Hero for the Holidays (Four Corners Ranch #9)

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

F IA S ULLIVAN FELT like life was finally going her way. Her sisters were all in love and having lives. Which, when you were the responsible one left behind to take care of everybody, was kind of a big deal. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders for years.

From having to take care of the ranch when her parents had bailed, to joining forces with the other families, the youngest one in the group, the only woman in that group, to make decisions about the ranch being a collective. How they were going to support each other, and how they were going to strengthen things. And they’d done it. Then she had to fight for the improvements to Sullivan’s Point. For the gardens, the farm store. Everything.

And now it just finally felt like she could finally rest a little bit.

Everything with the store was going wonderfully. Sales were booming and the store was bringing more business to everyone, just like she’d thought it would. They were able to sell meat and produce direct, in addition to continuing with the bigger beef sales the Garretts and Kings made. Other local ranchers, farmers and artisans were benefiting too.

It had become a well-known stop along the highway to Oregon’s coast. Thanks to her.

And for once, it was a town hall meeting night and she wasn’t going to be the one bringing up a big item of business. It was really kind of awesome. They had town hall meetings once a month, and for the past couple of years, she felt like she’d been at the center of them. Pushing for more money. Pushing to make improvements. But finally everything was moving smoothly at Sullivan’s Point, and she didn’t need to do that. She smiled as she drove over to the barn area. They always hosted the town hall. They provided a lot of the food. Everybody brought something, but she and her sisters were accomplished bakers, and they provided pies and jams, pastries. Bread.

This was another thing Fia was so proud she’d built. She’d overseen restoring the old Sullivan barn into a meeting space, and now the front was grassy and well tended, with a big weeping willow tree, a firepit and an area for dancing. There were picnic tables and benches, and she knew a lot of the staff on the ranch ate lunch there during the day.

It was a safe space. Comforting and happy. Cheerful.

She’d known she was never going to be able to build a massive cattle empire like the Kings and Garretts, and she hadn’t had the interest in horses the McClouds did. It had been bold to follow her own instincts. To follow her heart.

But Sullivan’s Point was a labor of love for her. It was everything. She’d known at sixteen this was going to be all on her. Their father had been having an affair, and Fia had found out. She’d been desperate to try and deal with it, to try and keep it secret to hold everything together, even while knowing it would fall apart.

But she’d determined then that Sullivan’s Point, her family, her sisters...they’d be hers. Her responsibility. And she’d kept that promise she’d made as a desperate, angry teenager.

She could only be proud. This was her legacy.

She was the only one living in the house these days. Which was strange. She wouldn’t let herself think that it was lonely.

It was normal .

She was twenty-nine. Being on her own was a completely fine thing. She didn’t really envy her sisters; they were living lives she’d known she’d never have. She was just happy for them. But she hadn’t thought through the flipside of all this, which was that success as she’d defined it meant...being alone.

She wasn’t alone, though. She reminded herself of that as she surveyed the meeting space. She had Four Corners, and everyone in it.

Well. Almost everyone. Some of them could disappear without a trace and she’d be happier for it.

A cheering thought, really. One she used to fuel her actions.

She hummed as she started to get pies and cakes out of the back of her car and position them on the table that was already set up for the meeting. She loved this part. The calm before the storm. Before all the families, the ranch hands and some townspeople descended on Sullivan’s Point to have a conversation about the goings-on at the ranch, and then have a big bonfire party. Complete with live music.

The first person to show up was Alaina, along with her adorable, pudgy baby Cameron, and her husband, Gus.

She was really happy for Alaina. That everything had turned out okay, even with all the drama from her unexpected pregnancy. But she’d found the support she needed. She’d found the man she needed. After Cameron’s biological father had left Alaina pregnant and alone, Gus had stepped up and offered to marry her. It had become so much deeper than convenience. They were really, truly in love now.

