.
Just thinking about her made his gut tight. Unfinished business. That’s what it was. Because he hadn’t slept with her back then, and it made him wonder what he had been missing. Especially considering the degree to which she had wormed her way under his skin without him ever getting inside of her.
A subtle thing. A closeness that had occurred in inches. With each bit of confidence and trust she had put in him. He had never told her much about his life, about his past. But he’d let her talk about her own.
About how hard she found it to have friends. How it was tough for her to relate to other girls her age because they were allowed to go to parties and stay out and she wasn’t. There was something about that. About her isolation, her vulnerability that he’d related to.
He sure as hell had never expected to relate to a sweet little rich girl from the right side of the tracks. And yet he had.
“I have to go.” He stood up and nodded once at Alison and Cain before heading out of the kitchen and toward the front door.
He grabbed a black cowboy hat from the peg by the door and pressed it onto his head. There was a strange sense of rightness that settled down to his bones as he did that. As he walked out onto the deck wearing a pair of black jeans, boots, button-up shirt and a black tie. Of course, to his older brother, that was a monkey suit. It made Liam laugh.
It was a far cry from the custom suits he had once worn, but he figured that this was dressing up for a cowboy. Farmer. Rancher. Whatever the hell he was these days.
The hat itself was not custom-made. He had bought it at the Farm and Garden when he had come to town. But in a great many ways it felt a lot more made for him than one of those suits ever had.
He got into his truck and fired up the engine, heading down the long gravel driveway toward the main road that would take him into town. And the whole way he wondered what mood he would find Sabrina in. Whether or not she would have her pretty pink lips pursed together in irritation already. In anticipation of his arrival. Anticipation of having to deal with him.
And he wondered if her blond hair would be pulled back in a prim little bun. If she would be wearing one of those pencil skirts that he imagined was supposed to be demure, but instead put him in the mind of pushing it up her hips, or grabbing hold of the zipper and working it down, leaving it in a heap of demolished modesty on the floor of his bedroom.
He had not let himself have fantasies like this about her thirteen years ago. No way in hell. At least he hadn’t indulged them.
But she was a woman now, not a seventeen-year-old girl. So all bets were off.
He wasn’t going to do anything about it, of course. Same as back then. Because while she might be a grown woman, she was still off-limits. They needed to get through this business venture with minimal drama.
It felt right. Being here. Wearing the cowboy hat, and heading to the bank to sign a stack of mortgage documents that was probably about as tall as he was. Like he had finally found some way to reconcile the pieces of himself. To repair the parts of him that had been deeply uncomfortable and always displaced living in major cities. And to deal with that restless, unsatisfied part of him that had felt trapped in small towns.
He had gotten an opportunity to better himself, and he had taken it. To become something more. To add layers of importance to himself. To get all the money and status that his mother had sure as hell been convinced would have made her happy. Rather than her children.
And then, he had happily written her a check so she would finally shut the hell up.
He had taken immense satisfaction from the fact that he had been the one to provide her that money. He, the one who had been responsible for her sad, stale life, as far as she was concerned. Her most hated son. The one who had been beneath her notice at the best of times, going without food and water for extended periods. And the one who had been subject to her expressions of rage at other times.
But it didn’t matter. Not now. He had made good. He had gotten his own back.
Life was pretty damn good, all things considered.
On that note, he pulled into the parking lot of Copper Ridge Credit Union and killed the engine on his truck. He recognized Sabrina’s little silver car in the lot already. It was very her. Sleek, contained. Then he wondered what had happened to that pretty, reckless girl he had once known who ran barefoot and let her blond hair fly free.
You happened to her, you asshole, or have you not listened to anything she’s said to you?
He snorted. Listening had never been his strong suit.
Sabrina chose that exact moment to pop out the front door of the bank, her expression tight and her hand wrapped around a Styrofoam cup that was steaming, and full of coffee he assumed.
Bank coffee was not his favorite.
“There you are,” she said. “You’re late.”
He lifted his arm and looked at his watch. “Like two minutes late. Are they waiting?”
“No,” she said. “But I was.”
She turned sharply and went back into the building, and he shook his head as he followed her in.
