city. “From near Alice Springs, up in Northern Territory, myself. Not that you could tell from the accent, I’m sure.” His smirk spread into a full-blown and rather disarming smile.
Her brother Luke had mentioned this guy in an email. There had been talk of the well-known Australian horse trainer looking at the property abutting her family’s ranch. According to Luke, some said he was renting it for the season, others speculated he was planning to buy the land at the end of the summer. “I’m guessing your last name is Pine,” she offered.
The man put one hand on his chest. “Guilty as charged.”
One of the famous Pine brothers. Only, which one? She looked at him, trying to draw the face of either of the TV celebrity siblings up from her sleep-deprived memory. It wasn’t like she’d ever really followed the show, but it was famous enough that ads for it were pretty much impossible to avoid.
“I’m the other one,” he said, tipping up his hat.
She laughed as she accepted the bag of three blondies from Lolly and immediately reached into the bag for one.
“That would make me Cooper,” he explained. She nodded as she bit into the confection, glad not to have to admit she could only remember Hunter Pine’s name in her present state. He cocked his head toward the other four blondies still remaining on the covered plate. “There’s a little lady at my house with a birthday tomorrow. Should I buy the rest?”
Luke hadn’t mentioned that the man had a wife in his last email. Only that the rumors had been true and one of the famous Pine brothers had indeed showed up and moved into the vacant ranch house—but for how long? Her brother was wondering about the answer to that question, and so was she. A tiny town like Martins Gap wasn’t really the kind of place she expected someone of Pine’s notoriety to put down roots.
“Yes,” she answered him, “I’d stick a candle in any one of these.” Tess sent an appreciative smile Lolly’s way. Lolly’s blondies were the ultimate comfort food for her, and she could use a whopping dose of comfort these days. “They’re as good as I remember.”
“Of course they are, Tess, honey,” Lolly replied.
“Tess? Tess Buckton?”
“That’s me.” Gran would scold her for forgetting to introduce herself, but Gran hadn’t been up for thirty hours and multiple time zones.
“We’re neighbors,” Cooper said as he pointed to the remaining blondies and then held up four fingers to Lolly. “I’m renting the Larkey place for the season. Beaut land.”
“Wish I could say as much for the previous owner,” Tess replied the moment her mouth wasn’t full of gooey white chocolate and caramel. The cowboy’s charming but clearly amused smile made her wonder just how much powdered sugar was all over her blondie-craving face. Tess wiped the last of the powdered sugar off her fingers against her jeans and shook Cooper’s huge tanned hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“I keep hearing things that tell me this Larkey bloke wasn’t pleased to meet anyone. But I hear good things about Bucktons. I should have known you were part of the clan. The eyes and all.”
Most Martins Gap residents knew the Buckton family for the bright turquoise color of their eyes, but she didn’t really expect the reputation to extend to seasonal renters of foreclosed properties. “So you’re here for the summer?”
“Yeah. Layin’ low a bit.”
Tess looked at the delicious square in her hand and debated whether downing an entire blondie in front of a complete stranger would constitute the best first impression.
Her expression must have been a dead giveaway, for Cooper nodded toward the blondie and said, “Go ’head. Don’t lemme stop ya.”
She did. She wanted to eat all three in rapid succession, even knowing that would make her nearly ill by the end of it. Lolly’s blondies. She’d been craving them every day since she’d booked her flight. Now she could eat them every day for as long as she was here—which might be a while. She took another bite as Lolly handed her the change from her purchase. As the woman lifted the lid on the cake plate to remove the remaining four, Cooper snatched one and took a healthy bite.
“Oh,” he said from behind a mouthful. “I see your point. These will definitely make her day.”
Lolly beamed but she didn’t exactly look surprised. And why should she? Tess couldn’t recall a single person who didn’t love Lolly’s blondies. If Martins Gap had an official dessert, this was it. Even Gran—who was famous for her own brownies—admitted that Lolly topped her efforts.
“So, you’re just staying for the summer?” Tess asked as she put her wallet back in her handbag. She wasn’t usually the type to fish for gossip but his comment had practically handed the opening to her. And she had to admit, she was curious.
Cooper smiled, pointing to his mouth now full of a second massive bite of blondie. Tess waited for him to finish but, even though he’d talked right through his last bite, he never offered an answer, just a dramatic “Mmm-mmm” as he paid Lolly. As if he’d never heard her question.
He finished the transaction, tipped his hat with a dashing wink at both Lolly and Tess, and headed out the door...
And practically headlong into Luke, who had gone to visit his fiancée’s physical therapy practice in town while Tess got her blondie fix. The frost between the two men could be felt even from this distance. No words passed between them as Cooper walked away.
“You ready to head to the ranch?” Luke asked, still staring at the doorway Cooper had exited. “Gran’ll be waiting.”
Gran. Tess swallowed the conflicting feelings that rose around the prospect of seeing her grandmother again. So much in her life had changed in the sixteen months since her last visit and she was crawling home in a defeat no one yet knew had come. On the one hand, Tess yearned to spend time with the wise, tenderhearted woman who had raised her after her mother’s death. Next to Luke, Tess had felt closest to Gran when their mother’s death had turned her eleven-year-old world upside down.
It was Gran and Luke who had been her anchors in the nine years her father had lived after that, nine years her father hadn’t made pleasant for any of the four Buckton children. Dad was the reason all of them had left the ranch and Gran was the reason each of her siblings had returned, one by one, in the past few years.
But Gran could always read her almost as well as Luke could. Which meant one of them was bound to figure out what had happened and why she was back. She could hope to keep the events of recent months from one of them for at least a little while, but both of them? She didn’t stand a chance.
You knew that when you chose to come home, she told herself. Not that there had been all that much choice to it. What was the saying? Something about how home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And she’d had nowhere else to turn.
“Tess?” Luke peered at her, thrusting his face into her vision, snapping her thoughts away from halfway around the world to another time and place. “You hungry or something? I mean, hungrier for more than blondies?” After a second, when she didn’t answer, he added, “You okay?”
“I’ve been up for thirty hours, that’s all. I didn’t conk out on the plane like I usually do.” As well traveled as she was for her job as a freelance photographer, Tess usually made excellent use of red-eye flights. Only these days Tess didn’t sleep well no matter where she lay her head—and that had nothing to do with jumping the international date line.
“All the more reason to get you home so Gran can fuss over you. Catch you later, Lolly.” Luke gave a wink—as much of a showman’s wink as the one Cooper Pine had given—to the woman behind the counter and plucked the bag from Tess’s hands as they headed for the door. “You got one for me, didn’t you?”
“Would it matter if I didn’t?”
He pulled open