She had never come back to rescue him from the ranch he didn’t like, didn’t comprehend. Nothing had ever fit right until Grace. She was still the only woman who ever had.
And maybe he’d messed up a little by not telling her what she meant to him. Okay, maybe he’d messed up a lot. If he’d told her, she probably wouldn’t have cooked up that scheme with Liam. Too little, too late.
“We good?” Liam asked, his gaze a lot more understanding than it should have been.
“Yeah.” Kyle sighed. “It was a long time ago.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Liam stuck his hand out and Kyle didn’t hesitate. They shook on it and did an awkward one-armed brotherly hug that probably looked more like two squirrels fighting over a walnut than anything. But it was enough to bury the hatchet, and not in Liam’s back, the way Kyle had planned when he’d stormed into the kitchen earlier.
“Listen.” Liam cleared his throat. “If we’re all done crying about your girlfriend, I’ve got something to tell you that’s been rubbing me the wrong way.”
“You need me to go underwear shopping with you so we can get you the right size?” When Liam elbowed him, Kyle knew they were on the way back to being brothers again instead of strangers. “Because you have a wife for that now.”
“Shut up. This is for serious. There’s an outfit called Samson Oil making noises around Royal and I don’t like it. They’re buying up properties. Even offered me a pretty penny for Wade Ranch. Wanted to make sure you’re on the same—”
“You said no, right?” Kyle shot back instantly. This was his home now. The place he planned to raise his daughters. No amount of money could compensate for a stable home life for his family.
“Well, I wanted to talk to you first. But yeah. The right answer is no.”
Relief squeezed his chest. And wasn’t that something? Kyle had never thought he’d consider the ranch home. But there you go. The threat of losing it—well, he didn’t have to worry about that, obviously.
“So it’s a no. What’s the big deal then?”
Liam shrugged. “I dunno. It just doesn’t sit well. The guy from Sampson, he didn’t even look around. Just handed me some paperwork with an offer that was fifteen million above fair market value. How’s that for a big deal?”
It ruffled the back of Kyle’s neck, too. “There’s no oil around here. What little there is has a pump on it already.”
“Yeah, so now you’re where I’m at. It’s weird, right?”
Kyle nodded because his throat was tight again. It was nice to be consulted. As if he really was half owner of the ranch, and he and Liam were going to do this thing called family. He hadn’t left this time and it might have made a huge difference.
It gave Kyle hope he might actually become the father his girls deserved. Grace, however, was a whole other story with an ending he couldn’t quite figure out.
Ten
Grace kicked the oven. It didn’t magically turn on. It hadn’t the first time she’d hauled off and whacked it a minute ago, either.
But kicking something felt good. Her foot throbbed, which was better than the numbness she’d felt since climbing from Kyle’s bed, well loved and then brokenhearted in the space of an hour. The physical pain was a far sight better than the mental pain.
Because she didn’t understand what had happened. She’d opened her heart to Kyle again, only to be destroyed more thoroughly the second time than she had been the first time. This was a grown woman’s pain. And the difference was breathtaking. Literally, as in she couldn’t make her lungs expand enough to get a good, solid full breath.
Determined to fix something, Grace spent twenty minutes unscrewing every bolt she could budge on the oven, hoping something would jump out at her as the culprit. Which failed miserably because she didn’t know what it was supposed to look like—how would she know if something was out of place? The oven was just broken. No matter. She wasn’t hungry anyway.
She wandered around her small house two blocks off the main street of Royal. She’d bought the house three years ago when she’d claimed her Professional Single Girl status, and set about finding a way to be happy with the idea of building a life with herself and herself only in it. She had, to a degree. No one argued with her if she wanted to change the drapes four times a year, and she never had to share the bathroom.
The empty rooms hadn’t seemed so empty until now. Spending the weekend with Kyle had stomped her fantasy of being single and happy to pieces. She wanted a husband to fill the space in her bed, in her heart. Children who laughed around the kitchen table. A dog the kids named something silly, like Princess Spaghetti.