Page 36 of The Last Dance You Saved
I didn’t want to think about what Lauren was doing these days, so I didn’t respond.
As if she hadn’t noticed, Sadie kept on going, “I think she’s taken on all of Spencer’s chores in addition to her own. She doesn’t have the money to hire anyone else, so she’s trying to do it all. And grieving. And raising your daughter. I can’t imagine.”
I heard the judgment in her tone, and it took my good humor and sent it into the sky. She could be curious, and she could want to understand me and mine, but she didn’t deserve to judge me. Lauren had made her bed, just as I’d made mine. We’d all had choices, even Spencer, and now we’d been left to live with the consequences.
Chapter Thirteen
Sadie
DEAD SET
Performed by Max McNown
The smiling, charming Rafe who’d watchedhis daughter and flirted with me had been almost more entrancing than the broody bar owner I’d first met. I regretted that mentioning Lauren and the work I saw her doing with no help—not from her brother or from her child’s father—had closed him down like a book shutting, and yet I could read the cover. The tight muscles of his shoulders and hard line of his jaw made it very clear it wasn’t my business. I might not know what had happened in order for Lauren to wind up married to his brother after having given birth to Rafe’s child, but I could see it had left wounds behind. Ones that would be hard to heal if you had to face them every time you wanted to see your daughter.
For a brief moment, I’d thought maybe he’d try to win Lauren back, but he'd asked me twice now to come to his bed, and somehow, I doubted he’d do that here if he intended to woo Lauren back. And the tension between them yesterday had not shown any indication of easing. So I knew the hot and cold he’d sent my way didn’t have anything to do with her. It had everything to do with seeing me with Lorenzo.
After going to my room last night, I’d tossed and turned rather than slept. The lingering need he’d ignited had never drifted away even though I’d tried, once again, to shake it on my own. It had been my rampant curiosity as much as the lust that had kept me awake. I’d tried to make sense of all the pieces of the story I’d garnered about Rafe, his daughter, Adam, and the ranch without much success. There was still too much of their history I hadn’t been told. How Lorenzo fit was an even bigger unknown.
But it wasn’t the mystery of their pasts that was the last thing I’d thought about before I’d fallen asleep. It was that feeling I’d had by the waterfall of fate, so when I did finally drift off, I dreamed of laughing wee folk. They pulled strings on me like a puppet, making me dance around Rafe in a bluebell-studded field, and I’d woken with the wordforeverrolling from my tongue in a forbidden whisper that had sent my heart racing.
Rafe walking up to the corral in jeans, cowboy boots, and a hat this morning had spiked my pulse all over again. He’d looked damned good, almost better than he’d looked in his handmade suit. It made me want to peel back his layers and understand what had turned the farm boy into a multi-million-dollar business man. It made me want to show up in the cabin he’d said he was staying at just to get answers.
We walked through the back door of the castle-like house after watching Fallon and left our boots and hats in the mudroom. I felt his gaze on me the entire time, trailing after me as I made my way down the hall to the enormous kitchen, but he didn’t say a word. Knowing he was saving them all for tonight only made my blood pressure spike more.
The dark cabinets and older appliances in the kitchen screamed of a 1990s remodel, but it was large enough that, with some slight changes, it could be used as a restaurant kitchen. The addition Ryder had added on to our farmhouse had a large hall with oversized bench tables perfect for the family-style bowls of food we served, but the Harringtons’ formal dining room, with its mahogany table and gilded mirrors, could easily accommodate a buffet that would meet their needs. Or perhaps they could use the old bunkhouse mess hall.
I was surprised to find Lauren had a full, hot breakfast on the table with scrambled eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes, and avocado toast. No grits, but there were country potatoes instead, reminding me that we weren’t in the South but rather in California.
“You didn’t need to do all this,” Rafe grunted out. “Each of us could have found something on our own.”
She hardly acknowledged him, stacking dishes she’d already used in a large dishwasher. “I wanted Sadie’s opinion on the breakfast. Do your guests order off a menu, or do you serve buffet style?”
“All our meals are served family style. Large bowls and platters on long tables in the restaurant with multiple families at each one. But the guests can also order room service until about ten o’clock or so. We set up picnic lunches and sack lunches for those who will be out exploring during the day. We find most of the guests want the full experience though, and they like coming to the restaurant and feeling like they’re part of the ranch.”
Fallon and Adam joined us, and an awkward silence settled down while everyone ate. Adam had set a folder down on the table when he’d first entered, and he slid it toward Rafe. “Here’s Spence’s login information. Take a look through the accounts, and let me know what you have questions about. Should be fairly straightforward. I imagine your books for Marquess Enterprises are a lot more complicated.”
Rafe didn’t take the folder, but his gaze lingered on Adam’s for a moment with something a lot like suspicion before he slid it behind his blank façade. Fallon watched the exchange with skepticism that mirrored her father’s, but Lauren seemed oblivious to it. Everything about the silent conversations added more questions to the pile that had kept me up at night.
“I’ll be out in the alfalfa fields this morning, baling,” Lauren said, looking at Fallon. “I’ll need you to take care of getting the horses fed and exercised.”
“I already started before I came in,” Fallon responded without even a blink.
When I was her age, I’d despised doing chores on the ranch. It had felt like it ate away at all my free time, and I’d been jealous of my friends who lived in town and got to play their way through their weekends and school holidays. Fallon didn’t look like she cared, and I wondered just how much responsibility she’d been given now that Spence had died. How much had she picked up right along with her mother?
Adam didn’t seem obligated to help either of them, and Rafe’s jaw was stiff again, as if he was biting his tongue not to intercede.
“If you give me a list of things to do, I can help,” I offered.
“Yesterday, we mostly talked about our weddings, and we have so little of your time, so I’d really rather you work through the details of your ranch’s conversion with Adam,” Lauren said.
“I can do both. I’ll leave Adam all the information Ryder sent me with, and he can go through it while I work on some of the chores this morning. After lunch, I can answer any questions he has.” When Lauren hesitated, I smiled at her and said, “Seriously, my family would tell you it’s best to put me to work. Otherwise, I get up to all sorts of mischief. Idle hands and all that.”
She looked hesitant but said, “If you could help Fallon, that would be great. Her instructor is coming this afternoon for her trick riding lessons, and I want to make sure she’s done before then.”
“Why aren’t Kurt and Teddy doing the baling?” Rafe asked tersely.
Lauren flushed. “We had to let them go last year.”
