Rancher's Deadly Reunion

Steeling herself, Piper surreptitiously wiped her sweaty palms on the seat of her jeans.

“Welcome home.” He reached for the backpack she had draped on one shoulder, and she shrugged away.

“I can get this. I have two suitcases coming, though. Carousel 3.”

He lifted a shoulder. “All right.”

She jerked a nod and turned to search the lit signs for the carousel.

“Piper?”

She glanced back at him. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

His gaze dropped to a boy standing slightly behind him. The boy was playing with a small windup fire truck, rolling the toy up the side of a trash can. “Connor, c’mere. I want you to meet someone.”

Connor glanced up, staring at Piper for a moment, his eyes the same clear green as a Rocky Mountain lake. The same green as Brady’s eyes. Air backed up in her lungs. If her life had gone differently...

Connor scuttled to Brady’s side, jerking her from the dangerous path of what-ifs.

“Piper, this is Connor. My nephew.”

The breath she’d been holding left her in a gush. His nephew. Of course. Relief made her knees tremble, but on the heels of that release came the stark reminder of why his nephew was with him.

Brady’s brother and sister-in-law were killed in a bad traffic accident on Interstate 70, her mother had said in a phone call a few months back. When had that been? January? February? The couple had left custody of their son to Brady, a move that still puzzled her. Pam had family, sisters with children who’d surely have been better equipped to care for the little boy.

She worked to hide her dismay over the couple’s deaths from the boy.

“Connor, this is Josh and Zane’s sister, Piper. Can you tell her hello?”

The boy stepped forward with a shy smile and stuck his hand out. “Hello. I’m Connor. Nice to meet you.”

A smile bloomed on her face, and she took the small proffered hand. Crouching to the boy’s level and letting her backpack slip to the floor, she said, “Pleased to meet you, Connor. You have wonderful manners.”

He twitched a crooked grin and shrugged. “Yeah. I know.”

She snorted a laugh before she could muffle it. Glancing up at Brady, she added, “And so humble.”

He grinned and flipped up his palm. “He’s a work in progress.”

Piper sandwiched Connor’s hand between hers in a warm clasp. “How old are you, Connor?”

“Six.” His face brightened. “I had a cowboy birthday party.”

Piper chuckled. “Cowboys, huh? Like your uncle?”

“And Grampa. He’s foreman at the Double M!”

Piper matched the boy’s enthusiastic expression. “I know! Guess what? I’ve known your Grampa since before I was your age.”

Connor tipped his head and gave her a skeptical frown. “Really?”

“The Double M is my family’s ranch. I grew up there.”

He nodded sagely. “Like Josh and Zane.”

She tapped his nose. “Bingo. They’re my brothers. We’re triplets. We were all born the same day.”

“And Brady?” Connor’s green eyes widened. “He grew up at the Double M, too. Like my daddy. ’Cept... Mama and Daddy died. So now Brady’s my daddy.”

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 year that followed, she allowed herself brief visits, but kept mostly to the main house, avoiding the stable and cattle pens at times she knew Brady would be there.

“Wait!” Connor cried as they started for the parking garage. “Don’t forget my pretzel!”

“Oh, right,” Brady said, giving his head a shake and patting Connor on the back. “Sorry, buddy. Now let’s see. Where is Auntie Anne’s?”

A review of the airport map in the lobby showed the only Auntie Anne’s was past the security gates.

“Sorry, buddy. They won’t let us go to the part of the airport where the pretzel store is without a ticket,” Brady told his nephew and ruffled the boy’s hair.

“Where do we get a ticket?” Connor asked.

“We don’t. Not today.”

Connor wrinkled his nose in protest. “How come? You said I could have a pretzel!”

“I know. I’m sorry.” The look on Brady’s face said everything he didn’t. How much he hated letting his nephew down. How hard he was thinking about a way to make it up to Connor. Piper sent Brady a sympathetic smile and tapped Connor on the shoulder.

“You know what? I’ve been craving a big chocolate ice cream cone for hours. What do you say we stop for ice cream on the way home instead?”

Connor looked unconvinced at first, but when Piper batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands under her chin with a “Please?” the boy nodded. “Is that okay, Uncle Brady? Can we get Piper some ice cream?”

“That we can, Con.” He gave her a wink of thanks, and the moment of conspiratorial connection wrapped around her like a hug, warmth burrowing to her core. As they made their way out of the airport, Piper tried to rein in the soft emotions that tugged at her. She didn’t want to let her guard down around Brady or share private smiles that would chip away at her protective walls. Even after seven years, she was clearly still vulnerable to Brady’s lopsided grin and soft-spoken charm, and she was thankful for the buffer and distraction Connor would provide on the drive back to the ranch.

