Page 53 of Here With You

“Are you staying?” She held her breath and waited for him to answer.

“Where would I go?”

She picked up a stick and drew a heart in the sand. “I want you to stay because you want to, not because you don't have choices.”

“I have choices, Emmaline. I'm not the penniless cowboy who left you. I've got money.”

He'd always been a prideful man. She didn't know how much a paramedic made, but she imagined it hadn’t made him rich. As she thought about the property that she co-owned with Brie, she wasn't rich either. She was, but it was all in the land, not her bank account. She never wanted for anything, but her needs were pretty simple. Or they had been until Miles came back. Now she needed him like her next breath.

She twirled in a circle with her arms spread wide. “This is almost like we envisioned.” They turned and walked back toward the house, and she saw that the heart she'd drawn near the shore had washed away.

He squeezed her hand. “Almost, but we didn't build this together.”

“But we can build it into something more.”

He looked around. “I think it's all it can be. I'd still love a chance to build something with you. Something that's ours. Isn't it time we stopped living up to the expectations of others and started pleasing ourselves?”

She wrapped her hands around his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. “And leave all this? No way. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. All we need to do is keep this one turning. Say you'll stay with me.”

He didn't hesitate. “You are my future, and while I would have loved to start where we left off, anywhere you are is where I want to be.”

She glanced at her watch. “Right now, I need to be at the front desk. Don't you have painting to do? Brie and Carter will be back soon, and it would be great if they could come home to something different, something fresh and new.”

“Fresh and new sounds good.”

She kissed him, and they separated on the path to the parking lot. She took the steps into The Brown two at a time. She was feeling lighter and heavier at the same time. Miles was here, which made her happy, but despite what he had just said about Em being his future, he didn’t seem as committed to the resort as she was, but then again, he hadn't been raised to run it.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

Miles got Cormac to help him finish the living room, and they moved on to the hallway and kitchen.

“Do you ever do anything with your dad?”

Cormac laughed as he did the detailed cutting in where the wall and ceiling met. When Miles turned fifty, the first thing to go was his eyesight, so leaving the straight lines to Cormac seemed prudent.

“With him? You mean like this, where we chat and share stories?” He shook his head. “Nope. I do what I'm told. I work for him more than anything else.”

Miles felt terrible for the kid, who wasn't a kid but a grown man. “I understand.” He could play this in two ways. He could bad mouth his brother, which would be so easy, or he could point out that his father didn't know any better. “It's easier to do what you know, and all Darryl knows is how to do what we taught him. Grandpa wasn't one to chitchat. He was a man who said jump, and the only acceptable response was to ask how high.”

“Grandpa was the worst.” He dipped his brush into the milky white paint and slicked at the edge between the wall and ceiling, creating a perfectly ruler-straight line. “He was just plain old mean.”

“I think he had a tough life. Ranching isn't easy, and it's not cheap. You'd think letting a bunch of cows roam the land eating and mating would be simple and inexpensive, but everything needs care. When droughts hit, and we've seen a few, he had to supplement with hay and feed. There are vet costs, transportation of the cattle to market, and all that.”

“Did he really lie on the forms about the pedigree of the cattle?”

He didn't want to stir up dung, but the truth was usually better in the end. “He did, but over the years, I see why. I think he lied to make things easier on the rest of us.” When he left, his family was pretty well-off. Some would call them filthy rich, but he never saw that part. What his father and mother had, they'd worked for. Their rule was that the harder you worked, the luckier you got. His father truly wanted to pass on something bigger than he'd received when Miles’s grandfather died and left him the ranch.

“It backfired because, as my father pointed out, they got sued and lost everything.” Cormac stopped and looked at Miles. “I don't blame you for my lot in life. If Grandpa was cheating people, then he got what he deserved. My only regret is that I've stuck around out of family loyalty, and I don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. If I had more, I could help Tiffany.”

Miles knew how that felt. If he'd had more, Emmaline might have left with him. He was so angry and bitter for years, but looking back, it would have been tragic to drag her away from her life with nothing to offer.

“How was the lunch date with Tiffany?”

“It was great. She has a little girl named Ava who I'd like to meet in person. I've seen them in town, and she's as cute as a button.” He laughed. “Now I sound like Grandma.”

Miles looked at his phone. “Speaking of Grandma, we’d better get going. She doesn't like people disrespecting her time. Or she didn't use to.”

“Still doesn't. That will get you a severe ear-pulling.” He pointed to his right lobe. “I swear this one is longer than the left.”

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