Читать книгу Christmas In Snowflake Canyon - RaeAnne Thayne - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCHAPTER THREE
“THAT’S IT? We’re really free to go?”
An hour later, Jahn-Vi-Ev Beaumont looked at Andrew as if he had just rescued a busload of puppies from a burning building.
Dylan wasn’t quite sure why that made him want to punch something again.
“For now. Between your father and me, we were able to work the system a little to get you both out of here tonight. You’re still facing charges for felony assault. It’s a very serious accusation.”
“But at least I don’t have to spend the night in jail. I couldn’t have done that.” She shuddered. “I don’t even have any moisturizer in my purse!”
Dylan just refrained from rolling his eyes. He noticed Andrew was trying hard to avoid his gaze. “Maybe you should think of that next time before you start barroom fights,” his brother suggested mildly.
“I won’t be starting any more fights. You can be sure of that. I never want to walk into the Lizard again.”
“Good idea. I can’t guarantee you’re not going to serve any jail time for this. Felony assault is a very serious charge, Ms. Beaumont.”
To Dylan, this seemed like a lot of wasted energy over a couple of punches.
“I know.”
“Your father says he can give you a ride home.”
She looked through the glass doors to where Mayor Beaumont waited, all but tapping his foot with impatience. “Do I have to go with him?” she asked, her voice small.
“No law says you do.”
“Can’t you give me a ride to my car? I’m parked behind the bar.”
Did she really think her attorney’s obligation extended to giving his clients rides after a night in the slammer? And why was she so antagonistic toward her family? It didn’t make sense to him. Seemed to him, the Beaumonts were the sort who tended to stick together. Just them against the poor, the hungry, the huddled masses.
“How much did you have to drink tonight? Maybe you’d better catch a ride all the way.”
“Three—no, three and a half—mojitos. But that was hours ago. If you want the truth, I’m feeling more sober than I ever have in my life.”
He had a feeling she would want nothing so much as a stiff drink if she could see herself right now, her hair a mess, dried blood on her cheek from the cut, her sweater fraying at the shoulder where the district attorney must have grabbed a handful.
“Maybe you’d be better off catching a ride with your father.”
“Would you want your father to give you a ride home from the police station right now?” she demanded of Dylan. When he didn’t answer, she nodded. “That’s what I thought. I won’t drive, then. You can just give me a ride to my grandmother’s house. Either that or I’ll sneak out the back and walk.”
Andrew sighed. “I’ll take you to your grandmother’s house. I have to drop my idiot brother off, too. But you can’t just ditch your father. You have to go out there and tell him.”
So much for his puppy-saving lawyer brother. Now she looked at Andrew as if he were making her pull the wings off butterflies. Dylan didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for her. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, sister.
“Fine,” she said and tromped out of the room in sexy boots that had somehow lost a heel in the ruckus.
The minute she left, Andrew turned on him. “Gen Beaumont. Seriously? I do believe you’ve hit a personal low.”
“Knock it off,” he growled. Funny. While he might have said—at least thought—the same thing, he didn’t like the derision in his brother’s voice when he said her name.
“What were you thinking, messing with Gen Beaumont?”
“I was not messing with her.” He didn’t want to defend himself, but he also didn’t want to listen to his brother dis her, for reasons he wasn’t quite ready to explore.
“Yeah, I should have stepped back. It was stupid to get involved, but I could see that if I didn’t, somebody would end up seriously hurt. Probably her.”
“She’s a walking disaster. You know that, right? From what I hear, she’s been leaving a swath of credit-card receipts across Europe, embroiled in one financial mess after another.”
His family was going to make him crazy. For months they had been nagging him to get out of his house in Snowflake Canyon, to socialize a little more, maybe think about talking to somebody once in a while besides his black-and-tan hound dog. But the minute he ventured into social waters, they felt compelled to yank him back as though he were a three-year-old about to head into a school of barracudas.
“Relax, would you? I’m not going to get tangled up with her. I know just what Genevieve Beaumont is—a stuck-up snob with more fashion sense than brains, who wouldn’t be caught dead in public with someone like me. Someone less than perfect.”
He heard a small, strangled sound behind him and Andrew’s expression shifted from skepticism to rueful dismay. Dylan didn’t need to look around to realize Gen must have overheard.
Shoot.
He turned, more than a little amazed at the urge to apologize to her.
“Gen.”
She lifted her slim, perfect nose a little higher. “I’m ready to go whenever you are. I finally persuaded my father I didn’t need a ride,” she said to Andrew before turning a cool look in Dylan’s direction. “I’ll wait by the door. That way I don’t have to be around someone like you any longer than necessary.”
