Second Chance At The Ranch

She’d mentioned her concerns to Juliet, who had apparently then mentioned them to her new family, as the subject had soon come up one night over dinner. Hero had given Juliet a bit of a look, feeling awkward and worrying that the Websters might think she was spoiled and full of herself, assuming people would automatically want to talk about her. She could understand an outsider thinking that. But she operated within that world, and she knew how it worked.

Thankfully, the Websters had been very understanding, telling her not to worry about it, and that they would do their best to make sure everyone’s privacy was protected. That was apart from Nick. Throughout the whole conversation, he’d kept his eyes down, concentrating on his food, staying out of the conversation. It was clear that he was as keen for her to leave as she was.

Pete’s parents had been very kind at introducing her to people at the wedding venue and then again this evening, but it was their son’s wedding and they had plenty of their own mingling to do. The Websters were well known and well liked in the area, and Juliet was already becoming a favourite in her own right.

Glancing around the room earlier, Hero had noticed a few jealous looks being thrown her sister’s way. It was understandable. Pete was handsome, solvent and a decent man – an ideal combination, and one that wasn’t always that easy to find in a busy city, let alone in a remote location like this, she imagined. Even if she saw them, Juliet wouldn’t take it to heart. She understood that all they saw was that an outsider had come along and snapped up one of the few eligible men in the area. In time, they’d get used to it, and her. Hero had pulled a face at her answer when they’d talked about it yesterday, wondering at the ability her sister had to always see the best in people. Hero’s nature and life path had combined to make her see things differently. It was one subject that they had agreed to disagree on, several times:

‘The trouble with you, Jules, is that you think everyone is like you.’

‘And the trouble with you is that you don’t.’

The reception was heaving, and Hero took the opportunity to step outside, breathing in the warm air of the evening as she looked up, gazing at the huge sky, stars now appearing, sparkling like diamonds on the deep blue canvas of twilight. It was years since she’d last looked up at the stars and really been able to see them as she did now. The light pollution in London, and all the other major cities she’d worked in around the world had meant she’d almost forgotten they were up there. But there they were. Hero breathed in deeply, as if by doing so she would be able to take away some of the peace and beauty with her when she left. As if by photographing this moment in the camera of her mind, she’d hold on to the feeling of calm she felt settling around her as she gazed up at them.

She jumped as a door burst open behind her, the sounds of the party within tumbling out in the night.

‘All right, love.’ One of the many people Gill had introduced her to earlier tapped her on the shoulder as they passed, before taking one of the chairs under an awning nearby. Next she heard the click of a lighter, and then the rhythmic movement of an ash glowing, then cooling as it moved up and down in the smoker’s hand. She was thankful he’d not stopped to chat, as unsociable as she knew that sounded. Hero had never been good at small talk, a quirk that worked fine in her usual surroundings. Most people, she found, were more than happy to talk about themselves ad infinitum. Their compliments about her being such a good listener, which Hero always waved off with a smile and a headshake, felt unwarranted. She knew the truth was that she should be thanking them. The less she had to talk about herself, the better. Magazines and social media, not to mention Anya, had told her that apparently she was looked upon as mysterious. Hero knew that others were less kind, thinking her behaviour spoke more of snobbishness and that she considered herself far too high and mighty to ever engage with those outside her immediate circle. If only they knew, Hero thought. What she’d give to have the easy-going, sociable nature of her sister, instead of the awkward, shy confines of her own.

The door behind her banged again, and several more people, in various states of intoxication stumbled out and headed towards the smoking area. Hero knew she should go back in. She didn’t care about strangers thinking she was snooty, but she didn’t want her own behaviour to reflect badly on her sister in her new life out here. Taking one last look at the starlit sky, she drew a deep breath and headed back inside.

Nick had intended to ask Hero to dance. Initially it had been a joke but after the wedding breakfast was over, Pete had told him he had to make good on the tease.

‘She’ll never go for it,’ Nick replied, dismissing his brother’s request.

