Destined (4 page)

“Something,
boss?”
Frank looked his way as he wiped over Corby’s back. The stallion
turned his head to gaze at Ash as well.

“
You seen
Sinclair?”

“Not since early this morning when
she brought her mare an apple.”

Bill shook his head, leading
Craig’s gelding to the trough.
“Nope.”

“Anybody by?”

“Candy Grant. In that yellow bomb
she drives.”

Ash relaxed. Sinclair had called in
her friend. It felt a tad uncomfortable to think she was sharing some of his
personal stuff with Candy, but he supposed it wasn’t a huge secret. And
Sinclair needed a shoulder. They’d hurt her, and she’d need a little time to
get over it. Have things go back to the way they were.

“Thanks.” He headed to the house.

“Jesus.
Holy
fuck.”
Craig crashed into the hall, a huge sandwich crushed in one hand,
along with a set of car keys, and a sheet of paper waving madly in his other
mitt. He shoved the paper at Ashton, eyes wide and his face pale.

Ignoring the drop of his heart into
his belly, Ash steeled himself. Taking hold of the note, he scanned the
feminine writing.

Dear Ashton and Craig,

First
let me tell you how sorry and embarrassed I am to have burdened you with my
unreciprocated feelings this morning. I take full responsibility for
misinterpreting anything. It will be impossible for me to stay here and
complete my practicum, given your future plans—I apologize for eavesdropping,
too—so I thought it best to move on.

Thank
you for all you have done for me, especially since your parents died. I can
never hope to repay you but offer my most sincere wishes and hopes for your
future happiness.

Candy
is giving me a ride, and I will keep in touch with her. Please do not worry.

All
the very best from your foster sister, S

Ash’s fingers folded in on
themselves to make a tight fist, the paper crushing with a rustle and crumpling
sound. Not bothering to sort out the cacophony of emotions rolling over him—if
he could even label any of them—he turned to Craig. “Get in the fucking truck.
And find Candy’s number.”

 
They shouldered through the front door and
across the veranda, the old wooden boards shuddering beneath their feet. Craig
tossed the remnants of his sandwich out onto the dirt, and the two yard dogs
were on it in a heartbeat, their growls mimicking the ones emanating from his
own mouth. His brother shook the car keys, a muted jangle, before stuffing them
in his pocket.

Neither one of them spoke as they
clambered into the truck and Ash turned the motor over with an unnecessary
stomp of the accelerator. With a flourish of spraying dirt and gravel, he
wheeled onto the road fronting their property and barreled up it toward town.

“I fucking lived for those holidays
when she came home from school.
Lived for them.
I
missed the living shit out of that girl. And those phone calls, having to be
careful with what I had to say, hating it when she said goodbye.
Each and every fucking time.
 
Even got up early to check my goddamn email so
I could figure out what to write when I replied so she didn’t think I was
stepping outside of my brotherly role. Shit!” It was high time he was honest.
It was high time he was honest. He didn’t view Sinclair as his sister in any
shape or form, and people who viewed ménage as kinky and wrong could go fuck
themselves.

 
Craig was fussing with his phone, but Ash
could feel the waves of emotion coming off him, not to mention the muttering
under his breath that spoke to finding a certain little hoyden and teaching her
what was what. His brother was obviously way ahead of him. Then a feminine
voice filled the cab.
Speakerphone.

“Hello!
Candy
here.”

“It’s Craig Russell. Where is
Sinclair?”

After a short pause, Candy replied,
“Why, Craig, honey. Did you misplace someone?
Someone of
importance, perhaps?”
The sweet venom in the woman’s voice sent a chill
down Ash’s spine. Women were so good at innuendo, although Sinclair didn’t play
games.

“Candy, I’m asking this once, and
then we’re coming to your shop and making you wish we hadn’t.”

“And you think my daddy and my
brothers would appreciate that, Mr. Russell?”

The cab echoed with Craig’s breath
as it gusted forth, and he sucked another one in. “Candy, I don’t give a shit
if the
army
appreciates it or not.
Sinclair is not running away from us. Where is she?”