With one last disdainful glance she picked up her purse and her Dior coat and walked back out of the office with her spine straight and her head up.
“There you go. See?” Dylan said after she had left, shoving down the ridiculous urge to chase after her and apologize. “Nothing to worry about. Now she won’t be speaking to me anyway.”
“And isn’t that going to make for a fun ride home?” Andrew muttered, shrugging into his own coat.
* * *
SHE REFUSED TO look at Dylan Caine as his brother drove through the dark, snowy streets of Hope’s Crossing. Since Thanksgiving had come and gone, apparently everybody was in a festive mood. Just about every house had some kind of light display, from the single-strand, single-color window wrap to a more elaborate blinking show that was probably choreographed to music.
“I’m living in my grandmother’s house,” she reminded Andrew from her spot in the second row of his big SUV that had a Disneyland sticker in the back window and smelled of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Got it.”
“You know where that is?”
“Everybody knows where Pearl lived.”
Genevieve looked out the window as they passed a house with an inflatable snow globe on the lawn featuring penguins and elves apparently hanging out in some kind of wintry playground. She thought it hideous but Grandma Pearl would have loved that kind of thing. She felt a pang of sorrow for the woman who had taught her to sew and could curse like a teamster, especially when she knew it would irritate her only son.
Gen had flown home for her funeral in April, wishing the whole time that she had taken time to call her grandmother once in a while.
Grandma Pearl’s house squatted near the mouth of Snowflake Canyon on a wooded lot that drew mule deer out of the mountains. It was just as ugly as she remembered, a personality-less rambler covered in nondescript tan siding.
“You have the key?” Dylan asked.
“Yes,” she answered, just as curtly.
He opened his door on the passenger side of the front seat. “You don’t have to get out,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to be seen with you, remember?”
He ignored her and climbed out of the SUV and held her door open in a gesture that seemed completely uncharacteristic. She thought about being childish and sliding out the other side, but she figured she had already filled her Acts of Stupidity quota for the day.
Aware of his brother waiting in the car, she marched up the sidewalk to the front door, where she at least had had the foresight to leave a porch light burning before leaving for the bar.
“I’m good. Thanks. You can go now.”
“Genevieve. I’m sorry you heard that.”
“But not sorry you said it.”
“That, too,” he said.
She still burned with humiliation, though she wasn’t sure why. Everyone saw her that way. Why did it bother her so much that he did, too?
“Forget it,” she said. “I have. Do you think I really care about your opinion of me? After tonight, we won’t have anything to do with each other. We don’t exactly move in the same social circles.”
“Praise the Lord,” he said in an impassioned undertone, and she almost smiled, until she remembered he despised her.
“Good night, Dylan.”
“Yeah. Next time, try to have a little self-restraint.”
She nodded and quickly unlocked the door, hurried inside and closed it shut behind her.
She had to will herself not to watch him walk back to his brother’s waiting vehicle. Instead, she forced herself to focus on the challenge ahead of her—the horrible green shag carpeting, dark-paneled walls, tiny windows.
She was so tired. Exhaustion pulled at her, and she felt as if her arms weighed about a hundred pounds each. Mental note: lingering jet lag and adrenaline crashes didn’t mix well.
She headed straight for the hideous pink bathroom and managed to wrestle her clothes off with those giant, tired arms then stepped into the shower.
At least she had hot water. Always a plus. Actually, the house had a few things going for it—decent bones and a fantastic location at the mouth of the canyon, to start. The half-acre lot alone was worth at least a couple hundred thousand. If she could transform the house into a decent condition, anything else would be a bonus.
She stood under the hot spray until the water finally ran out, then toweled off, changed into her favorite pair of silk pajamas and climbed into the bed, grateful for the sheets she had thought to bring down from her parents’ house.
She could do this. Yes, it was overwhelming, especially on an extremely limited budget. Difficult, but not impossible.
If she pulled this off, she might be able to leave Hope’s Crossing with a nice chunk of cash, at the very least, and maybe pick up a little hard-earned pride along the way.
She supposed it was too much to hope that she might even earn her family’s respect—or anything but contempt from a tough, hardened ex-soldier like Dylan Caine.
* * *
OVER THE WEEKEND, Dylan tried not to give Genevieve Beaumont much thought. He was surprised at how difficult he found that particular task.