‘Just ask her, will you, mate?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Right-oh.’ If it had been anyone else, he’d have probably done it a lot sooner. But three minutes worth of awkward dancing with this particular woman didn’t exactly fill him with glee. That was assuming she even accepted. She certainly hadn’t been keen when he’d brought the subject up at the dinner table. OK, so maybe he hadn’t phrased it in the best way he could have. Even behind that cool exterior she projected out to the world, he’d noticed the surprise in her eyes at his jest. Understandable, he supposed, when you were one of the world’s most beautiful women and people were desperate to be in your company, even just be noticed by you, let alone anything else.

After receiving yet another loaded glance from his older brother, Nick nodded and resigned himself to going off to find Pete’s newly acquired sister-in-law. It took him a little while to find her among the many guests, although he had to admit that he hadn’t put too much effort into the actual act of looking, finding himself easily, and willingly, distracted. One of those distractions being in the shape of the barmaid, Susannah Dagmar. And what a shape! She’d always had a bit of thing for Pete, so Nick felt a bit sorry for her having to wait tables at his brother’s wedding when she probably felt that, by rights, it should have been her wearing the white dress, not some interloper. He finally tore himself away when his mother sent him a dagger-laden glance, before making a nodding gesture. Nick sighed. Gill had never liked Susannah.

Following the direction of his mother’s nod, Nick caught sight of Hero. She was sitting alone towards the back of the room looking absolutely stunning. Whether he liked her or not, Nick couldn’t deny that she was beautiful. But he understood the possibility that that same beauty might keep people at a distance. Men might be intimidated and women might be jealous, wary, or both. Then again, it could just be that she was a stuck-up pain in the arse. Nick excused himself from Susannah and made his way towards Hero. Her hands were folded on her lap as she sat, back straight against the wall, looking for all intents and purposes in utter control. Out of her sightline, he hesitated as he noticed her thumb rubbing back and forth at a hangnail. Her gaze was fixed at no clear point, as though she wanted to evade making eye contact with any other guest. The gaze alone he might have put down to her reluctance to mingle in lowlier company than she was used to. But he hesitated in his judgement as he watched her hands. His time in the city had given him more than enough opportunity to observe the habits of the stressed, and he was pretty sure that was exactly what he was watching now. Damn woman. Why couldn’t she just be one thing or another?

‘You ready for that dance now?’ Nick asked. ‘I looked for you earlier, but I couldn’t see you.’

Hero looked up, surprise in her eyes. The look confirmed what he’d begun to think. Yeah, you were hoping no one would notice you sat back here all alone, weren’t you?

‘I went outside for a little while,’ she said, gathering herself a little as she took the hand he offered and stood. Her relief at seeing a familiar face seemed to cause that mask of confidence and indifference to slip. Nick tilted his head.

‘You all right?’ Even with the heat of all these bodies, her smooth, porcelain skin looked a little paler than usual.

Hero caught the concern in his voice and felt something rush through her. Looking up into the intense chocolate-brown eyes now studying her, she gave a small, embarrassed smile.

‘I’m not really very good with crowds. They make me nervous.’

Nick didn’t reply. He was just looking down at her.

She smiled shyly and lifted their joined hands. ‘Are we going to dance or just stand here holding hands all night? Right now, I’m happy either way.’

Nick glanced down at their hands, before turning towards the dancefloor. Their path was crowded as he led the way, holding tightly to her hand, clearing the way for her with his broad shoulders. His eyes were on the way ahead, but his mind was still reeling from the smile Hero had given him.

For the past couple of weeks, they’d done nothing but rub each other up the wrong way, with a large proportion of their conversations edged with sarcasm and spikes. In company, they had silently but mutually agreed to concentrate on being polite for the sake of their respective siblings. Nick struggled with the constant control she kept about herself. There was none of the spontaneity of her sister, none of the laughter and fun Juliet seemed to naturally inspire. He’d even begun to doubt that the woman even had real emotions – something about her seemed so false, so brittle. Pete and his parents had taken to her like she was a wounded bird, but all Nick saw was self-importance and privilege.

But the smile she had just given him had blown all his beliefs about her to bits. For the first time since he’d known her, he saw what the others had been privy to all along.

