Christmastime Cowboy

CHAPTER FIVE

“DON’T YOU LOOK FANCY!”

Liam looked over at his sister-in-law, Alison, and lifted a brow as he simultaneously raised his coffee cup to his lips. “Unlike your husband, I know how to dress for the venue.”

Alison smiled and looked over at Cain, who was currently scowling into his coffee. “If I had occasion to put on a monkey suit I would. In fact, I believe I even wore a tie when I married you, woman,” he said.

“Under such extreme sufferance you would have thought that I was asking you to put on a tie and then place your testicles in a jar for me to keep under my bed.”

Cain snorted. “Well. We both know that’s not true.”

“I keep them in my purse,” Alison said, grinning widely at Liam.

“Great. I feel much better now that I know the location of my older brother’s testicles. Why aren’t you two at your own house?”

“There’s an extremely teenage music situation happening,” Alison said. “Apparently, someone has late classes today.”

Liam grimaced. It was difficult for him to believe sometimes that his older brother had a daughter who was closer to being an adult than being a child. Considering the fact that Liam was not in a headspace to ever consider having children at all.

“A paperwork situation is about to be happening with me, so I’m not entirely sure that it’s better than being exposed to pop music.” It was only eight forty-five, but as far as Liam was concerned it was getting late. He and his brothers got up so early to take care of the ranch every day that it was a routine now.

At first, it had fully kicked his ass. He was used to a fairly early routine, but not getting up and outside by five. Now... After all this time, it was just part of life.

A life that felt tangible in a way his previous life had not. And yeah, he pretty much did think of them as two separate lives. When all was said and done, Liam Donnelly felt like he had lived quite a few lives. One of them, once upon a time, had been in Copper Ridge. Had been working at Grassroots Winery. Had involved Sabrina Leighton. And somehow, Sabrina Leighton was involved again.

Just thinking about her made his gut tight. Unfinished business. That’s what it was. Because he hadn’t slept with her back then, and it made him wonder what he had been missing. Especially considering the degree to which she had wormed her way under his skin without him ever getting inside of her.

A subtle thing. A closeness that had occurred in inches. With each bit of confidence and trust she had put in him. He had never told her much about his life, about his past. But he’d let her talk about her own.

About how hard she found it to have friends. How it was tough for her to relate to other girls her age because they were allowed to go to parties and stay out and she wasn’t. There was something about that. About her isolation, her vulnerability that he’d related to.

He sure as hell had never expected to relate to a sweet little rich girl from the right side of the tracks. And yet he had.

“I have to go.” He stood up and nodded once at Alison and Cain before heading out of the kitchen and toward the front door.

He grabbed a black cowboy hat from the peg by the door and pressed it onto his head. There was a strange sense of rightness that settled down to his bones as he did that. As he walked out onto the deck wearing a pair of black jeans, boots, button-up shirt and a black tie. Of course, to his older brother, that was a monkey suit. It made Liam laugh.

It was a far cry from the custom suits he had once worn, but he figured that this was dressing up for a cowboy. Farmer. Rancher. Whatever the hell he was these days.

The hat itself was not custom-made. He had bought it at the Farm and Garden when he had come to town. But in a great many ways it felt a lot more made for him than one of those suits ever had.

He got into his truck and fired up the engine, heading down the long gravel driveway toward the main road that would take him into town. And the whole way he wondered what mood he would find Sabrina in. Whether or not she would have her pretty pink lips pursed together in irritation already. In anticipation of his arrival. Anticipation of having to deal with him.

And he wondered if her blond hair would be pulled back in a prim little bun. If she would be wearing one of those pencil skirts that he imagined was supposed to be demure, but instead put him in the mind of pushing it up her hips, or grabbing hold of the zipper and working it down, leaving it in a heap of demolished modesty on the floor of his bedroom.

He had not let himself have fantasies like this about her thirteen years ago. No way in hell. At least he hadn’t indulged them.

But she was a woman now, not a seventeen-year-old girl. So all bets were off.

He wasn’t going to do anything about it, of course. Same as back then. Because while she might be a grown woman, she was still off-limits. They needed to get through this business venture with minimal drama.

It felt right. Being here. Wearing the cowboy hat, and heading to the bank to sign a stack of mortgage documents that was probably about as tall as he was. Like he had finally found some way to reconcile the pieces of himself. To repair the parts of him that had been deeply uncomfortable and always displaced living in major cities. And to deal with that restless, unsatisfied part of him that had felt trapped in small towns.

He had gotten an opportunity to better himself, and he had taken it. To become something more. To add layers of importance to himself. To get all the money and status that his mother had sure as hell been convinced would have made her happy. Rather than her children.

And then, he had happily written her a check so she would finally shut the hell up.

