the kitchen.”
“You come pretty damn close,” he grudgingly admitted between bites, trying not to think too hard on how natural it felt to sit here with Laci, talking about pie, because it wasn’t natural at all. Not in the least. He’d left for a reason and he could tell by the way things had panned out for Laci that his choice had been the smart one. So don’t start romanticizing sharing a slice of pie, he warned himself. He finished up and brought his plate to the sink where he started to wash up, when Laci joined him and took the plate from him.
“I got this,” she said. “You’ve got chores to do. The least I can do is clean up.”
“Thanks,” he said, hating how the morning light glinted off the honey strands of her hair, giving her a halo. In all the years and miles he’d put between himself and Laci, he’d never found a woman who came halfway close to the way he’d felt about Laci. There was a reason she was a superstar—she had something special—and he’d known it from the start. Back away, he told himself when the urge to touch her cheek became too hard to fight. “I’ll be feeding the cattle,” he told her, stepping away, needing to put some space between them right this second before he scooped her into his arms and finished what they’d started this morning. Boy, wouldn’t that be the most epically bad decision of his life? Yeah, but if he were going to screw up his life and everything he’d built to this point, he might as well go big, right? Not really, the voice answered drily. Keep it in your pants, big boy, and remember what her daddy told you all those years ago...she ain’t for you, son. Ain’t that the truth. Kane started for the door but Laci’s voice at his back stopped him.
“I’m heading to town to pick up a few things. You need anything?”
He half turned, regarding her with a slow, deliberate gaze. You naked beneath me and all the time in the world to make up for what I lost a long time ago. But he couldn’t say that. Not in a million years would he, either. So he uttered the one thing he could, “Nope,” and then exited the house as if it were on fire.
* * *
MAYBE SHE SHOULDN’T STAY. Laci rolled the idea around in her head, weighing the pros and cons of staying a few days in the same house as Kane when stacked up against the very real problem of their long-buried, but obviously very much alive, attraction to one another. Allowing her gaze to roam the familiar kitchen with its worn hardwood floors, she noted the disrepair creeping up and taking over. Rusted hinges on the cupboards, chipped countertops...everywhere she looked she found something that needed a little TLC. It was just Cora and Warren in this old ranch house and Cora, bless her heart, was sick and Warren had his hands full trying to care for her and the ranch without any help. Why hadn’t they called her? She would’ve flown in the best of care for Cora if need be. Round-the-clock care, even.
Laci worried her lip, concerned and feeling out of sorts for being unaware that all this had been happening to two of the nicest people she knew and loved. She could blame Trent for keeping her going 24/7, but the fact was, she’d stayed away because of Kane. The Bradford ranch was so much a part of her memories with Kane that for a while it’d been too painful to go there knowing that Kane was gone.
Of course, in hindsight, that’d been just selfish. Warren and Cora were good folk and they’d been there for her when she’d had no one except her daddy, God rest his soul, and she’d repaid that kindness by relegating them to a few hurried phone calls in between shows. Laci rubbed at the sudden tickle in her nose. She ought to have the kitchen remodeled for Cora. But even as the thought took root, she remembered how particular Cora was about her kitchen and realized she couldn’t go and make a big change like that without the old gal’s permission. The shock of it alone might send Cora into a tailspin.
Laci leaned against the counter, her gaze finding Kane through the kitchen-sink window. He crossed the yard to the barn where she could hear the cows making their usual morning racket. A smile found her. She’d forgotten how loud those milkers could be.
The first time she’d stayed here, Cora had filled a mug with fresh milk and given it to her with a mile-high stack of flapjacks for breakfast and Laci had never experienced something so good as Cora’s cooking coupled with milk straight from the cow. However, at first, Laci had been resistant, pushing away the milk with a polite “No, thank you” because she was mildly lactose intolerant, but Cora just laughed and asked her to try it.
“I’m willing to bet your stomach will tolerate fresh milk just fine,” Cora had assured her, but Laci hadn’t been too sure. Her daddy had dropped her off with these old folks and now they were trying to kill her, she’d thought. But her daddy had ingrained in her a respect for her elders so, sending a prayer to heaven, she drank the milk and ate the flapjacks. When her stomach didn’t immediately rebel, she stared at Cora in confusion, prompting Cora to say, “I was raised on a farm with nothing but fresh milk and there weren’t nothing like that ‘lactose intolerant’ stuff going around. You know why? Because we didn’t monkey around with the milk. It came straight to our cups as God intended and you can’t tell me that God don’t know what he’s doin’ when it comes to his animals. That stuff you buy in the supermarkets got goodness-only-knows-what inside it and none of the good stuff that was put there in the first place. That’s why your body don’t mind it.”
And after that, Laci never thought twice about drinking raw milk, until Trent came along and tossed it from her travel fridge, saying milk made phlegm and it was bad for her singing career. She hadn’t had a glass of milk—raw or otherwise—in years. Laci watched Kane until he disappeared into the barn and then went to the fridge. She found a glass container of milk and smiled. “Might as well make sure it doesn’t go to waste,” she murmured, pouring what was left into a mug and drinking it down. A sigh of happy nostalgia followed and she simply enjoyed the quiet moment.
Maybe it was weird, but she’d come to really appreciate the small things since she’d hit it big. Most times, she never talked about her childhood to anyone within her inner circle, much less reporters who asked. Her daddy had done a fine-enough job for a single father, but times had been hard and there was no way of prettying up that simple fact. Her time with the Bradfords had been the first stint of stability she’d ever had, similar to Kane and Rian. Not that her daddy had been abusive like the Dalton boys’ daddy, God no, but her daddy hadn’t always done a good job of providing a sense of home for his only daughter. Oh, Daddy...I wish you were still here. You’d know how to handle Trent.
All she’d done was run away from her problem, but it would be right where she left it when she went back. The dissatisfying smack of reality threatened to sour the milk she’d just enjoyed, so she let it go. She’d deal with that later. In the meantime, she was going to find a way to help Cora without stepping on her toes too much. She turned a critical eye to the kitchen. Maybe some new appliances? Surely that wouldn’t be overstepping too much. But first...she surveyed her glittering costume with a smirk; she needed to get a few things from town.
LACI DROVE INTO WOODSVILLE, sunglasses on, trying as much as possible to blend in, but really, that was a tall order, particularly while wearing the glittery sparkler of a costume that practically screamed, Hey, look at me! While that worked well for being onstage, it definitely made her stand out—in a bad way—in a small town where cotton blends were the norm. The last thing she needed was someone to recognize her and Trent to find out prematurely where she was. She knew she had to return at some point—she had a tour to finish—but she wasn’t ready to face that world again. Not yet. First things first, she needed to find some different clothes.
Laci walked into the first clothing store she found, a small consignment/thrift store. She cringed at the odd stares coming her way and hustled to the racks to find some simple jean shorts and T-shirts to get her through the next few days. As luck would have it, she actually found quite a few cute outfits and scooped them up before the stares turned into questions she wanted to avoid.
Standing at the checkout, she asked the clerk, “May I use your dressing room to change?”
“Sure, honey,”