Christmastime Cowboy

“I guess that’s good news,” Dane said, rocking back on his heels.

Lindy and Damien had been married long enough that Dane felt like family to Sabrina too. He’d been in her life for ten years, and he really did feel like a brother to her. In some ways, more than Damien did. Even more so now as it was difficult to reconcile with a brother that had betrayed someone she cared for so much.

“Great news,” Lindy said brightly. “It’s exactly what we need. More forward motion. More... More.”

“Until you have a swimming pool full of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck?” Dane asked.

Lindy narrowed her eyes. “This has nothing to do with money. It’s about making the winery successful. And okay, it has a little bit to do with money, because I do like food. And having a roof over my head.”

“And sticking it to your asshole ex by living underneath the roof that used to be over his head?” Dane grinned.

The corner of Lindy’s mouth quirked upward, and Sabrina could clearly see the resemblance between her and Dane. “It’s not unpleasant.” She cleared her throat. “I really want the goal to be that we have this tasting room up and ready to go for the Christmas festivities this year.”

“That is...awfully quick, Lin,” Dane said.

“Sure,” Lindy said, waving a hand. “But it isn’t like we’re a start-up. It’s just a new, extended showroom. And with the plans that Lydia West has for Christmas this year, we can’t afford to not be open. It’s going to be a whole Victorian Christmas celebration this year with carolers and chestnuts roasting on...well, probably not open fires because of safety. But we need to be there with hot mulled wine and cheeses and goodwill toward men!”

“Did you want to add world peace too?” Dane asked. “Because with all that you might as well.”

Dane wasn’t wrong. It was a very tall order. But they knew exactly what they wanted the showroom to have, and they already had stock at the winery. They would just be moving some of it to town. So it might be tricky, but not impossible.

And suddenly Sabrina wanted it all to work, and work well. If for no other reason than to prove to Liam that she was not at all the seventeen-year-old girl whose world he’d wrecked all those years ago.

Sabrina had to admit she envied the tangible ways in which Lindy was able to get revenge on Damien. Of course, her relationship with Liam wasn’t anything like a ten-year marriage ended by infidelity. She gritted her teeth. And she did her best not to think about Liam. About the past. Because it hurt. Every damn time it hurt. It didn’t matter if it should or not.

Didn’t matter if it was something she should be over. It was stuck there, a thorn in her heart that she wasn’t sure how to remove. If she could have figured that out, she would have done it a long time ago.

At least, for a while, she hadn’t thought about him all the time.

She had tried to date. She’d really tried when she’d been working in Gold Valley and had been exposed to men she hadn’t known as well at school in Copper Ridge. But it just hadn’t worked. Inevitably, there would be comparisons between the way Liam made her feel and the way those guys made her feel. Which was... Well, there was no comparison, really.

But now that he was back in town, now that she sometimes just happened to run into him, it was different. It was harder not to think about him. Him and the grand disaster that had happened after. The way it had ruined her relationship with her father. And that thorn in her heart constantly felt like it was being worked in deeper.

That first time she had run into Liam when he had come back...

She had walked into Ace’s bar, ready to have a drink with Lindy after a long day of work, and he had been there. She hadn’t even questioned whether or not it was him. He looked different, older, deep grooves bracketing the side of his mouth, lines around his eyes.

His chest was broader, thicker. And there had been tattoos covering the whole of his arms. But it was Liam. It was most definitely Liam, and before her brain had been able to process it, her body had gone into a full-scale episode.

Her heart had nearly lurched into her throat, her pulse racing and then echoing between her thighs, an immediate reminder of how it had always been to be near him. A tragic confirmation that her memory had not blown those feelings out of proportion.

Because, after enough years of unexciting good-night kisses and attempts at physical relationships that hadn’t gone any further than a man putting his hand up her shirt while sitting on his couch, she had started to wonder if she had really ever felt anything close to the intensity that she’d associated with Liam. For sure, she had started to think, her memory had exaggerated it, and was actively sabotaging her now.

But such hopeful notions had been demolished when she had seen him again.

