chapter 34

If you two could give it a rest for a minute, I've got something I want to talk to

Colin about," she announced.

"What's that?" Colin asked. He was glad to be off the subject of his love life, though

he felt a prickle of dread about what his mother might want.

"Well, since we're talking about pain-in-the-butt brothers, there's something you can

do for yours."

Given the description, there was no question she was talking about Liam.

He raised his eyebrows in question.

"Well, you know he's crazy about that vet," she said, a scowl on her face that, in

anyone else, would have meant that she didn't much care for Liam's girlfriend. But in

Sandra's case, it was just her usual expression.

"Yeah. And?" Colin prompted her.

"And, they're trying to do some kind of long-distance relationship, one or the other

of them always flying here or there. It's a waste of money, you ask me. Plus, that kind of

thing never works. A recipe for some kind of ugly breakup, and before you know it,

Liam's going to be moping around even worse than you are."

"They seem to be managing it," Colin said. "They—"

"Are you going to listen to what I have to say, or are you going to talk just to hear

the sound of your own damned voice?" Sandra groused at him.

Colin couldn't help grinning. "Sorry. Go on."

"Well …" She peeled the rubber gloves off her hands and threw them onto the

counter. "I figure it's time for Liam to move back home. He's been asking about it."

"He has?" This was the first Colin had heard of it.

"Of course he has. You think I'd lie to you?" She glowered at him. "I told him he

should come on back. But that means we've got nobody out in Montana to keep an eye

on the place. Desmond's good with the cattle—he knows how to run a ranch—but he's

not a Delaney."

Colin could feel the beginnings of a headache, and he rubbed his forehead with

weary forbearance.

"You want me to move out there. To where Julia is. And that's, what, just a

coincidence? I'm not supposed to realize this is a matchmaking scheme?"

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter what you do or don't realize," she snapped at him. "I

still need somebody out there in Montana. And once you're there, if you're too big a fool

to make a play for your woman, well, there's not much I can do about that."

She snapped the gloves up off the counter, put them back on her hands, and went

back to scrubbing the inside of the freezer.

"Send Ryan," Colin suggested.

"Don't be an ass," Gen told him.

"I'm not moving to Montana," he said.

Colin got up from the table, went upstairs to his room, and settled in with his laptop

to get some long-overdue work done. He had to check in with the property managers he

had working for him all up and down the state. He had to deal with a frivolous lawsuit

that had been filed against the family by a tenant who was just looking to reach into the

Delaneys' deep pockets. And he had to try again to get through to Drew.

The DNA test had been completed, and Drew was, indeed, Redmond's son. So, that

was taken care of. But the man had refused to take Colin's advice about getting a

financial adviser, and he'd also resisted Colin's efforts to educate him on the Delaney

holdings—and his own new holdings, in particular. He did generally accept Colin's

phone calls, but the conversations were brief and ended with Drew shutting him down.

Colin understood that Drew was having a rough time adjusting to everything that

was happening to him, but McCray wouldn't have the luxury of brooding for much

longer without some serious consequences. Now that his new status as a man of wealth

was becoming public, the vultures would start circling. If Drew wasn't prepared, he'd get

eaten alive.

Colin had compiled a list of very good advisers who could help Drew if he'd let

them. Which he probably wouldn't. He e-mailed the list to Drew along with a plea—one

of many—that he gets his head out of his ass and start taking the responsibility of his

inheritance seriously.

Then, he found himself staring blankly at the wall and thinking about Montana.

Would it be such a bad idea to move out there? He'd been growing increasingly tired

of San Diego. More and more these days, he felt like the city and the people he knew

there didn't have much to offer him. His condo was top of the line, but it wasn't home.

It was beginning to feel like a beautifully furnished prison.

He'd been out to the Montana ranch many times, and if there was anywhere on this

earth as beautiful as Cambria, it was there. A man could have space to think in a place

like that. He'd have room to consider what he really wanted. To reevaluate.

And if things happened to start up again with Julia, well, that could only be an item

in the plus column.

After a day or two of thinking it over, he announced to his parents that he would go

to Montana after all. At first, he decided to make the move on a trial basis. He'd keep his

condo in San Diego just in case things didn't work out. And by things, he meant Julia. If

she shot him down again, he'd have a place he could slink away to—somewhere he could

feel sorry for himself and lick his wounds, as far away from her as possible.

But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed stupid to think that he needed

an escape plan. If he did this thing half-assed, it was like begging to fail. Since when had

he taken the safe route? Since when had he ever been afraid to commit?

He didn't even like the San Diego condo. Why would he even want to escape there,

in any event?

He got back to San Diego after his mother's birthday, thinking there was only

one course of action for him. He had to plunge headlong into this thing, and if Julia didn't

want him, then he'd man up and find someone who did. And he'd do it in Montana, on

his family's ranch. Not in some sterile penthouse in a city with too goddamned many

surfers.

He had some loose ends to tie up in Southern California, and so he tied them over

the next few weeks. Then he packed the things he wanted to take with him to Montana

and arranged for movers to put everything else in storage.

When it came down to choosing which of his possessions he liked enough to haul

them 1,300 miles, he was surprised at how little cut. Two suitcases, a few

boxes. On the day he put the boxes and the luggage into his Mercedes and headed north on

Interstate 15, he expected to feel the loss of all that he was leaving behind. But he didn't.

He felt free.

By late May, Julia's professional life was gaining momentum again; the warmer weather

had thawed the ground, and she could begin to work in earnest on the projects she'd

sketched out and thought about through the cold of winter.

Her final designs had been approved for the Bozeman hotel job, and the necessary

permits were in hand. Mike and his crew were set to begin construction on the structures

and the hardscape, and Julia and her team of gardeners were ready to begin the plantings.

She couldn't wait to get her hands into the soil. She was pretty sure hard outdoor

work was the only thing that would get her mind off of Colin, and that was something she

needed even more than she needed the money from the job. Thinking about him had put

her off her game, and that wasn't okay, especially now, when she had entire crews of

workers dependent on her for their incomes. The crews wcountedon her, and the

client wcountedon her, so being distracted and incompetent was not an option.

And aside from her various obligations, she simply loved the work. Throwing herself

into her job was the only thing that might make her feel like herself again. It was the only

thing that might make her feel whole.

Late one Thursday afternoon when she got home from the job site, she was feeling

so relatively okay for a change that she almost forgot to stalk Colin on the Internet.

Almost.

She showered, put on clean sweatpants and a T-shirt, poured herself a glass of wine,

and began to think about what she should have for dinner. But the thought of dinner made

her think about how much it sucked to eat alone. Which made her think about dinner

dates, which made her think about Colin.

Which made her think about how horribly, pathetically lonely she was without him.

You're hopeless, Julia. Absolutely frigging hopeless.

And that was how she found herself in front of her laptop, calling up whichever

Delaneys she could find on Facebook.

It would have been so much easier to stalk Colin if he'd had his own Facebook

profile, but because he didn't, she had to stalk him through Gen and Breanna. She

perused Breanna's timeline, fairly convinced that she wouldn't find anything useful there,

but giving it a try nonetheless.

What she saw made her gasp as though she were drowning and had just come up for

air.

On Breanna's timeline was a picture of her with Liam, each of them with an arm

thrown over the other's shoulder, both smiling at the camera. In her post, she commented

about how happy she was to have Liam home for good.

In the comments below, someone inquired about how that had come about. And

Breanna answered that Colin had taken Liam's place at the ranch in Montana.

Julia felt dizzy, and she realized she'd stopped breathing.