They reached the dancefloor and squeezed into a space as Nick raised their joined hands and wrapped his other arm around her narrow waist. The crowd of people on the floor meant that Hero was pressed close to him. He could smell her perfume, feel her fragile build beneath his hands as well as her now uneven breaths. Looking down into her face, he saw that striking green gaze dart around as it desperately tried, and failed, to find something familiar to focus on. She felt his own gaze on her and looked up, his eyes holding hers as his arm tightened a little closer around her.

‘Just breathe,’ he said, softly. He kept his eyes on her until her erratic breaths steadied. Feeling his arms strong and steady around her, Hero closed her eyes and felt the world slide away. With just one movement, and with the last person she ever expected, Hero no longer felt alone.

Too near the speakers for any real conversation to take place, Hero was glad. She was tired of keeping her mask in place with Nick, but something about him had unnerved her from the beginning. He hadn’t tried to bow down to her every whim like most men she knew. He made her laugh, although she did her best to hide it. The many conversations she had sat in on proved that he was an intelligent, well-informed man. She’d desperately wanted to take part in them but, despite Pete and Juliet giving her plenty of openings, she kept her participation limited, afraid to make herself look stupid in front of this man who already caused such a torrent of emotions within her. But it seemed that the less she said, the more it irritated Nick. And as much as she had tried to deny it, his reaction upset her. She’d spent the last fortnight convincing herself that he was arrogant and of no consequence. But the truth was that he excited her. She’d never felt like this about anyone. And that fact alone both thrilled and frightened her.

As Hero and Nick moved to the music, she felt the strong hand on her back. Many of the men she knew were muscular, but they were false muscles, born from spending hours in the gym, admiring themselves in huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors as they pumped iron. Nick’s body was strong from hard work and hard play. She felt the slight roughness of his skin against her hand as it held her own. It felt good. Something about those men with their soft, smooth, overly manicured hands had always made her feel slightly queasy. She turned her head slightly against his chest to look at the hand holding hers. The nails were short and had been scrubbed clean. Hero smiled to herself at the effort this must have taken, knowing Nick had spent most of yesterday under the bonnet of the old ute they used to drive out into the fields.

‘They are clean.’ Nick leant in close to her ear when he’d worked out what Hero was studying, a smile in his voice.

She looked up, embarrassment showing on her face at being caught. But then she felt it, deep within herself, like a revelation she wasn’t even aware she was waiting for. There it was, shining clear in her mind as bright as any neon sign. There was no need to be embarrassed anymore. Not here. Not with Nick. She didn’t need to be afraid anymore. She didn’t need to be anything but herself. As this realisation dawned within her, she turned and smiled at him again, for once not holding back. For once not smiling on someone else’s cue.

Looking up at him, Hero smiled, wide and beautiful. The power of it made Nick catch his breath. This. This was what she was hiding from the world. The question was why? The smile hit Nick square in the face and didn’t stop until it got to his toes, detouring several times on the way down. He pulled her closer, the surroundings too noisy for him to hear. Bending his head towards her, she repeated herself close to his ear, so close that he could feel her warm breath on his skin as she spoke.

‘You have nice hands.’

The simple, almost childlike compliment only added to the feelings racing around his body. His head spun with it all. How the hell did she survive in that cold, shallow world she lived in? Nick saw now what she did her best to hide from the world at large – the shy, insecure young woman who fooled people into thinking that she was in control, completely sure of herself, and everyone around her. But now he knew differently. This girl wasn’t in control at all. She was barely treading water, just trying not to drown.

Nick squeezed her hand a little in a gesture of reply and saw the corners of a smile play upon her mouth. He looked up for a moment and caught the eye of his elder brother who was standing with his new bride, talking to some relatives who had flown in from Sydney for the wedding. He nodded at them and grinned. Nick gave him a brief smile in return. As his gaze left his family, it landed on Susannah. Susannah was also watching them, but she wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were on Hero, and there was something far colder in her expression.

