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Beau Whittaker resisted the urge to reach up and brush the tiny hairs from the back of his neck. Celia always swatted his hand away when he did, and she’d clean him up anyway. But they sure did itch.
He supposed he should be used to all the itching when it came to hair, as he’d grown a full beard over the course of the last ten months, and he only let Celia shave the back and sides of his head to maintain some sort of respect when he went down the canyon to church. Or maybe he did it for his mother, so she wouldn’t reprimand him for letting himself totally turn into a recluse. Or had she said hermit?
It didn’t matter. Beau was tired of defending himself. With Andrew out of the lodge now, and living with his new wife in town, someone needed to live at Whiskey Mountain Lodge and take care of the horses. So what if Beau had let his hair grow out in the process? Didn’t mean he’d cut himself off from society.
Even if he had.
Celia hummed as she kept the clippers running along his scalp. Across the counter, a pot of soup bubbled, giving off the scent of chicken broth and cooked carrots and freshly made pasta. The only thing that could cover the mouth-watering smell of Celia’s town-famous chicken noodle soup was the bread she served with it.
The bowl holding the proofing dough sat beside the stove, and Beau couldn’t wait until his haircut was finished. Then he could get these itchy hairs off his neck, and Celia would start kneading and forming rolls. Once he showered and slicked some gel through his hair, the scent of freshly baked bread would fill this kitchen.
And then, only a bit after that, L. Rhett would arrive. Beau’s muscles bunched at the thought. He knew whoever had been emailing him these past few weeks had been using a pseudonym, as well as a brand new email account. He wasn’t even sure if he was meeting a man or a woman, which was why he’d asked his oldest brother, Graham, to come to the lodge a few minutes before this Rhett person was set to arrive.
Beau hoped the case would be worthwhile, as he hadn’t done much but grow hair and ride horses for a few months now. At the same time, those two things had been exactly what he’d needed in his life, to soothe his ego and to calm his ragged soul. Somehow, sitting in church every week hadn’t done that, as there were so many female eyes watching him. Filled with sympathy at what had happened with his last case—and the woman at the center of it he’d let into his heart.
He exhaled, wishing he could find all the pieces of his most vital organ, and held completely still while Celia finished his haircut.
“There you go,” she finally said, whipping the brush across his neck and ears. She unpinned the drape from around his neck, and he stood to face her.
“Thank you, Celia.”
“Do you want to eat now or after you shower?”
“After.” He clenched his fist so he wouldn’t reach up to touch his neck. “And Graham’s coming over.”
“Don’t I know it? He’s texted me five times about sending soup home for his family.” Celia gave a light laugh and shook her head. “It’s a miracle they all haven’t starved.”
Beau chuckled too and headed down the hall and into the master bedroom. Every one of his brothers had lived in this room at some point over the last few years, but Beau had added the most to the room.
He’d put up pictures of their family, asked Annie to get him some real paintings of the area from local artists, and in the middle of it all, he’d placed a picture of his mom and dad on the day they got married.
He glanced at the photograph now, a twinge of missing racing through him at the familiar face he found on his dad. It was the same one he saw every time he looked into a mirror. Well, before the beard, at least.
Beau paused to look at his mother. Only eighteen when she married his dad, Beau’s mother was the strongest person he knew. She’d raised four boys almost alone as her husband built the largest energy company in Wyoming and ran it for fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.
He was the only brother who’d never left Coral Canyon, except for a few years to finish law school, and he was the only one who was here the day his dad died.
He ran his fingers along the top of the metal picture frame and sighed, wondering if this meeting was a good idea or not. Beau thought himself a good judge of character, even when the only communication he’d had was through email. And whoever had been conversing with him was in a desperate state.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” he muttered to himself as he went to shower. When he returned to the kitchen, complete with his cowboy hat and boots, Graham sat at the counter along with a bowl of soup and three buttered rolls.
“You’re early,” Beau said, settling onto a barstool beside his brother.
“Mm,” Graham said, his mouth full of food and rendering him unable to talk.
But when Celia put a steaming bowl of soup and a plate of rolls in front of Beau, he decided talking was quite overrated too. Especially when there was eating to be done.
Graham finished before him, and asked, “So who’s coming over?”