He had taken immense satisfaction from the fact that he had been the one to provide her that money. He, the one who had been responsible for her sad, stale life, as far as she was concerned. Her most hated son. The one who had been beneath her notice at the best of times, going without food and water for extended periods. And the one who had been subject to her expressions of rage at other times.

But it didn’t matter. Not now. He had made good. He had gotten his own back.

Life was pretty damn good, all things considered.

On that note, he pulled into the parking lot of Copper Ridge Credit Union and killed the engine on his truck. He recognized Sabrina’s little silver car in the lot already. It was very her. Sleek, contained. Then he wondered what had happened to that pretty, reckless girl he had once known who ran barefoot and let her blond hair fly free.

You happened to her, you asshole, or have you not listened to anything she’s said to you?

He snorted. Listening had never been his strong suit.

Sabrina chose that exact moment to pop out the front door of the bank, her expression tight and her hand wrapped around a Styrofoam cup that was steaming, and full of coffee he assumed.

Bank coffee was not his favorite.

“There you are,” she said. “You’re late.”

He lifted his arm and looked at his watch. “Like two minutes late. Are they waiting?”

“No,” she said. “But I was.”

She turned sharply and went back into the building, and he shook his head as he followed her in.

The credit union building was new, at least new to him. With high ceilings and glossy floors. It was much larger and a bit fancier than anything he typically ascribed to the aesthetic of Copper Ridge. Though, there was also a touch of that rustic Oregon flair in the wooden crossbeams on the ceiling, and the supports throughout the lobby area. There were large windows that made the most of the view of the rocks, scrubby pines and the ocean out back.

The mist was clinging to the top of the gray waves today, the sky blending into the water.

And Sabrina stood out in bright contrast to that.

She surprised him today, wearing a pair of black pants that conformed to her slender legs, bright pink shoes and a neutral-colored sweater. Her blond hair was up. He hadn’t seen it down once since he had come back.

It made his fingers itch.

He found the coffee station and decided to make himself a cup, even though it involved powdered creamer. It was something to do. Something other than reaching up and taking Sabrina’s hair out of its bun.

He imagined that he probably shouldn’t harass her right before they went in to sign paperwork. He should wait until after. When it was too late for her to pull out.

He had already faxed over all the legal agreements for the business partnership, and they had been signed by Lindy. For this, Sabrina would be signing on behalf of the winery.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asked.

She jerked, like he had shocked her with a cattle prod. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Have you ever signed mortgage documents?”

“Yes. I bought a house four years ago.”

“Good.” That kind of surprised him. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. That she lived on the winery property, or that she perhaps still lived with her parents. Which was ridiculous, considering she was thirty years old.

But rich girls like her, they often did continue living with their parents. At least, in his head they did. Otherwise, they were sent to some fancy school by their parents. And then subsequently had their housing paid for.

“Where did you go to school?”

She looked at him blankly. “What?”

He realized that he had skipped a step with her. But in his head it had made sense. “School. I was just wondering where you went to college.”

“Oh. Just... I went to Oregon State.”

“I figured you would go somewhere a little bit...bigger of a deal.”

“It’s a great school,” she said, visibly bristling. “Go Ducks.”

It was fine enough, he was sure. But he had gone to a top-ranked university with her father’s money. He had assumed that she would do nothing less.

“I figured that you would go somewhere further afield,” he said. “That’s all.”

She stiffened. “Things change.”

“All right. I guess that’s true. So, what kind of house do you have?”

“What, is this interrogate Sabrina hour?”

“In fairness, it’s basically interrogate Sabrina five minutes. Hour is vastly dramatizing the situation.”

“Have you ever bought a house?” she asked, clearly looking to turn the spotlight onto him.

“Not a house. But a penthouse. New York City.”

She blinked rapidly, her pale eyebrows knitting together. “But those cost...millions of dollars.”

He just let the implication of that hang between them, and watched as her skin went slightly waxen.

“Grassroots Winery and Laughing Irish?” An older woman with dark hair peeked out of one of the glass corner offices with a smile pasted on her face.

“That’s us,” Liam confirmed.

For some reason—instinct, something—he reached out and pressed his palm against Sabrina’s lower back to guide her toward the office. She stopped dead in her tracks, her gaze sliding over to him, irritation glittering sharply there.

“Do you touch men you’re doing business deals with like that? Because I’ll tell you, that’s some mental image.”

“No,” he said, lowering his hand slowly.

“I don’t mind a little Brokeback Mountain fantasy, Liam.”

“After you,” he said, waiting for her to walk into the office before he followed behind her.

It had been a stupid thing to do, touching her like that. Normally, he would never do something so asinine with the woman he was doing a business deal with. He would normally never do that with anyone.