Rory and Quinn arrived next, with their significant others. And again, Fia really didn’t feel isolated. Or rather, she tried not to. She didn’t want any of that. Didn’t need any of that. She had the ranch. It was her life.

Her family.

Well, and so were her sisters. She’d chosen them. She’d chosen to shape her life around theirs. Very definitively.

They got everything set up like it was a well-choreographed dance. It was one of her favorite things. The way that they worked together like a team. Even with them living on their own now, it was like that.

Quinn and Rory still worked on the ranch, so it wasn’t like it was entirely different. Alaina mostly focused her efforts at McCloud’s Landing, because she was passionate about horses. Plus she had a child to care for. Fia understood that.

By the time the others arrived, and the barn started to fill up, Fia and Rory were having an in-depth conversation about a TV show they were both watching, interspersed with Quinn’s commentary on the most popular products of the farm store, while she looked over some spreadsheet on her phone. Which was just very Quinn.

She felt him arrive before she saw him. She always did. You would think that after all this time he wouldn’t impact her the way he did. But it was always like that. Always a prickling on the back of her neck, a jolt at the base of her spine. Always her stomach plummeting down into her pelvic bone.

The bastard Landry King had made an appearance.

“What?” Rory asked. She looked over quickly. “It’s Landry, right? I mean...just go bang him, Fia. My God.”

It was a frequent refrain. If she had a reaction to Landry, a reaction of any sort, then her sisters would laugh about the sexual tension between them. Joke about the fact that they needed to get it out of their systems. And Fia was great at playing that off at this point. Laughing along. Or scowling if it felt like an angry or more annoyed response would seem like the right thing to do. The truth was, no one actually knew what happened between her and Landry. If they did, they wouldn’t joke about it. That was for damn sure. Because it wasn’t funny. Not a damn thing about her relationship with Landry King was amusing. Nor was it fodder for whatever enemies to lovers tee-hee romantic fantasy her sisters had about them.

They had no idea.

They were all in love, and married. They had functional romances. They had no idea what it was like to have experienced being mired in the most intense, beautiful, sharp, toxic, painful relationship a person could ever imagine. They had no idea.

And she was going to make sure that they stayed completely in the dark.

Because God love them all, they’d escaped this. They had gone and fallen in love without being tangled in the barbed wire of a broken heart.

“Can’t,” she said, trying to sound breezy. “I decided I was going to find some bar himbo and bang it out with him this weekend. Landry is going to have to wait.”

She opted for light today. Because things were fine. Because she didn’t need to look at him and feel a jolt go through her body. Because she definitely never needed to remember what it had been like when he touched her.

Because that kind of memory led to all sorts of other memories, and she had given those up for both lent and sanity.

“Sounds fun. Bring back his panties as a souvenir so that I believe you,” said Alaina.

“I don’t have anything to prove to you,” said Fia.

It was true. She didn’t. She had Sullivan’s Point. And the successful farm store. It was all the proof she needed. Everything that she had worked so hard for was paying off.

She was finding new ways of making Sullivan profitable all the time. Thanks to Landry King, as it happened. He had been part of the primary opposition to them getting the money to open the store. Sometimes she had wanted to scream at him. Really yell at him. But they didn’t do that. She sniped at him. Sometimes she snapped. Lost her temper. But she more or less tried to keep it on lock. For his part...

Sometimes she wished that he would get angry at her. But every time she looked at him, he looked back with a kind of cool indifference. Honestly, it was the thing that made her want to lash out the most. Much more than hating him, it was a tangle. And he seemed completely unflappable in the face of her. In the face of all their memories. In the face of the ghosts from the past.

And right now, not only did he look unflappable, he looked sexy.

That was really the most annoying thing about him. After everything, she still found him hot. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a jaw so square she could cut herself on that angle point. It was usually covered with rakish, dark stubble. And he had the kind of midnight blue eyes that haunted a woman.

