“What’s that?” she asked when she turned toward the land on this side and saw a small splash of color high on the hill.
“I don’t know.” Liam shaded his eyes a moment but shook his head. “I can’t make it out. Let’s go see.” He maneuvered them to a crescent of sand and hopped out when the canoe grounded. Tory got out, too, and they worked together to pull the canoe high on the beach, then set off up the hill. “Hell,” Liam exclaimed when they got closer. “It’s a for sale sign. Can you imagine owning a plot of land out here?”
Tory thought of herself as a city girl, so she was surprised to find the idea resonated. Maybe it was the idea of no one being around to judge her. Except the caretaker of the large property across the lake.
“If I owned it, I’d build a cabin right about here,” Liam said, “with a huge deck. In summer, I’d be out here all the time. I’d go for my swim, come up and… I don’t know, whittle or something while sitting outside. At dinnertime I’d cook a steak.”
“Whittle?”
“I don’t exactly have hobbies. No time,” he explained.
“Would you really want to leave the Flying W?” She tried to picture his vision in her mind.
“Nope,” he said shortly. “I don’t like worrying all the time, but I love ranching.”
“I don’t think I’d want to live out here full time either. It’s fun to think about, but in winter…” She shivered. “It would get lonely.”
“And then there are folks like Rod.”
“But there are folks like Rod everywhere,” she reminded him.
He led the way back down to the canoe. Tory walked behind him, taking in his broad back and muscled shoulders. Liam was fit the way a man who worked the land was fit. All rangy muscles and tanned skin. She missed his smile.
“What?” Liam asked. He’d turned toward her. Must have caught a strange expression on her face.
“Just appreciating the view.”
There it was. That smile. “Tory Cooper, are you flirting with me?”
“What would you do if I was?”
She hadn’t thought the dare through. Liam’s smile grew, and he moved back up the hill toward her. Placing his hands on her hips, he drew her close. “This.”
His kiss was light at first, then deepened until Tory leaned into him, lost in the feel of it. He tasted good, and the feel of his muscular body pressed against hers was much too distracting to allow her to think clearly.
Why couldn’t everything be this simple?
When he pulled back, his gaze searched her face. He must have been satisfied with what he saw there because he took her hand and led her the rest of the way to the canoe.
Tory found that all her earlier worries had slipped away. It was as if she and Liam had edged into some alternate reality in which only they existed. It didn’t matter that she was a Cooper and he a Turner—or what anyone else in their families had done before.
Was this what Lance felt with Maya? Or Olivia with Noah? If so, she couldn’t blame either of them for crossing the dividing lines and hooking up with the enemy.
Still, this couldn’t work long-term. She was going to be a lawyer. Liam wanted to be a rancher. Three years from now they’d live in separate worlds again.
Chapter Three
When Liam’s cell phone rang in his pocket, he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Guess there’s phone reception over here,” he told Tory. “I usually stay on the other side of the lake.”
He pulled out his phone reluctantly. It was Noah. He debated not answering at first, but that would only end with a search party sent out to find him.
“Yeah?” he said, lifting the phone to his ear.
“Where the hell are you? None of your chores are done.”
“Gone walkabout, big brother. You’ll need to handle things for a few days.”
There was a long pause, and Liam thought Noah would come back swinging, but instead he just said, “You need a break, huh?”
“Yeah,” Liam said again, thrown off-balance.
Noah heaved a sigh. “I’ve seen it coming. Been worried about you.” Another pause. “You drinking?”
“Not right now.” Hell, what did Noah mean by that?
“Do you have it under control?”
“Yeah.” When Noah didn’t answer, Liam turned his back on Tory for privacy. “I’m… with someone. Don’t need to drink.”
“Really? Who?”
“Not ready to answer that.”
“She’s real, though?”
“Yeah, she’s real.” He heard a snort from behind him, turned and shot Tory an exasperated look. “I’ve got to go.”
“Not so fast. I’m not calling to make you do your chores. It’s… Mom.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t even know how to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out. Seems she’s short on cash.” Noah hesitated.
Short on cash. Liam rubbed the back of his neck. That explained a few things. “Did she try to sell you on that stupid spa idea?” As far as he was concerned, when his mother walked away and remarried, her concerns became her own.
“She tried. When I shot her down, she gave me an ultimatum. She wants her share of the worth of the ranch.”
A shrill buzz behind him made Liam turn to face Tory again.
Tory drew out her phone, looked at the screen, sighed and paced away to answer it. Liam turned his attention back to Noah. “We don’t owe her anything.”
“She might have a point—”
“No.” Liam was done with all this. “She left. She divorced Dad. They must have split assets when they did that. Whatever he passed on to us is ours.”
“She seems pretty adamant.”
“I’ll be home in twenty minutes.” Liam surveyed the lake, the canoe, the distance between it and the Hunts’ lodge where his truck was parked. “Hell, more like an hour and a half or more.”
“No—stay right there,” Noah said. “I can hold off Mom for a couple of days. Let me and Stella work on her for a while. See
