Chapter 23

23

Hudson

Hudson’s Note to Self:

Dogs can be deflowered impregnated up three weeks after onset of their heat.

I was relieved to learn Darci’s bruise hadn’t been caused by the man she’d been seeing, but I was furious to learn there was still an asshole responsible.

When Darci had entered her apartment building that night, some punk had come racing out of the apartment below hers and knocked her down onto the bottom of the staircase. She’d banged her chin and bitten her tongue, but before she’d had a chance to get up, the guy had stolen her purse and raced off. Since that was the apartment that always had suspicious comings and goings, she’d reported the incident to the cops. Shayna Diller had been the responding deputy and had urged Darci to go to the hospital since there was so much blood coming from her chin and mouth. She also happened to let slip Darci’s neighbor was a suspected drug dealer.

Understandably, Darci didn’t want to go back to the apartment. I’d offered for her to stay at the cabin of course, but I wasn’t about to share the single bedroom with her. I debated whether or not to move into the bunkhouse. Would I be able to keep myself from barging into Charlie’s room and making inappropriate advances? Ah, no. Definitely not.

For now, I’d sleep on the sofa in the cabin just to be on the safe side.

When I stepped out of the cabin to take out the trash late on Sunday afternoon, I thought I heard a shrill scream from the direction of the farmhouse. It was nearing dinnertime, and I wondered if maybe one of the animals was in trouble. After the little cabin I was staying in had been set on fire the previous summer, all of us were a bit more paranoid about intruders on the ranch than we’d been before.

I took off in the direction of Doc and Grandpa’s house and came upon a scene out of a telenovela. Doc was trying to calm Grandpa down. Two other people were arguing on the porch, and as I got closer, I could tell from the familiar body language and long red hair that one of the men screaming was Charlie.

“What’s going on?” I called out. Doc and Grandpa’s two little dogs were yapping up a storm, and I wondered where Grump was.

Charlie turned to me with a look of such anger on his face I nearly stumbled. “Ask this rawny fucker. So, Doc and Grandpa decided he could be trusted with Mama, but he made right bags of it.”

If I hadn’t known how important his dog was to him, I might have laughed at how Irish he sounded. “What happened?”

Stevie Devore, the colorful character who helped out at Nico’s bakery, was there and was clearly the source of the screeching noise. I thought if he didn’t get control of himself soon, he’d pass out.

“It’s all my fault! Mama got sullied on my watch. Oh my god, oh my god.” It was enough to make our ears bleed.

The young man was dressed in a lavender polar fleece pullover with a pair of darker purple leggings tucked into white knee-high fur-lined boots. He waved his arms around so wildly, Doc had to duck periodically to avoid getting coldcocked by accident.

“Everyone calm down,” Grandpa commanded.

I looked around at the assembled group. Grandpa, Doc, and I were calm. Charlie was steaming mad but silent, and Stevie was hyperventilating loudly.

“Oh gawwwwd! It’s all my fault she’s been ruined!” he wailed. “I didn’t know she was having her female times, and I let her in the house with Grump.”

Charlie snapped, brows furrowed and cheeks flushed in anger. No man should look that sexy while angry. “I don’t even know who the hell you are. What the hell were you doing with my bitch?”

Stevie’s tear-streaked face turned feral. “Don’t you dare call her that! She’s a good girl,” he snarled.

Charlie lunged toward the man, and I was struck by how for once he wasn’t the smallest guy in the group. For a split second, I feared for Stevie’s safety. I knew the muscles Charlie hid under his clothes. They were small, but enough to take out young Stevie.

I reached my arms around Charlie to hold him back, but he pulled away with a jerk. Doc looked up at me with a guilty expression in his eyes. “Grump got to her. We had no idea she was still fertile. We had Stevie bring her in the house with us after he fed the animals.”

“Shit,” I muttered. Mama was a prize-winning trial champion with bloodlines more impressive than Queen Elizabeth. Grump was a junkyard coonhound who was as old as dirt and about as energetic as the same.

“Yeah, oh shit,” Charlie spat. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

Grandpa picked the wrong time to get clever. “Collie hound pups about as cute as baby bunnies and confused about whether to herd or nap?”

Stevie wailed again. “Don’t mention baby bunnies. I’m already upset enough as it is. Oh sweet baby Jesus on the cross.”

“Grandpa,” I warned, shooting him a look. “This is a big fucking deal. Mama is a purebred champion trial dog. Her pups go for thousands.”

Charlie made a whimpering sound in the back of his throat, and my dick misunderstood its meaning. I looked around and noticed the two fuzzy lovebirds were conspicuously absent.

