Page 11 of Must Love Mistletoe

Sam stayed silent until they pulled up at the school drop-off area. She went to open the door of the truck, but Cal was way ahead of her, and Sam scrambled out of his side in a tangle of limbs and an oversized schoolbag.

“You’ll take care of her, right?” Sam asked.

“You bet.” Cal knuckled up for a solemn fist bump and earned another swift Sam smile.

Was shejealousof the rapport Cal shared with her son? How mean-spirited could she be?

Plenty mean, or so it seemed. She met Cal’s gaze when he got back into the car and for a moment she truly thought he could see straight through her. All her feelings of inadequacy and failure. All her earnest parenting and never knowing if she was doing the right thing by her boy. Could he really see how often she floundered?

“Don’t fault him for wanting to protect you,” Cal told her as he drove toward Marietta’s Main Street.

“Are you going to tell me it’s a guy thing?”

“It’s a family thing.”

He never gave her the fight she was spoiling for. He always knew exactly how to disarm her, even when she was being a brat. Especially then.

He made her long to be a better person.

He deserved to have only thebestkind of people around him.

Getting a booth at the diner at this time of the day was as simple as walking in and taking a seat. They had water, coffee, and fresh cutlery on the table within the first minute. Guess being a rangy cowboy who stood six-five in steel capped boots came in handy, Beth decided with a wry smile, and watched the waitress flirt while he ordered a pancake stack with bacon and syrup and blueberries. Beth ordered eggs and savory greens with her bacon, and looked around to find curious eyes upon them.

“What if people think we’re on a date?” she asked.

“Don’t care.” His well-shaped lips tilted ever so slightly upwards. “How bad’s your financial situation, Beth? Will you walk away with anything at all?”

“If I sell the ranch, I should be able to buy a place in Marietta once all the debts and mortgages have cleared. I thought I might have been able to hang on to it long enough for Sam to take it on, but if it doesn’t matter to him whether we stay or go…”

“It matters. But he doesn’t want to see you running yourself ragged in service to a failing dream, either. So.”

“Would you buy it? Could you?”

“Personally? No. I can’t afford to do it alone. Not enough capital—and that was always Red’s issue, too, and his father’s before him. They took on far too much debt and just couldn’t get ahead. And the bad years weren’t good to them, and you need a solid financial buffer in this industry, at least two or three year’s worth. You just do. And Red gambled. Are we up to admitting that? I can go either way—I’m more about wanting you to know that I don’t blame you for your current financial position at all. You inherited a bad hand.”

It eased a knot at the back of her neck to hear him absolve her. “I’m not that likely to want to talk about Red’s gambling any time soon but I know money went missing on the regular. I figured it was either that or—”

That or women.

But she didn’t say it. “I know he gambled.”

Cal nodded. “The Caseys will put together some kind of offer if you put it up for sale—we’d be mad not to. Seth and Maddie could likely bid on it themselves if it came to that. It’s good grazing country, Beth. You won’t be short of offers.”

“I kind of hoped it would be you. Just you.”

“Wish I could.” He looked at the table and traced the scar of someone’s carved initial with the edge of his thumb.

How had she never noticed the long sweep of his lashes before? Maybe they just got eaten up by the sheer forceful impact of that rugged, rough-hewn face.

“If one or more of my brothers end up with it, I’d probably be managing it, anyway. Don’t know if that helps ease your mind any.”

Only in so much as, yet again, this man would be doing the bulk of the work and asking little in return. “Don’t get me wrong, your brothers are impressive—individually and collectively—but ask anyone who the Casey rancher is, who the caretaker is, whose very heart beats for the valley, and it’syou. Don’t sell yourself short.”

His eyes blazed with unexpected fire, and she blinked at the sudden heat that started somewhere deep in her belly and headed south. She knew what desire felt like. She just hadn’t wanted to admit she might desirethisman, before now. It had never hit her sohardbefore. It wouldn’t have been right.

Did that mean it was okay to want himnow? To actually confess to such a longing?

She’d spent so much timeavoidinghim.

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