And with that attraction had come anger. Because how dare he? How dare he show up in her part of Oregon again, after abandoning her the way that he had. How dare he come back to Copper Ridge and invade her space like this? He was supposed to stay away.

Mostly, she was angry that he had the nerve to come back even sexier than he’d been before. If there was any justice in the world he would have lost his hair, gotten a beer gut and had his face eaten off by a roving band of rabid foxes. Yeah, those things combined might have worked together to make Liam Donnelly less appealing to her.

But there were never any rabid roving foxes around when you needed them.

The door to the winery tasting room opened again, and in walked her sister, Beatrix, who was holding a large cardboard box that she was staring down into worriedly. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles, a leaf attached to one of the wayward curls.

At twenty-two, Beatrix sometimes seemed much younger than that, and occasionally much older. She was a strange, somewhat solitary creature who defied any and all expectation, and was a source of incredible frustration for their parents.

Sabrina had spent a great many years trying to be exactly what her parents wanted her to be. Beatrix had never even tried. And somehow Bea wasn’t the one their father wouldn’t speak directly to.

Not that she could hold it against Bea. No one could hold anything against Bea.

“What do you have in the box, Bea?” Dane asked.

“Herons,” Beatrix responded. “Green herons. They got kicked out of their nest.”

Lindy’s forehead wrinkled. “Beatrix, could you not bring wildlife into the dining room? We have food in here.”

“I just wanted to see if you had an extra dropper. I have one, but I can’t find the other one.”

“I don’t think I have a dropper in my dining room,” Lindy said.

“The kind you use for medicine,” Beatrix pressed.

“Yes,” Lindy said, “I actually did understand what you meant.”

Beatrix looked fully bemused by the idea that Lindy did not have a dropper readily at her disposal.

“Okay. I guess I’m going to have to go down to town.” Which, Sabrina knew, Beatrix didn’t like to do.

“I have to go down later,” Dane said. “I’ll get one for you, Bea.”

Beatrix brightened, and her cheeks turned slightly pink. “Thank you.”

Sabrina occasionally worried that Beatrix did not see Dane as a brother, which was fair enough, since he wasn’t even actually their brother-in-law. But Dane was not the kind of guy for a sweet girl like her, and anyway he was far too old for her. About ten years and a whole other lifetime of experience.

She would worry more than occasionally if she thought that Dane returned Beatrix’s feelings at all. Fortunately, his attitude toward her was entirely appropriate. He saw her as a younger sister, as he should.

But that didn’t seem to change the fact that Beatrix’s entire face illuminated whenever he spoke to her.

“Come on, I’ll help you find a safe place for your herons so you can stick close to them today.” Beatrix followed Dane out of the tasting room, leaving Lindy and Sabrina alone.

Lindy didn’t say anything, but she did lift one eyebrow. Sabrina had a feeling she wasn’t the only one who had observed Beatrix’s response to Dane.

In some ways, it hurt Sabrina to see it. She had to accept the fact that she might actually be projecting. Because there had been one summer when she had followed a man around like that. Looked at him like the sun rose and fell on his broad shoulders.

And she had confided in him. Her hopes, her dreams. Her secret fears. And they hadn’t mattered to him at all.

In the end he had made a fool out of her.

She looked at Lindy again, and noticed that her sister-in-law had some fresh lines on her pretty face. She had to wonder if she was having similar thoughts right now too.

“Good thing we know better,” Lindy said finally. “Huh?”

Sabrina laughed, and even she thought she sounded a little bit bitter. “I suppose so.”

But that was the thing, she did know better. It was the one good thing about everything that had happened with Liam all those years ago. She had trusted her heart’s wants. Fully. Completely.

And no matter how her body might react to him now, she had learned her lesson.

She would not be making that mistake again. Ever.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME Liam pulled back into the Laughing Irish Ranch he was feeling pretty good about the venture with Grassroots. As far as he could tell Lindy was a good businesswoman, and she had something to prove, which would help fuel the fire.