“Where are Grump and Mama?”

Charlie’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “Knotting happily in the family room. I thought maybe I’d go out for a pack of smokes in case they decide to finish one of these days.”

Clearly, the man was pissed.

“I thought she was in heat two weeks ago?” I asked.

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Are all of you thick as planks? You live on a fucking ranch. Is a woman fertile during her period?”

Stevie shot him daggers with his big wet eyes. “How the hell are we supposed to know anything about women’s fertility, you dumbass? Everyone here is jee-ay-why, gay. Suuuuper gay. Like, really very—”

“We get it,” I said.

Charlie lunged at Stevie again, and I reached out to grab him around the waist.

“Easy, killer. Punching the little dude isn’t going to solve anything,” I warned in a low voice.

“Wait,” Grandpa said, getting serious finally. “Isn’t there a shot we can get for her to cancel any pregnancy?”

Charlie sighed. “I won’t do that. It causes metabolic stress and doesn’t always work right. I’ve seen firsthand bitches who’ve had to have C-sections with singletons after the mismate jab,” he muttered. “And I’m not quite sure how I feel about subjecting her to any of it when this wasn’t her fault.”

I let go of his waist but reached out to rub the tension from his shoulders without thinking. He flinched and pulled away, spearing me with narrowed eyes. I held my hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. It doesn’t need to be anyone’s fault.”

“Of course it’s not my fault. It’s his,” he growled, pointing a finger at Stevie. “Bloody wanker.”

Stevie started crying again, and Doc pulled him in for a hug.

Grandpa looked guilty. “Charlie, we’re so sorry. We should have used our heads. We hired Stevie to do some chores around here and didn’t think to tell him about the dogs. And there’s no excuse for Grump not being fixed in the first place. We rescued him when he was around six years old and just never got around to it since all he did was sleep all day. The other two are fixed.”

Charlie turned to look up at me. The warm light from the setting sun illuminated two bright spots of pink on his high cheekbones. “I… I was kind of looking forward to showing everyone what she can do in that competition near Austin..” Charlie actually looked at me when he said the word everyone, and my heart jumped in my chest.

“It was stupid,” he continued, letting out another sigh. “She’ll be fine. She’s a good mum. Whelps easy and all that… Plus, Grandpa’s half-right. The pups will either be cute as hell or ugly as the devil.”

Something warmed inside of me when I heard him refer to Grandpa the way the rest of us did instead of by his first name. Most people in town called him Weston, but all of the kids in my generation and younger called him Grandpa even if he wasn’t their own grandfather. I knew how much it meant to Grandpa since he wasn’t blood relations with anyone in Hobie, and it meant even more to Doc that everyone treated him as if he were.

“Maybe when I move back to the city, I’ll have to find a place with a yard,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. “Since I’m sure you’re going to force one of those ugly-ass collie-coons on me.”

Charlie took a swipe at me with the back of his hand, catching me in the gut. “You’ll take more than one, Hudson Wilde. If it’s a big litter, you’re taking as many as I say.”

Seeing the partial smile on his face helped me let go of the stress of the situation. I grinned back at him and gave him a salute. “Yes, sir. As you wish.”

I caught Grandpa’s eye over Charlie’s head and noticed him wink at me. I wondered if he was able to see past my lame attempt at casual friendliness and see just how much my heart was beating out of my chest for the man beside me. If anyone knew how torn up inside I was about him, there would be no end to the ribbing I’d get from my siblings. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if my family discovered I wasn’t straight after all. The questions, the intrusion into my privacy… all of it would make me the center of attention in a way that horrified me to think of.

I cleared my throat. “Stevie, you need a ride back to town?”

He shook his head and gestured vaguely toward the barn. “Thanks, sugar, but I drove. I’ll be going.” He sniffed and looked forlornly at Charlie. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to deflower your sweet Mama.”

Charlie met Stevie’s eyes for a beat before blowing out a breath and yanking the younger guy into an embrace. “Oh for fuck’s sake. It was an accident,” he muttered. “Sorry I gave you the what for.”

Of course that set Stevie off again, only this time he wailed happy tears. “Oh my god you’re the sweetest thing ever. You think maybe we could get a coffee together sometime? You’re kind of disgustingly beautiful, and the two of us together might blind people. Hobie could stand a good old-fashioned blinding.”

Charlie laughed, and I turned around quickly to keep from doing something stupid like grabbing the beautiful Irishman and running for the hills to keep him all to myself. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt so possessive of anyone in my entire life. Not even Darci.

