“I thought Garrett’s son died a few years ago?” Lucy regretted the question when Caden flinched. Maybe her mother had gotten the story wrong or played fast and loose with the facts to elicit sympathy when she was trying to convince Lucy to make the trip to Colorado.
Family is important to Garrett, her mother had said. He was devastated by his son’s death, and I want to show him I value family the way he does.
“Tyson.” Caden’s lips barely moved as he said the name. “Tyson was my brother.”
Then, as if her touch was physically painful to him, he shrugged it off and stalked away.
Caden forced himself to walk out of the barn at a measured pace, even though sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades and his hands shook like the leaves of an aspen tree in a strong wind.
He’d been back on the ranch for almost two years and was so used to everyone in town knowing his story that Lucy Renner’s question had caught him off guard.
It brought back all the regrets he had about his relationship with Tyson and how he’d failed the very people to whom he owed his life.
Two years of trying to make up for who he was and who he could never be to Garrett. Trying to keep the old man on track when he would have spiraled into depression after losing his flesh and blood.
A month ago, Garrett had returned from a business trip with Maureen Renner on his arm, a flashy peacock of a woman, so different from Garrett’s first wife, Julia, and ridiculously out of place on the ranch. Caden had been suspicious from the start, and when they’d announced at Thanksgiving that they planned to be married Christmas Day, he’d had no doubt Maureen was more interested in Garrett’s bank account than his life as a high-country rancher.
He had two weeks to convince Garrett to call off the wedding, and nothing was going to stop him from that goal. Certainly not a petite, chestnut-haired beauty who smelled like expensive perfume and looked like she belonged at one of the swanky lounges in neighboring Aspen, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. She did not belong in Crimson and definitely not in Caden’s world.
His reaction to her had been unexpected and wholly unwelcome. As much as he wanted to blame it on the view she’d inadvertently given him of the most perfectly rounded hips and butt he’d ever seen, there was something more to it than that.
Caden hadn’t felt the powerful pull of attraction in years, not since his desire for a woman had driven a wedge between him and Tyson. Nothing was worth what he’d lost because of love. Or, more likely, it had been lust, which was even worse. Caden had sworn he’d never let another woman affect him that way.
But the immediate wanting—yearning—he’d felt when Lucy lifted those big brown eyes to his had been like an explosion going off in his brain. He didn’t want it, couldn’t handle it, and it only made him more committed to getting Lucy Renner and her mother away from the ranch for good.
His world would undoubtedly be turned upside down by those two women. He had a routine at the ranch—a mostly solitary existence, especially through the winter—that kept him busy. If it weren’t for the barn full of critters that made up his animal-rescue project, Caden could have gone for weeks without seeing anyone but Garrett and the other ranch hands.
In the waning light of afternoon, he checked the outlying cattle troughs, then returned to the barn to feed and water the rescue animals. Lucy’s scent still lingered in the air, and his body hardened in response. He forced the image of her out of his mind, focused on his routine and the animals he cared for. Next weekend he was opening the barn for a pre-Christmas adoption event, and he was way behind on preparations for it.
Erin MacDonald, the kindergarten teacher who also ran an after-school program for kids in the community, had convinced him to work with the local humane society to introduce more people to the animals he rescued. He hadn’t actually planned on running a makeshift animal shelter. Hell, keeping the ranch going was more than a full-time job. But it seemed as though Caden had been collecting strays since he was a boy.
Maybe because he’d been one until Garrett and Tyson had come into his life.
Once he was certain she’d gone to the house, he finished with the animals, taking time to give some attention to each one. He let the dogs out into the big fenced pen connected to the barn to run and play and couldn’t help but smile at their antics.
A light dusting of snow covered the hard ground, and a big storm was forecast for early the following week. Winter on a mountain ranch was a constant battle against the elements and nearby predators, and Caden took seriously the protection of every animal under his care.
Stella, the ranch’s cattle dog, had taken on a maternal role with a few of the younger pups, and she nipped at ankles and herded the group of rescue dogs as they ran through the cold evening air, oblivious to the dropping temperature.
Once he had all the animals safely back in the barn, he headed for the main house. Tension knotted his neck and shoulders with every step. He would have much preferred to hunker down in the bunkhouse as a way of avoiding another run-in with Lucy, but he’d promised Garrett that he’d make an appearance at this family dinner.
Golden light spilled from the windows as he approached the main house. Maureen had hung thick swaths of pine rope from the porch railings, decorated with glittering red bows that seemed to draw more attention to the faded gray siding and dull paint of the black trim. He’d climbed those front porch steps thousands of times over the years, but since Tyson’s death he’d never been able to step foot in the house without regret washing through him.
“It’s about time.” Garrett’s deep voice boomed from the family room as soon as Caden stepped into the house. “Come in here, Caden, and see how Maureen has transformed this place into a winter wonderland.”
Caden sucked in a breath as he entered the family room, with its muted-yellow walls and well-worn furniture. He almost had to shade his eyes at the garish display of Christmas lights strung above the windows and shimmering garland covering the mantel.
“It’s pink,” he said in horror. It looked like a five-year-old girl obsessed with princesses had decorated the space, not a thrice-divorced woman pushing sixty.
His eye caught on the box marked Decorations that he’d brought down from the attic now shoved into one corner. That box held all the decorations he, Garrett and Tyson had used each year. There were ornaments whittled out of tree branches from the woods on the ranch’s south border, along with the small nativity set Tyson’s mother had painstakingly painted the year before her cancer diagnosis.
Caden had come to live on the ranch only months after Julia Sharpe’s death, and although he’d never met her, he’d felt her presence like a warm blanket at night. In the twenty years since Julia’s death, little had changed in the house from how she’d arranged it.
Until Maureen Renner descended on Sharpe Ranch.
“Mom loves pink,” Lucy offered from where she stood just inside the room. Color was high on her cheeks. If Garrett didn’t know better, he would have guessed she was as put off by the whole display as he was.
“It’s a vibrant color,” Maureen purred, nuzzling Garrett’s shoulder and tracing a manicured hand over his heart. “Bright and alive. This place needed some life breathed back into it.”
Caden’s adoptive father chuckled as he grinned at Caden. “I suppose you and I have gotten set in our ways living the bachelor life out here. We need a little infusion of spark and color, right?”
“Where the hell do you even find pink Christmas decorations?” Caden asked the room in general.
Garrett