She picked up the candid of her mother and her at that last Halloween party. They were dressed as witches and they had their heads together laughing.
A bottomless ache came over Callie, making her sink to the bed. She hated this. It had been eleven years. Get over it.
Her mother could always find a reason to celebrate. She hosted parties and town events like crazy. Until the last one. Her mother had been returning from Phoenix, her car jammed with stuff for Callie’s eighteenth birthday bash, when she fell asleep on a lonely stretch of I-10.
As if that horror hadn’t been enough, Callie had read the newspaper story, where a witness vividly described the highway littered with foil banners, crepe paper, appetizers and paper plates. “It looked like a party had exploded on the road.” The words and the picture they drew remained branded in Callie’s brain.
To spare Callie’s feelings, they’d held the funeral two days after her birthday, but it hadn’t helped. She’d ignored her birthday ever after, avoided the subject with friends. No one knew, and she liked it that way.
Callie slipped the photo into the drawer—no point torturing herself—and opened her suitcase on the bed. Throwing open her closet door, she surveyed the fashion mistakes she’d left when she headed for college, including the ridiculously slutty dress Taylor had bought—sequined fake snakeskin she’d managed to only wear once. Her old jeans were there and the never-worn Stetson her dad had bought her to try to coax her back into riding.
Glancing at her watch, she decided to unpack later. Instead, she’d make a couple of quick calls. The first was to touch base with Finn Markham, head of Valhalla Investments, the company funding the resort, pinning down his visit to the property. She wanted to talk to him about possibly buying the riverside acres. The proceeds would offer a financial margin in case they took too long to turn the revenue corner. Raw land wasn’t as valuable as developed land, but it was an option worth considering.
Getting voice mail, she left a message, then took a calming breath before punching in the number to Be There Events, the company she and Stefan had built together.
“Hello, Callie,” he answered gravely. “How are you?”
“I’m great. Ready to dig in,” she said cheerfully, irritated by the drama in his tone. “How’s it going there?”
“The usual craziness. We miss you.”
Oh, lighten up. She was the injured party, but Stefan was the one who’d been moping around ever since. So much for easy, simple sex. They both lived for their work, so hooking up had been easy. But not simple three years later, when she learned Stefan was sleeping with a model from one of their events.
“Do you have questions?” she asked. “Everything clear?”
“Your notes are great. An idiot could handle this. And I sure qualify as one of those.”
“Don’t, Stefan. It’s over and done. I told you no hard feelings.” Not many feelings at all, she’d realized, which appalled her. When he’d confessed the affair, she’d been…numb.
Her pride was wounded, sure, but her heart was undamaged. It reminded her of the time she fell off Lucky when she was ten. She’d hit the ground and braced for agonizing pain. It never came. She’d been jarred, slightly bruised, but otherwise fine. She got up and rode off, virtually unscathed.
“It means nothing,” Stefan had said of the affair.
Then why do it? She knew why. What they had together wasn’t enough. For either of them, it turned out. She’d initiated the breakup. Stefan protested, but hollowly. He seemed to be reading the lines from the script for Cheating Lover, the Play.
She’d been too troubled to act her part. Even before Stefan, she’d been a no-strings girl, but now she feared she’d been protecting her heart so long, it had lost function. The heart was a muscle, after all. Without proper use, it could atrophy, become crippled.
She’d realized to her shock that she might not have the capacity for a lifelong love.
“What else can I do to help you?” Stefan said.
“Hold down the fort. That’s plenty for now.” When she got back they would talk. Before the breakup, she’d decided it was time to move on. She loved events, but Stefan wanted more publicity and marketing projects. She’d decided to follow up on the open invitation from Ogden, Rush & Tillman, a high-profile PR firm, to launch their special-events division, handily bounding several rungs up the success ladder.
She was finished with Be There Events. When a thing was over, you left. That was her philosophy. Never get stale, never get stuck. Done is done.
That was why she loved New York. There was always a place to go, a leap to risk, a challenge to meet. The affair had come at a good time, all things considered. Though she would have rather not discovered the crippled-heart part.
Finished with the phone, she saw she had time for a quick shower. She tied her hair back to keep it dry and stepped under the hot stream, letting the water uncoil her tension. Too bad she had to gear up for the horseback ride with Deck. She pictured his flashing grin, the knowing light in his blue eyes, the perfect curve of his ass, his big hands and where they might wander if he were here right now…mmmm.
Later, girl. She’d brought her ultrafancy vibrator—a gift from her girlfriends after the breakup—to handle her carnal needs for the next few months. If only she and Deck didn’t have a history. A mindless affair would be the perfect relief from the stress of the monumental work ahead.
Nothing with Deck could ever be mindless, she knew, though her body kept insisting she give it a try.
Forget it. Her focus was on the ranch. The construction intimidated her, but her consultant had pointed out it was like any project. You made a plan, hired good people, watched the dollars and the details and it all worked out. Tomorrow she’d begin with a meeting with the first contractor.
Tonight she had to get through a sunset ride with Deck.
3
THE SUN HAD STREAKED the sky with color when Callie marched down the porch, her red leather boots clicking sharply against the wooden steps, the fringe on her matching jacket swinging free. She’d only worn this once to a Western-themed client event and wanted to get some use out of it. She’d dressed for wow factor, wanting to off-balance Deck a bit.
Beneath the jacket, she wore a white scoop-necked stretch top. On her head was her Stetson, bright white, spanking new.
Her stone-washed jeans hugged her hips and legs so tightly she could barely draw breath.
A mistake, she realized, standing on the porch. She had to get her legs up and over the barrel of a horse’s rib cage. Bad move. She turned to go change, but Deck called her name.
She’d just make these jeans work like the rest of her plan. She would ease into the ranch changes, break the news about selling off the livestock, and hope she could keep Deck on the team through the changeover.
When she got close enough, Deck deliberately thumbed his hat high up his forehead and whistled. “Niiice,” he said, “though I wouldn’t waltz in front of any bulls in all that red if I were you.”
Terrific. He was making fun of her.
“Those pants look downright painful.” He ran his eyes down her length, making her aware that he was a man and she was in skintight jeans that hugged her ass and pinched her sex—which got worse the longer he looked her over. “How do you even move?”
“I manage,” she said, lifting her chin.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining,” Deck said, his low tone and lazy gaze telling her the answer to her earlier question. Yeah, he still found her attractive. Arousal rolled through her. At least she wasn’t alone.
She climbed stiffly up the fence to sit on the top slat, acting as casually as