He would think of her at the oddest times. While he cleared snow off his long, winding driveway in Snowflake Canyon with the thirty-year-old John Deere he had fixed up. While he went through the painstaking effort of chopping wood for the fireplace one-handed and carried it into the house—also one-handed. While he was sitting by said fire with a book on his lap and Tucker curled up at his feet.
Monday morning his cell phone rang early, yanking him out of a vaguely disturbing but undeniably heated dream of her wearing a demure, lacy veil that rippled down to a naughty porn-star version of a wedding gown made out of see-through lace.
His phone rang a second time while he was trying to clear that vaguely disturbing image out of his head.
“Yeah?” he growled.
“Cheerful this morning, aren’t we?” His father’s Ireland-sprinkled accent greeted him. “I suppose I might be a mite cranky, too, if I had spent my weekend on the wrong side of the law.”
Dermot made it sound as if his youngest son had been riding the range holding up trains and robbing banks. Dylan imagined his father viewed the transgressions the same.
“Not the whole weekend,” he answered, sitting up in bed and rubbing a little at the phantom pains in his arm. His now-narrowed world slowly came into focus. “Only Friday night. I spent the rest of the time shoveling snow. How about you?”
“You didn’t come to dinner last night.”
Dermot threw a grand Sunday dinner each week for any of Dylan’s six siblings who could make it and their families. The combined force of all those busybodies was more than he could usually stand.
“I came to dinner on Thanksgiving, didn’t I? I figured that would be sufficient. Anyway, it took me a couple hours to clear the snow and by then I figured you’d be eating dessert.”
“Nothing wrong with coming just for the dessert. It was a delicious one. Erin brought that candy-bar cake you like so much and we had leftover pie from Thanksgiving.”
His stomach rumbled at the mention of the signature recipe Andrew’s wife made. “Sorry I missed that.”
“She left a piece especially for you as she knows how you favor it. You can stop by the house when you’re in town next.”
That was an order, not really a suggestion, and Dylan made a face he was quite glad his pop couldn’t see.
“I’m to give you an important message from your brother.”
“Which one? I have a fair few.”
“Andrew. He tried to call you earlier but couldn’t get through. He said the call went straight to your voice mail, and he left orders for me to try again.”
Dylan hadn’t heard his phone but sometimes the cell-tower coverage up here could be sketchy. He checked his call log and saw he had three voice-mail messages, no doubt from Andrew.
“What’s the message?”
“You’re to meet him at the district attorney’s office at noon. Don’t be late and wear a tie if you can find one.”
Now, that sounded ominous. He had always hated dressing up, something Pop and all five of his brothers knew. A lifelong healthy dislike had become infinitely more intense over the past year.
“A tie.” Another of his many nemeses. He defied anybody to knot a damn Windsor one-handed.
“Do you have one?” Dermot asked when he didn’t respond. “If you don’t, I can run one of mine up to you.”
“I can find one. You don’t need to drive all the way up here.” He didn’t know whether to be touched or guilty that his father was willing to leave the Center of Hope Café during the breakfast rush to bring his helpless son a necktie.
“Did Andrew tell you why I’m supposed to meet him wearing a tie?”
“Nary a word. All I know is he was heading into court and ordered me to make sure I personally delivered the message. If you didn’t answer your phone this morning, I was under orders to drive up Snowflake Canyon to drag you down. You’ll be there, right?”
“I’m not five years old, Pop. I’ll be there.”
A guy might have thought multiple tours in Afghanistan would be enough to convince his family he could take care of himself.
Then again, since he had come home half-dead, they could possibly have room for doubt.
“See that you are,” Dermot said. He paused for a moment, long enough for Dylan to accurately predict a lecture coming on.
“I’m disappointed in you, son. Surely you know better than to find yourself in a fight at a place like The Speckled Lizard, no matter the provocation.”
“Yes. I’ve heard the lecture now from both Jamie and Andrew, thanks, Pop.”
“What were you thinking to drag that pretty young Genevieve Beaumont into your troubles?”
He snorted at the blatant unfairness of that. “Who dragged whom? You obviously didn’t hear the whole story. I was minding my own business, waiting to share a drink with my brother. I can’t help it if the woman is bat-shit.”
“Watch your mouth,” Dermot said sharply. “That’s a young lady you’re talking about.”
He shuddered to think what Pop would say if he knew the kind of semipervy dreams Dylan was having about that particular young lady, crazy or not.
“Right. A young lady with a particular aversion to Christmas carols and a right hook that needs a little work.”
“Ah, well. She’s a troubled girl who could use a few friends in town. You treat her kindly, you hear me?”
