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“It’s okay. Really. Go. It’s family. Thank you for the dance. And the glass of wine.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Come on, Wes! We need to go,” Mike shouted from their table where he’d collected his coat and had Wes’s in hand.
Wes turned to his brother then back again. The woman was returning to her spot at the bar with a wave in his direction.
Damn it!He strode toward his brother, grabbed his coat, and headed into the cold night toward the car.
“You don’t normally race out of a place like that. What’s going on?” Wes asked his brother when they got outside.
They tucked into the back seat of the Town Car before Mike answered. Their driver, Wilson, pulled from the curb and headed home without a word.
“Dad called and said that Annalise was having a rough time. Needed me. She wanted us home.”
Wes nodded. Annalise was Mike’s daughter. At only five years old, she’d been through the horrendous pain of losing her mother. Mike’s wife’s death had rocked Wes’s world, to say the least. And Wes would do anything for that little girl. Anything.
Wes had been back in Marietta less than twenty-four hours but could see changes in his niece already. She was still the bright, beautiful little girl who could light up a room, but she had moments where that light faded and it broke his heart in two.
“She wakes up crying. Wanting Anna. She’ll only calm down if I hold her. Stay with her through the night.”
Wes could only nod. Having no children himself, he couldn’t fathom the pain of losing a spouse and having to help a young child through the loss of her mother. Their move to Marietta was a good one for Mike and Annalise, as far as he could tell. Although that wasn’t the family’s full-time residence, it was becoming so with their father having moved there and now Mike, too.
As they drove down Main Street out of town and toward home, Wes’s thoughts wandered to the woman he’d danced with. He hadn’t even caught her name. Her sister was Holly though. Maybe he could find her that way. Unable to explain why, he wanted to see her again. Which made no sense. He lived in New York, not Marietta. He was here for a short family visit.
Short time or not, he was intrigued by the dancer and was determined to know more.
Chapter Two
Wes tried tofocus on the paperwork in front of him, but the vision of a certain blue-eyed brunette kept popping into his head.
He and Mike had gotten home the night before to find their father, Daniel St. Claire, holding his granddaughter, Annalise, in his arms in their mother’s old rocking chair. Wes’s mother had bought the chair the day Mike announced Anna was pregnant. Many nights, their mother had done the exact same thing their father had done in that moment with his granddaughter.
Wes tamped down visions of his mother holding Annalise in that chair with a scarf wrapped around her bald head, her form so small and fragile by then. Cancer was a vicious animal, unafraid to devour. Always a woman of regal stature, the illness had whittled down Marian St. Claire in a way that turned Wes’s stomach.
Annalise had calmed in her grandfather’s arms but clung to Mike when he wrapped her up and took her back to her room. Their father said she’d been screaming in her sleep, something about seeing her mother in a dream. It broke Wes’s heart.
In his office that sat in the corner of the south wing of the house, Wes looked out the window. His fingers steepled in front of him, he watched the fresh snow that had fallen the night before dance through the air when the breeze blew. Powder on the hillside sat untouched, gleaming in the morning light.
His parents had purchased the land and built the main house when Wes was fifteen. Over time, several more buildings had gone up and several acres were now manicured. It was part of a long line of homes the St. Claire family owned, including a house in Paris, an apartment in Florence, and the main family compound in New York.
Michael traveled to where the races were, although his race car driving days were on hold for now. Lucas had an apartment in New York, but most of the time he was God only knows where. His sister, McKenna, was also hard to keep track of. The only St. Claire child who still lived in their parents’ place in New York, it was basically hers since their father had moved to Montana full time. But with an adventurous spirit, she wasn’t there much either. Their father went back from time to time, but the visits were few and far between since their mother died.
Attempting to work was futile. Being in Marietta, in this house, brought memories to the forefront of his mind he feared his heart couldn’t take. The house, once a place of happy memories filled with white Christmases and summers fishing on the lake, now reeked of illness and death for Wes. His mother had chosen to be there in her last few months, Montana being the place she adored most. That was why—Wes assumed—his dad had chosen to stay.
But in New York, Wes was distracted. The bustle of the city mixed with the daily, steady pace that was his life kept him from lingering too long on the things that were painful.
Wes had a hard time believing it when his father had said he was going to move to Marietta, leave New York and make Montana his main home. It wasn’t that Wes didn’t like it in Marietta. He did. But he viewed it as a getaway. A respite for a short time. A place to go for family vacations, but then return to his life. Then his mother got sick and passed and…well, it wasn’t the same. He couldn’t fathom it ever would be.
Seeing Mike with Annalise, however, stirred something in him he thought didn’t exist in his wiring. Never one to think of settling down or having a family, visions of white picket fences now danced in his head. They were far away, as if through a fog, but they were there.
To say he loved his work was an understatement. As the oldest child, he had determined early on that he would help run the empire his dad had built. Educated in Ivy League business schools, his official role was CEO of the St. Claire Family Office. Together with their in-house accountant and full-time attorney, they ran the family balance sheet. It was Wes’s job to maintain and grow the St. Claire assets for future generations.
His success in growing the family wealth was largely due to his attention to detail—nothing was too small. And although he had full control of the family finances, when his dad occasionally wanted to do a deal—it didn’t matter the size—Wes was the one to manage it.
Adding to the family portfolio via business investments was what he loved most. Acquisitions were complex, full of details and negotiations. Like a great mistress, they got his blood pumping. True, they couldn’t ultimately replace a good woman, but he found closing the deal more exciting and worth his time than most of the women who crossed his path. Married to his work, he had little time to think of any other kind of union.
Once again, the brunette from the saloon came to mind. She intrigued him. He had no clue if she lived in Marietta or what her story was. But when he saw her standing in the doorway at Grey’s, looking around with her sister for a place to sit, his attention zoned in on her and didn’t let go until he’d left with Mike. Maybe not even at that point since he now sat in his office staring out the window and pondering how her skinny jeans had accented her legs that went on forever, and how her smile had warmed him down to his toes.
