“Sweet potato pie? I’ve never had it. What’s it taste like?”
“Sort of like pumpkin pie but better.”
“I like pumpkin pie,” she said. “But then, how do you go wrong with any pie?”
“Exactly.” He flashed her a brief grin and her stomach tightened. He returned his gaze to the road. “Anyway, Cora taught Laci a lot of her recipes so at least that legacy is continuing on.”
“Who is Laci?”
“Oh, Laci McCall...”
“You mean the country superstar? The one who recently won a Grammy for her hit single ‘Someday You’ll Belong To Me’?”
“The very same. That song was about my brother, Kane, by the way.”
“Wow. That’s impressive,” she said, forgetting about her aches and pains and general crankiness. “How’d they meet?”
“Nothing too glamorous. We all met as kids. Laci’s dad was a bit of a rambler so he left Laci with the Bradfords each summer when he went logging to make money for the winter. Laci and Kane started a thing and it never went away, even when Kane joined the military and Laci went on to become a big star. They recently found each other again and, well, you know how the story goes.”
“That’s so romantic.”
He laughed. “I guess it sounds romantic but they were spitting mad at each other for a long time. Couldn’t hardly be in the same room together without World War III happening.”
“That’s passion. In Italy, a passionate woman is something to treasure,” she told him. “Passion is what keeps love alive. That spark.”
“It also causes people to react emotionally. How do you think stalkers are born?”
“This is not the same,” she disagreed. “Don’t you believe in love? How can you share that incredible story about your brother and Laci McCall and not believe in love?”
“I didn’t say I don’t believe in it. Clearly, my brother hit the jackpot with Laci but I’m not so delusional that I think that it happens that way for everyone and frankly, I’m too busy with my life to chase after what could turn out to be a pipe dream.”
She frowned. “That’s so...depressing.”
“Why?”
CoCo shrugged. “It just is. Love is what makes life worth living, otherwise you’re just going through the motions until the day you die.”
“Now, that’s depressing.”
“We die alone. Why should you be alone while you’re living?”
He chuckled. “True. But I guess it’s just not for me. I like having variety and being able to do what I want, when I want to. Can’t do that if you’re tied down.”
His answers were honest. She shouldn’t care how Rian felt about relationships or matters of the heart but there was a tiny part of her that cared a lot. It was that tiny part that bothered her. She wasn’t the kind of girl who slept with a guy and suddenly went all gooey over him. In fact, most times it was the other way around. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been hounded by ex-lovers begging her to come back to them. She couldn’t get away fast enough from those ones. So to feel that pinch when Rian admitted his personal philosophy was just par for the course. Shot at, on the run and now secretly pining for a man who wasn’t the least bit interested...yeah, that’s perfect.
12
THEY PULLED INTO the Bradford Ranch around six that night and even though he wasn’t a fan of Woodsville, he loved the ranch. He inhaled a deep breath of the cleansing country air, taking in the faint scent of horses in the barn and cattle in the field, and something inside his chest loosened.
“This is gorgeous,” CoCo admitted, taking in the huge rolling hills and the pretty, lazy creek carving its way through the green valleys. The setting sun bathed the hills in red and orange, setting a halo of light behind CoCo’s head, and Rian had to look away before she realized he was staring too hard. Even hungover with dark circles under her eyes, hair in a tangle, she was breathtaking. It didn’t help that he remembered with excruciating detail how luscious that body was beneath her jean shorts and top. “How many acres?” she asked.