When Dermot was riled, the Irish brogue he’d left behind on the shores of Galway when he was just a lad of six peeped out like clover in July.
“I hear you.”
“Now you had best be hurrying along if you’re to make it to meet your brother on time.”
“Yeah. Message received. I’m up. I’ll be there. I’m heading into the shower right now.”
“See that you are.” Dermot’s voice was stern but he tempered it to add, “And I’ll expect to see both of my sons here afterward for a bite and any news from court.”
He hung up with his father and slid out of bed. After letting Tucker out with a quick check to make sure he didn’t have to plow again in order to make it down to the main canyon road, he hurried into the shower, trying to pretend he wasn’t wondering whether Genevieve would be there.
* * *
“NO. HELL NO. Are you freaking kidding me? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Absolutely not.”
Through her own shock at the proposal Andrew Caine had just laid out for the two of them, Genevieve found Dylan’s reaction fascinating.
“Geez, Dyl. Don’t hold back,” his brother said with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”
“You want to know how I really feel? I feel like I’ve just been steamrolled.”
“Come on. It’s a hundred hours of community service. It’s not like you’re being sentenced to hard labor on the chain gang. I hope I don’t need to tell you how far I’ve had to bend over in the last forty-eight hours to make this deal happen. You’re lucky you’re not serving hard time for assaulting two officers of the court.”
Beside her, she was aware of Dylan’s hand clenching on his thigh. Despite the evidence of his frustration, she couldn’t help thinking he looked quite different from the disreputable hellion who had brawled at The Speckled Lizard just a few nights earlier. Though his hair still needed a trim, he had shaved off the stubble that had made him look so dangerous, and he wore tan slacks, a light blue dress shirt and a shiny hammered silver bolo tie that gleamed in the fluorescent lights.
She wouldn’t have taken him for the cowboy sort but the look somehow worked.
“I’ll do the community service,” he growled to his brother. “I’ve got no problem with that. Just not there. This is a damn setup, isn’t it? They got to you, didn’t they?”
Andrew Caine looked slightly bored. “Who’s they?”
“Charlotte and Smoke Gregory. Since the moment the two of them hooked up, they’ve been trying to drag me into this stupid Warrior’s Hope business. I won’t do it. Have the judge throw me in jail for contempt if you have to, but I’m not going out there.”
“What’s the problem?” Genevieve asked. “I think it’s a fantastic deal! My father has been calling me all weekend to warn me I could be going to prison if I didn’t let him take over my defense. I’m really glad I didn’t listen to him.”
“Thank you. It’s always nice to hear from a client who appreciates all my hard work.”
“You’re welcome.”
From what she understood, Andrew had worked some kind of attorney magic. They only had to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and disturbing the peace charges and they would in turn be sentenced to a hundred hours of community service. If they were able to finish the hours before the New Year, their guilty pleas would be set aside and nothing would remain on their records.
“I’m not doing it,” Dylan said, his jaw set.
“Don’t be an asshat,” his brother said. “How hard can it be? It’s basically two weeks’ effort to keep from going to jail. Only an idiot would refuse a sweet deal like this.”
“I don’t want to work at A Warrior’s Hope,” he said through clenched teeth. “Charlotte and Spence know that.”
Genevieve didn’t know much about the organization, though she had heard it started up this summer while she had been in Paris.
When she arrived at the airport before Thanksgiving, she had been surprised to find Charlotte Caine, Dylan’s once-fat sister, at the baggage claim along with the town’s disgraced hero, former baseball star Spencer Gregory, helping a guy in a wheelchair in a Navy cap pick up his luggage.
She wasn’t sure what she found more stunning: how much weight Charlotte had lost or that she was apparently hooking up with Smokin’ Hot Spence Gregory, at least judging by the way they held hands like a couple of teenagers at the movies and even shared a quick kiss in a quiet moment.
Her parents had treated Charlotte and Spence with stiff politeness, not bothering to hide their disapproval. She thought it was because of Spence’s past but quickly found out otherwise. Spence had apparently been exonerated of all charges, something else she hadn’t heard about in Paris. Instead, her father had spent the first ten minutes in the backseat of the car service grousing about A Warrior’s Hope.
From their complaints, she figured out Charlotte and Spence had started the organization to provide recreational therapy to wounded veterans. Her father seemed to think Harry Lange was crazy to condone and even encourage it, which was one of the few times she had ever heard William complain about Harry.
She wasn’t necessarily looking forward to helping out with the charity but it beat multiple alternatives she could think of, not the least of which was scrubbing toilets at the visitors’ center.