The credit union building was new, at least new to him. With high ceilings and glossy floors. It was much larger and a bit fancier than anything he typically ascribed to the aesthetic of Copper Ridge. Though, there was also a touch of that rustic Oregon flair in the wooden crossbeams on the ceiling, and the supports throughout the lobby area. There were large windows that made the most of the view of the rocks, scrubby pines and the ocean out back.
The mist was clinging to the top of the gray waves today, the sky blending into the water.
And Sabrina stood out in bright contrast to that.
She surprised him today, wearing a pair of black pants that conformed to her slender legs, bright pink shoes and a neutral-colored sweater. Her blond hair was up. He hadn’t seen it down once since he had come back.
It made his fingers itch.
He found the coffee station and decided to make himself a cup, even though it involved powdered creamer. It was something to do. Something other than reaching up and taking Sabrina’s hair out of its bun.
He imagined that he probably shouldn’t harass her right before they went in to sign paperwork. He should wait until after. When it was too late for her to pull out.
He had already faxed over all the legal agreements for the business partnership, and they had been signed by Lindy. For this, Sabrina would be signing on behalf of the winery.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asked.
She jerked, like he had shocked her with a cattle prod. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Have you ever signed mortgage documents?”
“Yes. I bought a house four years ago.”
“Good.” That kind of surprised him. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. That she lived on the winery property, or that she perhaps still lived with her parents. Which was ridiculous, considering she was thirty years old.
But rich girls like her, they often did continue living with their parents. At least, in his head they did. Otherwise, they were sent to some fancy school by their parents. And then subsequently had their housing paid for.
“Where did you go to school?”
She looked at him blankly. “What?”
He realized that he had skipped a step with her. But in his head it had made sense. “School. I was just wondering where you went to college.”
“Oh. Just... I went to Oregon State.”
“I figured you would go somewhere a little bit...bigger of a deal.”
“It’s a great school,” she said, visibly bristling. “Go Ducks.”
It was fine enough, he was sure. But he had gone to a top-ranked university with her father’s money. He had assumed that she would do nothing less.
“I figured that you would go somewhere further afield,” he said. “That’s all.”
She stiffened. “Things change.”
“All right. I guess that’s true. So, what kind of house do you have?”
“What, is this interrogate Sabrina hour?”
“In fairness, it’s basically interrogate Sabrina five minutes. Hour is vastly dramatizing the situation.”
“Have you ever bought a house?” she asked, clearly looking to turn the spotlight onto him.
“Not a house. But a penthouse. New York City.”
She blinked rapidly, her pale eyebrows knitting together. “But those cost...millions of dollars.”
He just let the implication of that hang between them, and watched as her skin went slightly waxen.
“Grassroots Winery and Laughing Irish?” An older woman with dark hair peeked out of one of the glass corner offices with a smile pasted on her face.
“That’s us,” Liam confirmed.
For some reason—instinct, something—he reached out and pressed his palm against Sabrina’s lower back to guide her toward the office. She stopped dead in her tracks, her gaze sliding over to him, irritation glittering sharply there.
“Do you touch men you’re doing business deals with like that? Because I’ll tell you, that’s some mental image.”
“No,” he said, lowering his hand slowly.
“I don’t mind a little Brokeback Mountain fantasy, Liam.”
“After you,” he said, waiting for her to walk into the office before he followed behind her.
It had been a stupid thing to do, touching her like that. Normally, he would never do something so asinine with the woman he was doing a business deal with. He would normally never do that with anyone.
There was just something about Sabrina that pushed him to do things he was usually way too smart to do.
They took a seat at the table with the banker and with another person who was introduced as the notary. Gage West had apparently signed his end of the deal already.
The stack of papers was indeed massive, and both Liam and Sabrina were given pens before the banker handed him the first page, which Sabrina promptly took. “We’re the first name on the documents, as we own a larger portion,” she said crisply.
She signed quickly next to a sticky tab, then passed the paper back to him. As if it mattered which order they signed in as long as they signed on the right spot. But he could tell she was compelled to make an issue out of it, so he was going to let it go.
