Oklahoma Moonshine (The McIntyre Men #1) (7 page)

He was not for real. He could not possibly be what he was trying to convince her he was. Captain America. An overgrown Boy Scout. The last honest man on
planet Earth. He couldn’t be that.

Which only meant one thing. He was trying to con her. And since the only thing she had of value was her half of this ranch, that must be what he was after.

But no. He could’ve bought it on his own. He had plenty of money. He didn’t have to partner up with her. So if he was after anything, it
wasn’t the ranch.

Her eyes widened. Maybe he just wanted to get her in the sack. Could that be it? Were rich people so stupid about money that they’d spend half a
million just to get girl into bed?

Probably.

No. She didn’t think that was it, either.

It occurred to her that he might just be a nice, honest, decent man. She didn’t really think there were such things, but if there were, they would
probably be in Big Falls, Oklahoma. Maybe he was the last of a dying breed?

Nah. 

The night was lit by a billion twinkling stars, a million blinking fireflies, and three sets of fading red taillights as the Brand-McIntyre fleet rolled
away.

Robert stood in the middle of his living room, which no longer echoed like a cave, because it was full of stuff. Crossing his arms over his chest, he
perused the modular sofa that fit the room like it was made to be there. Fawn colored leather, butter soft, and not a hint of wear.

“You’re looking at that couch like you’re deep in conversation with it.” Kiley stepped over the still-rolled-up, braided area rug
and dropped onto the couch, bouncing a few times to test it out. She patted the cushions on either side of her. “I think it’s awesome. That
Edie has taste.”

Edie had been the first of Vidalia’s daughters to take her aside and say something nice to her. “I heard about your sister. I can’t even
imagine,” she’d said, and she’d glanced past Kiley at her own sisters and her eyes had grown wet. She was beautiful, blond and the most
put-together woman Kiley thought she’d ever seen. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

She hadn’t seemed to have any other motive.

Each of the sisters had done the same at one point or another during the evening of cleaning. Selene had taken hold of her hands and told her Kendra was
still with her, and always would be, and she’d given her a little crystal stone she said was supposed to ease the pain of grief. Kara invited her to
come by for coffee anytime she needed company. She was home days, running her daycare center and would love the chance to get to know her better. Maya had
given her a long hug and told her she would love to have an unofficial little sister to love, and so would the rest of her family.

That one had almost made her cry. She’d never met women like them before.

Rob sighed loudly, snapping her back to the moment. He started to say something, then stopped, and looked at the sofa again.

“What? You don’t like it?” she asked.

“I don’t
not
like it, it’s just....”

“Oh.” She nodded knowingly. “It’s used,” she said. “And you’re not used to sitting on other folks’
castoffs.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m a snob.”

“That’s kind of the definition of a snob,” she said.

“What, that I’ve never owned used furniture before?” He shook his head in denial. “No. That doesn’t make me a snob.”

She patted the spot beside her. “Prove it.” And when he hesitated, she added, “Come on, Rob. Edie said she had it cleaned just before she
put it in storage. And if you ask me, she probably had plastic over it before then. That woman is
flawless
.”

“She used to be a model,” he said. “And just so you know, in Brand lexicon, ‘storage’ means Vidalia’s barn.”
Still, he crossed the room and sat down on the sofa beside her. It stretched out five feet or more in either direction, curving into a lazy L.

“They really came through for us. Well, for you, I guess. Since they don’t know I’m shacking up with you yet.”

“They know.”

She blinked and sat up straighter. “Aw, come on, you didn’t tell them I had nowhere else to go, did you?”

He was still leaning back
on the sofa. “I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone that.”

“I know you did. So did you tell them anyway?”

He frowned at her. “No. I told them we’re gonna share the house and see how it goes. I don’t make promises and not keep them, Kiley. I
don’t say things I don’t mean.”

She looked at him hard, tipping her head to one side. “Not ever?”

“Not ever.”

She pondered that for a moment. Then she straightened her head and nodded hard. “Suppose someone asked you if their jeans made their ass look fat.
And suppose that those jeans did, in fact, expand their already massive backside to mammoth proportions. What then?”

