The Romeo Arrangement

How? How the hell can she be a hundred times prettier this morning than last night?

“Were you out in the barn already?” I ask her, after everyone has had a good chance to sample their breakfast.

Nodding, she swallows before saying, “I was. I fed the horses, bright and early like they’re used to. Oh, and Cornelius. I took care of him, too.”

“He didn’t peck your eyes out?”

“Nope, sure didn’t.” She grins. “He crowed a few times. You weren’t kidding about the set of lungs on that guy.”

I nod, fighting back a smile. That sounds a lot more like the literal cock I know.

“That’s what he does, never misses a chance to announce his presence to the world. I think maybe they haven’t heard him down in Sydney yet.”

She flashes me a smile fit to kill at my idiot joke.

Mayday.

“We’ll be heading out shortly,” Nelson says, taking another bite of scrambled eggs and chewing loudly.

That’s about all he’s eaten, a few bites of eggs, and his breathing sounds labored again.

“Not today,” I reply, setting my fork and knife down. “It takes forty-eight hours or more for the plows to make it out here sometimes. Your truck will never make it to the highway through these drifts. Even without a horse trailer.”

I’d had a hell of a time keeping it moving through the pathway the dually opened ahead of us last night.

The snow quit falling sometime early this morning, but those drifts must be four to six feet high in all the usual tight overflow spots along the driveway. I could see them from the windows upstairs.

“Don’t you have a plow?” Grace asks, setting down her fork. “Or even a tractor with a bucket? I could help you clear this place out.”

Tobin smiles like he’s just switched on one of his damn operas.

“No, unfortunately,” I say, shooting a glare at him. “They warned me, but hearing it and living through your first winter here is something else. Especially when my friend here thought a plow would be excessive.”

Tobin winks at me from across the table.

Leave it to a man who’s spent his entire life in balmy SoCal to underestimate General Winter. Tobin practically laughed at me when I suggested buying a plow back in October.

He wasn’t onboard with this whole ranch idea from the beginning, and he’d suggested we wait until after winter to decide on more equipment, just in case we decided not to stick it out here.

“I hire a guy to plow right now, but he has other places on his route and his first duty’s to the city of Dallas. He won’t be here until tomorrow, probably. We never need to go anywhere fast.”

I flash Tobin a look again, grateful I’d ignored him on one thing last year. At least I’d bought the four-wheel drive dually so we could still push through for emergencies.

“Well, then, we’ll pay you if we’re well and truly stuck here,” Nelson says. “For lodging and—”

“Forget it,” I tell him. “I don’t need your money. The good company’s payment enough.”

Cash is the last thing I need. Between my royalties and a sizable inheritance from Dad’s old company, now absorbed into a major airline, I’ll have a hard time spending a fraction of a billion dollars before I die, even if I live to be two hundred years old.

“How ’bout flowers? Could you use a few of those?” Nelson asks, lifting his brows.

“Dad!” Grace shoots her father a scowl.

I hear her foot scuff the floor, no doubt from giving him a kick under the table. I fight back the urge to smile.

“Flowers, huh? Enlighten me,” I say.

“That’s what she does.” Nelson coughs into his sleeve. “The girl’s a natural, puts ’em together in the prettiest arrangements you’ve ever laid eyes on. Does them up nice and fresh, too. Better than the ones you’ve got sitting on that little stand where we walked in. No offense.”

The amusement in Tobin’s eyes dies. He sits up straighter in his chair, reaching for the food in the center of the table.

“Would anyone care for more bacon?” he asks, holding up the platter still heaped with crisp, fried strips.

It’s no secret what he’s doing.

The flowers Nelson mentioned are the yellow silk roses under my mother’s portrait in the entryway. I’d had it installed right before the house was move-in ready.

Mom loved yellow roses till the end.

Our house was full of them growing up. Somehow, her dressing rooms at the studios and most of the hotels she’d ever stayed in had at least one or two bunches of them hanging around, too.

Wherever that woman went, she left a trail of beautiful, delicate gold in her wake. Like she couldn’t resist making this world just a little bit brighter.

If only it repaid her in kind.

When she died, we made sure her casket was draped in a cloud of airy yellow bouquets.