I couldn’t deny my feelings for the man weren’t going away anytime soon. It was harder and harder to convince myself not to act on my attraction.

Instead of standing around watching Stevie flirt with the Irishman, I mumbled a good night before turning and making my way back to the cabin. I’d left Darci fixing us something for dinner in the small cabin kitchen.

When I returned, she was serving up a couple of giant plates of salad. It looked like she’d used every vegetable in my fridge and even found some fish filets in the freezer to go on top of it. I opened up a bottle of wine and filled our glasses before digging in.

“Thanks for making this. You didn’t have to,” I said before taking another bite. “But it’s really good.”

She smiled. “You’re the only man I know who’ll accept a salad as a main course.”

I shrugged. “That’s what you get with a couple of doctors in the family, but we both know if you weren’t here, I’d be having a bowl of cereal with a cookie chaser,” I said with a wink in her direction.

She sighed and put down her fork. “Do you think you could ever give me another chance, Hudson?”

My own fork clattered against my plate before I almost flipped my wineglass onto the floor. By the time I made sure nothing was going to topple over, Darci’s eyes were as big as Frisbees.

I coughed. “I… I mean… I didn’t expect you to say that. It kinda caught me off guard.”

“I miss being with you. You’re a good man, Hudson. I should have realized it at the time.” Her eyes went down to gaze into her glass of wine. “I feel like an idiot. Just because you weren’t ready to get married doesn’t mean I should have broken up with you like that.”

My heart hammered in my chest, and I wondered at it. Was her plea something I wanted?

No. The spiked heart rate was a bit more like panic. “I… I understood though. You know?” I babbled. “It made sense since I made a mess of the whole thing and in front of your parents no less. And it’s not like I don’t want to get married. Someday. But not now. I mean, not anytime soon. What I mean to say is—”

Darci’s hand came out and squeezed mine gently. “Stop. It’s okay. Let’s just put this conversation away for another time, all right? Maybe you can think about what I said. I didn’t expect an answer right away, and I didn’t mean to spoil our dinner either.”

I swallowed and dove back into my salad, thinking of it as The Greatest Salad That Ever Saved A Man From A Serious Conversation. When we finished up, I cleared our dishes and made quick work of them in the sink before refilling Darci’s wine and moving us both to the sofa.

“You know you’re welcome to stay here, but why don’t you want to tell your family?” I asked gently.

Her answer shocked me.

“My mom will only say ‘I told you so’ since she’d warned me it was a crappy apartment complex, and Dad has too much else on his plate right now with selling the company and everything.”

It took me a minute to process what she’d said, and then my first reaction was to bark out a laugh. “Your dad would never sell his company. That’s ridiculous. What made you think he was selling?”

But then I saw her eyes. “He didn’t tell you? Damn, I shouldn’t have said anything. He wants to retire.”

I scrambled to picture busy, successful Bruce Ames kicking back on the golf course during the week, but it was difficult. The man was a workaholic, and he loved his job. “He asked me to come to Dallas for a meeting this coming week but didn’t say what it was about. I assumed it was simply a routine thing or a new opportunity to assess.”

“I’ll let him tell you then. Please don’t let on that I mentioned it.”

Even though I was sure she knew what she was talking about, I still couldn’t picture Bruce selling Ames. It was impossible.

“Wow. I don’t know what to say,” I told her. “I’m shocked, but I guess I understand. He’s over sixty now and has plenty of money. Your mom’s always mentioned wanting to travel more.”

Darci nodded. “Now do you see why I don’t want to bother them with this? They’ll flip out. The timing is terrible. I’m afraid if my dad found out what that guy in the apartment building did, he’d go after him with a gun.”

She wasn’t wrong. Bruce Ames was a Texas good old boy deep in his heart. The man wouldn’t stand for some asshole to lay a hand on his baby girl.

Darci grabbed my arm. “Now can you see why I just want to lie low?”

“Of course. You can stay here as long as you want,” I promised.

She nodded and leaned her head against my shoulder before letting out a shuddering breath. The poor thing was exhausted, and I’d have to pour her into my bed before long to get some more sleep.

Our conversation had brought up several issues, but I couldn’t help but focus on the one that had the potential to change everything. If Ames International transferred ownership, I wasn’t the only one whose future would be affected. In addition to Ames’s employees, the Fig and Bramble business could wind up a casualty depending on how the new owners felt about Bruce’s side project. What if they decided to sell off the pub to a big restaurant holding company?

If something like that happened, Charlie would never forgive me for bringing his family business into this mess.