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Yet again, Duke wasn’t brave enough to argue with his grandmother, so he let me go, but not before giving me a meaningful this isn’t over look.
Harriet took my arm and saved me from the man that I was dangerously close to falling in love with.
Harriet, as promised, had gotten us wine drunk. She hadn’t mentioned a word about my little episode in the bedroom, and I didn’t have to be alone with Duke for the rest of the afternoon and evening so he couldn’t make good on the promises his eyes were making.
After our first bottle of champagne, Harriet and I had decided to have a fashion show with all the clothes in my suitcases. She had “liberated” some of the things that wouldn’t be suitable on the ranch—meaning she stole all the designer clothes that were in her size.
Anna had entered at some point, with a glass of her own and an easy smile on her face.
“You suit it here,” she said softly, when Harriet was in the closet changing into yet another outfit. She looked out the French doors, which we’d opened to let the breeze in. “You both do.” She looked to me with Duke’s eyes. “I know that a mother can’t expect to have her entire family within a ten-minute drive. Especially not Duke, that boy has too much of his grandmother in him, a restless soul. I’ve accepted what he’s needed to do with his life. I’m so proud of what he’s become.” She reached over to squeeze my hand. “I’m not asking or expecting anything from either of you. But I just want to thank you for giving me time with my son. Thank you for giving him that light in his eyes. I haven’t seen that in a long time.”
Her words filtered through the air and into my heart, curling around it, warming it and breaking it at the same time. I desperately wished I’d had a mother like this. Strong. Understanding. Loving. Accepting.
I desperately wished this was all real so I’d have Anna and Harriet in my life.
But wishes weren’t for anything but teenage girls and genies.
As she had already done countless times that day, Harriet walked out of the closet and saved the day.
“I think I’ve got the legs to pull this off, don’t you?” she asked, posing in the mirror.
I broke away from Anna’s gaze to see Harriet in a leather skirt and silk blouse. “Definitely,” I agreed.
Tanner and Andrew arrived some time later, with arms full of food that Anna turned into dinner. I was still banned from doing anything like helping, so I was banished to the sofa with wine and Harriet.
We ate at the long table this time, conversation still flowing easily. Everyone finished their dinner, cleaned up, and left early, Harriet murmuring something about “the christening.”
I was lucky when Duke stepped outside with his father, and I managed an escape of my own.
I couldn’t get far, with my leg still throbbing, and a decent amount of alcohol in my system. The food that I wasn’t used to eating managed to soak up a great deal of it, so I was, unfortunately, painfully sober.
My arms rested on the wood of the fence and I leaned most of my weight onto it, giving my leg a break. If only there was something I could lean on to give my heart a break. No such thing existed.
It wasn’t dark yet, we’d arrived in the Montana summer, where the nights were long. Plus, ranchers went to bed early, as I’d learned, since they were up before dawn.
The quiet rang in my ears. Not like that silence of death. No, this was a quiet that hummed with life. The birds, horses, cattle in faraway fields.
Still, that gunshot rippled through it all. The fear. I hadn’t let myself think of that properly since it happened. It was going to fuck me up somehow, for sure. You couldn’t watch someone be murdered and not feel anything. Even someone like me. I’d held it together because I had to. I couldn’t let the trauma weaken me in the midst of all this. It could wait, I could mix it with my heartbreak after the trial.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t look back at Duke. I’d expected him to find me here, after everything that had happened today. It was insane that so much change could be packed into a measly twenty-four hours. Especially change in a man like Duke, who I would’ve thought changed about as easy as a mountain might.
But it seemed that his mind was changing about me. Despite how much I hated it, I already wished for his cold dislike, craved it. It was more manageable.
His scent wrapped me up when he got close. Leather and spice. It comforted me, so I held my breath trying to escape it. There was no reason for me to find comfort here. In him. It would be taken away from me soon enough. That was something to hold on to.