Beau kept chewing as he tried to figure out how to answer his brother. After swallowing, he said, “Hopefully a new client.”
“And you need me here for that?”
“She’s obviously not telling me who she really is.”
“Then how do you know it’s a woman?” The wind rattled the windows behind them in the dining room.
“I don’t. I just have a feeling,” Beau said. “She wouldn’t show me her case, but insisted that we meet to go over things.” He glanced at the blue numbers on the microwave. “She should be here soon.”
Graham shook his head and reached for his fourth roll. “If you think it’s a woman, what am I doing here?”
“Getting dinner for your family.” Beau elbowed him slightly and dunked a piece of his bread in his soup. “And taking Daisy for a couple of days, remember?”
“Oh, right.” He glanced around for Beau’s Rottweiler. She perked up from her dog bed in the corner of the kitchen. “I guess Bailey needs to draw her for art.” He sounded less than thrilled to have a second dog, even for a few days. “I’m not sure why Bear isn’t good enough.”
“Too old,” Beau joked. “How are Laney and the kids?”
“Just fine,” Graham said. Beau saw them all the time anyway, especially now that he lived out at the lodge.
Jealousy touched Beau for just a moment. There, then gone. He wanted a house full of kids, like the one he’d grown up in. His mother kept telling him he had plenty of time, but he was almost twice her age when she’d gotten married, and he couldn’t even entice a scared woman to stay in town and give their relationship a chance.
Oh, no. Deirdre had chosen her old life down in Colorado over Beau.
His chest pinched and he took an enormous bite of his roll, hoping to quell it. He finished eating, and he and Graham put their dishes in the dishwasher. He’d just stepped into the living room and switched on the fireplace when knocking sounded on the front door.
Graham, who’d just sank into the couch, stood again and met Beau’s eyes. “I guess that’s her.”
Beau ran his hands over his beard and straightened his shoulders. He’d met hundreds of clients over the years, but for some reason this one felt different. He didn’t get a lot of anonymity in Coral Canyon, as everyone knew everyone else’s business. But this person wasn’t from Coral Canyon, he knew that much.
After all, Graham was a tech genius, and he’d tracked the email address to an IP server out of Jackson Hole. Only an hour away, Jackson was at least four times as big as Coral Canyon, with plenty of tourists to gossip about.
He strode over to the door and opened it, Graham right beside him. Together, they stood shoulder to shoulder, filling the doorway and creating a very physical barrier to whoever stood on the stoop.
Sure enough, a woman stood there, haloed in the porch light.
Beau stared as he drank in her long, almost white hair, slight frame, and fair features. She sucked in a breath, her blue eyes turning cold at the same time she deftly reached into her purse and pulled out a canister. She expertly positioned her finger on the top and said, “Who are you?”
Beau couldn’t speak, and he wasn’t even sure why. His muscles had cinched at the sight of the pepper spray, but really it was this woman’s beauty that had rendered him mute and still.
“You rang our doorbell,” Graham said easily, leaning his shoulder into the doorframe on his side. Beau still couldn’t so much as move, or even blink.
“Which one of you is Beau Whittaker?”
Graham hooked his thumb at Beau. “That’d be him.”
Beau lifted his arm, but he didn’t have any conscious thought about it. Why couldn’t he get his voice to work? He’d never been tongue-tied in all of his thirty-four years, but this woman had stolen his very words from him.
The woman glanced over her shoulder and apparently decided that nothing was going to jump out and attack her, as her finger slipped off the nozzle of the canister.
Graham elbowed Beau in the ribs, which made him go, “Oof,” and curl into himself protectively. He glared at his brother, and Graham lifted his eyebrows and chin-nodded toward the beautiful woman still standing on their doorstep.
Beau’s face heated, and he managed to take a step backward. “I’m Beau Whittaker,” he said, extending his hand for the woman to shake. His skin tingled in anticipation of touching her, and he promptly commanded himself to calm down. “You must be L. Rhett?”
Her eyes flew to his, and he realized in that moment that she’d forgotten the fake name she’d used in her correspondence with him.
Didn’t matter. Beau would be getting this woman’s real name and phone number, and his prayers that he’d get this new case shifted to an entirely different level, for an entirely different reason.