Nick turned back to his partner and steered them away from the main crush, as well as Susannah’s glare.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way.’ He smiled as he pulled away a little in order to look into those hypnotic eyes. ‘Do you want to go outside and get a bit of air?’

He felt her body relax a little in his arms as he said it. That was more than enough answer for him. In a reverse of their earlier journey, Nick once again led the way through the thrumming dancefloor and out into the cool, quiet night.

Chapter 5

Once outside, they found a bench a little away from the doors, and the smoking area, and sat down. Nick still held Hero’s hand and, surprising herself, she didn’t pull away. Didn’t want to pull away.

‘Not something you’ve ever fancied then, all this?’ Hero nodded in the direction of the reception room they had just left. ‘By the amount of six-foot-under looks I’ve been receiving, I get the impression that you’re not short of offers.’

Nick shrugged his eyebrows. ‘Nope. Not really sure it’s for me.’

Hero turned a little, kicking off her shoes as she did so, and tucked her legs up in front of her. Resting her chin on her knees, she pulled a face at his reply. ‘The good-looking man with a fear of commitment – isn’t that rather a cliché?’

Nick caught the twinkle in those mesmerising, cat-like eyes of hers. He tilted his head at her.

‘Was that a compliment? The “good-looking” part I mean?’

Hero just smiled.

‘And who said I had a fear of commitment? Or is that a little projection on your part?’

Hero ignored the second question, focusing on the first. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No.’

She echoed his head tilt. ‘So how come you’re not happily ensconced somewhere with a clan of little Nicholases running around?’

‘Perhaps I’m just enough of a good bloke not to want to show up my big brother by getting there first.’

‘Well, that’s very considerate of you, if it’s the case.’

‘I thought so.’

‘But I’m not buying that as the reason for a moment.’

‘No?’ He laughed.

‘Definitely no.’

‘OK. So maybe I just haven’t found the right girl yet.’

Hero considered that. ‘From what I’ve heard, you’ve conducted plenty of research in that department.’

Again, Nick saw the eyes twinkle. She was enjoying this. As much as he was? It was hard to tell.

‘Research can be a very valuable tool.’

‘This is true.’

‘Want to help me with said research?’ He flashed a grin, enjoying this rare, unguarded version of Hero.

She laughed. ‘No, but thank you for offering me the chance to take part in such a prestigious and vital project.’

‘No worries.’

Silence fell between them for a few moments, but it was companionable. From the open windows, they heard the DJ transition one song seamlessly into another. She turned to the sound, then looked back at Nick, a question in her eyes. She didn’t really want to go back in. Not just yet. She wasn’t even comfortable at parties where she did know lots of people. When you barely knew anyone and were also receiving openly questionable looks from certain females, the discomfort tended to grow. Nick understood.

‘Got somewhere else to be?’

A pause. His companion shook her head. The movement was almost imperceptible, but its ripples caused the shining locks to sway gently, catching the light of the outdoor lamp. Nick smiled softly at her, and Hero returned it. She shifted on the bench. The back slats were uncomfortable on her back. Keeping hold of her hand, Nick ran his other arm around her waist and shifted her body until she rested on him, rather than the bench. Much better.

‘Truth is, I thought I had found the right one,’ he said after a few moments.

Hero waited.

‘Turned out I was wrong.’

When he said nothing more, she spoke. ‘What happened? If you don’t mind me asking?’

He didn’t mind her asking. Strange really, because until this moment, he would have thought that Hero Scott would be the last person on earth he’d open up to.

As close as they were together, Hero felt the deep breath he took and then exhaled slowly as his mind worked.

‘I don’t know. To be honest, I thought everything was fine. I thought we were happy. We’d talked about getting married and she seemed stoked. I bought the ring, did the whole down-on-one-knee thing, she accepted, said she couldn’t be happier. Then, next thing I know, I’m walking in on her in bed with her boss. Stupidly, I’d never questioned all that overtime she was doing.’

‘Oh, Nick! I’m so sorry.’ She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. ‘I would never have said anything if …’ She trailed off and looked awkward. Nick laid his cheek against her head. She felt the smile as he returned the reassuring squeeze.