There was just something about Sabrina that pushed him to do things he was usually way too smart to do.

They took a seat at the table with the banker and with another person who was introduced as the notary. Gage West had apparently signed his end of the deal already.

The stack of papers was indeed massive, and both Liam and Sabrina were given pens before the banker handed him the first page, which Sabrina promptly took. “We’re the first name on the documents, as we own a larger portion,” she said crisply.

She signed quickly next to a sticky tab, then passed the paper back to him. As if it mattered which order they signed in as long as they signed on the right spot. But he could tell she was compelled to make an issue out of it, so he was going to let it go.

They carried out the signing in relative silence, the only real conversation happening when the banker explained a page that he was certain both he and Sabrina already understood, but that she was legally bound to verbally expound on.

Sabrina passed one paper to him, and he pressed his fingertips down on it, brushing the tips of them against hers. She jerked back, trying to look composed as she moved on to signing the next document.

“There,” the woman said, smiling through the tension that was making the air crackle, “all finished. Congratulations. You are now the proud owners of some very nice property.”

“Thank you,” Sabrina said. “I hope that you’ll come down for the grand opening. There’s going to be wine, cheese and all manner of festivities.”

“Definitely,” the banker said, and Liam really couldn’t tell if she was being genuine, or if there was just no other polite response to give.

Considering they had just signed a considerable amount of their lives over to this establishment, she did have to be polite.

Well, it was a considerable amount of Grassroots’ life, and Lindy’s, he imagined. It wasn’t so much to him. Even if Finn was being adamant that it all be paid for with Donnelly ranch money, and not Liam’s.

As they walked out of the bank, Sabrina still had a large, fake-looking smile plastered on her face. But as soon as the glass door closed behind them, she chucked the Styrofoam cup of coffee in the trash beside the building. “That was disgusting coffee.”

He grimaced and sent his cup the same direction. “Agreed.”

“Well, I need more coffee. Better coffee. So I’m going to head down to The Grind and grab some, and then I’m going to go to the shop.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She looked...not shocked, but a little bit like she wanted to argue. “I don’t really have any plans. I just want to make a quick sketch of the floor plan so that I can get a rough idea of what we need to get, and you know, layouts and things.”

“Right. Do you have a tape measure, anything on you?”

“I can buy one,” she said, looking mulish.

“I have a toolbox in the back of my truck. Why don’t you ride down with me?”

He knew that she was annoyed. And he also knew that she would rather ride with him than protest. Because he could tell that she was caught between wanting to spend less time with him and wanting to act like it didn’t matter.

For his part, he wasn’t really sure why he cared either way.

Really? You don’t know why you care?

As if his stomach didn’t clench tight when he smelled vanilla, which was a scent that he had always associated with her. Like he hadn’t quit a job because he’d worked closely with a woman who shared her name, and he couldn’t hear it without thinking of her and that devastated expression on her face when he’d left her that night.

As if he didn’t have a tattoo on his body that was dedicated to her.

He could admit that now. He had been in pretty deep denial even when he had gotten the ink. But, as it had taken shape, as he had laid out what he had wanted, it was pretty hard for him to deny that the barefoot blond figure that rested beneath the tree that stretched over his shoulder and around to his back wasn’t inspired by her. That she wasn’t the picture in his mind when he’d thought of it in the first place.

“Great. Let’s go. I suppose I should be grateful for you and your tape measure.”

She stepped gingerly toward his truck and got into the passenger seat without waiting for him. He hadn’t bothered to lock it. There wasn’t really much point in Copper Ridge.

He jerked the driver side door open and got in, starting up the engine. “Yeah, you probably should be a lot more grateful for me than you are.”

They pulled out of the lot and headed back into town. There was one lone spot that he was able to parallel park in just in front of The Grind.

“Two hour parking,” he commented as he got out and rounded her side. “We could walk from here.” He finished that sentence when she hopped out onto the sidewalk.

“Sure,” she said. “If you want to lug your tools all the way down there.”

“I think I can handle it.”

He held the door open for her, but this time, did not put his hand anywhere on her body. She said nothing, but walked into the café in front of him. They got in line together, and he could tell that she was annoyed that they were together in public, and not just running into each other by happenstance.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“Just a coffee.”

“That’s not at all exciting.”

“You don’t find a strong jolt of bitter caffeine exciting? I do.”

He laughed. “I suppose I do. A little more exciting with a double shot of espresso poured over the top.”

When they got up to the front he ordered just that, and then ordered her regular coffee. She glared at him as he got his wallet out and paid. “What?”

“I didn’t say you could buy me a coffee.”

“I don’t recall asking you.”

The girl behind the counter handed them their order with a slightly glum expression on her face. Sabrina snatched her coffee out of his hand and headed over to the cream and sugar station.