“I’d look at their soul. And I’d tell them they were beautiful.”

“Oh my God. I think I might just puke.”

 He laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I can’t help it. You’re so damn cute. Twenty-three and making me feel every bit of my own thirty-two years.”

“Oh,
yeah. You’re ancient,” she said.

His laughter died, but the killer smile remained. He looked at her as if he really enjoyed looking at her. “Will you tell me about yourself?”

She sighed and thought for a second, searching her mind for an answer, trying to spin one from whole cloth. Then he said, “Will you tell me something
true
about yourself?”

“Still harping on the truth thing, are you?” she asked, but she said it real softly.

“I just went into business with a girl I’ve known for about a day. Yeah, I’m harping on the truth thing.” He shrugged.
“It’s important to me. It wasn’t always, but it’s who I am now.”

Taking a slow inhale, she nodded, thinking hard. “I miss my sister.”

Her answer took him by surprise, she thought. “Hell, Kiley, I’m sorry.”

“We hadn’t seen each other in like a year.” She leaned forward, balanced her elbows on her knees, clasped her hands. “We
didn’t get along once we grew up. But as kids we were
really
close.”

“Twins, right?”

She snapped her gaze his way. “How did you know that?”

“Vidalia remembers you as little girls. Said she never knew what happened to you, why you left Big Falls.”

He waited, but she didn’t volunteer an answer to that. She said, “We were inseparable. We roamed the woods on this place like we were born in a
den and raised by coyotes.”

“Did it drive your dad crazy?”

“No. He preferred us outside. If he kept us indoors we tended to break things. Oh my God, the day we shot our bb guns in the attic and broke the
stained glass window, I thought he’d kill us both.” She closed her eyes. “I didn’t know it then, but it was my mother’s
favorite part of the house. I regret breaking it to this day. But back then…hell, we were kids. What did we know?”

She blinked because
her eyes were burning, and kept her head down, so her hair was a curtain between them. Then she leaned back again and stared at the empty wall they faced.
“We really need a TV.”

“A couple of ‘em,” he said.

“And beds,” she added. “That clan of yours didn’t bring any beds. But dang, they brought everything but.” She looked around
the living room. There were boxes everywhere. Dishes, pots and pans, cutlery. There were stacks of bedding, sheets, blankets and comforters and throws.
Vidalia had brought enough curtains to cover the windows in a skyscraper. There were two reclining chairs, a rocker, a small round dining table with four
wooden chairs, and a stack of towels and washcloths that didn’t look as if they’d ever been used. “It’s gonna take us a week to
unpack it all.”

“At least.” He looked her way. “You want to take the first shower?”

She grinned at him. “Thought you’d never ask. Selene stocked the bathroom, too. Fancy-stuff. I hope she didn’t spend a fortune.”

“No, she makes it.”

“She makes...what? Shampoo?”

He nodded. “And conditioner and soaps, and herbal teas and ointments and all sorts of brews and potions.”

She lifted her brows. “She some kind of a witch?”

“She calls it Wiccan, but yeah.”

That made Kiley smile even harder. “You believe in that stuff?”

He thought on it for a minute. “Never have. But I’ll tell you
one thing, those soaps and things of hers are amazing.”

“And you don’t think that might be cause she sprinkles a little magic into them?”

He shrugged. “Now that you mention it, she did say a beautiful stranger was coming into my life.”

Her smile died and she blinked fast and looked away, pressing a hand to her cheek. It felt hot, like she was blushing. Then she got up, grabbed the big box
of towels and other bathroom supplies, and ran upstairs, carrying them with her.

Rob watched her go, then sighed and shook his head. She was something, his new business partner. Conniving, manipulative, and with the moral values of the
coyotes she’d mentioned might have raised her, as far as he could tell. He didn’t like dishonest people. But he liked Kiley. There was
something about her, some kind of innocence underneath the surface.

He’d watched her, watching Vidalia and her daughters all evening long. She studied them the way he figured a novice painter would study Da Vinci.
With a mixture of admiration and longing.

