Fall to Pieces (4 page)

Dylan had no business feeling territorial or
possessive of any woman. Especially not a nice girl like Sadie
Thornton.

###

Sadie struggled to concentrate on what her
client was saying, inwardly cringing over her bumbled attempt to
play it cool in front of Dylan.

"Mmm hmm," she said absently as she settled
into her desk chair and flipped open her laptop. What was it about
Dylan Decker that stripped away the last ten years and shot her
right back to high school? The moment she got within five feet of
him, cool, professional, and not hard on the eyes Sadie Thornton
disappeared.

Leaving her feeling like the awkward, gawky
girl she'd been back then. Leaving her with equally strong urges to
stay as close to him as possible and to run as far and fast as she
could before she made a fool of herself.

Well you didn't get away soon enough
today,
she thought glumly.

Who could blame her though, really, she
thought, as her gaze strayed from the app design mock ups on her
computer screen to the driveway below.

From her office window on the first floor she
had could see Dylan, well the lower half of him at least as he bent
to work on the tractor's engine. And what a lower half it was, the
strong muscles of his thighs bunching against he faded fabric of
his jeans. Her gaze drifted higher, to his perfectly sculpted butt
that she knew would be rock hard under her hands.

Her fingers curled against the polished wood
of her desk, heat blooming low in her belly as she imagined
pressing them against the hard swell of muscle, preferably with
nothing between his skin and hers—

"Do you think you can do that?" Mary Derwin's
clipped voice snapped her to attention.

"I, yes, of course," Sadie replied, wincing
as she realized she had no idea what she was agreeing to.

"Good, then I'll expect the prototype day
after tomorrow."

Shit.
The mobile app Mary had
contracted Sadie to build for her chain of high end boutiques had
grown in scope with every conversation, and the back end data
management was nowhere near ready to support half the functionality
she expected in the prototype.

She bit her tongue against the protest that
there was no way she could deliver it in just two days’ time. Mary
Derwin was a rising star on the fashion scene. Not only were her
boutiques frequented by celebrities, her blog had a cult like
following on both coasts. If Sadie got Mary's new mobile shopping
app up and running in time for the upcoming launch in august, it
would be a huge boon for her business.

And if that meant working twenty four/seven
for the next two days, in between picking up the slack around the
ranch now that they were down to just one hand, and making sure her
father took his medication and didn't sneak any pork rinds, then
she'd do it.

She ended her call with Mary and sent off an
email with the updated screenshots from the app for Mary to review.
She cursed under her breath as the send status bar moved at a
glacial pace. Though the satellite internet connection here at the
ranch was the fastest available, it was nothing close to the 35
megabits per second she was used to. Yet another challenge in
trying to keep her career moving forward out here in the
boonies.

It's only temporary.
She reminded
herself.
Soon enough you'll be able to leave again for blazingly
fast wifi and a life free of the responsibilities of running the
ranch
.

She went back to read over her notes from the
call with Mary, but the words swam before her eyes as her thoughts
drifted back to the man working outside.

Just a silly high school crush. You are so
over it.
Yeah, that's what she'd told herself after they
graduated from high school and left Big Timber, he for the Army and
she for the University of Colorado. The Sadie Thornton who spent
the years between thirteen and eighteen pining after Dylan—the one
with the braces and the glasses and the too tall body that
resembled a stick figure with hair—was left in her rearview along
with her hometown.

That's what she'd thought, until she'd seen
him last week at the Last Chance. When his eyes had flared with
male appreciation at the changes in her appearance.

Then she'd gone and fallen on her ass on the
dance floor.

He'd laughed it off, but she couldn't have
made it more obvious that while her outward appearance may have
changed significantly in the past ten years, she was still the same
goofy, awkward girl who would never have a chance with a guy like
Dylan.

While she'd been busy scheming how to make a
play, she'd managed to put herself firmly back in the friend
zone.

Shaking her head, she put on her noise
canceling headphones and cranked up Pandora and forced her
attention back to work.

Soon she was deep into building the back end
data stream, unaware of how much time had passed until an
unexpected hand on her shoulder made her jump out of her chair.

Her iPod flew from the desk and clattered to
the floor as it disconnected from her headphones. Sadie's hand
flattened against her chest to still the rapid beating of her
startled heart as she turned to see June, their house keeper of
fifteen years, standing next to her chair, looking as startled as
Sadie felt.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you. You
didn't answer when I knocked."

"It's okay," Sadie said, inwardly rolling her
eyes. How many times would June have to give her a heart attack
before she heeded Sadie's gentle reminders to text her if she
didn't immediately answer a knock on her door? She picked up her
phone and saw that it was twelve-thirty, which meant June was
summoning her for lunch.

"You're father's already at the table," June
said, a smile creasing her plump cheeks. "And I'm just about to
pull the chicken out of the oven."

Sadie pasted a smile on her face and made
approving sounds, bracing herself to get through the next half hour
or so.

When she got to the dining room, she found
her father, Jim, seated at the head of the table. Also seated was
Pete, who had joined Jim for the noonday meal every day for as long
as Sadie could remember.

As Sadie took her seat and dropped her napkin
into her lap, June emerged from the kitchen with a platter piled
high with roast chicken, and a bowl of green beans. She served her
father first, ignoring his protests as she carefully peeled the
skin off the chicken breast. Then came Pete, then Sadie before June
took her own seat.

After saying Grace, Sadie picked up her fork
and knife and cut a small piece off the chicken thigh June had
placed on her plate. Sadie forced herself to chew and swallow the
bland, flavorless meat and thought mournfully of how June's roast
chicken had once been one of her favorite dishes.

Juicy, succulent, full of flavor.