They carried out the signing in relative silence, the only real conversation happening when the banker explained a page that he was certain both he and Sabrina already understood, but that she was legally bound to verbally expound on.
Sabrina passed one paper to him, and he pressed his fingertips down on it, brushing the tips of them against hers. She jerked back, trying to look composed as she moved on to signing the next document.
“There,” the woman said, smiling through the tension that was making the air crackle, “all finished. Congratulations. You are now the proud owners of some very nice property.”
“Thank you,” Sabrina said. “I hope that you’ll come down for the grand opening. There’s going to be wine, cheese and all manner of festivities.”
“Definitely,” the banker said, and Liam really couldn’t tell if she was being genuine, or if there was just no other polite response to give.
Considering they had just signed a considerable amount of their lives over to this establishment, she did have to be polite.
Well, it was a considerable amount of Grassroots’ life, and Lindy’s, he imagined. It wasn’t so much to him. Even if Finn was being adamant that it all be paid for with Donnelly ranch money, and not Liam’s.
As they walked out of the bank, Sabrina still had a large, fake-looking smile plastered on her face. But as soon as the glass door closed behind them, she chucked the Styrofoam cup of coffee in the trash beside the building. “That was disgusting coffee.”
He grimaced and sent his cup the same direction. “Agreed.”
“Well, I need more coffee. Better coffee. So I’m going to head down to The Grind and grab some, and then I’m going to go to the shop.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She looked...not shocked, but a little bit like she wanted to argue. “I don’t really have any plans. I just want to make a quick sketch of the floor plan so that I can get a rough idea of what we need to get, and you know, layouts and things.”
“Right. Do you have a tape measure, anything on you?”
“I can buy one,” she said, looking mulish.
“I have a toolbox in the back of my truck. Why don’t you ride down with me?”
He knew that she was annoyed. And he also knew that she would rather ride with him than protest. Because he could tell that she was caught between wanting to spend less time with him and wanting to act like it didn’t matter.
For his part, he wasn’t really sure why he cared either way.
Really? You don’t know why you care?
As if his stomach didn’t clench tight when he smelled vanilla, which was a scent that he had always associated with her. Like he hadn’t quit a job because he’d worked closely with a woman who shared her name, and he couldn’t hear it without thinking of her and that devastated expression on her face when he’d left her that night.
As if he didn’t have a tattoo on his body that was dedicated to her.
He could admit that now. He had been in pretty deep denial even when he had gotten the ink. But, as it had taken shape, as he had laid out what he had wanted, it was pretty hard for him to deny that the barefoot blond figure that rested beneath the tree that stretched over his shoulder and around to his back wasn’t inspired by her. That she wasn’t the picture in his mind when he’d thought of it in the first place.
“Great. Let’s go. I suppose I should be grateful for you and your tape measure.”
She stepped gingerly toward his truck and got into the passenger seat without waiting for him. He hadn’t bothered to lock it. There wasn’t really much point in Copper Ridge.
He jerked the driver side door open and got in, starting up the engine. “Yeah, you probably should be a lot more grateful for me than you are.”
They pulled out of the lot and headed back into town. There was one lone spot that he was able to parallel park in just in front of The Grind.
“Two hour parking,” he commented as he got out and rounded her side. “We could walk from here.” He finished that sentence when she hopped out onto the sidewalk.
“Sure,” she said. “If you want to lug your tools all the way down there.”
“I think I can handle it.”
He held the door open for her, but this time, did not put his hand anywhere on her body. She said nothing, but walked into the café in front of him. They got in line together, and he could tell that she was annoyed that they were together in public, and not just running into each other by happenstance.
“What’s your poison?” he asked.
“Just a coffee.”
“That’s not at all exciting.”
“You don’t find a strong jolt of bitter caffeine exciting? I do.”
He laughed. “I suppose I do. A little more exciting with a double shot of espresso poured over the top.”
When they got up to the front he ordered just that, and then ordered her regular coffee. She glared at him as he got his wallet out and paid. “What?”
“I didn’t say you could buy me a coffee.”
“I don’t recall asking you.”
