Нора Робертс - Hideaway

Not the room she’d used as a child, Cate thought. Not the one her mother had taken her from on the worst day of her life.

“Sure. G-Lil.” On a sigh, she moved in for a hug. “Thanks.”

“We’re exorcising ghosts here, just the dark ones. This is a good house, with plenty of love and light in it.”

Exorcising ghosts, Cate thought as she went upstairs. Well, that was her plan, too, so she’d get on board Lily’s Christmas train.

Home from college on winter break, Dillon fell easily back into ranch routine. His dogs, thrilled, followed him everywhere as he filled troughs, hauled hay bales.

Or sometimes when he just stood, looking out over the fields to the sea.

Everything he loved was here.

Not that he didn’t like college. He did okay there, academic-wise, he thought as he listened to the chickens cluck madly while his mother spread their feed. He even got why what he learned—at least some of it—could make him a better rancher.

He liked his dorm mates okay, too. Though at times the air was so ripe with weed he got high just breathing. He liked the parties, the music, the long, rambling beer-and-weed-fueled discussions.

And the girls—or one girl in particular right now.

But whenever he came home, all that seemed like a weird dream, and one that bogged down his reality.

When he tried to imagine Imogene here, gathering eggs or baking bread for the co-op or digging in with him over the books, or even just standing with him, like this, looking out over the fields to the sea, he couldn’t do it.

It didn’t stop him from remembering how she looked naked. But he had to admit, he didn’t miss her as much as he’d thought he would.

“Too much to do, that’s all,” he told the dogs as they watched him with adoring eyes. He picked up the ball they’d pushed at his feet, gave it a good strong toss.

Watched them race after it, bumping each other like football players on the field.

Imogene loved dogs. She had pictures of her fluffy red Pomeranian, Fancy, on her phone. And in fact, planned to bring Fancy back with her from winter break because she and two other girls were moving into a group house off campus.

She rode, too, English style. Fancy like her dog, but she rode and pretty damn well.

He couldn’t stick with a girl who didn’t love dogs and horses, no matter how she looked naked.

He figured he’d see a lot more of naked Imogene when she had her own room in the group house.

He tossed the ball a couple more times, then headed into the stables.

He led horses out to pasture or paddock, then took extra time with Comet.

“How you doing, girl? How’s my best girl?”

When she nuzzled his shoulder, he rested his cheek against hers. Two and a half more years, he thought, and he’d be home for good.

He took an apple out of his back pocket, cut it in quarters with his knife. “Don’t tell the others,” he warned as he fed Comet half. He ate a quarter himself, gave her the last before leading her out.

He got a pitchfork and went to work.

His muscles remembered.

He’d grown another inch since he’d left for college, and figured he’d topped out now at six-one. Since he worked part-time at a riding stable, he kept those muscles in tune, earned some money, and got to hang with horses.

When he wheeled the first barrow out, he’d fallen into the rhythm, a nineteen-year-old boy who’d finally grown into his feet, leanly muscled in jeans and a work jacket, his boots mucked and muddy.

One of the cows let out a long, lazy moo. His dogs wrestled over the tooth-pocked red ball. A pregnant mare swished her tail in the paddock. Smoke pumped out of the ranch house chimneys, and the sound of the sea came to him as clearly as if he’d sailed a boat over its waves.

In that moment, he was completely and utterly happy.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After breakfast, with the smell of bacon, coffee, pancakes on the griddle still in the air, Dillon had a vague plan to text his two local pals, see if they wanted to meet up later.

It would give him time to saddle Comet, take her out for a ride, maybe check some fencing.

The women in his life had other ideas.

“We’ve got something we need to talk to you about.”

He glanced over at his mother. She wiped down the counters and stove while he loaded the dishwasher. Gram—with the privilege of the breakfast cook—sat with another cup of coffee.

“Sure. Is something wrong?”

“Not a thing.”

She left it at that.

She had a way, Dillon knew, of saying exactly as much as she wanted to say, and leaving you wondering about the rest. Poking, prying, pleading, wouldn’t get another word out of her until she was damn good and ready.

So he finished loading the dishes.

Since he’d had enough coffee, he got a Coke. And since it seemed they were going to have a discussion, sat in Discussion Central.

The kitchen table.

“What’s up?”

Before she sat, Julia gave him a hug from behind. “I try not to miss this too much when you’re not here. The three of us sitting here after the morning work’s done, and before we tackle the rest.”

“I was going to take Comet out. She could use the exercise. I can check the fences. And I want to talk to you about maybe switching over to a floating diagonal system. Some of the posts we’ve got went in before I was born, and sure, it costs to put in a new system, but it costs to keep patching what’s just worn out. And isn’t as smart as it could be—environmentally or practically.”

“College boy.” Maggie sipped her coffee. She’d dyed a couple sections of her hair for the holidays, and sported a pair of braids—one red, one green—down the side.

“Yeah, I am, because my mother and grandmother made me.”

“I’ve got a fondness for college boys. Especially pretty ones like you.”

“We can talk about fencing,” Julia put in. “After you’ve run the numbers on it, come up with a cost for labor and material.”

“I’m working on it.”

And he hadn’t intended to bring it up until he had those numbers. He just hadn’t perfected his mother’s ability to hold back until complete.

But he was working on that, too.

“Good. I’ll be interested to see what you come up with. Meanwhile, Gram and I have some thoughts about the future. You’ve still got more college ahead of you, but time moves. You’ll have big decisions to make in just a couple more years.”

“I made that decision, Mom. That hasn’t changed. It’s not going to.”

She leaned toward him. “Owning, operating, running a ranch, being a steward for its animals, depending on its crops, it’s a rewarding life, Dillon. And it’s a hard one, demanding, physical. We didn’t push you into college only for the education, though that’s important. We wanted you to see other things, do other things, experience other things. To step out from the world we have right here, see what else there is.”

“And to get you out of a household where two women run the show.”

Julia smiled at her mother. “Yeah, that, too. I know—we know—you love this place. But I couldn’t let it be the only place you really know. You’re meeting different people now, people who come from different places, have other views, other goals. It’s an opportunity for you to explore possibilities, potential, beyond right here.”

He got a sick feeling in his gut, took a slow sip of Coke to settle it. “Do you want something different? Are you getting around to telling me you want to sell?”

“No. No, God. I just don’t want my son, the best thing I ever did in this world, to limit himself because he didn’t just look.”

“I’m doing okay in school,” he said carefully. “Some of it’s a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. And that’s outside the ag and ranch management courses. I like hanging out and talking about politics and what’s screwed up in the world. Even if a lot of it’s bullshit, it’s interesting bullshit. So that’s hearing other views. I see what some of the others are studying, what they’re working toward, and I can admire it.