Now with a hint of amusement
coloring her tone, Candy said, “You figured it out?”

“I did. We did.” Craig’s jaw was
set hard, and Ash knew it mirrored his own.

“Almost there,” he murmured.

“Don’t bother, Ashton.” Candy spoke
quietly. “You keep straight on and follow that Greyhound. Sinclair will be
transferring at the next town if she’s
gonna
make
Canada.”

“Canada!” Ash shouted, despite
himself. “What the fuck’s in Canada?”

“Don’t
know,
other than it’s away from you two. Who broke her heart and then ground her
pride into the dust.
And with Melinda Roberts of all
things
.”

Ash didn’t think calling Melinda a
thing was a grammatical error on Candy’s part, but he didn’t dwell on it.
Instead, he indulged in a quick connect-the-dots moment and recalled the
earlier conversation and Sinclair’s penchant for eavesdropping. Their little
wench thought he and Craig were going to take up with the bitch again. He
groaned.

“Melinda has nothing to do with
this—or us,” his brother interjected, clearly having put two and two together
as well.

“On your honor?”

“Honor,” they chorused.

“Then good luck. I won’t call her
to warn her. And you make it good or I’ll have lost my best friend, snitching
on her. You understand me?” Candy’s voice cracked, and despite his fury with
her for aiding and abetting, Ash reassured her.

“You don’t have to worry, Candy.
Swear.” Whoever ended up with that little blonde spitfire was going to be led a
merry dance, and Ash hoped he could help out with some of the steps.

She clicked off on what sounded
suspiciously like a sob, and he risked a quick glance at Craig, who shook his
head. “Don’t know, Ash. I’ll never understand women.
Except
in the bedroom.
Now there I excel, if I don’t sound immodest.”

Knowing the direction to Sinclair, Ash’s
spirits lifted a tad, and he forced a brotherly response. “You learned from the
best.”

“Not everything.”

Sobering, Ash said, “It’s
gonna
take us both to convince Sinclair.”

“You got a plan?”

“We’ll take it home. Work it out
there.”

They’d turned their parents’ room
into a master suite by knocking out a wall and adding a seating area that they
hoped would double for other, more enjoyable things. A nicely done attached
bath and dressing area completed the
area,
one they’d
told Sinclair was a guest suite. But in truth it was for them and the woman
they’d hoped to find, when she’d been under their noses the whole time. Not
that they were completely unaware, merely holding on to what they’d believed
wasn’t their future. Craig had been right when he’d said Sinclair was like
their girl next door, her hiatus away at school giving them all time to mature
and focus.

Except he and his brother hadn’t
figured it out in time. He’d known his feelings for her and hidden them.
At least from Sinclair.
Craig had refused to even talk to
him about it anymore, and it was the closest they’d come to separating as
brothers. So they’d hunted for other women and passed the time with sex and the
hope they’d find their One.
Fucking stupid.

“Have to air out the suite. Guess
we built it for her.” Craig sounded calm and focused, the way he did when there
was clear direction. Ash hated himself for being so thick.
For
wasting so much time.

“Yup.”
What
more was there to say?

The miles were eaten up by his big
truck, and he watched ahead intently, hoping they’d catch the damn bus and not
have to figure out which one Sinclair transferred to. Canada! Who or what was
there for their girl? Well, it didn’t matter. He’d chase her to the moon if
need be.

****

It must be a little like drowning,
Craig thought, and then having somebody pull you up out of the water. He’d
taken his first full breath when Candy told them Sinclair had taken the fucking
bus. Not the little car Ash had so carefully picked out for her, but a bus.
Didn’t she know bad things happened to women traveling alone? Pretty, innocent
women travelling alone thinking the men in her life had rejected her.
And for a nasty piece of ass like Melinda Roberts.

