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“Yes. I don’t think he meant it to become what it did, it was just something he liked to do, and there wasn’t much of that, back then. He liked the ranch work, but that was about it.”
“So he really was a cowboy?”
“Still is, when he needs to be.” He smiled. “Our dad used to say once a cowboy, always a cowboy.”
She managed a smile back. “It’s a sort of mindset, isn’t it?”
“It’s exactly that.” He gave her a sideways look again. “The thing is, he’s always been kind of separate from people. Even us, sometimes, but everybody else, definitely.”
She realized he was telling her this to warn her off—and she tried not to think of how embarrassing it was that he, or more likely Sydney had realized it was necessary—but she also thought she might be able explain a little.
“I think…it’s more being one step back. I do the same, because I tend to look at people and things and see how they would photograph. It puts a slight…not barrier, but distance between us. It’s not that I want to be apart, it’s just that’s where my mind goes first.”
There were other reasons, of course, but she wasn’t about to get into that here, with this man.Hey, don’t worry, I know your gorgeous, amazing brother isn’t going to fall for plain, boring little me, with all my troubles.
“That makes sense,” Keller said as he slowed the truck to make the turn onto the road out to the ranch. “And it would explain why he reacts to you so differently. Because you get it, you’re on the same wavelength or something.”
She blinked, and went very still.He reacts to you so differently.She clamped down on a suddenly racing mind that was plowing through all the possible meanings of those words.
“But whatever it is,” Keller went on, “he’s more…here, more present, around you than we’ve seen in years.” He gave her a wry smile. “We’d have been more worried than we were about him, if we hadn’t been so worried about Chance.”
“Meaning Chance following in your father’s footsteps?” she asked, seizing at the change of topic.
“Yes. And we were afraid his goal was to end up the same,” Keller said with surprising frankness. “But we didn’t know where Ry was headed. Or what to do to help him.”
“And then he found his calling.”
“Yes. But he’s still that step back, as you put it.”
“I think it must be the artist in him. To be as good as he is, you have to be…observant. Of all the details of the world around you. And that takes a moment, before you can tune back in, sort of.”
He turned his head for a moment then, to look straight at her. “Except around you. Around you, he’s right there from the get. He practically vibrates.”
There was an undertone in his voice that put her on edge. Warning again? And that quickly she was back to wondering if that’s what this was. But why would he warn her? He could only be worried about his brother. He certainly wouldn’t care if she was silly enough to fall for the guy and get herself hurt. But he couldn’t possibly think she’d somehow hurt Ry? How could she? True, perhaps they connected on an artistic level—no matter his denials that he was one—but that was all it was. All it could possibly be.
My God, how did I ever have such an ugly duckling child? You’d better look for an unattractive man who can’t do any better, girl.
As she remembered her mother’s rueful, pained words, she thought of how she would laugh her head off at the very idea that a man who looked like Rylan Rafferty would be attracted to her.
And that moment last night? What was that?
Proximity, that’s all. An accident. No more meaningful than bumping into a stranger on the street.
“I’m just saying he’s different with you,” Keller said, a note in his voice that said he’d been waiting for a response from her, and when it hadn’t come because she had no words, he thought he needed to explain.
She steeled herself, tried for a neutral tone. “Meaning?”
“Just…that it’s good to see him like that.”
There was such love in his voice it shook her. It reminded her of the way her father had sounded, when he soothed her after her mother had gone off on one of her binges.
She stared at him as they drove the final few yards to the ranch turn. “I really meant it when I said I wished I’d had a brother like you.”
He pulled the truck to a stop at the gate. Then he shifted in the driver’s seat to look at her. “I know you did. Sydney said you sounded like she felt, when she first came here.” He grimaced. “Between the two of you, I’m becoming a believer that people should have to pass a test to become parents.”
“And some people are born with everything it takes to do it right,” she said quietly, holding his gaze.
A slow smile curved his mouth. These Rafferty men were truly quite something. “I’m glad you’re staying,” he said.
