Piper’s smile drooped, and her throat clogged painfully as if she’d swallowed a jagged stone. She angled her gaze to Brady and nodded. “Right. And Brady. I knew Brady and your dad growing up.” Drawing deep breath to regain her composure, she pushed to her feet. “Wanna help me get my suitcases?”
She tousled Connor’s sandy-brown hair, the same color as Brady’s—
She determinedly cut the thought off as she hiked her backpack onto her shoulder again. Not Brady’s. Like Scott’s. But even that wasn’t right, she thought as she set off toward the luggage carousel.
She cast a side-glance at Brady as they made their way through the crowd, allowing herself to conjure a painful memory from the first summer she’d been home from college. The trip that summer had been the first time she’d returned to Colorado since breaking up with Brady and setting out for Boston, for independence, for her fresh start. That first year had been the toughest year of her life, and seeing Brady after eleven months away from home and family had been gut-wrenching.
In a stiff conversation with Brady in the stables, an accidental meeting she’d barely made it through without crying, she’d asked all the polite questions.
“How’s your dad?”
“Dad is Dad. Same as always.”
“And Scott?”
“Good. He and Pam adopted a baby.”
Piper remembered the stabbing pain in her heart and how she’d forced a quivering smile. “Wow. That’s great. Tell them congratulations from me.”
Connor wasn’t Scott’s biological son, so the similarities she saw between Connor and Brady were just coincidence. Or some misplaced wishful thinking. Or her head playing the heart-wrenching what-if game again.
Brady placed a callus-roughened hand on Connor’s head, lightly ruffling the boy’s silky hair, as they waited beside carousel 3 for the belt to start moving. “What do your suitcases look like?”
“Plain black like a thousand others.” She set her backpack at her feet and rubbed her aching shoulder. “One has a red luggage tag, and I tied a little blue ribbon on the other.”
He nodded. “Got it.”
“So...you drew the short straw, huh?” she asked without looking at him. She pretended to be intently watching the crowd and the shadowed maw where her flight’s cargo would soon appear.
“Pardon?”
“To come get me. You pulled the short straw?”
“Actually, I volunteered.”
She cut a side-glance at him and met his piercing gaze. “You did?”
“Yeah. I thought Connor would get a kick outta seeing the airplanes, the terminal. Oh, before we leave, I’ve promised him we can get a cinnamon pretzel at Auntie Anne’s.”
A loud warning beep blared from a speaker just above their heads, interrupting any reply. He wasn’t here for her. He was here for Connor...and a cinnamon pretzel. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Relief? Disappointment? And why did it matter to her?
The conveyor belt started rolling, and someone with an oversize duffel bag on his arm pushed past Piper, knocking her into Brady. She tripped over her backpack, lost her balance and landed against him with an oof, her hands splayed on his chest and her nose in the V of his open collar.
Brady wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her as she regained her footing, and heat flashed through her. From his taut body, from embarrassment...and from a kick of lust she couldn’t quell. As she righted herself, she drew a deep, calming breath and immediately regretted it.
Brady smelled so good. And familiar. A sexy combination of soap, hay and male warmth that took her back to hours spent in his arms. Naked. Inquisitive. Bursting with young love and rampant teenage desire.
Piper shifted her grip from his chest to his arms, trying to wiggle free of his hold. “I’m good. You can let go.”
But he didn’t.
After a couple of strained seconds, she glanced up to repeat herself. Maybe he hadn’t heard her in the din and bustle of the airport. When she met his eyes, her voice stuck in her throat. The intensity of his gaze left no question that his thoughts had followed a similar track to hers. Motes of longing swirled through the green depths and tangled with shadows of regret. His mouth looked soft, but his jaw muscles flexed and tightened with restraint. He wanted to kiss her. She recognized that look well, and so did the muscles in her belly that quickened and the nerves in her lips that tingled with the memory of his kisses. How easy it would be to push up on her toes and steal the kiss his eyes promised.
Instead, she forced her throat to loosen enough to wheeze. “I’m okay. L-let go.”
Slowly, his arm slipped away, even though his stare held hers for several more painful heartbeats. Despite her assurances to Brady that she could stand alone, her knees trembled as she stepped back, threatening to give out.
Pull it together, McCall! This moony, love-sick calf act will not help you get through the week and back to Boston with your heart intact. With the steely determination that had helped her survive her freshman year, keeping her grades up while she battled morning sickness and a broken heart, she shoved aside the jittery sparks dancing through her and put some starch in her spine.
“That one?” a young voice asked, and she felt a tug on her shirt. She glanced down at Brady’s nephew and found him pointing behind her. “That one has blue string.”
Blue string...suitcase...airport. Piper blinked several times, bringing her surroundings back into focus. For just a moment, she’d lost track of the rest of the world. Being with Brady had a way of narrowing her scope to just the two of them.
“Grab it, buddy.” Brady stepped past her, a guiding hand on Connor’s shoulder.
The little boy scuttled forward through the crowd with his uncle at his heels. When Connor grabbed the huge suitcase’s handle and struggled to drag it off the conveyor belt, Brady added a helping hand. After the bag thunked to the floor, Brady stepped back, letting his nephew raise the handle and roll the suitcase through the crowd.
Piper shook the tension from her hands and arms and blew out a puff of air, gathering some semblance of composure. Pasting on a smile for Connor, she reached for the oversized suitcase as he dragged it to her feet. “Need some help?”
“I got it,” Connor said and grunted. “Sheesh! How many clothes did you bring? That’s heavy!”
“Oh, that’s not clothes. That’s my bag of rocks.”
Connor frowned for a second before twisting his mouth in a crooked grin. “You’re teasing!”
She flashed a playful grin and shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Brady approached with her other suitcase in tow and asked, “Is this it?”
She nodded. “Thanks. I think that’s everything.”
“All right then.” Brady dug his keys from his pocket and bounced them once in his hand. “Let’s go home.”
Piper’s stomach swooped. Home. Once upon a time, she’d called the Double M Ranch home. But she had a new life now in Boston. She’d found the independence she’d been looking for when she went to college, but that independence had come at a cost. She’d lost the close family connections she’d taken for granted growing up. She’d stayed away from the ranch for most of the last seven years. Her freshman year, she’d hidden herself at college to protect the secret she carried, afraid of her family’s reaction, running from Brady and from a future that couldn’t be. She’d flogged herself with regret and guilt. Each