With Connor struggling valiantly to roll one of her heavy suitcases, they strolled down the long aisle of the parking deck until they reached Brady’s mud-speckled pickup truck. After Connor scrambled up onto the back seat of the extended cab F-150, he seized Piper’s hand and tugged. “Sit with me, Piper!”

“Well, I—”

“Pleeeeeease?”

The light green, puppy-dog eyes that beseeched her were impossible to turn down. She glanced at Brady, who only chuckled as he slid behind the steering wheel.

“Sure. Why not?” she said.

Closing the front door and glad for the excuse to move to the back seat, she climbed in next to Brady’s nephew, waved her hand blithely and in a nasal voice, said, “Home, James.”

Connor wrinkled his nose. “James? His name’s Brady!”

“Not when he’s our chauffeur,” she said, wagging a finger, her voice still pinched and snooty.

Connor caught on to her joke and gave a belly laugh. Mimicking her hoity-toity tone, he said, “Drive us home, James!”

Brady loosed an indelicate snort, then returned, “Righty-o, Sir Snoodlepants.”

Connor’s peals of laughter filled Piper with an odd warmth, and she couldn’t stop the giggles that bubbled up.

“Hey, Piper,” Connor asked as they backed out of the parking space, “how do you stop an elephant from charging?”

She cut a glance to Brady, whose cheek dimpled as he grinned. “I don’t know. How?”

“Take away her credit card!” Connor’s eyes lit as he delivered the punch line, and Piper found herself chuckling at the boy’s delight. She didn’t have much experience around children. Most of her friends were either unmarried or putting off starting a family while they launched their careers. Yet Brady had had fatherhood handed to him under difficult circumstances. The notion made her chest tighten. If she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that took her to Boston College, how would her life have been different? Could she and Brady have made their relationship work? Could they have been parents to—

She nipped off the thought before it fully formed. Don’t go there.

Focusing her attention on Brady’s nephew, she asked, “Do you know what an elephant’s favorite vegetable is?”

He shook his head.

“Squash!”

“Squash!” Connor repeated with another hardy laugh. “Did you hear that, Brady? Squash!”

“Afraid so, little man.”

Connor continued to entertain her with riddles as they drove out of the airport and merged onto the highway.

She mentally thanked Connor for providing an excuse not to make awkward conversation with Brady. The boy’s invitation to ride in the back seat with him also gave her the opportunity to study Brady’s profile covertly, to drink in the subtle changes in his face without him knowing.

“Do you know any more jokes?” Connor asked, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright with his amusement.

Piper scoured her memory for one of the lame riddles she and her brothers had told each other years ago. “What is black and white and red all over?”

“A zebra with a sun burn!” Connor shouted, clearly pleased with himself.

The boy’s mirth elicited an answering chuckle from her. The music of Connor’s giggles fed her soul. Laughing loosened the knots of tension that had kinked inside her the moment she spotted Brady across the airport lobby. More than that, goofing around with the little boy was a release she’d needed from the pressures and worries of her sixty-hour-a-week job and a few high-maintenance friends in Boston.

When was the last time she’d allowed herself to be silly? To laugh with the kind of carefree abandon that Connor enjoyed? Not that she didn’t share light moments with her friends and coworkers in Boston. She did. But with Connor there was no agenda, no drama. Just a little boy enjoying bad puns and simple irony.

Connor delivered the punch line of a joke she realized she’d missed as she was musing, but she groaned and grinned as if she’d been paying attention. As he started another riddle, Piper had the odd sensation of being watched. She’d experienced the prickling sensation at the back of her neck frequently over the past few months, so she knew the unsettling feeling well. Her gaze flew to the driver’s seat, and she found Brady staring at her via the rearview mirror. His gaze locked with hers, a strange, unreadable expression sculpting his face. The odd look held a note of intimacy, but also an edgy curiosity. Was it wariness? Fear? What did Brady have to fear from her? She didn’t have long to analyze his expression before his attention darted back to the road.

Connor, too, had fallen oddly quiet, eyeing them, then turning his gaze out the window and shifting restlessly in his booster seat. The boy’s brow beetled, and he said, “Uncle Brady, is this the road where Mama and Daddy died?”

Piper stilled, and a cold sorrow sliced through her.

Brady’s hand tightened around the steering wheel, and he again glanced in the rearview mirror, this time to study his nephew. “Yeah, it is.” He paused, then added, “But not this part. Their accident happened the other direction from the big city.”

“Oh,” was all Connor replied, still staring out the window.

Piper rubbed her thumb over the knuckles of her opposite hand, keeping a concerned gaze on Connor and regretting the lost conviviality. How was the boy handling the death of his parents? Knowing the challenge Brady had faced, taking custody of a newly orphaned boy while dealing with his own grief over Scott and Pam’s deaths filled her with a new respect for her longtime friend. Brady had dealt with a lot more obligations and hardships than other men his age, even when he and Piper been involved as teenagers. The loss of his mother and his father’s heavy drinking had meant he’d had to grow up fast and take on more family responsibility, especially after Scott married and moved out of town.