They were a weird thing, blue eyes. Especially on a dark-haired man. There was just something about them. It elevated his looks. It was annoying. And maybe there was something to be said for the fact that he was just her own personal brand of whiskey, or maybe he was universally problematic.

Hard to say.

She preferred to believe the latter, as the former made her feel like she was caught in a net she would never escape. She didn’t like that feeling.

So instead, she took her seat in the Sullivan portion of the barn, and did not look as the Kings took their seats in the King quadrant. Even though she knew they had. Because it was all timing. This perfectly choreographed dance of the town hall meeting.

She sneaked a peek, eventually, and frowned. Landry had his phone out of his pocket, and he was... She wasn’t mistaken the man was texting. Which was something she had never before seen him do.

Well. Good for him. Maybe he’d joined one of those dating apps. Maybe he’d found one that catered especially to obnoxious, undependable cowboys with big penises.

The thought sent a jolt straight between her thighs.

The truth was, she would join that app. That was the worst part.

She looked away and turned her focus to the front of the room, where Sawyer Garrett, their meeting chair, had taken the stage.

“This should be a pretty quick one,” he said. “Only one submitted matter of business. And mostly, I think we’re all looking forward to going out and eating. It’s a little chilly out, but we got the bonfire going and the heaters fired up. So mostly, tonight it’s just going to be a feast.”

That brought cheers up from the barn. It was full now. Of the Four Corners families and their employees. All of whom were looking forward to the monthly shindig. It was a well-deserved break. The truth was, there weren’t a lot of breaks in ranching.

The days moved on, with the land and animals needing what they needed. They didn’t care if it was sunny or rainy, Sunday or Christmas. It moved in a rhythm.

She liked that about it. She got comfort from it.

She got tired from it sometimes, but mostly, it was comfort.

And once a month they did this. They gathered together, they ate, they socialized. They played poker. And she did her best not to tangle with Landry.

Once a month. She went through all this once a month.

Sometimes she wondered why she’d committed herself to living here. To dealing with this baptism in her own personal hell. But there was no other option. She refused to be run off her land by a man.

Fuck those men.

She refused to have her life turned upside down, a life that she had fought so hard for, just because of them.

Of him.

She was proud of all she’d achieved. And so, she dealt with seeing him. So, she dealt with all this.

“The lone order of business is coming to us from Landry King.”

Her shoulders went stiff, a bolt of lightning streaking up her spine.

She held herself steady. She tried not to react.

“Come on up, Landry.”

“The first part of this is a petition for an increase in the budget,” he said.

And she swore that just for a second, his eyes flicked to her. Rested there. And she was transported back to another meeting nearly a year ago, when he had outright refused to increase the funding for the Sullivans’ project. The budget was the budget, he’d said.

And she hadn’t managed to keep her cool. No. In that instance, she let the anger she felt for him in the present—and all the burning anger she experienced when she thought of their past—take her over.

Look who’s a fucking accountant.

She remembered. Because she always remembered when she messed up with him. Always remembered when things got too real. Too intense.

Always.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her hand, but only as a formality. “I’m unclear as to how you think that we can redistribute the budget when the budget has already been made for the year.”

“I thought you might have a problem with it, Fia,” he said. “But believe me when I tell you this is part of a plan that’s going to benefit everybody.”

“I benefited,” she said. “Thanks.”

“I took a class,” he said. “It was about finding your niche in ranching. And that’s the second part of this. I want everyone to be thinking about that.”

“I believe that’s what my farm store is, Landry. My niche. Thank you. ” She sounded so sugary she wanted to die. But she had to go sugary or she’d get salty real fast.

“It’s true,” he said. “Sullivan’s Point is probably the most advanced when it comes to this. But then, you’ve had to be.”

