Blame It on Your Heart (2 page)

Even if Troy's malfeasance hadn't cost them millions, they weren't likely to stick by her with the stench of scandal clinging to her.

Your own fault,
she scolded herself as she pushed open the front door.
You let Troy take over your life and you didn't even fight it. Hell, probably the only reason you even stayed in touch with Sarah was because she married someone he knew.

And it wasn't even like he was trying to control her, or isolate her from her friends. At that time in her life, it was so easy to get swept up in his charisma, his big, almost over the top personality. And, okay, the money. Having him court her, take her on extravagant trips and lavish gifts on her made it easier to forget the life she so desperately needed to leave behind. It muted the memories of the only other person who had ever made her feel so adored.

"I'm going outside," Anthony hollered from the other end of the house, thankfully jarring her from her thoughts before she could go down that rat hole.

Don't even go there, she cautioned herself.

"Okay. But make sure you stay in the back yard, away from the street." Though she always had somewhat mixed feelings about coming home, she loved that Anthony could go outside on his own and she didn't have to worry about him getting snatched by a pedophile or run over by a crazy cabbie. Here she could watch him out the window as he roamed around her mother's back yard - average size for any suburban lawn. But compared to their patch of turf on their rooftop deck in New York, it seemed immense.

As she opened the door to her childhood bedroom, breathing in the faint vanilla scent that hung in the air even though she had long since stopped wearing the scent, she felt the familiar push-pull sensation she got whenever she came home.

So much she loved about this place, this house, this town.

Yet she'd fled it like the hounds of hell were on her heels. And nothing but the most dire of circumstances could have compelled her to come back for the foreseeable future.

Suck it up
.
After everything you've gone through, facing the curious citizens of Big Timber is the least of your worries.

Oh, please, it's only one citizen in particular who's got your panties in a twist.

Bad analogy, as her brain immediately zeroed in on long ago memory. Ellie, stretched in the back seat of her old Jeep Cherokee, her denim skirt pushed up around her waist, her legs bent and parted to give access to the big, masculine hand reaching up to grasp the scrap of satin and lace. That hand had her panties in a twist more times than she could count.

Stop it!
She admonished herself even as she felt her cheeks flame.

She focused her attention on checking up on Anthony, a dark-haired figure dressed in an orange T-shirt and camouflage shorts ambling around the yard. A smile tugged at her lips as he picked up a stick and waved it around like a sword, his lusty "Touché, pussycat," drifting through the window. Her sweet little boy. So happy despite everything they'd been through in the past year.

Anthony didn't dwell in the past. Resolving to try to follow his lead, she turned back to her unpacking.

She was halfway through when her cell phone trilled. "Where the heck are you?" her mother demanded in her typical blunt fashion before Ellie could even manage a "hello." "I was expecting you an hour ago."

"Sorry," Ellie said as she slid a pathetic looking pile of shirts into the middle drawer of her white and gold-trimmed dresser. "I stopped at the house first so we could settle in a bit. I didn't want to get in your way."

She didn't bother explaining that despite having three days in the car to brace herself, she still wasn't quite ready to deal with onslaught of questions surrounding her homecoming.

"Honey it’s four o'clock on a Tuesday. Slow as molasses," her mother said, able to read her even over the phone. "And I'm dying to get my hands on my grandbaby!"

As if on cue Anthony thundered into the bedroom. "Mom, I'm hungry."

"There's nothing for him to eat there," Adele chuckled without apology.

Ellie sighed. It had been like this ever since they moved back to Big Timber and Adele had taken over running the restaurant that had been in her family from the early frontier days.

"Grammy and I have enough to deal with at the restaurant," she would say. "You can't expect me to keep another kitchen fully stocked. You get hungry, you walk down here. And help me out while you're at it."

Ellie and her sister Molly had grown up helping out in the restaurant, to the point where each could manage a table of twelve by the time they were thirteen without writing down a single order.

"Tell Anthony I've got a cheeseburger with his name on it."

Though there was no way he could hear her, Anthony piped up, "I wanna go see Nana and have a cheeseburger and fries."

"We'll be there in a few," Ellie said. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and winced. Her hair was in a messy ponytail and her face, devoid of makeup, was flushed from the heat and shiny with sweat. Though this was far away from New York, where it was considered scandalous to step out of the house without your hair perfectly blown out, there was no way Ellie was going out in public looking like this.

She grabbed her cosmetic bag and ran to the bathroom. After a splash of cold water she dabbed on concealer, blush, and just enough powder to take the shine off.

"Mom I'm really hungry," Anthony said, tugging at her arm and almost making her impale her eyeball on the mascara wand.

She was living on borrowed time and she knew it. Though food was the last thing on her mind - she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt anything resembling hunger—she could tell from the subtle change in the pitch of his whine that Anthony was nearing a full on thermonuclear hunger meltdown if he didn't get some calories soon.

"Just a sec honey," Ellie yanked out her ponytail holder and ran a brush through the untidy mess of brunette waves, then secured it once again with the rubber band.

"Mom-meeee! I'm really hungaree!"

"Okay, okay, let's go," Ellie said, shoving her feet into flip flops before she and Anthony headed down the stairs. She grabbed her purse from the table by the front door, and took Anthony's hand as they set off down the sidewalk.

Predictably, Anthony lagged behind, walking so slow her arm was stretched full length behind her even as she slowed to a pace that would have allowed a snail a sizable lead.

"Honey, you have to walk faster," she said, resisting the urge to drag him along behind her.

"Too hungry to walk faster."