“Connor?” Brady said softly. “You all right, buddy?”

The boy heaved a mature-sounding sigh. “Yeah.” Then, “I miss them.”

Brady nodded. “Me, too, buddy.”

Piper tightened her fists in her lap, hurting for Connor, for Brady. Scott and Pam had only been gone nine months. Their deaths had to still be a raw and confusing subject for Connor.

After another minute or two of strained silence in the truck, Piper searched for another joke to tell, a distracting question to redirect Connor’s thoughts and lighten the mood. Or was that even the right move? Should she follow Brady’s lead and let Connor work through this moment on his own? All she knew was that her heart hurt for the little boy, and her instinct was to do something, anything, to put a smile back on his face. But what did she know about parenting?

While she was debating, Connor said, “Hey, Piper?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“What do you call a wet bear?”

She released the breath she held and flashed a warm smile at the boy. “I don’t know.”

“A drizzily bear.” He shot her a quick grin, then turned back to his window, falling quiet again. “My dad told me that one.”

“That’s a good one,” she said and patted his knobby knee.

Connor twisted his mouth and wrinkled his nose. “My mom and dad died in a car accident.”

Her grip on his knee tightened. “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

“I live with Uncle Brady and Grampa now. At the Double M.”

Piper nodded. “Do you like the ranch?”

His face brightened a bit. “It smells bad ’cause of all the animal poop, but you get used to it.”

She couldn’t help but snort a chuckle at the boy’s bluntness. Having grown up on the ranch, she’d never really noticed or cared about the odors that accompanied all the animals. For her, the scents of oiled leather and freshly cut alfalfa were sweeter than roses.

“Riding horses and helping Uncle Brady with the cows is fun,” Connor added.

“Well, I’ve been away from the ranch for a lot of months, so my riding may be rusty.” She tipped her head and gave the boy a dubious frown. “Would you help me with my horse while I’m visiting this week?”

Connor sat taller and grinned. “Sure! I’m good at saddling and riding.” He glanced to his uncle, adding, “Aren’t I, Brady?”

“You are, little man. That you are.” Brady sent Connor a proud grin as he met his nephew’s gaze in the mirror. “When we get home, Grampa will have dinner waiting, so I want you to go straight back to the house and wash up. Okay?”

“Y’sir.”

Home. Piper turned her attention to the scenery passing outside her window. She’d been so absorbed in Connor that she’d not realized how close they were getting to the Double M. The beef-cattle ranch had been in her family for three generations. She’d grown up around muddy boots, bleating calves and horse tails swishing away flies. Her parents and brothers still lived on and worked the ranch, and someday she’d inherit one third of the Double M.

But was the ranch still her home? She’d been gone seven years. Seven eventful years. She’d done a lot of growing up since she left the Double M. She’d earned her degree in finance, gotten her first nine-to-five job with a finance company, set herself up in an apartment that she’d decorated to her taste.

And she’d made the toughest decisions of her life to give birth to, then give away, Brady’s baby.

She swallowed hard and pressed her hand to her stomach. The memory always caused a guilty roil in her gut. She’d made the best decision she could as a scared eighteen-year-old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t constantly second-guess herself.

As Brady took an unexpected exit from the interstate, Piper glanced up, confused. “Where are you going?”

He angled his head toward her. “Ice cream. Remember?”

Connor sat taller, and his face brightened. “Yay! I’m gonna get chocolate, too, Piper!”

“One scoop, buddy. And you have to promise to eat your vegetables at dinner,” Brady said, one eyebrow arched.

She shook her head slightly. When had Brady turned into such a...a...parent?

The answer came to her, and her stomach curled in on itself. She really had no appetite for ice cream. No desire to extend the awkwardness between her and Brady. She only wanted to get to the ranch and decompress after her flight, unwind the tension that had coiled in her the instant she’d spotted Brady. But she’d be damned if she’d be party to disappointing Connor, a boy whose world had been so thoroughly devastated in recent months. For Connor’s sake, she’d paste on a smile, eat a chocolate ice cream cone and endure a few more taut minutes playing nice with the one man who still had the power to break her heart.

Ken didn’t recognize the cowboy who’d met Piper at the airport. Nor did he know anything about the little boy. The guy wasn’t one of her brothers. He’d seen the pictures of them she had on her desk at the office...and stored in her laptop. Irritation crawled through him. He didn’t like the idea that Piper had people in her life that he didn’t have at least a little information on.

Whoever the guy was, Piper had seemed startled to see him. She’d been cool and standoffish at first, but when that klutz with his big duffel had knocked her into the cowboy, he had been quick to catch her, slow to release her. Piper and the cowboy had shared a look that hinted at a history together. A history that might not be completely in the past. Something hot and not-yet smothered.