“You don’t have a lot of options here, Dylan,” Andrew Caine went on. “The assistant district attorneys are pushing hard for jail time, especially since this isn’t your first brush with the law in Hope’s Crossing. Because I happen to be damn good at my job, I was able to talk them down off the ledge. Wounded war hero, bad press, yadda yadda yadda. This is a good deal. As your attorney and as your big brother, I have to advise you to take it. Both of you. You would be stupid to walk away.”
“I’m taking it,” Genevieve assured him quickly, before she could change her mind. Both of the Caine brothers shifted their gazes to her and she couldn’t help compare the two. Even though he had cleaned up, Dylan still looked dangerous and rough, probably because of the eye patch, while Andrew had an expensive haircut and wore a well-cut suit.
He was just the kind of guy she should find attractive—well, except for the wedding ring, the reportedly happy marriage and the two kids.
Somehow she found Dylan far more compelling, though she was quite sure all either Caine saw when they looked at her was a ditzy socialite.
I know just what Genevieve Beaumont is—a stuck-up snob with more fashion sense than brains, who wouldn’t be caught dead in public with someone like me. Someone less than perfect.
She pushed the memory away. “Do you, er, have any idea what kind of things we might be required to do?” she asked Andrew.
She didn’t have a lot of experience with people with disabilities or, for that matter, with warriors of any sort. Unless one counted women fighting over the sales rack at her favorite department store in Paris, which she doubted anyone would.
“You’ll have to work that out with Spence and his staff. From what I understand, they have another group arriving for a session in a few days, and because of the holidays, they are in need of volunteers.”
“Sure. Why not,” Dylan said shortly. “Might as well waste the time and money of everybody in town.”
“You might think it’s a waste of effort, but not everybody agrees with you,” Andrew answered. “Most people in Hope’s Crossing think it’s a great program. They are jumping at the chance to help make a difference in the lives of people who have sacrificed for the sake of their country.”
The attorney’s voice had softened as he said the last part, Gen noted. He was watching his brother with an emotion that made her throat feel tight. Dylan looked down at the hand clenched on his leg.
“I don’t claim to be as smart as you. I don’t have a couple fancy degrees hanging on my wall. But be honest, Andrew. Do you really think a week in the mountains can make any kind of difference for guys whose lives are ruined?”
Was that how Dylan saw his own war injuries? Andrew’s jaw tightened, and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
“A hundred hours,” the attorney said instead. “You can finish that in a few weeks and put this whole thing behind you. Or,” he went on, “you can stand by your belief it’s a big waste of time and choose jail time instead. Before you do that, ask yourself if you really want to break Pop’s heart by spending the first Christmas in a decade when you haven’t been in the desert or the hospital, not with your family but in a jail cell.”
For just a brief moment, she caught a tangle of emotions in Dylan’s expression before he turned stoic once more.
“At least tell me the truth.” His voice was low, heated. “This was Charlotte’s idea, wasn’t it? She and Spence won’t back off. They’ve been riding me about this for weeks.”
“Neither of them had anything to do with it,” Andrew assured him. “If you want the truth, Pop suggested it. When he mentioned it, I thought it was a good idea and brought it up with the D.A. They ran with it.”
“Remind me to take you off my Christmas list for the next twenty years or so,” Dylan growled.
“Like it or not, you’re in a unique position to help here,” Andrew said quietly. “Charlotte, Spence...everybody can give lip service about what it takes to walk that journey to healing but you’re right in the middle of it. You understand better than anyone.”
Genevieve’s face and neck felt hot as the sincerity of the words seemed to arrow straight to her stomach.
She thought she enjoyed such a cosmopolitan life, but she suddenly realized she knew nothing about the world. She hadn’t given men like Dylan a thought while she had been in Paris.
It made her feel small and selfish and stupid. He might think A Warrior’s Hope was a waste of time, but she resolved in that moment on a hard chair in her attorney’s office that she would do her best, even if the concept filled her with anxiety.
“Stand on your principles if you want,” Andrew went on when his brother remained silent. “What do I care? I get paid either way, though I will point out that I’ll be the one to get crap from Pop if you’re enjoying the county jail’s hospitality over the holidays.”
“Yeah, boo hoo.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Right. Or you can just yank up your skivvies, suck it up and keep in mind it’s only for a few weeks. Lord knows, you’ve endured a hell of a lot worse than this.”
That hand clenched again on his thigh, then he slowly straightened long fingers. She was certain he would stick to his guns and refuse to agree to the plea agreement and she didn’t want him to. She hated the idea of him spending time in jail, especially when she knew the whole thing was her fault.