Liam wasn’t immune to the need to prove things. He’d come back to town and swung by Jamison Leighton’s lake house—which had turned out to be a home built near a man-made lake, in a neighborhood along with about twenty other homes, not a cabin set in the pristine wilderness, and it was splitting hairs to notice, but Liam did, because he was pissed and willing to be petty—to write the old man a check. To pay him back, with interest, for the money he’d gotten to leave in the first place.

The look on his face had been worth the trip out to Copper Ridge all on its own.

He pulled up in front of his family’s ranch house and his truck skidded to a stop, the fine coating of ice over the gravel making traction a bit of an issue. He got out and looked up to see his brother Finn standing by the porch smiling, a gold wedding band gleaming on his left hand.

Liam had never seen anyone so happy to be tied down. Except for maybe his older brother Cain, and his younger brother, Alex. They were pretty damn happy to be tied down too.

Liam was...well, kind of ambivalent about all the romance he was surrounded with at all times.

Alex and Clara had moved to her ranch, though Alex continued to work at the Laughing Irish. Cain and his wife, Alison, and Cain’s daughter, Violet, lived in another house on the property that Cain had refurbished for them out of an old barn.

Which left Liam, Finn and Finn’s wife, Lane, in the main house.

It wasn’t really bad. Lane was a fantastic cook, and Liam got all the benefits of having a wife without actually having to have one. Well, except for the sex.

Not that he wanted to have sex with his brother’s wife. Even Liam Donnelly had his limits.

“How did it go?” Finn asked.

Of the four of them, Finn had been at the ranch the longest. He had worked with their grandfather from the time he was sixteen years old. The place was in his blood. And this expansion both excited him and made him nervous. Mostly, Liam felt like Finn wanted to kill him with his bare hands.

If Finn had his way, he would essentially keep the status quo. But between Lane and Liam he’d encountered a constant push for change. For growth.

He knew that Finn hated that. But Liam was good at it. He was good at start-ups. He was good in investments. And, if the expansion of the Laughing Irish went to hell, he had a shit-ton of money to back it all up.

Money that just kind of sat there now. Money that didn’t seem to mean anything or accomplish anything. He didn’t have much else to offer. He had capital. Which, when you were kind of an asshole, was always the smart thing to lead with.

“It went well. I’m going to be working with Sabrina Leighton on the project.”

He started to walk past Finn up the porch and into the house, then turned and caught sight of his brother’s expression. It was just a little too hard. A little too insightful. “Did you have a comment, Finn?”

“I have a lot of comments. But because I’m not entirely sure what went down with you and Sabrina—or really, what went on in your life at any point when you weren’t on the ranch—it’s tough for me to pare it down to the most effective one.”

“Good. You’re easier to deal with when you’re at a loss for words.” Liam let out a breath. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have a history with Sabrina. I do, in that she hates me.” It wasn’t that he didn’t know why. And, no matter how committed he was to the denial of having led her on, he did have to admit at least to himself that he hadn’t been neutral about her.

No matter what she’d thought, when he’d left he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t regret the way he’d done it either. She might be mad at him, and he could even understand that. But it had been the right thing to do. The fact that she was still angry at him thirteen years later for about the most honorable damn thing he had ever done didn’t really seem fair.

Honorable and self-serving, maybe. But the honor was definitely present.

“And you’re going to be able to work with her in spite of that history?” Finn asked.

“I don’t think it’s the history you think it is. When I worked for Grassroots she was seventeen, Finn. I never slept with her. She got her hopes up that I would. That’s it.”

“So she turns and runs the other direction every time she sees you coming because she had a crush on you thirteen years ago? That’s it?”

Liam gritted his teeth and spread his hands. “That’s about the size of it. Apparently, I’m ruinous to women even when I don’t have sex with them.”

“I feel like you meant that to sound badass, but mostly, I just think it’s true.”

Liam shrugged, not even caring if his brother was insulting him. Not even caring if his words had been chosen poorly enough that he’d insulted himself. “We had a meeting today, and everything seems like it’s going to be fine. I don’t think she’s going to spend the entire time plotting my downfall.” He took a few more steps and walked into the house. Then stopped and turned. “Unless this is all an elaborate ruse to get revenge on me by destroying the Laughing Irish. In which case, Finn, I’ll go back to New York and leave you here in the smoldering wreckage.”