He made what she considered a triumph sound a lot like an insult, and she marveled at his ability to do that. And to fill her up with hate all the while looking so handsome.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. And that’s the kind of thing I want to do with King’s Crest. I’m asking for an increase in the budget to renovate the main barn. I want it to serve as a meeting space, and an event space. Eventually, I’d like to do what they did at McCloud’s. Put in small cabins, but instead of using it as therapy space, I’d like to use them as guest rooms. We’ll be able to host destination weddings, small conferences and the like. It would likely increase business to Sullivan’s. Because you could hopefully provide some food. Which I know you’re all very good at.”

She was beginning to get angrier and angrier. Partly because it wasn’t a stupid idea.

But their ranch was already so profitable. The Garretts and the Kings had a monopoly on beef in Oregon. They were massive operations. And the two of them together being able to share profits made them unstoppable.

What Landry was proposing now would undoubtedly line the pockets of the Kings even more. But it would benefit all of them.

“Why?” she asked. “I mean, what triggered this?” She tried to regroup. “It’s only that we laid our plans out at the beginning of the year and yes, I know that I didn’t adhere to that entirely last year, but that was about unexpected expenses related to a project we’d already approved. You’re talking about new endeavors and I want to know why now, and not at the new fiscal year?”

Something flickered over his face she couldn’t read. Like she’d caught him in a lie. But she wouldn’t betray that. That she could read him like that. That she knew him like that.

“Because ranching is a tough business,” he said. “It’s a tough life. And the whole point of our banding together was to be able to cover the weak spots. The downtimes. Adding more irons to the fire is going to help us do that.”

“Thank you for explaining our jobs to us,” she said, crossing her arms and staring up at him.

She wasn’t just being bitchy. It was November. They would be doing their big Christmas party soon, and they had a budget for that and it was busy . His timing was bad. And weird. And stupid.

He ignored her. “I read about a guy who has a giant spread out in Texas. Not only do they have guesthouses and event centers, but they have their own beer. They have a line of jewelry. They have all kinds of stuff associated with the ranch. Think about the kind of brand we have in Four Corners. Think about what we could do if we all banded together. And I mean all of us. Not just the families, but everybody who puts work into this place. Think about what we could do.”

Damn him. Damn him for being inspiring.

“The truth is, I’ve already started work on the barn.”

“Without clearing it with us?”

“It’s my barn, Fia.”

“But the money is going to come out of our general pot.”

“I started it with my own,” he said. “But if you want to share in the profits, I expect an upfront investment. If they can’t come out of the official branch budget... Well, you can all chip in. Invest.”

“No one’s going to invest,” said Fia.

“Hell,” said Wolf Garrett. “I will.”

She should’ve known that Wolf Garrett would be an annoying wild card. He seemed to want to invest just to bother her.

“Hell, me too,” said Sawyer.

And that wasn’t why Sawyer was investing. He was practical, and he’d been one of the founding members of the collective. He would only do it because he believed in it. Which made her want to savage him.

Reflexively, she turned to look at the McClouds. She was burning daggers into the side of her brother-in-law’s head.

Gus, for his part, said nothing.

“I’ll chip in,” said Hunter McCloud.

Tag, Brody and Lachlan all raised their hands in agreement as well, and so did many of the farmhands.

Wisely, Gus kept his mouth shut and his hands in his lap. As did all the Sullivans.

“We’re not going to just take you at your word,” said Fia. “I need a business plan.”

“Really? Did I ask to see a business plan?”

“You kind of did, Landry,” she said.

“Well. It looks like I have backing either way. Thank you, everyone. That’ll be enough to get us kicked off. More information to come. Now everybody can go eat.”

She was fuming. Burning with outrage. The man was a scourge. He was a pain in the ass.

It was just that it wasn’t fair, not that it wasn’t a good idea. It was that it was such a double standard. The Kings had been obstructionist to her expansion efforts, and now they wanted her to get on board with theirs? Maybe not supporting the expansion when it did seem like a pretty good idea was petty. But God in heaven, wasn’t she owed a little bit of petty when it came to Landry King?

You aren’t going to stop him.

No. And she would potentially be done out of the profits when it was successful and made money.

Dammit.