He supposed it was a good thing he liked her. He was kind of stuck with her.

No. No he wasn’t. He had the family fortune to fall back on. If he wanted her out, he could buy her out. But he didn’t think he’d have
the heart to do it, so he hoped it never came to that. 

This place meant everything to her. He’d known it the minute he’d seen her sitting out there on that boulder, staring at the river like a lost
soul staring at the Pearly Gates.

“
Robbeeee
!”

Her shout startled him right out of his chair, and he ran upstairs, thinking she must be facing down a cougar or something, and burst through the bathroom
door. She stood there in nothing but one of those brand new towels. At least he thought that’s what she was clutching around her. He couldn’t
tell for sure because his eyeballs couldn’t see anything except the parts of her that were
un
covered. Tanned legs, shapely as hell. Toned
arms and softly rounded shoulders. There was something delicate about her neck, the place where the collarbones framed the dip in between them. He could
see her pulse beating there, soft and rapid, and he closed his eyes in order to re-enable his ability to speak. Belatedly, he said, “What’s
wrong?”

“Shhh! Listen!” She held up a hand. 

Rob listened, and tried opening his eyes while his head was tipped downward, but wound up mesmerized by her little toes. And then he heard it.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
He looked up. The sound was coming from above them, and he sighed in relief. “That’s just something in the
attic. A squirrel or a chipmunk. You want me to go chase it off?”

“If you wouldn’t mind too much. I have a phobia about rodents.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I’ll go scare him off. But I get the sofa tonight.”

“That sofa’s big enough for both of us and a guest. But I was gonna take that big brown recliner anyway. Thing’s like sitting on a teddy
bear.”

“Take your shower,” he told her. “Relax, I’ll deal with the big, scary squirrel.”

“My hero.” She batted her eyes at him and it made his brain go numb.

Shaking his head to try to reboot his mental functions, he left the bathroom, and she pushed the door closed behind him. But just before it closed all the
way, he said, “I wonder where the attic access is?”

“In the closet off the corner bedroom,” she said. Then she closed the door. Rob continued down the hall, into the corner bedroom, and crossed
to the closet. He went to open the door, but it didn’t budge. The wood had swollen a bit. It would shrink back down now that the place was heated,
just needed to get the dampness out of the wood, he figured. He yanked harder, then harder still, and the door finally gave. He stumbled onto his ass on
the floor when it did, and sat there for a second, blinking and looking up at the square panel in the closet ceiling, and the chain hanging down from it.

He got up and pulled the chain. The trap door came down, and it had a folded-up ladder attached. There was just enough room in the closet to unfold it to
the floor. Using his phone as a flashlight, Rob climbed up, brushing cobwebs away from his face as he went in.

The attic bore a layer of dust that made everything in it look ghostly. There were a few boxes, a couple of trunks, a tall oval shape he thought was
probably a freestanding mirror, and might be an antique. He walked carefully, watching for weak spots, and finding none. The place was really solid. He
clapped his hands. “Gonna have to move along, now, squirrel. This place is spoken for. No more freeloading.”

He made a little more racket, but didn’t really think he was scaring any critters overly much. He noticed a dusty guitar case beside a box with what
looked like books in it, and moved a little closer, crouched low and blew the dust off the top of them. Stacks of tween-targeted paperbacks with bright
covers. He thumbed through them a little bit, smiling and imagining Kiley as a happy, wild child. He wondered if Maya would like to keep the books for her
little girl to read someday.

Something scrambled across the floor behind him, and he turned, shining his phone’s light at it. The squirrel froze, twitched his tail a couple of
times, and then scurried up a wall, out through a missing pane of glass in the window. Easy fix.

He went over to check it out. Just an ordinary window that faced the front lawn and driveway. On the floor nearby, though, was a stunning stained glass
version, the same size. A few pieces of its colored glass were missing, one of which he knew had been broken by a little girl’s errant BB. He
pocketed the phone and picked up the window, which was heavier than he’d imagined. It was truly beautiful. And it hit him out of the blue that he
could get it repaired and surprise Kiley.