Chapter 41: Baby steps
Beth sat in the quiet hum of her study, the taste of him still on her lips, her body humming with a residual, languid heat. She smoothed her skirt down, her fingers trembling only slightly as she re-buttoned her blouse, tucking the chain with the old ring back inside. The reflection in the dark computer screen showed a woman thoroughly kissed, her hair disheveled, her green eyes holding a storm-sated calm. She took a deep, steadying breath, pulling the mantle of control back around her shoulders just as the door swung open.Dove didn’t knock. She never did. She leaned against the frame, a denim jacket slung over one shoulder, her own sharp eyes taking in the scene: the slightly askew chair, Beth’s flushed skin, the too-casual way her sister was straightening a pile of papers.
“Well, look at you,” Dove drawled, a slow smile spreading across her sun-touched face. “All… dewy.”
“I was reviewing the irrigation reports,” Beth said, her voice impressively level. “It’s a stressful topic.”
“Uh-huh.” Dove pushed off the doorframe and sauntered in, dropping into the leather chair opposite the desk. She picked up a polished geode paperweight, turning it over in her calloused hands. “Saw your little Italian storm out of here a minute ago. Looked like the cat who got the cream, if the cream was a high-yield bond and someone just handed him the portfolio.” She set the rock down with a click. “Seems he’s groveling more effectively since his weekend away. You’re practically glowing.Or is that just sweat?”
Beth allowed herself a small, genuine smirk. It was impossible to bullshit Dove.“His methods of apology are… singular. And thorough.”
“I bet.” Dove’s smile turned wicked, then softened into something more observant.“You seem lighter, Beth. Annoying as it is for me to admit it.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me.It’s unnerving.” Beth leaned back, linking her fingers. “Besides, you’re one to talk.How’s Jackson?”
The shift was immediate and satisfying. A faint, dusky pink bloomed across Dove’s cheekbones, the sun-bleached freckles standing out starkly.She looked away, suddenly fascinated by a seam on her jeans. “Jackson is fine.Why wouldn’t he be? He’s doing the rounds on the south fence.”
“Mhmm.” Beth drew the sound out, enjoying herself immensely. “The same Jackson you’ve known since you were both building forts in the old hayloft? The one you hired as head of security fifteen years ago because you ‘needed someone you could trust with your eyes closed’? That Jackson?”
“We’re friends,” Dove stated firmly, her Texas accent thickening with defensiveness.“Good friends.That’s all. That’s all it’s ever been.”
“Right.” Beth stood and walked to the window, looking out at the endless grassland. “And the way you two orbit each other at barbecues, never quite touching, always in the same conversational gravity—that’s just friendly vigilance. The way he watches you when you’re not looking, like you’re the only fixed point in a spinning world. That’s just professional concern.”
“You’re imagining things.” Dove’s voice had lost its playful edge. It was low, tense. “You’re projecting your… your rekindled passions onto my very normal, very functional life.”
Beth turned from the window.“Am I? Dove, you’ve been walking on eggshells around that man since you hit puberty. You’re both so careful it’s a miracle the air doesn’t crack between you.”
“It’s not eggshells,” Dove muttered, crossing her arms.“It’s respect.For a lifelong friendship. You don’t just… risk that on a feeling.What if I’m wrong? What if he doesn’t see me like that? I’d have ruined the best thing in my life besides this dirt.” She uncrossed her arms, gesturing vaguely at the ranch around them. “I can’t.I won’t. It’s too big a bet.”
The raw vulnerability in her sister’s voice caught Beth off guard.This was the real core of it. Not indifference, not lack of attraction, but a fear so profound it had fossilized into inaction. Beth walked back to the desk and perched on its edge, facing her sister.
“You run a multi-million dollar operation that solves problems for some of the most dangerous people on the planet,” Beth said softly. “You stare down hired guns and corrupt politicians without blinking.But you’re scared of Jack? Of his answer?”
“Yes.” The word was a bare exhale.“Because that answer changes everything. And ‘everything’ is the only constant I’ve ever really had out here.” Dove looked up, her green eyes, so like Beth’s but hardened by a different kind of fire, shining with unshed tears she’d never allow to fall. “You built an empire after you walked away from yours.I stayed. This,” she gestured between them, at the room, the land, “is my empire.He’s part of its foundation. I can’t… I can’t gamble the foundation.”
Silence settled between them, filled with the distant lowing of cattle and the whisper of the ceiling fan.Beth understood then. Her own chaos with Damien was a wildfire—dangerous, consuming, impossible to ignore. Dove’s situation with Jackson was permafrost—a deep, permanent layer of ice over something yearning to burst free.
“You’re not gambling,” Beth finally said, her voice quiet but clear. “You’re just finally reading the deed to the land you already own.”
Dove stared at her, a muscle working in her jaw. She stood up abruptly, the chair scraping back. “I have to go check on that south fence.” Her tone was brusque, a foreman’s voice, shutting down the personal confessional.
“Of course you do.” Beth’s lips quirked.
Dove paused at the door, her hand on the knob.She didn’t look back. “For the record,” she said, her voice rough, “your Italian’s groveling technique, while clearly effective, seems derivative. Unoriginal.” A final, weak attempt at their usual sparring.
“Noted,” Beth replied, the smile reaching her eyes. “I’ll be sure to pass along your creative criticism.”
Dove left, closing the door with a firm, definitive click. Beth stayed where she was, the ghost of Dove’s fear hanging in the room alongside the fading scent of Damien’s cologne. The ranch, for all its sprawling peace, was a web of held breaths and stalled hearts. Her own was beating a frantic, eager rhythm again, just thinking of him. But her sister’s… her sister’s was a quiet, persistent ache, a song played for decades on a single, longing note.
Beth looked down at her hand, at the faint imprint of the geode Dove had been holding.Some things appeared solid, cold, unbreakable. But inside, they were all crystal and fire, waiting for the right blow to crack them open.