She was still fuming by the time she went outside and linked up with everybody else. And she got outside just in time to see Landry get in his truck.

And pull away.

“Where’s he going?”

She realized that she’d broken her cardinal rule of never acting like she gave a shit what he was doing.

“I dunno,” said Alaina. “Maybe he also found a himbo down at the bar.”

“I don’t hate that,” said Rory, smiling slightly.

“Go find your man,” said Fia. “Both of you. I’m going to have a drink.”

“Fia,” said Alaina. “Sisters don’t let their sisters drink in response to Landry. You’ll only end up wasted and sad.”

“This is not fair. Because he was so awful about me wanting to open the farm store.”

“He was. And you’ll notice that none of us jumped in to offer money. None of us. And we all have our own places. Levi could easily invest, and so could Gideon. Gus obviously could, but he didn’t put in, because we are all supporting you. Right?”

“And I appreciate it,” said Fia. “But you do think I’m being petty.”

“Yes,” said Quinn. “I do think you’re being petty. What he’s proposing is a good idea, and there’s absolutely no reason in all the world to oppose it. Except for being petty. But, you also know that I am pro doing your due diligence on things like this. I think you’re right. I think you should demand a business plan from him. Go by tomorrow and see what exactly he’s up to.”

“Well, that isn’t a terrible idea,” she said.

Except that she never darkened the property line of King’s Crest. Not ever. It was like it was going to kill her.

Maybe.

“Great,” said Rory. “The problem is solved.”

“I’m not sure that I could call the problem solved exactly. Because Landry is still here.”

“Honestly,” said Rory.

And Fia pretended to smile indulgently. While inside she felt acrid.

Because the truth was, she had to coexist with Landry whether she wanted to or not. Their shared past hadn’t meant anything for a while now, and it couldn’t going forward.

So yeah. She would tell herself she was just being cautious about investing any money right now. And she would go by and look at his plans. Tomorrow.

And tonight, she would forget about him. And have a good time.

H E HAD BEEN uncomfortable leaving Lila back at home, but he hadn’t thought that it was a good idea to bring her tonight.

There would be a time and a place. But there were things he needed to talk to Lila about first, and he was still waiting for her to get through this period of adjustment before bringing up anything else.

They’d made it through the first visit from the social worker. Lila hadn’t begged to leave. So there was that. He was always trying to find the balance. Between letting her talk about her parents or her grief, between trying to explain his own grief over her birth and letting her live this new life. She’d put a moratorium on the past one night when things had gotten too hard.

He’d been okay with that. It gave him a reprieve. They’d agreed that when she was ready to hear more, he’d tell her whatever she wanted to know.

It was a tightrope walk. Because he couldn’t dump his trauma and pain onto her. He’d had enough. He was her father, not her confidant. But there were also things he needed her to know. None of it was simple.

But for now, he was going with...peaceful.

He’d been texting her the whole time he was at the barn, and he had raced right back to the house.

The truth was, this initiative meant more to him than anything ever had, because it was part of his figuring out how to be a good dad plan.

Lila was going to need...so much. He wanted to be able to buy her clothes, to give her all the things that she needed and wanted. He wanted to be able to buy her first car, and send her to college.

He wanted to be successful so that he could give her something. He wanted there to be jobs at the ranch that she could take if she wanted, and money to take with her if she didn’t.

The unbearable weight of responsibility, of caring for another human being was really...something.

But it was what he wanted to do.

So it meant he had to go after this with single-mindedness. It was like all the energy that had been stored up inside him all this time, all this need to be a father, was rushing through him now like a storm.

He wanted to get it right. And some days he didn’t know what that looked like. Emotions were hard. He’d certainly never seen them displayed in a healthy way. He knew how people hurt and manipulated the ones they professed to love.

He didn’t actually know how love was meant to look.

But he knew hard work. So he was starting there. With work. With endless stuffed animals, a gecko and a new barn.