“What’s the big deal?” she said quickly. “Like your brother said, it’s only a few weeks. It might even be fun.”
“There you go,” Andrew said dryly. “Listen to the woman. Lord knows, you could use a little fun.”
She knew he was mocking her, that he probably thought she was some useless sorority girl out to have a good time, but in that moment she didn’t care. Not if it meant Dylan Caine wouldn’t have to spend Christmas in jail because of her.
The silence stretched out among the three of them like a string of too-taut Christmas lights, crackly and brittle, but after a long moment Dylan’s shoulder brushed hers as he shrugged.
“Fine,” he bit out. “A hundred hours and not a minute more.”
The attorney exhaled heavily, and she realized he had been as anxious as she was. He had just been better at hiding it. “Excellent.” Blue eyes like Dylan’s gleamed with triumph. “I’ll run these over to the courthouse and let the district attorney and the judge know you’ve both agreed. The paper work should be in order by Wednesday and you should be able to start the day after.”
“Great. Can’t wait for all that fun to begin,” Dylan said.
“Someone from A Warrior’s Hope will be in touch to let you know details about what time to show up.”
“Thank you,” Genevieve said. “I appreciate your hard work.”
A small part of her had to wonder if her father or someone else in his firm might have been able to get all the charges dismissed, but she wasn’t going to let herself second-guess her decision to have Andrew represent her.
“I’ve got some papers I’ll need you to sign. Give me just a moment.”
He walked out of the office, and she shifted, nervous suddenly to be alone with Dylan. The events of Friday night seemed surreal, distant, as if they had happened to someone else. Had she really been handcuffed to the man in the backseat of a police car?
He was the first to break the silence. “I have to admit, I didn’t really expect to see you here.”
“Why not? Did you think I would have preferred jail? I’ve heard it’s horrible. My roommate in college was arrested after a nightclub bust for underage drinking. She said the food was a nightmare and her skin was never the same after the scratchy towels.”
“I guess taking the plea agreement was the right thing to do,” he drawled. “I wouldn’t want to ruin my skin.”
He almost smiled. She could see one hovering there, just at the corner of his mouth, but at the last minute, he straightened his lips back into a thin line. It was too late. She had seen it. He did have a sense of humor, even if she had to pretend to be a ditzy socialite to bring it out.
“What I meant,” he went on, “was that I figured you would have second thoughts and go with your own in-house counsel. I can’t imagine the mayor is thrilled you’re letting a Caine represent you.”
An understatement. She had finally resorted to keeping her phone turned off over the weekend so she didn’t have to be on the receiving end of the incessant calls and texts.
“He didn’t have a choice, did he? I’m an adult. He might think he can dictate every single decision I make, but he’s wrong. He might be forcing me to stay in Hope’s Crossing but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him strong-arm me in everything.”
“He’s forcing you to stay home? How did he do that? Cut off your credit cards?”
Right in one. Her mouth tightened at the accuracy of his guess. She was angry suddenly, at her parents for trying to manipulate her, at herself for finding herself in this predicament, even at Dylan. He had a huge, boisterous family that loved him. Even more, they seemed to respect him. She had witnessed both of his brothers trying to watch out for him while he only pushed them away.
She and Charlie hardly spoke anymore, both wrapped up in their separate worlds.
“None of your business,” she answered rudely. “Spending an evening handcuffed together doesn’t automatically make us best friends. Anyway, I’m still mad at you for what you said about me to your brother.”
Again that smile teased his mouth. “As you should be. If you remember, I did apologize.”
She made a huffing noise but didn’t have the chance to say anything else after his brother returned.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, the deed was done.
“So that’s it?”
“On the judicial end. Now we turn you both over to Spence and his team at A Warrior’s Hope. You only need to fill your community-service hours. They’ll give the judge regular updates on the work you do there and whether it meets the conditions of the plea agreement.”
That wasn’t so bad, she supposed. It could have been much worse. She could only imagine her father coming in and trying to browbeat the judge, who happened to be one of few people in town who stood up to William, into throwing out all the charges.
“Thank you,” she said again to Andrew. “Dylan, I guess I’ll see you Thursday at A Warrior’s Hope.”
He made a face. “Can’t wait.”
With an odd feeling of anticlimax, she shrugged into her coat and gathered up her purse.
“Wait. I’ll walk out with you,” Dylan said.
She and Andrew both gave him surprised looks. “Okay,” she said.