“I hope you’re happy,” she commented, pouring a little bit of cream and a packet of sugar into her cup and stirring. “You’ve broken that little girl’s heart.”

“That little girl?” he asked, gesturing back toward the counter.

“Yes.”

“First of all, she’s like five years younger than you. Second of all, why? Because she thinks I’m with you?”

“You bought my coffee.”

“Well. I was unaware that was small-town symbolism for a marriage proposal. I thought that you still had to give a couple of oxen to get a woman. I didn’t know you could get her with one cup of coffee.”

She laughed reluctantly, and the two of them walked out of The Grind and onto the rain-soaked sidewalk.

Sabrina looked both ways, and didn’t bother to go to the crosswalk. She just did half a jog across the street, conveniently forgetting the lecture she’d recently given him on the dangers of walking with hot beverages, and he followed.

They walked past his sister-in-law Lane’s Mercantile, full of specialty foods, and then past Pie in the Sky, his sister-in-law Alison’s bakery, which was now across the street from them.

“Main Street is becoming quite the Donnelly affair,” he commented.

“The tasting room is not primarily Donnelly,” she said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it being part Donnelly, I suppose.”

“Sure, sure.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him.

He shook his head.

They rounded the corner to the front of their new store and Sabrina produced the keys. “Officially ours,” she said, jingling them before jamming the key into the lock. “After you.”

She held the door for him and he went in ahead of her.

She pulled a pad of paper out of her purse and paced around the room studying their surroundings. “So, we’ve already figured a few things out. But, we need to figure out how much seating we can put in here versus floor space, and of course there needs to be a bit of space for preparation. And for merchandise.”

“Great. I’ll do some measurements and we can do a little Googling to figure out how big some refrigerated display cases are and standard table sizes.”

“Thank God for smartphones,” Sabrina commented.

He chuckled, setting his toolbox down and taking out his tape measure. “I hear that. We didn’t really have those last time you and I hung out.”

She snorted. “I guess not.”

“It’s funny,” he said. “All the things that have changed. That credit union for example. The building was not like that when I lived here.”

“They built a new one about six years ago,” she said.

“And another example. Your brother has been married and divorced,” he said.

“Yes. Dramatically. And of course, the ownership of the winery has changed.”

“True. And if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t have to work with me. Because there’s no way in hell your father would have let me in on a venture involving his precious winery.”

It was her turn to laugh, an icy sound. “Well, if the ownership of the winery hadn’t changed you wouldn’t be working with me anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t be here. It would be a moot point.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I’ve only been back at the winery for two years.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ve been doing other things. Worked in banking for a while. I managed a bed-and-breakfast in Gold Valley and then I managed the hospitality portion of a dude ranch there called Get Out of Dodge. That’s where I met Olivia Logan. I’m not sure if you’ve met her yet. She works at Grassroots. She used to work at the same ranch that I did, but they scaled back when the owner had a heart attack. Quit taking as many guests and running as many touristy things.”

“You did all that just for...for fun?”

Her shoulders twitched, and her face went tight. “What do we have so far?”

“For what?” he asked, frowning.

“For the dining area. How many tables and chairs?”

He gestured toward the picture windows. “Two with two chairs here. And maybe we can do one with four chairs here. Probably five or six additional tables here in the center of the room. But we need to keep enough space available for the wine.”

“Right. Right. I’m thinking of talking to somebody around town who might have an idea of where we can get shelving made. Something that’s a little artisanal...”

“You can talk to Lane. But don’t think I didn’t notice that you derailed the conversation. Why haven’t you been working at the winery?” he asked.

“It’s been thirteen years since you were back in town, Liam. Did you really think I was only going to have one job for my entire life?”

“Hell no. Not for one second. But I also figured that you would go to some big East Coast school. And I certainly didn’t think you would have come back to the winery after it had passed out of your parents’ control. What does your dad think of that?”

“He thinks poorly of it,” she said stiffly. “But that’s fine. He thinks poorly of me.”

Liam huffed out a laugh. “Now that isn’t true. Your dad thinks you’re everything. Believe me.”

“Right. Is that some coded reference to the fact that he paid you to leave?”

Liam felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. “You...”

“I know. I know why you left. I know that my father offered you money to leave. You didn’t just run away because my naked breasts offended you. In hindsight, I was never sure if it was better or worse that you had an incentive.” She swallowed hard. “I have to say, it’s actually good to know that you did something with that.”

“That I did something with what your father gave to me?”

“Yes. Because whatever we were about... Our friendship, whatever you want to call it... If you were going to sell it, Liam, I’m glad that you got something out of it. I’m glad you went to school. Not because I’m happy for you, but because at least I know I got traded for something bigger than a really fast car that you were just going to crash in the end, or something.”