Beth Cornelison - Rancher's Deadly Reunion

Steeling herself, Piper surreptitiously wiped her sweaty palms on the seat of her jeans.

“Welcome home.” He reached for the backpack she had draped on one shoulder, and she shrugged away.

“I can get this. I have two suitcases coming, though. Carousel 3.”

He lifted a shoulder. “All right.”

She jerked a nod and turned to search the lit signs for the carousel.

“Piper?”

She glanced back at him. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

His gaze dropped to a boy standing slightly behind him. The boy was playing with a small windup fire truck, rolling the toy up the side of a trash can. “Connor, c’mere. I want you to meet someone.”

Connor glanced up, staring at Piper for a moment, his eyes the same clear green as a Rocky Mountain lake. The same green as Brady’s eyes. Air backed up in her lungs. If her life had gone differently...

Connor scuttled to Brady’s side, jerking her from the dangerous path of what - ifs.

“Piper, this is Connor. My nephew.”

The breath she’d been holding left her in a gush. His nephew . Of course. Relief made her knees tremble, but on the heels of that release came the stark reminder of why his nephew was with him.

Brady’s brother and sister-in-law were killed in a bad traffic accident on Interstate 70 , her mother had said in a phone call a few months back. When had that been? January? February? The couple had left custody of their son to Brady, a move that still puzzled her. Pam had family, sisters with children who’d surely have been better equipped to care for the little boy.

She worked to hide her dismay over the couple’s deaths from the boy.

“Connor, this is Josh and Zane’s sister, Piper. Can you tell her hello ?”

The boy stepped forward with a shy smile and stuck his hand out. “Hello. I’m Connor. Nice to meet you.”

A smile bloomed on her face, and she took the small proffered hand. Crouching to the boy’s level and letting her backpack slip to the floor, she said, “Pleased to meet you, Connor. You have wonderful manners.”

He twitched a crooked grin and shrugged. “Yeah. I know.”

She snorted a laugh before she could muffle it. Glancing up at Brady, she added, “And so humble.”

He grinned and flipped up his palm. “He’s a work in progress.”

Piper sandwiched Connor’s hand between hers in a warm clasp. “How old are you, Connor?”

“Six.” His face brightened. “I had a cowboy birthday party.”

Piper chuckled. “Cowboys, huh? Like your uncle?”

“And Grampa. He’s foreman at the Double M!”

Piper matched the boy’s enthusiastic expression. “I know! Guess what? I’ve known your Grampa since before I was your age.”

Connor tipped his head and gave her a skeptical frown. “Really?”

“The Double M is my family’s ranch. I grew up there.”

He nodded sagely. “Like Josh and Zane.”

She tapped his nose. “Bingo. They’re my brothers. We’re triplets. We were all born the same day.”

“And Brady?” Connor’s green eyes widened. “He grew up at the Double M, too. Like my daddy. ’Cept... Mama and Daddy died. So now Brady’s my daddy.”

Piper’s smile drooped, and her throat clogged painfully as if she’d swallowed a jagged stone. She angled her gaze to Brady and nodded. “Right. And Brady. I knew Brady and your dad growing up.” Drawing deep breath to regain her composure, she pushed to her feet. “Wanna help me get my suitcases?”

She tousled Connor’s sandy-brown hair, the same color as Brady’s—

She determinedly cut the thought off as she hiked her backpack onto her shoulder again. Not Brady’s. Like Scott’s. But even that wasn’t right, she thought as she set off toward the luggage carousel.

She cast a side-glance at Brady as they made their way through the crowd, allowing herself to conjure a painful memory from the first summer she’d been home from college. The trip that summer had been the first time she’d returned to Colorado since breaking up with Brady and setting out for Boston, for independence, for her fresh start. That first year had been the toughest year of her life, and seeing Brady after eleven months away from home and family had been gut-wrenching.

In a stiff conversation with Brady in the stables, an accidental meeting she’d barely made it through without crying, she’d asked all the polite questions.

“How’s your dad?”

“Dad is Dad. Same as always.”

“And Scott?”

“Good. He and Pam adopted a baby.”

Piper remembered the stabbing pain in her heart and how she’d forced a quivering smile. “Wow. That’s great. Tell them congratulations from me.”

Connor wasn’t Scott’s biological son, so the similarities she saw between Connor and Brady were just coincidence. Or some misplaced wishful thinking. Or her head playing the heart-wrenching what-if game again.

Brady placed a callus-roughened hand on Connor’s head, lightly ruffling the boy’s silky hair, as they waited beside carousel 3 for the belt to start moving. “What do your suitcases look like?”

“Plain black like a thousand others.” She set her backpack at her feet and rubbed her aching shoulder. “One has a red luggage tag, and I tied a little blue ribbon on the other.”

He nodded. “Got it.”

“So...you drew the short straw, huh?” she asked without looking at him. She pretended to be intently watching the crowd and the shadowed maw where her flight’s cargo would soon appear.

“Pardon?”

“To come get me. You pulled the short straw?”

“Actually, I volunteered.”

She cut a side-glance at him and met his piercing gaze. “You did?”

“Yeah. I thought Connor would get a kick outta seeing the airplanes, the terminal. Oh, before we leave, I’ve promised him we can get a cinnamon pretzel at Auntie Anne’s.”

A loud warning beep blared from a speaker just above their heads, interrupting any reply. He wasn’t here for her. He was here for Connor...and a cinnamon pretzel. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Relief? Disappointment? And why did it matter to her?

The conveyor belt started rolling, and someone with an oversize duffel bag on his arm pushed past Piper, knocking her into Brady. She tripped over her backpack, lost her balance and landed against him with an oof , her hands splayed on his chest and her nose in the V of his open collar.

Brady wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her as she regained her footing, and heat flashed through her. From his taut body, from embarrassment...and from a kick of lust she couldn’t quell. As she righted herself, she drew a deep, calming breath and immediately regretted it.

Brady smelled so good. And familiar. A sexy combination of soap, hay and male warmth that took her back to hours spent in his arms. Naked. Inquisitive. Bursting with young love and rampant teenage desire.

Piper shifted her grip from his chest to his arms, trying to wiggle free of his hold. “I’m good. You can let go.”

But he didn’t.

After a couple of strained seconds, she glanced up to repeat herself. Maybe he hadn’t heard her in the din and bustle of the airport. When she met his eyes, her voice stuck in her throat. The intensity of his gaze left no question that his thoughts had followed a similar track to hers. Motes of longing swirled through the green depths and tangled with shadows of regret. His mouth looked soft, but his jaw muscles flexed and tightened with restraint. He wanted to kiss her. She recognized that look well, and so did the muscles in her belly that quickened and the nerves in her lips that tingled with the memory of his kisses. How easy it would be to push up on her toes and steal the kiss his eyes promised.