Outside the courthouse, leaden clouds hung low overhead, dark and forbidding. They turned everything that same sullen gray. In the dreary afternoon light, Hope’s Crossing looked small, provincial, unappealing.
She could have been spending Christmas in the City of Lights, wandering through her favorite shops, enjoying musical performances, having long lunches with friends at their favorite cafés.
Paris at Christmas was magical. She had loved every minute of it the year before and had been anticipating another season with great excitement.
Instead, she was stuck in her grandmother’s horrible, dark house, surrounded by people who disliked her. Now she had to spend the weeks leading up to Christmas trying to interact with wounded veterans. If they were all as grim-faced and churlish as Dylan Caine, she was in for a miserable time.
“Where are you parked? I’ll walk you to your car.”
She blinked in surprise at the unexpected courtesy. “That midblock lot over by the bike shop.”
“I’m close to that, too.”
They walked in silence for a moment, past the decorated windows of storefronts. She would have liked to window-shop but she didn’t have any money to buy anything, so she couldn’t see much point in it.
“Your brother did a good job,” she finally said, just as they passed Dog-Eared Books & Brew, the bookstore and coffee shop owned by Maura McKnight. “We got off easier than I expected. We could have been assigned to pick up roadside trash or something.”
“Is it too late for me to sign up for that?” he answered.
She made a face. “What’s the big deal? Why don’t you really want to help out at the recreation center? Your brother’s right. You understand better than anybody some of the challenges wounded veterans have to face.”
The clouds began to spit a light snowfall—hard, mean pellets that stung her exposed skin.
He was silent for a long moment, snow beginning to speckle his hair, and she didn’t think he would answer. She was just about to say goodbye and head for her car when he finally spoke. “I believe Spence and Charlotte had good intentions when they started the program.”
“But?”
“Nobody else on the outside understands what it’s like to have to completely reassess everything you do, everything you thought you were. I hate bolo ties.”
She blinked at the rapid shift in topic. “O-kay.”
“I hate bolo ties but here I am.” He aimed his thumb at his open coat, where she could see the string hanging around his collar, with that intricate silverwork disk at the center. “Andrew ordered me to wear a tie for the hearing. I can’t tie a damn tie anymore. After trying for a half hour, I finally just stopped at that new men’s store over on Front Street and bought this. It was either that or a clip-on, and I’m not quite there yet.”
She didn’t know what to say, especially as she could tell by his expression that he was regretting saying anything at all to her.
She decided to go back to the fashionista ditz he called her. “Personally, I like bolo ties. They’re just retro enough to be cool without being ostentatious. Kind of rockabilly-hip.”
He snorted. “Yeah. That was the look I was going for. The point is, a couple of days playing in the mountains wouldn’t have a lot of practical value when the real challenges are these endless day-to-day moments when I have to deal with how everything is different now.”
She couldn’t even imagine. “I guess I can see that. But don’t you think there could be value in something that’s strictly for fun?”
“I don’t find too many things fun anymore,” he said, his tone as dark as those clouds as they walked.
“Maybe a couple days of playing in the mountains are exactly what you need,” she answered.
“Maybe.”
He didn’t elaborate and they walked in silence for another few moments. As they walked past one of her favorite boutiques, the door opened with a subtle chime and a few laughing women walked out, arms heavy with bags.
She didn’t recognize the blonde with the paisley scarf and the really great-looking boots, but the other one was an old friend.
“Natalie! Hello.”
The other woman stopped her conversation and her eyes went wide when she spotted her. “Gen! Hi.”
They air-kissed and then Natalie Summerville stepped back, giving a strange look to Dylan, who looked big and dangerous and still rather scruffy, despite his efforts to clean up for court.
“How are you?” Natalie asked. “I saw your mom at the spa the other day and she told me you were coming back for Thanksgiving.”
Yet you haven’t bothered to call me, have you?
Natalie had been a good friend once, close enough—she thought, anyway—that Genevieve had included her in her flock of seven bridesmaids. They had been on the cheerleading squad together in high school, had double-dated often at college, had even shared a hotel room in Mazatlán for spring break after junior year.
When she had been engaged, preparing to become Mrs. Sawyer Danforth of the Denver Danforths, Natalie had loved being her friend.
After Gen ended the engagement, she felt as if she had broken off with many of her friends, as well. Natalie and a few others had made it clear they didn’t understand her position. She and Sawyer weren’t married yet. Why couldn’t he have his fun while he still could? She had overheard Natalie say at a party that Genevieve was crazy for not just ignoring his infidelity and marrying him anyway.
Sometimes she wished she had.
“Are you heading back to Paris soon?”