“How was your meeting, Landry?” she asked, sitting at the table with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. She had told him that she didn’t need him to make her anything. He’d put a lot of ready-made meals in the place so she could help herself when she needed to or just wanted to. Even though most nights they ate at the main house with the whole King crew.

Right now she was homeschooling. She wasn’t going to the one-room schoolhouse on the property. She was doing an online course with the middle school she’d been at before.

It was going all right, from what he could see. But he was a little bit worried about her not being around other kids. Eventually it would change. Eventually.

But she and Daniel had grown to have a pretty good rapport, and he enjoyed seeing that.

She also got along well with his family.

Hell, they got along a little better than he’d anticipated. She was a tough nut, kind of an angry little thing sometimes, but that was fair, considering everything she’d been through. And hell, it was fair considering her genetics. The Kings were kind of a sullen group, all-up.

“It was fine. I got backing for my plans with the barn.”

“That’s good. It’s a good idea, TBH,” she said.

He felt like that was pretty damned high praise. Coming from a kid who mostly thought he was an idiot. He didn’t know what TBH meant, but he’d learned not to ask because it always earned him a look that made him feel old and uncool.

He was thirty , for heaven’s sake.

“Well, thanks for not running away or anything while I was gone.”

“That’s the worst part about this place,” she said. “In the city there’s actually some places to run to. Out here? I’m just going to get eaten by a bobcat.”

“A bobcat’s not going to eat you,” he said.

“It won’t?”

“No. It’ll just maul you and chew on your knucklebones a little bit. Then a bear will probably come and eat you.”

She grimaced. “Thanks for that. Next time the social worker asks me how it’s going, I’m going to tell them I have nightmares because you told me that I was going to get eaten by wild animals.”

“Good. Make sure you get me in trouble.”

She wrinkled her nose.

He looked at her, and his heart felt two sizes too big. He liked it when she made this particular sort of stubborn face, and it reminded him of his sister, Arizona, which probably meant it was a King face.

She definitely continued to take advantage of the fact that all he wanted to do was make her happy. Bribed him into ordering her all kinds of shit online. He doubted anyone had ever seen a delivery truck go up the road this many times in a month.

Hell, probably not in a year .

But he basically bought the kid whatever she asked for. Her bedroom was packed to the gills with stuffed animals. He wasn’t above buying her affection. He didn’t really know how else to do it.

“You should come out and do some work on the barn tomorrow,” he said. “You know, all this... If you choose to stay with me, to let me adopt you, it’s going to be yours.”

She blanched. “What am I going to do with the ranch?”

“At least the money that it generates will be yours. I’m doing what I can to make it better for you.”

“Oh.” She looked down. “I have money. In a trust. From my parents.”

“Good. That’s good.” He tried to feel supported by that, and not undermined.

“It’s not a lot or anything. They weren’t rich.”

“Neither mine. But I’m going to leave you something. I promise you that.”

“Don’t talk about that,” she said, suddenly looking upset.

“What?”

“What you’re going to leave me. It’s just... I already have an inheritance. And no parents.”

He felt like he’d been poleaxed. The kid was letting him know, even if not emphatically, that she didn’t want to lose him. His throat went tight. He thought of all the things he had left to say to her. But he just didn’t want to disrupt this. This little pocket of happiness that they’d found. Because there would be time for deeper conversations later. He was going to have to hurt her again. He didn’t want that.

So he was just going to enjoy this. For now , he was just going to enjoy this. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. It was the strangest thing. He couldn’t recall ever saying those words in his life. He was sure he had. To his mother, probably. Sometime before she left.

He never said them to his father. He never said them to his brothers, or even to his sister, which made him feel bad a little bit.

But he wanted to say it to Lila. He was also just terrified of breaking this thing they were building.

And he just needed time. Time healed wounds, and he supposed time was maybe the only thing that built a strong foundation. So he was just going to keep giving it time until he was sure it wasn’t going to crumble.