Was she standing? Or was she now a puddle on the floor?
Maybe it was love.
“Do you want to know what I want?”
“Truth?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Absolutely, truth.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I want to hold you in my arms while you tell me all about Montana. I want to picture you growing up on a ranch with your daddy and mom and brothers and sisters. I want to hear what it was like being the youngest York girl.”
All the time he was saying those seductive words he was guiding her back to their little nest of tablecloths. Soon they were settled down and she was safely tucked in beside him, her head resting against his chest, his arms around her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Anything.”
Eden didn’t just tell him about her family, she painted pictures in his mind. He could see what her childhood was like on the Montana ranch. The York men were big and gruff, starting with her grandfather down to her brothers, but the biggest influence was her father. The town sheriff. She explained how most ranchers had to have a second job to keep a ranch afloat in Montana, but for her dad, serving the people was a calling. He believed in justice and helping the people of his community.
If Richard York was the solid rock foundation of the family, then Heidi York was the soft landing for her husband and children. But while she always provided the comfort and good cooking that her family needed, she never shirked her duty as a rancher’s wife, and Eden explained there wasn’t a chance in hell that the family business could have thrived like it did without her sure hand at the tiller.
Then there was the ranch itself—eight thousand acres of cattle, with a little less than two thousand head of cattle. There was the cherry orchard that had been planted by her great-great-grandfather and was definitely Heidi’s domain. The family revolved around the ranch, and it gave them a sense of pride, instilled ethics and honor, and taught them the value of hard work and teamwork. It was a good way to raise a family.
“Don’t get me wrong, there were lean years, and we wouldn’t have survived without Daddy’s salary as sheriff. Hard winters where calves died, or strong winds that damaged the cherry trees. But we learned not to whine and just make the most of what we did have.”
“Did that make it tough at school?”
“You mean because I was wearing hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs? Nah, everybody knew not to mess with me, because my brothers would take exception.”
Asher raised his eyebrow. He wasn’t stupid—he’d had a girlfriend in high school—he knew how vicious the girls could be, all without lifting a finger.
“Fine, it wasn’t always fun, and there were mean girls,” Eden admitted. “Plus, I was considered teacher’s pet, because I was smart. But my brothers and sisters were my best friends…finally. Lori and Jennifer were eight and ten years older than me, and they were always great big sisters because they had done all the shitty sister stuff to one another. By the time I showed up, they were just supportive and nice. Bobby had grown out of his asshole-brother stage by then.”
“But you didn’t tell me about school,” Asher prompted.
Eden pushed against his chest so she could look into his eyes.
“But I did,” she protested. “School was just a jumping-off point for college. What mattered was my family and the ranch. Yeah, I made some friends, had some dates, but anything that was negative mostly rolled off my back. Hell, by the time I was a freshman in high school, Pete had come back home with part of his leg missing. How could I ever think that some mean girl bullshit was important after that?”
Asher couldn’t help himself. He hugged her close. “You amaze me.”
“There’s nothing amazing about me. Now, my family, my parents. They are the amazing ones.”
Behind her back, he looked at his watch. They still had a half-hour before check-in time. Asher bent in for a kiss, but she shoved at his chest.
“Uh-uh. Now it’s your turn.”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “I told you about Xavier. My mom is different than yours. You hit yours with anything, don’t you?”
“Definitely,” Eden grinned.
“Maman has been hit hard by life, losing her husband when her boys were, ten, twelve and fourteen and she was trying to hold down a job in a foreign country. But she managed.”
“I don’t know, that sounds a lot like what my mom would do.”
“But the woman she was, shut down. We didn’t have her for a couple of years. Don’t get me wrong, she functioned brilliantly. Never once did she start leaning on us, she was always Maman. But her heart was missing. Not mean or anything, but not the woman we had grown up with. But when Xavier left for the Army, she snapped out of it. It was like she realized that she wasn’t experiencing her time with her sons. I feel bad that for the last four years he was home he missed out on her spark.”
The entire time he’d been speaking, Eden had been drawing circles on top of his t-shirt, providing him comfort. His lioness cared.
“And Law?”
“God, I’m worried about him. He’s so angry. He doesn’t talk.”
“Like you?” she asked softly. There was no hint of a smirk, which he would have expected. Then he realized of course she wouldn’t. Underneath the hard smart-ass exterior was a soft, compassionate creamy center.
“No. I’ve talked to some of my teammates, and I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject so I