“I’ll be here for a month or so. At least through Christmas.”
She imagined word would trickle out in their social circle about her parents’ mandate and her enforced poverty, if it hadn’t already. Her mother was not known for her discretion.
“Great. Good for you.”
“We should do lunch sometime,” Genevieve suggested. “I hear there are a few new restaurants in town since I’ve been gone.”
“Yeah. Of course. Lunch would be...great.” Genevieve didn’t miss that Natalie had on her fake voice, the one she used at nightclubs when undesirable men tried to pick her up.
“I’ll call you,” Natalie said, with that same patently insincere smile.
“Or I can always call you.”
“My schedule’s kind of crazy right now. I don’t know if you heard but I’m getting married in February. I think you know my fiancé. Stanton Manning.”
He had been one of Sawyer’s friends and cut from the same impeccably tailored cloth. “Of course. Stan the Man.”
Her face felt frozen from far more than the ice crystals flailing into her. Natalie had been one of her bridesmaids, for heaven’s sake, but hadn’t bothered to even let Genevieve know she was engaged.
If she were fair, she would have to acknowledge that she hadn’t been her best self during the humiliation of her marriage plans falling apart. She had been the one to drop all her friends first and flee Colorado as quickly as possible.
“I hadn’t heard,” she said now. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’m counting down the days. You know how that is.”
Natalie’s friend poked her and she flushed. “We’re honeymooning in Italy. He has an uncle who owns a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice with stunning views. It’s going to be unbelievable. Oh, and we’ve already bought a house together in Cherry Creek. You’ll have to see it next time you’re in Denver. Stunning. Just stunning. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms. It’s perfect for entertaining.”
“I’m very happy for you,” she said stiffly.
Okay, so Natalie was living the life she had expected, the one she had dreamed. Italian honeymoons, showplace houses, beautiful friends. She refused to let envy eat at her.
She gave Natalie another hug. “Seriously, I’m really happy for you. Be sure to tell Stanton congratulations from me, won’t you?”
“Definitely.” Natalie avoided her gaze and definitely didn’t risk any glances in Dylan’s direction. Her friend nudged her again and she gave that well-practiced smile again. “Well, we’d better go. We’re meeting people at Brazen. See you, Genevieve.”
“’Bye,” she murmured.
Only after they walked away did she realize she hadn’t introduced Dylan. Despite the cold wind that seeped beneath her jacket and whipped her hair around, Genevieve could feel her face heat. A lousy mood was no excuse for poor manners.
He was gazing at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher but one that made her squirm. “Oh. You’re still here.”
“So they tell me.”
“You didn’t need to wait. I can find my own way to my car.”
As if to illustrate, she set off at a brisk pace toward the parking lot, still a few hundred yards away. She had only made it past one more storefront when her heel caught on a patch of ice and she started to flounder.
In a blink, he reached out to block her fall with his arm and his body. Instead of tumbling to the sidewalk, she fell against him and for a moment she could only stare up at him, that strong, handsome face now dominated by the black eye patch. He was still gorgeous, she realized, a little surprised. And he smelled delicious, clean and masculine.
A slow shock of heat seemed to sizzle inside her, and she couldn’t seem to make her limbs cooperate for a long moment. He gazed down at her, too, until a car passed by on Main Street, splattering snow, and she remembered where they were.
What was wrong with her? She couldn’t be attracted to Dylan Caine. She wouldn’t allow it. Genevieve jerked away from him, her face burning, and made a point to move as far away on the sidewalk as she could manage.
He watched her out of that unreadable gaze for a long moment. “Let’s get out of this snow.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way, until she reached the cute little silver BMW SUV her parents had given her when she graduated from college. At least they hadn’t taken that away, too.
At her SUV, she unlocked the door and he held it open for her. Just as she was sliding in, Mr. Taciturn finally found his voice.
“Can I offer a little friendly advice?”
Her stomach tightened. “In my experience, when someone says that, a person usually can’t do much to shut them up.”
And the advice was rarely friendly, either, but she didn’t add that.
“Don’t I know it. I was just going to suggest that you might endure your hundred hours of service a little easier if you can get over being chickenshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know. The whole disgusted, freaking-out thing if one of the guys looks at you or, heaven forbid, dares to touch you only to keep you from falling on your ass.”
Her face heated all over again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly.
She certainly couldn’t tell him she had freaked out because of her own inconvenient attraction.
“Goodbye. I’ll see you Thursday,” she said, then slammed her door shut, turned the key in the engine and sped out of the parking lot without looking back.