‘Don’t be daft. It’s fine. I didn’t know if Juliet had told you, but I guess not.’

‘No! No, she hadn’t!’ She pulled herself up and twisted so that she could see him. He was surprised to see she looked genuinely upset. ‘Nick, I know you think I’m rather cold, but I’d never make light of something like that … of you being hurt.’

One hand gently cupped her face, the expression in his eyes soft and warm under the low light.

‘I know you wouldn’t. And just for the record, I don’t think you’re cold.’

She smiled at him almost shyly. Their initial distrust and differences had been put aside – at least for the moment. It seemed so obvious to her now. What she first thought was conceit and arrogance wasn’t that at all. It was part of a defence mechanism, a shield. Creating an armour against the world was hardly something she could criticise him about when she spent so much time, perhaps too much, behind her own. She could see, feel, that it was a relief for both of them to have a break from it, even for a just a few moments, revealing themselves to each other, if no one else.

‘So,’ Hero began, ‘you do actually have a fear of commitment, just not your own.’

He thought about that for a moment, then gave her a lopsided smile. ‘I guess so.’

She nodded, understanding, empathising, before breaking eye contact with him. Nick drew another deep breath before pulling her back closer. Without thinking, Hero let her body follow, feeling the warmth of him through the fine material of her gown. His slow, steady breaths soothed her. She knew she was on dangerous ground. But right at this moment, she didn’t care. Right now, it felt as though this was exactly where she should be. Resting her hands on the warm, muscular arm that encircled her waist, she didn’t need – didn’t want – that mask she usually wore. And as she felt his lips softly brush her hair, Hero closed her eyes and let the moment envelop her.

‘You tired?’ Nick’s deep tones drifted close to her ear.

‘A little,’ she replied. The truth was she could so easily stay here with this man, feeling his strength and his comfort, and not move for the next several days. It had been a long, although beautiful, day. Emotions had run high and Juliet had burst into tears on more than one occasion, especially with Hero. Hero’s eyes, as always, remained dry but Juliet knew it wasn’t because she didn’t care. Crying just wasn’t something she did. Not for a long time. She’d smiled as the ceremony came to its climax and everyone cheered, welcoming Juliet into her new family and her new life. Again, Hero had smiled. Smiling was the only way to stop the panic rising in her. Suddenly she felt alone. Out here in this land where their father had been born but that had meant nothing to either of his daughters. Now, to one it meant everything, and Hero felt cast adrift.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ She closed her eyes again, pushing away the panic that had begun to creep towards her again. Her hands tightened almost imperceptibly on Nick’s arm.

‘So why don’t I believe you?’

She shrugged against him.

Feeling the soft kiss on her hair, her breaths gradually slowed. What was it with this man who could make her mad one moment and chase away her demons in the next.

‘You know your sister is worried about you.’ His words were a statement, not a question.

‘I know. She doesn’t need to be though. I’m fine.’

‘She thinks you work too hard.’

‘I like keeping busy.’

‘There’s keeping busy, and there’s back-to-back assignments.’

Hero drew in a breath and let it out slowly, concentrating on the glittering stars and the warmth of Nick’s body behind her.

‘A girl has to pay the rent,’ she said, trying to lighten the mood, not to mention deflect the enquiry.

‘I don’t mean to be nosy, but I’m pretty sure you’ve probably got that covered.’

‘Maybe. But I like to be sure.’

‘Why do I get the feeling there’s more to this?’ Nick asked, getting his answer as he felt Hero’s body tense within his arms.

‘Of course there isn’t. I just like to be sure I’m financially prepared and independent. I know that’s still quite a radical view to take in some parts, but that’s what happens when you invite outsiders into your world.’

Nick smiled. ‘Not me. I’m all for that.’

‘Good to hear.’

‘So, what do you do to relax?’

‘I …’ What did she do to relax? She spent time with Anya shopping, and visiting restaurants. She liked to read but the only times she ever seemed to be able to sit down with a book was on a long-haul flight like the one that had brought her here, although even then she never seemed to get far as fatigue overtook her and sleep won over reading.