Ellie summoned up the last of her patience, silently cursing herself for not making one last stop for an extra bag of chips, nuts, even a piece of fruit. The only option now was bribery.

She squatted down until she was at Anthony's eye level and looked into teary, thickly lashed eyes the color of maple syrup. "Remember how last time you wanted M&M’s from the machine before your burger, and I said no?"

His dark head cocked to the side as if to say, "I'm listening."

Thank God the kid was obsessed with M&M’s. An anomaly among his peers, he could take or leave cakes, cookies, cupcakes, or any other sweet baked treat. But offer him a handful of M&M's or Skittles and he was eating out of the palm of your hand.

"I have four quarters in my purse." Which brought her tally to ten dollars and fifteen cents. But she wasn't going to dwell on that right now. "If you can beat me to the restaurant, you can use all four quarters for M&M's, and you don't even have to eat your cheeseburger first.

"Four quarters!" Anthony crowed, and took off with the kind of bellowing war cry that only comes from five year olds.

"Wait for me at the corner," she reminded him as he took off at a full sprint, his little arms and legs pumping madly.

By the time they traveled the three blocks to the restaurant, Ellie was breathing a little hard from the brisk pace she'd had to maintain to keep up with Anthony's full out run, and she was starting to perspire from the July heat.

"There he is!" Temporarily blinded by the transition from the bright sun outside to the comparatively dim interior of the restaurant, Ellie heard her mother before she saw her.

She blinked a few times, grinning as she watched Anthony launch himself into Adele's arms. Slim and on the short side like her daughters, Adele let out an exaggerated groan as she picked Anthony up into a big bear hug. "Oh, you're getting so big you're going to knock your Nana over!"

"I weigh forty-eight pounds!"

"I believe it."

"Mommy says I eat more than most women she knows."

"Considering the women your Mommy hangs out with appear to eat nothing but lettuce and air, that isn't such an achievement, squirt."

Ellie turned, grinning at the sound of her sister's voice as entered from the bar area to the left. "Now come give your Auntie Molly a kiss."

Anthony turned shyly, digging his toe against the hardwood, only to giggle madly as Molly swooped him up in her arms and started making snorting noises against his neck.

"I've got your burger waiting for you up at the counter," Adele said after Molly had finished assaulting Anthony with kisses and tickles.

"Mom—"

Ellie held up her hand and wordlessly dug the quarters out of her purse. As soon as she dropped them into his plump, outstretched palm he made a beeline for the candy machines that perched next to the banquette where patrons waited to be seated. One full of M&M's, one full of Hot Tamales, they'd been there since the beginning of time. The only thing that had changed was that they now took quarters when they once took pennies.

Now that she had time look around, she realized that more than the charge for a tablespoon for candies had changed. "Wow, the place looks different," Ellie said, peering over Molly's shoulder as she pulled her in for a tight squeeze.

Since she'd last visited over a year and a half ago, the restaurant had gone through a complete transformation. "When did you do this?"

"I told you we were doing some remodeling," Molly replied. "

"I thought that meant getting new furniture or re-doing the floors. But this... this is amazing!"

"We've made a lot of changes," Adele said.

"I can see that," Ellie said, her curiosity piqued at the strong look Adele's remark evoked from Molly. The restaurant looked incredible, the old black and white linoleum floors replaced with hardwood stained a rich mahogany and sealed to a high shine. The Formica tables and plastic chairs had been replaced with wood table tops and matching wood and leather seats.

The bar, too, had been fully refurbished, the old stools replaced with tall high backed leather chairs. From what she could see, it looked like the taps of cheap domestic beer had been swapped out for local Montana artisan brews and there were several premium wines and liquors stocked on the polished wooden shelves.

"You've totally changed the look of the place."

And she wasn't sure how she felt about that, she realized. From the time she was eleven, the restaurant had been her second home. Even as her own life took a turn in a completely different direction than she ever could have anticipated, it comforted her to know that this place, this town always stayed the same.

"We took on a new partner," Molly said, seeming to choose her words carefully, “and he was strongly in favor of recreating the place to give it a more upscale, modern feel."

"Since when does Big Timber need upscale? Unless things have changed dramatically since I was here last, it's still mostly ranchers and mine workers."

"You'd be surprised. Of course, the tourists from out of state appreciate something a little more sophisticated, but even the locals really appreciate the changes." Molly said.

"But taking on an outside partner? Grammy would have sold the place before she ever let that happen," Ellie said.

"It's not like we're working with someone off the street—" Adele started.

Ellie thought she saw Molly give a quick shake of her head but was distracted as the door from the kitchen opened with a slam. She turned, startled, her attention locking onto the huge man standing in the doorway. His shoulders were so broad he practically needed to turn sideways to walk through, and the white dinner plate looked like a saucer in his huge hand. "Here's that burger, Adele," he said in a gravell
y voice as he set the plate on a nearby table.

"Why thank you Brady," her mother replied and gestured to Ellie. "Brady, this is my oldest daughter Ellie and her son, Anthony," she said as Anthony darted toward across the room at the mention of a burger.

Ellie offered her hand and got a quick impression of a strong jaw covered in dark stubble, dark hair peaking from under his backwards ball a cap and deep set, light-colored eyes. As he grasped hers briefly, Ellie got the sense she was being carefully assessed.

"When did you hire him?" Ellie said as he retreated back to the kitchen without another word. "You and Mom have always split up the cooking."

"He was part of the partnership deal," Molly said. There was no missing the sour note to her voice, something Ellie wasn't used to hearing from her usually sunny sister.