Page 2 of Trails of Temptation

“Are you thinking about coming back to Hot Springs?”

I didn’t know what to say. I was always thinking about coming back to Hot Springs, but not because I wanted to return home to the place I’d spent most of my young life. I thought about coming back to Hot Springs every single night, imagining myself trudging up the steps to the little farmhouse George lived in on Grant’s property and banging on his door… Of telling him I loved him, always had, always will, and kissing him on the mouth like I’d always wanted to do but never had the guts to actually do it.

Even after everything we went through when Moira’s ex-boyfriend came onto the property and raised all kinds of hell… That night brought all of us together, but it hadn’t been enough to spur anything between me and George.

I’d left Hot Springs a few weeks later. George had just… Well, nothing happened.Nothing. He’d just gone back to his grumpy, gruff ways and straight-up ignored me. It was telling, and I’d felt like a stupid, dumb idiot for weeks.

I’d gone back to Hot Springs only once over the past year, and that was for Moira and Grant’s very intimate wedding at the Hallston Ranch.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I lied again, swallowing thickly. “Why? Miss me that much?”

“Actually,” Pete replied with a laugh, “I may have a job for you if you’re looking.”

“I don’t want to work for you again, Pete. We fought the whole time.”

“Not for me,” he said with what I assumed was a smug grin and a shrug, “but for Grant. Moira is pregnant. You’d know that if you ever answered your phone. She’s having a hard go of it and they’ve been looking for someone to come live on the ranch with them and help out around the house and with Holliday. Remember him?”

“Of course I remember Day,” I replied with a smile. Such a sweet kid. Smart kid, too, and I was willing to bet he’d been giving his new stepdad hell over the past year. “But why me?”

“Because you were a teacher for a while, for one. Two, Grant said Moira doesn’t stop talking about you and that goddamn cake you made for their Fourth of July party two summers ago.”

I smiled to myself again. Ah, now that cake was one of my best.

“I feel like there’s a catch to this,” I murmured as I pulled into a gas station.

“It’ll be a few months of this. At least two months. Moira’s on bedrest.”

“Jesus, why?” I gasped, my skin prickling with adrenaline. I’d talked to Moira on the phone a few times over the past six or seven months and she hadn’t said a thing to me about being pregnant, let alone feeling so sick she needed to be on bedrest.

“I didn’t ask for specifics. You can find all that out yourself when you get back in town.”

“I haven’t said yes!”

“What else are you going to do this summer?”

I sighed, biting down on my lip as I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Maybe Alaskawasa bit too far.

But being back in Hot Springs… and living on the Hallston Ranch with George?

That was way too close to pure, unavoidable heartbreak.

“Grant told me he’s willing you give you sixty-grand if you stick around for four months to help out after the baby’s born.”

“Did you just say sixty-grand?” I practically screamed, choking on the words. The woman pumping gas in the car next to mine looked up at me with a shocked expression, but I ignored her.

“Yeah… I mean, this is Grant we’re talking about.”

Well, I’d be a fool to say no to sixty-grand for four short months of what sounded like tucking Moira into bed and mopping their hardwood floors.

I thought about my savings account, at how I was planning on using that money. I could buy a house somewhere, something small. I could enroll in a Master’s program and have a better shot at landing a real, good paying teaching position somewhere that didn’t lay off most of their teachers every year.

“Fine,” I said after a moment. “I’ll do it.”

“When can you get here? I’m bringing dinner over to their house tonight, I can tell them in person—”

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” I replied a bit shakily. Pete says “whoops”, which was very unlike him. I squint into my phone, wondering if I’m really talking to my brother or if I’d imagined the entire conversation. “Just make sure you tell them I’m coming.”Tell George I’m coming,I thought dismally, so he can run away and hide from me all summer.

“Great. Come by the bar on your way through town so we can catch up.”

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