“And how long will that be?”
Peyton shrugged. “A few years, give or take. Hard to pinpoint more definitely than that. But it’ll be a while.”
Bea moaned and let her head drop back so she stared at the ceiling.
“Peyton’s right, Bea. If you want to head back home, nothing’s stopping you. You don’t have to be here. If there are papers to sign or anything like that, we can overnight them to you.”
She rolled from the chair with the grace of a dancer. Bea had always wanted to take dance classes, Peyton remembered suddenly. But they couldn’t afford them. “I’m going up to my room.” She left without another word.
“Well, that went well.” Peyton stood and turned back to the fridge to see if Bea had left any pie.
“Think she’s upstairs packing?” Trace opened the fridge, poking his head in to survey the contents.
“I couldn’t read Bea when we were kids, and I definitely can’t read her now after almost a decade apart. Who knows? She might very well just stay here to spite me.”
“Us.”
“No, me.” Peyton grabbed a clean fork and attacked the last of the pie, mostly crust. “She liked you better growing up.”
“Because we didn’t constantly fight. You two were always snipping at each other.”
Peyton thought back, realizing Trace was right. And didn’t like how she looked in the mix. “Well, if she stays, we’ll have to find something for her to do. Helping Emma or whatever. I don’t care. But if she stays, she gets a job.”
Emma sailed in, Seth on her hip. “Who’s helping Emma?”
“Bea,” Peyton said around a mouthful of crust. “If she stays, I mean. I’d give her a job out at the barn but, you know, I don’t even think she could tell the front end of a horse from the back.”
Emma huffed and used her other hip to bump Peyton away from the sink. “So you won’t have her messing things up around your end of the business, but she’s fine getting in my way.”
Trace flashed her a wide grin. “That about sums it up.” He reached for his son, the child holding out his arms with glee. “Come here, big guy.”
As expected, Emma melted at the sight of Trace and his son, so clearly in love with each other. “All right, off you go. Scoot. Trace, he needs to be put down for a nap.”
“I’ll go run him up.” Trace dropped a kiss on Emma’s cheek and headed out.
Peyton waited for a moment for Emma’s hands to slow down and stuck her plate under the water to rinse it off.
“Don’t be too hard on her.”
“Hard on who?” Peyton asked, her mind already moving on to the rest of the day’s schedule.
“Your sister.” Emma took the plate from her and opened the dishwasher. “Tough as nails on the outside, but there’s something more going on inside.”
Red kept his distance from Peyton the rest of the day in order to mull over the issue of his father. What he would tell Peyton. When. If he should say anything at all. If his warning—and the new locks he’d installed—would be enough to deter his father from trying anything else.
He kept his distance from Peyton for the rest of the day, knowing he wasn’t in a position to make rational decisions where she was concerned. But any time she was near, his eyes were drawn to her like a magnet. He couldn’t help but watch her from the corner of his eye.
And though she was careful, he caught her watching him, too. His gut told him she wouldn’t turn him away tonight. And the truth was, he was dying to hold her. After the long day and his father’s abrupt appearance in town, he needed something soft and simple to occupy his mind and erase the filth.
Red waited until the ranch slept. As he crept down and around the garage, he stood still for a moment. Something in the shifting wind warned him to hold off on crossing over the open land to the main house. Something—no, someone—else was out there.
Red’s blood boiled. His father. The damn man hadn’t even waited twenty-four hours after hitting his son up for money before deciding to take some for himself. But even as Red crept back into the shadow of the garage, he caught sight of what’d stirred his senses. And it most certainly wasn’t his father.
Lithe, graceful, and sure, the obviously female form moved with purpose across the dirt driveway from the main house toward the barn. He’d have said Peyton, but the figure was much too tall to be her. And much too fast to be Emma.
Beatrice, the youngest then.
But what the hell was she up to? The youngest, who hated the dirt and the outdoors and thought the horses smelled horrible, going to the barn on purpose. He watched her open the sliding barn door and walk in. Curiosity warred with a need to reach Peyton, but the curiosity won out. He snuck around until he was flattened against the stable wall, using his ears to detect what she was up to.