Finn glared at him and slammed the door behind them, enclosing them in the large entryway of the custom log cabin their grandfather had built about five years ago.

“The funny thing, Liam,” Finn said, sounding like he found nothing at the moment funny at all, “is that I think you believe that. But I know you wouldn’t. I know that you actually want this to succeed. Maybe not because you love the ranch. Maybe not because you love me. But most definitely for your damned stubborn pride.”

Liam rubbed his chin. “I do like my pride.”

“Yeah, you do. And I don’t think you would ever allow a ghost from your past to be responsible for your failure.”

They were just ribbing each other, and Liam knew it. But there was something a little too close to the truth in those words, and they gouged him in tender places. “Whatever the reason,” he said, “I’m not going to hang you out to dry.”

“You’ve gone soft.”

“If I have, it’s because of your wife’s cooking,” he responded. Then he slapped his hand against his stomach—which was still rock hard, thank you very much—for good measure.

“What’s your timeline to get the shop up and running?” Finn asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest, clearly done with the banter. Finn had limited patience for banter when it came to discussions of the ranch.

“I’m not sure. We’re going to look at property sometime this week. I have to get in touch with Gage West. I think once we start in on it we should be able to get the sale to go through quickly. But if something happens with the loan, I have the cash to front it.”

“I’m not having you do that, Liam,” Finn said. “I’m not putting your finances at that big of a risk.”

Liam bit back a frustrated curse. His brother didn’t understand because to him, that amount of money had more value. And Liam could understand that. He’d come from poverty. But now he had money. And he didn’t know how the hell else he was supposed to contribute. “What do I care? Do you see me spending money?” He looked down at his boots and lifted them up, tapping them on the floor, a sprinkling of mud landing there on the hard wood. “How old do you think these boots are?”

Lane, Finn’s wife, appeared from the kitchen, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her brown eyes glittering. “I don’t know how old your boots are, Liam Donnelly, but if you want to live to be any older than you are, I suggest you clean up that mud mess because I sure as hell am not going to do it. I’m not your maid.”

He bit back a comment about her being the cook. He had a feeling that right now, she would launch rockets from her eyes and leave him reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash. He didn’t know what the hell Lane’s problem had been lately but she’d been in kind of a mean mood for a while.

“I’ll clean it up,” he said. Though, not anytime soon. “I was just telling your husband that I don’t need all the money I have sitting in my bank account. I can afford to invest in the expansion of the ranch.”

That turned Lane’s focus to Finn.

Finn shot him a deadly glare. “Just because you can doesn’t mean I’m going to let you. This venture is ours, it’s equal. We can all put the money back into the storefront that we’re making on the ranch. We don’t need you to invest that much capital up front.”

“But I can,” Liam said.

And damn it, there had to be some use for that money. For that money that just felt like a weight. He had busted his ass, worked himself blind from the time he had been given the money to go to college. Twenty years old, coming in late, working up from a deficit, and he had done every damn thing he could to make sure that he succeeded. He didn’t graduate early. He didn’t graduate at the top, but it didn’t matter, because when it came to work, nobody was more willing to beat their knuckles bloody pounding the pavement than he was.

He worked long, and he worked hard. And he had amassed a fortune for himself working at large corporations and major cities. Investing in start-ups that became wildly successful, funding businesses and increasing profits.

And then one day he had stood in that corner office and looked out over Manhattan, in a position in life a boy from the sticks certainly had never imagined he’d be in, wearing a custom suit and honest-to-God Italian leather shoes and he had felt...

Exactly the same as he had twelve years earlier.

He didn’t feel better. He didn’t feel different. He didn’t feel healed. He didn’t feel any different from the boy who’d been stuck in his home. Afraid to make too much noise. Afraid to breathe wrong in case it brought his mother’s wrath down on him.

