‘Maverick is as much my brother as he is yours. Since I was what – five years old?’ he demanded, hotly now. ‘He’s my best friend. The thirteen-year-old kid who hid me in your family barn when my dad went on one of his drinking rampages. The fifteen-year-old who drove me to the hospital when I made myself sick on booze trying to prove a point to Dylan Jefferson. The man who cremated my child when I couldn’t.’
‘Don’t.’ Sierra paled. She didn’t cry now. She didn’t show a hint of emotion. ‘Don’t talk about that.’
Benji obliged, but only because his own eyes burned with all that sick, twisted grief. Instead, he asked, ‘Do you know what I still can’t figure out?’ He didn’t give her time to reply. ‘I can’t figure out what I did to deserve your hate. And after all this time, you’d think I’d have learned to hate you back.’ He shook his head as an exhausted, bitter laugh left his lips. ‘Joke’s on me, kid.’
And he left.
Chapter 2
Hunt Ranch, Santa Barbara County – August, 2008
‘Benji, don’t forget to say goodbye to Sierra on your way out,’ Mrs Hunt reminded him. ‘She goes back to school early tomorrow morning.’ She stood over the heavily floured kitchen counter, kneading a huge ball of bread dough, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun.
At twenty-three, Benji had been part of the Hunt household for long enough to know that the bread would either break a tooth or be the best thing a man had ever tasted. ‘Yes ma’am,’ he replied. He’d planned on it anyway, though God knew he dreaded the task.
He thought about Sierra as he opened the old refrigerator and, at home, pulled out a Coke for the short drive to the barn. Though he loved to pretend otherwise, Sierra Hunt had become an increasingly difficult problem for him over the past two years – and everyone knew it.
Including Sierra.
Even then, Ava Hunt laughed knowingly at his tone. ‘You sound terrified.’
‘Iamterrified,’ he replied. And because she was practically his own mother, he added, ‘I’m still not entirely convinced she’s tame, and I’m behind on my rabies shots.’
‘I’ll pay for your hospital bill if she bites you,’ came the quick, unoffended reply.
Benji laughed. He raised the Coke can in a half-salute in her direction. ‘Deal.’
Delaying the inevitable goodbye for as long as possible, Benji leaned against the counter and watched Ava work. Standing there, up to her elbows in flour, with the sunlight streaming in the window behind her, she could have been posing for one of those magazines.Good Housekeeping. OrCountry Home.
She was literallymaking bread. When he’d been a kid, his father’s drinking habit had meant that his mom had needed to work twice as hard to put food on the table. She’d worked full days, and a four-hour bar shift most nights, so most of Benji’s meals had been scavenged. He’d walked through his school years looking sharp-boned and gangly. It had only been when he’d started working at the ranch full-time and taking his meals with the ranch hands that he’d filled out. ‘Is that hard to make?’ he asked now.
‘Bread? No, honey. Not at all.’ Mrs Hunt frowned. ‘Although mine seems to have a mercurial nature.’
He wisely bit back his smile, asked, ‘Could you teach me sometime?’
‘How to bake bread?’
‘Yeah.’
She swiped a strand of hair out of her face using her forearm, inadvertently leaving a smear of flour in its place. ‘Sure. We’ll follow a recipe, and you can take it for the ranch hands after.’ Her eyes narrowed on his face. ‘Any particular reason?’
Benji took a pointed sip of his Coke. He’d asked because as he’d watched her, he’d wanted to learn. One day, he’d buy his own place and he’d be damned if he’d eat like shit because he didn’t know how to cook. One day, when he had children of his own, he wanted them to seethis. A parent baking bread – even if it was inedible. But because Mrs H would tear up at the truth, he waggled his eyebrows. ‘To impress my dates.’
She laughed appreciatively. ‘You know, I should probably discourage mass wooing via fresh bread. But if James had ever baked for me, I probably would have jumped the gun and eloped, skipped the wedding entirely.’
‘Yeah, girls always bring it up – dinner at my place. What happened to going to the movies and getting a burger after?’ he asked.
Mrs Hunt shook her head. ‘I swear it was just yesterday that you and Mav were running wild. Filthy after a mud fight or tearing across the ranch on the motorbikes or sneaking out to go and drink at Wrangler’s Clearing when you thought we were sleeping.’ She plopped the dough back into the bowl. ‘And now look at you. Twenty-three. Working. Learning how to cook for your dates.’
Benji shrugged. ‘I still have to save up for a place of my own before I can cook for a date,’ he reminded her.
‘Hmm. You know, Benji, that’s actually something James and I have been meaning to talk to you about …’
Because he knew where she was going, and dreaded it, he tried to distract her with humour. ‘My dates?’
‘No, honey.’ Her laugh was gentle, but it faded too soon. ‘Your savings …’
Because his reaction was to tense and become defensive, Benji consciously forced his muscles to relax one by one.
