Page 7 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

I inhaled slowly, unsure how much I wanted to explain. My older half-brother Deacon St. Claire, whose wedding we were celebrating today, had only come into our lives a few months ago. My mom had him when she was a teenager, years before she met my dad and had my brothers and me.

She came over from Spain alone at age sixteen and found work with a wealthy family. A couple years later she got pregnant by a man who wanted nothing to do with the baby. She ended up giving my oldest brother to the family she worked for, who had struggled with infertility.

The husband lied to her about her access to her son, and he lied to Deacon about being adopted, which is why he was only now in our lives, thirty-six years later.

“Not really,” I sighed. “We always knew about Deacon. My mom never kept him a secret. I’m happy she finally has her whole family.”

It had always felt like something was missing in my mom’s life, and now, she had all her boys. It was like he was the last piece of the puzzle for her.

Angie watched me for a second. “Is he nice?”

I understood why she was asking that. Deacon St. Claire came from money. Old money. He’d also made billions himself. When people found out I was related to him, they always had questions about what he was like.

“Yeah, he is,” I told her. “And he just… I don’t know. He fits.”

“I’m excited to meet him,” she declared as I drove my truck behind the admin buildings where I typically parked every day for work.

I watched as Angie took everything in. The property had been transformed and looked like it had been ripped out of the pages of a bridal magazine: white chairs fanned out in precise arcs, bunting strung between trees, an aisle scattered with rose petals. There was a trellis at the end, covered in pale pink climbing roses.

Unfortunately for me, this was not an unusual sight. Lockhart Ranch was a wedding destination. We hosted anywhere from fifty to one hundred weddings per year.

I had to admit, it felt strange bringing a date to the wedding. I’d never done that before. All of my relationships were too casual for a family event. In this case, however, Angie invited herself, and I’d gone along with it because she was chill and I liked her. But now that we were here, at a family wedding, it felt like a lot.

This might have been a mistake.

When we stepped into the white-gold sunlight, Angie paused under the eaves. She scanned the lawns, the pastures, the careful rows of Adirondack chairs and flower trellises, her eyes moving with a clinical, nearly predatory precision. She let out a low whistle. “It’s… massive.”

“Is it?” I asked, wondering what it looked like through her eyes.

Growing up on the ten-thousand-acre property, I was immune to its expanse. It all just felt like my backyard. But I supposed that, from an outsider’s perspective, it could be impressive.

“Yes,” she confirmed, then stated, “I want a tour.”

Before I could answer, she was already stalking ahead, taking in the full sprawl of the Lockhart Ranch as if she were a codebreaker deciphering its secrets from the layout alone. I watched her for a second, straight-backed, steps crisp even on gravel and felt a pulse of something not quite dread, not quite regret. Maybe apprehension.

I was definitely having second thoughts about her attendance. I tried to push it out of my head and decided to focus on giving her a tour.

Most people took in the ranch in manageable chunks—the longhorn paddocks here, the barn and equestrian center there, the gabled main house perched at the highest point of the property, a kind of queen bee presiding over its ten thousand minions and the endless, manicured rows of grapes running downslope to the bay. But Angie wanted the whole story, all at once. I liked that about her, too.

She turned to face me and shrugged. “You’re the expert. Where’s the best place to start?”

I considered the options, then jerked my chin toward the left. “We’ll start with the animals. That’s usually the crowd-pleaser.”

We walked the familiar path, side by side at first, then with Angie forging ahead anytime something caught her attention. The animal complex was just past the vineyard but before the guest bungalows, so we skirted the edge of the vines and took the shortcut through the kitchen garden. I pointed out the tomatoes, which my mom always planted with militant precision in concentric circles, and the row of lavender that lined the east fence, thick with bees even at this hour.

“So,” Angie said, “this is a full working ranch, right? Not just tourist stuff?”

“It’s both,” I explained. “We have about two hundred head of longhorn cattle, mostly for show, but we still run a small operation. The vineyard and spa were my mom’s brainchild. She optimized the rest of the property for guest experiences—bike and ATV riding, hiking, fishing, and animal encounters. If you’re into miniature goats, this is basically Mecca.”

Past the kitchen garden, we stepped into the animal enclosures. Our first stop was the chicken run—fifty-odd hens, a couple of ornamental roosters, all of them fluffing and strutting in the dust. Angie crouched at the fence, studying them like a scientist observing a controlled experiment.

“They look happy,” she commented.

“All our animals are rescued,” I explained. “This has basically become an animal sanctuary. Not a lot of ranching goes on, just rehabilitating. My mom has a thing for taking in strays. Not just animals, people, too. Out of our seventy-plus staff, only about five were people who we hired through traditional avenues. The rest were people going through a tough time, down on their luck, basically in need, who my mom gave shelter, schooling, and ultimately jobs to.”

“So she’s a softie?”

“If you’re on her good side, if not...” My eyes widened and I shook my head.