The girl behind the counter handed them their order with a slightly glum expression on her face. Sabrina snatched her coffee out of his hand and headed over to the cream and sugar station.
“I hope you’re happy,” she commented, pouring a little bit of cream and a packet of sugar into her cup and stirring. “You’ve broken that little girl’s heart.”
“That little girl?” he asked, gesturing back toward the counter.
“Yes.”
“First of all, she’s like five years younger than you. Second of all, why? Because she thinks I’m with you?”
“You bought my coffee.”
“Well. I was unaware that was small-town symbolism for a marriage proposal. I thought that you still had to give a couple of oxen to get a woman. I didn’t know you could get her with one cup of coffee.”
She laughed reluctantly, and the two of them walked out of The Grind and onto the rain-soaked sidewalk.
Sabrina looked both ways, and didn’t bother to go to the crosswalk. She just did half a jog across the street, conveniently forgetting the lecture she’d recently given him on the dangers of walking with hot beverages, and he followed.
They walked past his sister-in-law Lane’s Mercantile, full of specialty foods, and then past Pie in the Sky, his sister-in-law Alison’s bakery, which was now across the street from them.
“Main Street is becoming quite the Donnelly affair,” he commented.
“The tasting room is not primarily Donnelly,” she said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it being part Donnelly, I suppose.”
“Sure, sure.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him.
He shook his head.
They rounded the corner to the front of their new store and Sabrina produced the keys. “Officially ours,” she said, jingling them before jamming the key into the lock. “After you.”
She held the door for him and he went in ahead of her.
She pulled a pad of paper out of her purse and paced around the room studying their surroundings. “So, we’ve already figured a few things out. But, we need to figure out how much seating we can put in here versus floor space, and of course there needs to be a bit of space for preparation. And for merchandise.”
“Great. I’ll do some measurements and we can do a little Googling to figure out how big some refrigerated display cases are and standard table sizes.”
“Thank God for smartphones,” Sabrina commented.
He chuckled, setting his toolbox down and taking out his tape measure. “I hear that. We didn’t really have those last time you and I hung out.”
She snorted. “I guess not.”
“It’s funny,” he said. “All the things that have changed. That credit union for example. The building was not like that when I lived here.”
“They built a new one about six years ago,” she said.
“And another example. Your brother has been married and divorced,” he said.
“Yes. Dramatically. And of course, the ownership of the winery has changed.”
“True. And if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t have to work with me. Because there’s no way in hell your father would have let me in on a venture involving his precious winery.”
It was her turn to laugh, an icy sound. “Well, if the ownership of the winery hadn’t changed you wouldn’t be working with me anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t be here. It would be a moot point.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I’ve only been back at the winery for two years.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’ve been doing other things. Worked in banking for a while. I managed a bed-and-breakfast in Gold Valley and then I managed the hospitality portion of a dude ranch there called Get Out of Dodge. That’s where I met Olivia Logan. I’m not sure if you’ve met her yet. She works at Grassroots. She used to work at the same ranch that I did, but they scaled back when the owner had a heart attack. Quit taking as many guests and running as many touristy things.”
“You did all that just for...for fun?”
Her shoulders twitched, and her face went tight. “What do we have so far?”
“For what?” he asked, frowning.
“For the dining area. How many tables and chairs?”
He gestured toward the picture windows. “Two with two chairs here. And maybe we can do one with four chairs here. Probably five or six additional tables here in the center of the room. But we need to keep enough space available for the wine.”
“Right. Right. I’m thinking of talking to somebody around town who might have an idea of where we can get shelving made. Something that’s a little artisanal...”
“You can talk to Lane. But don’t think I didn’t notice that you derailed the conversation. Why haven’t you been working at the winery?” he asked.
“It’s been thirteen years since you were back in town, Liam. Did you really think I was only going to have one job for my entire life?”
“Hell no. Not for one second. But I also figured that you would go to some big East Coast school. And I certainly didn’t think you would have come back to the winery after it had passed out of your parents’ control. What does your dad think of that?”
“He thinks poorly of it,” she said stiffly. “But that’s fine. He thinks poorly of me.”
Liam huffed out a laugh. “Now that isn’t true. Your dad thinks you’re everything. Believe me.”