No longer needing to punch
something—or someone—he thought about the day his mom had brought Sinclair
home. He’d been twelve, a little uncertain about his place in the world, and
the addition of a bratty, small female had shaken the foundation a little more.
Ashton was in high school and could avoid her some, but Craig was in the same
school, and even being related to her by dint of living in the same house, was
a killer. She’d been downright embarrassing. His mom had sorted her out quick
enough, but to someone his age, it felt like an eternity.
Until
Sinclair left behind all those behaviors that had kept her safe and settled
into their home.
No need for her to act out anymore. And he could take
some pride in the fact he’d helped out with that.

Then he’d come to like her. Really
like her. She was a great kid, and he couldn’t have asked for a more loyal follower.
He always thought she would return to her birth parents, and his parents
prepared both him and Ash for that eventuality.
Maybe that’s
what kept him from seeing her as flesh and blood, and, instead, someone just as
important, but different.
He wasn’t good at self examination, but he’d
told his brother the truth when he’d come to see Sinclair as an object of his
affections—carnal and otherwise, although he had fought the good fight. Knowing
her as a person was the foundation for his interest, but what he felt for her
later was far from brotherly. He’d resented Ash’s mature stipulation to keep
their distance, but at twenty-two, and her only sixteen, he knew better anyhow.

All his high minded speaking that
morning aside, he was going to see this through, and with a very different
outcome than he’d told Sinclair. For certain, people would talk and try to make
it difficult for Sinclair if she took up with two men, especially him and his
brother. But as that corny song his mom used to sing all the time, love would
find a way. Craig figured he loved her enough for all of them.

“You sure?”
Ashton broke into his reverie with that unsettling ability he had to read
Craig’s thoughts.

“If her leaving us hurts this bad,
what will never seeing her again do? I love her, Ash.”

“Wish I’d handled it differently.
Because I feel the same way.”

“I pretty much
know
how I’m
gonna
handle it now.”

“Craig, she’s—”

“A nearly twenty-two year old woman
who spoke her mind and heart to us this morning and is going to get what she
has coming to her.” He heard his own words echo in his head and had to laugh.

Ashton joined him, and the tension
eased a trifle. “You’ll scare her off,” his brother commented.

“You think our girl hasn’t
researched ménage?
The way she studies everything?
She
might have no actual experience with it, but she knows what she’s getting into.
And with who.
She knows us better than we know
ourselves.”

“She packed it in.
Ran away.”

“Fuck me, Ash. Listen to yourself.
We refused her on the grounds of
incest.
Might as well have slapped her face.
And then she thought we
were waiting on Melinda, preferring her to Sinclair.” He shuddered and saw
Ash’s mouth purse in distaste out of the corner of his eye.

“It was hard to shift gears after
all those years of telling myself that’s what it would be.
Perverted.”

“I’m done lying to myself.”

Ash sped up a little.
“Me, too.”
After a pause, he said, “How’d you get so smart?”

“Necessity.”

Chapter Three

She couldn’t do this. The next bus
would take her up through northern Montana and cross the border into Canada.
She had her passport and her birth certificate but no idea what she’d tell the
custom officials. And the farther she got from home the harder it was to go. It
had seemed her only choice when she’d called Candy and poured out her heart.
And she could do it. Move to a different country, find work, and carve out a
living.
Because she couldn’t be any place near where Aston
and Craig were.
Yet she couldn’t bear to leave them. Oh, she was so
conflicted.

Sitting on a bench near the bus
lanes with her luggage at her feet, she questioned herself again. Hard work
never bothered her, and she had certain skills to offer. Two of the three
provinces up there had cattle and horses on ranches similar to the
Russells
’ place. She didn’t have her field work done, but
she’d worked for years on the ranch and that should count for something.
Somebody would hire her, even if she had to wait tables first. Or maybe a vet
clinic would want a tech. She had more training than a tech.

There were her friends from school,
acquaintances mostly, so she wouldn’t really miss them. Candy was a different
story but they’d get together and catch up like always, inseparable since
meeting up in the cafeteria at school, two new girls in the area. Different as
chalk and cheese, as her mom used to say, but best friends for all of that.