Page 83 of Tate
He backed out. “Don’t look back.”
But Scarlett couldn’t tear herself away, her hand on the window.
“Red.” He didn’t know what to do.
She looked at him. Shook her head, her eyes red.
He raised his arm.
She hesitated just a moment, then slid over, put her head on his shoulder, and as they drove north to Montana, for the second time, the toughest woman he knew wept in his arms.
8
The Marshall Triple M possessed the kind of opulence the Jackson estate didn’t have a prayer of attaining. Sure, the lodge home might have been built nearly seventy years ago, with a number of upgraded additions, and the horse barn needed painting after the repairs to it following a near-catastrophic fire. But the Marshall family home sat in a pocket of mountains, in a greening valley backdropped by a lush landscape of lodgepole pine, craggy ridges, and the endless arch of famous blue sky.
The last time Glo had arrived—with the Belles in their tour bus—the place had served as a hideout, a soft place to land after the trauma of the bombing that had nearly killed Kelsey and Knox and had rattled them all. Even Glo had been shaken, although she hadn’t wanted to admit it.
Knowing Kelsey had been trapped under a pile of debris, Glo could only stand back helplessly as the rescuers dug them out. It had resurrected too many sideline moments of watching medical personnel working on Joy.
Glo had needed to take a deep breath, fill her lungs with the sweet, fescue-scented air, lift her face to the sky, and let the sun bake through her bones. Remind her that she’d survived.
And to try not to feel guilty about that.
But yes, last time Tate had brought her because she was a member of the Yankee Belles.
She wasn’t entirely sure why he’d insisted she accompany him this weekend. Sure, her heart had taken rebellious flight when she’d ridden up and heard him announce that she was going with him—a strange, unfamiliar joy at his protectiveness.
Over the past twelve hours, that joy had dissipated into confusion because the man refused to touch her. Had barely spoken to her.
She wanted to blame it on her mother, who had stood at the door this morning breathing fire as she met Tate and their driver.
Her fury must have singed Tate because he’d been oddly silent during both flights—from Nashville to Salt Lake, then to Helena—then the two-hour drive in the rental car. She’d touched his hand once, and he’d closed his around hers just long enough for her to know it wasn’t simply a flinch before taking it away.
A one-eighty from the way he’d touched her last night, thank you.
She must be made of poison, have some sort of contagious disease. She didn’t want to ask if she had done something wrong, mostly because she couldn’t bear the answer—the one that suggested that in the end, she might just be too much trouble. And why not? He was still nursing some bruised ribs, made worse by the takedown yesterday, and he’d favored his still-healing shoulder when he grabbed her suitcase from the limo.
Nice. She just loved it when the people around her got hurt because of her.
They’d arrived at the ranch just before dinner, and Glo fell easily into Gerri Marshall’s arms. Tate’s mother had a way of making a person feel like they belonged. Even if they knew otherwise.
Knox and Kelsey were at the house, although Knox was out on the range somewhere with his brother Reuben, the groom. Glo got settled in the upstairs bedroom that she shared with Kelsey, then changed into a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt.
Breathe. Last time they were here, Tate had stepped back from his crazy, over-the-top, protective persona and become the charmer she’d fallen for.
Please.
She came out of the guest room and down the wide log stairs into the main room with the soaring fireplace.
Kelsey was in the kitchen with Gerri, chopping up onions like she might be the Pioneer Woman. She wore an apron, her hair up in a ponytail, and Glo just stood in the middle of the family room, trying to get a handle on the transformation of her lead singer.
Kelsey looked…well, healed. Tanned, a freedom in her laughter—and the way she looked at Gerri turned a tiny screw into Glo’s heart.
As if Kelsey had finally found a mother for the one she’d lost. Sure, Dixie’s parents loved her—but Kelsey had always felt like an add-on, the orphan they’d adopted.
Frankly, it had been the thing that bonded Glo and Kelsey—the sense of being not necessarily wanted.
Until now.
