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Then he got behind the wheel and pulled out of her driveway, the last thing she’d said to him filling the cab in her absence.All the more reason to bring you along.
“What does that mean?” he asked himself over and over as he started the thirty-minute drive back to Bluegrass Ranch.
Chapter Ten
Virginia Winters always knew exactly what to say. She knew how to hold a glass of champagne without ever taking a sip. She knew when to smile and how wide to make it. She knew exactly what to wear for any event, and precisely the shade of lip gloss to go with whatever blouse or blazer she’d pulled from her expansive closet.
Tonight, though, her house was too big. Too big, with too many rooms and too much darkness.
She tossed her keys on the table just inside the front door, though she rarely used that entrance to her house. “I’m home,” she called. “Where are you guys?”
The clicking of claws sounded against her hardwood cherry floors, and all three of her dogs made an appearance, one right after the other. Sarge led the way of course, and she giggled and scooped the pug into her arms.
“Hey, my boy,” she said as she tried half-heartedly to deflect his doggy kisses. Uncle Joe jumped up on her legs, and Ginny stooped to pick up the miniature poodle too. She couldn’t really juggle Sarge and Uncle Joe, so she put the pug down.
Minnie brought up the rear, as she often did, and Ginny could handle the poodle and the yorkie, and she held them both as she kicked off her heels and left them next to whatever doorway she stood next to.
Cayden Chappell consumed her thoughts, as he often had over the past few months, and Ginny didn’t even realize she’d gone upstairs and removed her makeup, her dress, and her slim-shaper.
All of her dogs waited for her on the bed as she put on her pajamas, and she sighed as she lay down next to them. “I asked him to come to the parties,” she said. “Mother is going to be furious.” She giggled again. “I hope he wears his cowboy hat. In fact, I’m going to text him right now and tell him to make sure he does.”
She reached over and snapped off the light and then picked up her phone to text the handsome cowboy who had made her heart jolt the first time she’d met him too.
How many cowboy hats do you own?
Plenty, he sent back almost instantly, and Ginny grinned at the letters. She’d felt plenty of sparks the moment Cayden’s eyes had met hers at Olli’s rehearsal dinner. He’d taken a pot from her with, “Let me have that, ma’am.”
She was definitely old enough to be a ma’am, even if she didn’t like that fact. They’d had a great time that night, and Ginny had known Cayden was interested in her when he’d made up a reason why he’d needed to have her number in his phone.
Just in case we have to coordinate something for Olli and Spur, he’d said. They’d never once discussed Olli and Spur, and Ginny hadn’t mentioned her budding and expanding crush on the cowboy from Bluegrass Ranch.
No boyfriend Ginny had ever had was good enough for her mother, as Ginny had carried the burden of marrying well since she was nine years old—the first time her mother had started talking about the type of man Ginnyshouldmarry, where theyshouldlive, and what Ginnyshoulddo from there.
She wasn’t going to have biological children of her own, she knew that, and her smile slipped. She still hadn’t told her mother about the hysterectomy she’d endured last winter; she’d managed to play off the recovery time as pneumonia, and since her mother suffered from an autoimmune disease and was scared to death of getting the flu or something like pneumonia, she’d stayed out of Ginny’s hair for a full three weeks.
Ginny hadn’t even told Olli about her surgery. Only one person knew, and Drake’s wife, Joan, was the only family member Ginny was currently talking to about personal things in her life.
Do you need an exact count?Cayden asked, and Ginny giggled, those sparks moving through her body again.
Might be a good idea, she said.I’d like to know how many ways we can annoy my mother.
She doesn’t like cowboys?
Ginny’s fingers flew across the screen.Not particularly.
She quickly tapped over to her calendar, suddenly eager to see Cayden again. Tomorrow was Sunday, and she’d be expected at the mansion in the middle of this property for brunch at ten-thirty in the morning, and she’d go with one of her fake-smile masks securely in place. She’d wear the new dress she’d found that week, and Mother would comment on the length of it.
Ginny had bought it simply to see if she would.
“When are you going to stop caring what she says or does?” she asked herself, flipping to Monday. “You’re almost forty-seven-years-old.” She knew she’d never be truly free of her mother’s comments and opinion, though, because Ginny lived, breathed, and benefitted from the distillery.
She was the oldest child, and she’d inherited the title of CEO the moment she’d been born. The whiskey operation came through her mother, through her grandmother, and through her great-grandmother, who’d been the only child of Alan Ellington.
He’d started Sweet Rose Whiskey, and sometimes Ginny felt like she’d die at the hand of the family company that she’d often loved more than anything. She’d chosen Sweet Rose over many things throughout her life, despite watching it ruin her father and harden her mother into the shell of a real person.
It was only recently that Ginny had made new resolutions for her life. When she’d accompanied her mother to Chestnut Springs to witness the marriage of her half-brother, Ginny had realized how lonely she really was.
She’d made a list on her phone on the plane ride back to Kentucky, and at the very top of her new to-do list washusbandandfamily.
