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“They’re leaving it open, I hear,” Mom had gone on. “Not killing off the character. He’s going to go missing or something.”
“So they’re going with reality?” She’d asked it a little too sweetly, and her mother had given her that look that told her she’d gone a bit too far. “Sorry, Mom. I know you like the guy.”
“And, you should perhaps remember, I have excellent taste in men.”
She’d glanced toward the man coming into the kitchen with the last of the dinner dishes. And Nic could do nothing else but agree. Because her father was the prototype for Nic’s ideal man. So far in her life, she’d never met his match.
And that still held, because this man who pretended to be someone else for a living wasn’t even close.
She suppressed a little shiver now as she remembered how she’d nearly dropped the plate she’d been putting in the dishwasher at the shock of even thinking about Jackson Thorpe in that way. As big as he’d gotten, as fast as it had happened, had to have made him think he could do no wrong. She’d dealt with an ego like that once and was not about to try again. And there she went again, thinking about it as if it were even a possibility. On either side.
My ego may have inflated, but it’s not that huge.
His words came back to her now, as she watched him smile at his son as he stroked Pie’s dark nose. Maybe his ego wasn’t huge by Hollywood standards, but it would probably overshadow anybody she knew. Currently, anyway, and as long as she stayed out of Austin.
“If you want to brush him, he’ll be your friend for life,” she said to Jeremy, who lit up at the idea. She got him the brush, instructed him to follow the way the hair grew, and he got to it.
“Why is his name Pie? Does he like to eat it?”
She smiled at the boy. “No, although he probably would if he got the chance. Pie is short for piebald, which is what they call a black-and-white pinto, as opposed to a brown-and-white one.”
“Oh.” The boy’s serious expression gave her the distinct feeling he was filing that away as important knowledge.
For several minutes they just watched the pair, Nic with amusement, his father with an expression resembling... joy? That thought rattled her a bit for some reason she didn’t want to analyze right now.
Very quietly, so quietly Jeremy wouldn’t hear, he spoke. “I know I’ve said thank you before—”
“And you don’t need to again,” Nic cut him off, but nicely. “Seeing any child this happy is a good thing, but one with his backstory? It’s wonderful.”
“That’s very . . . understanding of you.”
“I was nearly in the same boat. And the thought of losing my mother nearly broke me, even at the age of twenty. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been for him, so young.”
“We wouldn’t have made it if not for Tris.”
“Your sister?” She remembered the woman who’d been with him that first day by Asa’s statue, the woman with dark-auburn hair, but those same deep-blue eyes.
He nodded. “She essentially moved in with us right after it happened and stayed for nearly a year. I tried to convince her to stay permanently, but she missed this place.” His mouth twisted into a wry grimace that was very expressive, and she couldn’t help wondering if he used that to effect while playing his part. “And she doesn’t much care for L.A.”
“I’m with her on that one,” Nic said dryly.
“I got that impression,” he said, a shade too neutrally. Obviously she hadn’t hidden her distaste very well.
“Last Stand is a great place,” she said. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
“You were born here?”
“Right here in Jameson Hospital,” she confirmed. “My family has been here a long time. Not as long as the originals, but we love it just as much.”
“The originals?”
“That’s what I call the families who have been here since the last stand. The Raffertys, the Valencias, the Highwaters.”
“Highwater. That’s the guy who runs the saloon, who’s married to the librarian.”
She nodded. “And his oldest brother’s our police chief, and a fine one. The other brother’s a detective. Their sister runs their ranch, which is one of the bigger ones in the area.”
“As big as yours?”