“Right. Is that some coded reference to the fact that he paid you to leave?”
Liam felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. “You...”
“I know. I know why you left. I know that my father offered you money to leave. You didn’t just run away because my naked breasts offended you. In hindsight, I was never sure if it was better or worse that you had an incentive.” She swallowed hard. “I have to say, it’s actually good to know that you did something with that.”
“That I did something with what your father gave to me?”
“Yes. Because whatever we were about... Our friendship, whatever you want to call it... If you were going to sell it, Liam, I’m glad that you got something out of it. I’m glad you went to school. Not because I’m happy for you, but because at least I know I got traded for something bigger than a really fast car that you were just going to crash in the end, or something.”
“I already told you that what I did was a kindness to you. You were seventeen years old, Sabrina.” He crossed his arms and watched her. She was agitated, her shoulders twitching, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Right. Right. And you were protecting me from your big bad penis. I know. And you know what? Maybe if you had just left I would believe that. But you took a payoff, and then you left. Mostly, I think that my virginity wasn’t worth however many thousands of dollars my father paid you. I think that for you sex was cheap, so you might as well go have it with someone else with a flush bank account. Why not? But you know what, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because I don’t regret that we didn’t...you know. I just don’t. But I don’t need you up on any high horses about it.”
“Why did I end up at the big university and you didn’t? I swear to God, if that bastard gave me your money...”
She looked stunned. By his anger, but he didn’t know why. As if he didn’t have any conscience at all? Yeah, he hadn’t been the nicest guy where she was concerned. Or in general, but he didn’t think he was entitled to money that had been earmarked for her education. No way in hell. If he had been told that, he wouldn’t have taken it. Bottom line.
“No. That’s not what happened. My family had more than enough money to send you, me and a few Dickensian street urchins to the university of our choosing. My father and I had a falling-out after you left.”
She looked so arch, so stiff when she said the words. And at the same time, so immeasurably fragile. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Not the way that he had done earlier in the day, unthinkingly placing his hand on her lower back. Even if he wasn’t in the habit of doing that with women, it was still something of a generic touch.
No. He wanted to trace the line of her high cheekbones, down the edge of her jaw, to explore the changes in her face.
The new hollows in her cheeks, the slight little crinkles at the corners of her eyes. To learn the thirteen years he’d missed through touch, as well as through talking to her.
She had always made him want things like that. Things he didn’t understand. Things he had certainly never wanted with anyone else.
Liam had not been...chaste. Not in the last decade, and certainly not before. But Sabrina had never been about sex. At least, not entirely.
“What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“The hell it doesn’t. Your father is a puppet master,” he said. “If he can’t control it, he doesn’t like it.”
She shook her head. “No. What I did wasn’t okay.”
“What did you do?” he repeated the question.
She closed her eyes, looking pained. “I got drunk and shouted something... Something I shouldn’t have. In front of the most influential people in the county.”
“What did you say?”
She met his gaze, looking somewhat defeated. “Oh. I just revealed to all in attendance that my mother was having an affair.”
CHAPTER SIX (#ubbe947aa-eeb1-52ef-9e56-32bab7e8d982)
SABRINA WAS MAD at herself for telling him any of this. She was mad at herself for walking into this discussion. For letting him know that she had made herself vulnerable like that, that she had been so affected by losing him.
But honestly, she had been angry at herself for thirteen years. For detonating a bomb in her life because she had lost what she could see now was simply a crush. At the time, it had felt like love. Destroyed, broken love. As if her heart had been pulled out of her chest, still beating, and dashed to the rocks to be pounded by the surf. No one had ever suffered as she had, she had been certain.
It hadn’t just been about love. She had been taught at her father’s knee not to give trust. Not to friends or anyone. To hold her emotions close. To keep walls in place to stay protected, and she’d done that. With everyone but him.
When she’d lost him, she’d not only lost the man she’d fallen in love with, she’d lost her first real friend. The only person who knew all of those things about her. How hard she tried to please her father. How she felt continually caught in the middle of being a good daughter and trying to fit in with friends. Trying to have friends at all.
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