But that was before her father's heart attack
and skyhigh blood pressure had necessitated a low salt diet. June
had taken it one step further, eliminating all seasonings
whatsoever.

Sadie stabbed a green bean and brought it to
her lips, but it wasn't any better. As she chewed she thought
grimly of a guy she'd dated back in San Francisco. A vegan who ate
mostly raw food, Tegan had espoused the virtues of vegetables in
their purest form, free of anything to mask their flavor.

He was right, at least when they were talking
about organic vegetables fresh from the farmers’ market.

Green beans boiled within an inch of their
life?

Not so much.

Though her tastebuds were screaming in
protest, her stomach was grumbling, so she choked down a few more
bites as her father and Pete attacked their plates with gusto.

June gave her a little nudge on the arm and
shot a meaningful look in Jim's direction. Sadie responded with a
small nod. "Dad, have you taken your pills today?"

Her father stopped chewing long enough to
glower at her. "You don't need to babysit me, young lady."

Sadie stifled the urge to point out that,
yeah, she kind of did, which was exactly why, despite her natural
inclination to preserve her own sanity, she'd given into June's
pleas to move back after his heart attack nearly four months
ago.

"He needs someone there around the clock in
case something happens," June had said when Sadie floated the idea
of returning to San Francisco a few days after her father was
released from the hospital. "And I can't move back to the ranch,
not with my mother the way she is."

After years of living in a little cabin next
to the main house, June had moved back to town shortly before
Christmas the year before after her elderly mother had suffered a
fall. While her mother had an aide who came during the day while
June was at work, Jim Thornton didn't pay June nearly enough to
afford round the clock care.

Fortunately Jim didn't have any such
financial constraints. "Between Dad and I we can afford to hire a
full time in home health care worker until he's back on his
feet—"

"Have you met your father?" June said with an
exasperated laugh. "You know he'll never put up with that. Besides,
you heard the doctor. He won't need a full time nurse or anything
like that. He just needs someone around to make sure he takes his
medicine, doesn't overdo it, and can be there at night in case
something happens."

Sadie shook her head, torn, as all the love
hate emotions that went along with the prospect of moving back to
her father's ranch erupted to the surface. "Pete will is always
there—"

June rolled her eyes. "With your father laid
up, Pete will be even busier running the ranch. You think he'll
remember to tell Jim to take his medication when he's busy working
all day?" Her solemn brown eyes leveled with Sadie's. "Your father
needs someone to look after him Sadie. He needs you."

It only took a few days for Sadie to realize
that June needed her just as much, if not more. To be the bad cop,
to be the nag, because unlike June, Sadie couldn't be subdued with
the threat of being fired.

"So you took it then?" Sadie said and took a
sip of water in a futile attempt to cleanse her palate.

Her father muttered under his breath as Sadie
pushed back from the table and went to the kitchen to retrieve her
father's pill box. Sure enough, "Wednesday" still held today's
Plavix and fish oil supplement. She picked them out and filled a
glass with water from the tap, as her eyes sought out the fruit
bowl in search of additional sustenance. Only when she found it
empty did she remember she'd eaten the last apple after dinner the
night before.

She returned to the dining room and held the
water and pills out to her dad.

"I don't know why the hell I need these
anyway," Jim said peevishly.

"Because they keep your blood from clotting,"
Sadie sighed, picked her father's hand off the table and dropped
the pills into his palm.

"They also keep my dick from getting hard,"
he snapped, ignoring June's startled gasp.

Sadie stifled her own reflexive "ew." "Well a
hard dick won't do you much good if your heart stops, will it?" she
snapped back.

"Sassy little thing," her dad retorted, and
swallowed the pills.

Sadie felt a surge of warmth in her chest at
the unmistakable glint in her father's eyes. Her father only
respected those who stood up to him, who refused to buckle in the
face of his surliness, and the only time Sadie got even a hint of
approval was when she gave back as good as she got.

Unfortunately, Sadie hadn't realized this
until well into adulthood, after a childhood spent trying to be
quietly obedient in a futile effort to win his approval.

Turned out, all she needed was a little
attitude.

And a penis,
a sneaky little voice
reminded her.

A wave of exhaustion rushed over her. While
she'd never be the son he wanted, she could force herself to stand
up to him even if it meant overcoming her natural inclination to
avoid conflict. Not to gain his approval anymore, she reminded
herself. But to get him healthy so she could get her own life back,
instead of having to balance all of her responsibilities here while
not neglecting the career she'd worked so hard to build.

Still, while the business called to her in
the form of the crushing deadline Mary Derwin had imposed, Sadie
lingered at the table while June served coffee and the men talked
quietly about the plans for this summer's crop of yearlings, the
fall sale, and the breeding plan for the upcoming year.

Though she'd been conflicted about coming
back, even temporarily, there was something refreshing about being
back in a world where work revolved around the seasons, around the
land. Where pulling an all nighter meant crouching in a barn while
a mare foaled, not hunching over a keyboard coding her brains
out.

While she couldn't imagine ever coming back
to this life permanently—and her father had made it clear on many
occasions that he neither expected or wanted that—it was nice to
come back to this life she'd grown up in, so different from the one
she'd made for herself.

The subject moved onto the hay harvest. It
was a relatively new business for her father, but a highly
lucrative one. With all of the drought going on in the other parts
of the country, big cattle ranchers were now willing to pay top
dollar for any surplus. Depending on the acreage and how many
cuttings, a hay farmer could make into the six figures on one
summer's harvest.

In the Thorntons’ case, they'd already done
three cuttings of the hundred acres of alfalfa they'd planted. With
this next cut, they stood to make a substantial amount of
money.

"I talked to Belkin down outside of Durango.
He'll be ready to take delivery at the end of August."

"I thought we were going to sell to the Bar
twelve in Texas," Sadie interjected.