Red Hot Rancher. Maureen Child

that.

      Beside him, Gracie had a death grip on his arm, her fingers digging into his skin right through the fabric of his heavy brown coat. Reminding him where his loyalties lay now. Gracie had stayed. Had taken care of everything that Emma had walked away from. So he’d stand with her against the woman who had left them both.

      “What’re you doing here, Emma?”

      She lifted her chin, kept her gaze fixed on his and said simply, “This is my home.”

      “Not for five years.”

      She chewed at her bottom lip and that action tugged at something inside him, too. Heat bubbled in his gut but Caden ignored it.

      “I’m back now,” Emma told him. “I’m not leaving again.”

      “Is that right?” He didn’t believe her.

      “It is. I’m done with Hollywood.” Her chin was still lifted in self-defense mode.

      She’d had success, though he didn’t want to admit it. So what had changed her mind? What had chased her home? And why the hell did he still care after all this time?

      “What changed?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

      “I guess I did,” she said.

      He nodded. “Right. You changed five years ago. And now you’ve changed again. When’s the next change coming?”

      “There won’t be one.”

      “Don’t believe her,” Gracie murmured.

      “Oh, I don’t,” Caden assured her and had the satisfaction of seeing Emma’s eyes flash. Anger? Insult? Didn’t matter which. As long as she knew where he stood.

      Even knowing he couldn’t trust her didn’t stop Caden from wanting her with a bone-deep desire that had never really left him. “Why don’t you go inside, Gracie? I want to talk to Emma.”

      She gave him a long, speculative look, then did as he asked, skirting past her sister still standing in the doorway.

      “Wow.” Emma’s gaze locked on him. “You and Gracie must be really close these days. She’s taking orders from you now?”

      “It wasn’t an order,” he told her. “It was a request.”

      “That she hopped to fulfill.” Tipping her head to one side, she kept her eyes on him. “What’s going on between you two?”

      Caden stared right back, and folded his arms across his chest. He hadn’t missed the temper in her tone. “You don’t get to ask that question, Emma. It’s none of your business.”

      “She’s my sister.”

      He laughed shortly. “You’ve been gone for years, Emma. All of a sudden now, you’re sisters?”

      “I didn’t leave the family, Caden,” she argued and her chin lifted a little higher. “I left Montana.”

      “And me.”

      She took a breath, nodded and said, “Yeah. And you. But I explained why I had to go.”

      Anger whipped through him like a lightning bolt. “That makes it okay that you took off? As long as you ‘explained’?”

      She took a breath, stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets and stared at him for a long moment before asking, “What is it you want from me, Caden?”

      Well, now, that was the question, wasn’t it? He’d come here to have his say. To set things straight with Emma and let her know exactly where he stood. But being here, with her, was making it hard to think.

      He looked her up and down, felt a stir of need and squashed it. When he held her gaze again, he leaned in and whispered, “Absolutely nothing.”

       Two

      Absolutely nothing.

      For the next several days, those two words echoed in Emma’s brain. There was a lot to do around the ranch and yet she couldn’t shake Caden’s voice.

      “No surprise there,” she muttered as she shuffled equipment around in the tack room. Caden had never been far from her mind. Yes, she’d walked away from him, but she’d had to follow her heart, right? Fight for her dream or end up an old woman, eaten by regret.

      “You’d think he’d understand that,” she said tightly. “The man has a one-track mind when it comes to his dreams. What? I’m not allowed to chase mine? Is that it? I can only have the dreams that don’t inconvenience him?”

       Absolutely nothing.

      But it seemed he wanted something from Emma’s sister. Gracie had gone to Caden’s place nearly every day. Why? Jealousy bristled in her chest and twisted around her heart, giving it a hard squeeze. Was Gracie sleeping with him? Had he moved from one sister to another without missing a beat? Was Gracie the one sharing in Caden’s dreams now?

      She had no way of knowing since her sister hadn’t really spoken to her since that first day. The two of them passed each other in the house locked in a strained silence that their father was either not noticing or actively ignoring.

      Frank was completely in love with baby Molly, though, and every day, he seemed to return a bit more to the man that Emma remembered. His granddaughter had given him a new lease on life, he claimed, and that worried Emma, too. There was simply too much going on. Too many things to feel. To think. To be anxious over.

      Why had she ever thought that coming home would be easy?

      She grabbed two shovels and slammed them into the corner. This whole ranch was a mess. The barn, the stable, the house. Oh, it was all still standing, but it looked to Emma like no one had been paying attention to what needed doing. Except Caden, apparently. A couple of men from his ranch had been over two days ago, to repaint the corral fences, and when she had told them they didn’t need his help, they’d ignored her, too. Said that they took orders from Caden and if she had a problem with it, she should take it up with him.

      As if she could.

      So now the fences had been painted, but the grass was too high, and the railing on the wraparound porch was wobbly. And the tack room was in shambles. “There are shelves for God’s sake. Why aren’t they using them?”

      Anger guided Emma as she picked up saddle soap, cloths and a million other little supplies that were tossed around. One by one, she straightened them out, lining them up on the shelves and giving it all a nod of satisfaction when she was finished. For a soul as organized as Emma, this place was torture.

      “And why is there an old saddle on the desk?” she asked no one.

      “It’s waiting to be repaired.”

      Emma spun around to see her younger sister standing in the doorway. “How long’s it been waiting?”

      Gracie shrugged. “A few months I guess.”

      “Months?” Emma shook her head, exasperated at the mess and her sister’s nonchalant attitude. “Why hasn’t Buck fixed it?”

      “Buck quit six months ago.”

      “What?” Buck Simpson had worked for them since Emma was a girl. He was a master at saddlery and had kept the ranch equipment in tip-top shape. “Why?”

      Gracie shrugged again and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. “He said he was getting too old to deal with ranching in winter. He went to live with his daughter and her husband on their ranch outside Billings. It still snows, but he doesn’t have to get out and work in it every day.”

      Another change she hadn’t known about and she didn’t like it. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could’ve emailed or something.”