That was when he had gotten word that his grandfather had died and left him a quarter of a ranch in Copper Ridge, Oregon, and he had thought it might be time for him to go back.

For him to go back for the first time since Jamison Leighton had sent him packing with a bribe.

There was more here. More here than in that corner office. He wasn’t exactly sure he liked it or wanted it, but at least it offered a change of pace.

And his brothers.

He hadn’t grown up with Finn or Cain, and living with them, getting to know them had been... Well, there was something in that. Being around Alex again, the brother he had been raised with... That was always a little bit of a mixed blessing.

Not because he didn’t love Alex, he did. Alex’s happiness was the proof that he had done something right early in his life.

Their life growing up had been awful. But Alex’s had been a little less awful. Because Liam had been the lightning rod. And Alex had never even known it.

So yeah, he felt like he was on the right track here. And after all that emptiness, that seemed like a pretty good deal to him.

“Fine,” Liam said, “using my money won’t be the plan. But if loans or anything like that hold stuff up, let me do it.”

Finn opened his mouth to argue.

“Let me, Finn,” Liam said. “Let me give you this.”

His brothers seemed to give with themselves all the damn time and he couldn’t figure out quite how they did it. He knew how to create things. Knew how to make money. And he knew how to give money.

That was what he did.

“Fine,” Finn relented. “If we get into dire circumstances, I’ll let you throw some cash at it.”

“What’s the point in having a rich brother if you don’t use him?”

“I do use you. For hard labor. Which frankly I find more useful, Liam. I can earn more cash. I can’t grow another pair of hands.”

Liam shrugged, then started to walk toward the stairs. “Liam!” Lane called after him. “Clean up the mud! I’m trying to plan a Thanksgiving menu and you’re tracking mud all over the place.” She whirled around and went back into the kitchen, leaving a trail of sulfur in her wake.

“Boy,” Liam said, “she’s about as fun as a bee-stung wolverine at the moment, isn’t she?”

Which wasn’t fair. He knew that Lane was putting a lot into her and Finn’s first married Thanksgiving. Even though he was a jackass, Liam understood that.

“Hormones,” Finn said.

Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Hormones?”

A slow smile spread over his brother’s face. “She’s pregnant.”

“Holy hell.”

Finn laughed. “Definitely putting that one in the baby book. What your uncle Liam said when we told him you were going to be born.”

“Why haven’t you told us yet?”

“Lane wanted to wait. You know, something about the second trimester, or something. But it’s close. And, I don’t want to keep it a secret anymore. So, congratulations. You’re going to be an uncle.”

“I’m already an uncle,” Liam said. “It’s just that my niece is almost an adult.”

“I wonder what Violet is going to think,” Finn said with a grin.

“A baby cousin might be something she can’t play it cool about.” Cain’s daughter was in the throes of teenage snark and angst, so it was difficult to guess how she’d react to much of anything.

As far as Liam went, he was happy for his brother. But it kind of underscored the fact that everyone around him was living in a completely different phase of life than him. A different phase of life than he was ever going to live. Marriage. Family. Babies. None of it was his cup of tea. Not at all. All that happy family stuff was just a load of crap as far as he was concerned.

Yeah, he knew some people were happy. But it had never been him. And he didn’t know why he would sign on to that kind of thing. Not again. He had grown up in a house with a mom and dad. They had been in love.

And it had been awful. Vile and toxic.

Full of drama and cheating. His mother taking her anger out on her sons—most especially him—and eventually the inevitable meltdown of the relationship.

Still, he hoped that Lane and Finn would be happy. They would keep being happy. As far as he could see, they were. And it wasn’t some kind of Leave It to Beaver fantasy. Where everybody acted like they had a lobotomy just because they had fallen in love and gotten married. No. They were real people still. They were just people who seemed committed to making a life with each other. People who really loved each other. But Finn and Lane had been best friends before they had fallen in love.

As for his brother Cain and his wife, Alison, it was a second marriage for both of them. They both knew what hadn’t worked the first time around, and they seemed settled this time. He figured if you were going to do it again, you had to be pretty damn sure.