He’d probably never spent so much time wondering about someone before. At least someone who wasn’t himself or an opponent on the ice. But Mel was like no one he’d ever known. Or maybe he’d just never started paying attention until hockey was out of the picture. Until everything was out of the picture.
She turned onto a dirt road that curved up and around a hill. In the valley below, a few buildings seemed to nestle into the earth, like they were sunk there, not built on top. If his place looked old, this place looked ancient. Deserted versus well-used, but both with the heavy weight of the mountains settled on top.
“Here she is,” Mel said, driving onto gravel and winding down toward a cabin-type house. It was bigger than his place, two stories. There was a porch in the front and one above on the second story. A little saggy, a little worn, but it looked cozy. Inviting. A family’s home.
Mel pulled in front of a detached garage. She paused as if she was going to say something, but then shook her head and got out of the truck, so he followed suit.
She led him to a side door and stepped into the type of room Mom had always made him throw his gear into. A mudroom, she’d called it, though hockey had never had anything to do with mud.
Obviously ranching did, if the muddy rubber mat on the floor was any indication.
“Lose the shoes, Sharpe,” Mel ordered, pulling her own off.
“But I’m not wearing boots.”
“You should be. I don’t mop, so we don’t do shoes in the house. Lose them. And while we’re on the subject, you really need to get a working wardrobe.”
“Are you going to Pretty Woman rancher me?”
“Are you a hooker with a heart of gold?”
He laughed and followed her farther inside, reminding himself not to stare at her ass while in her family’s house. Even he had manners sometimes.
They stepped into a dim, spacious kitchen that looked much more up-to-date than the one back at his ranch, although not nearly as modern as his place in Chicago.
A young man walked in from another entrance. “Hey, Mel. Oh…”
“Caleb, this is Dan. Dan, my brother Caleb.” She gave Caleb a nudge when he walked over to her. “Do not feed his ego. I have enough problems with this one,” she muttered.
Dan shook the man’s outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Big fan,” Caleb said in a low voice, glancing at Mel over his shoulder.
She scowled, but went to the refrigerator and started pulling out ingredients. “I’m going to get the food started. Caleb, be useful and make Dan be useful with you.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
While Mel made dinner, Dan helped Caleb set the table. It was all very homey and weird. He’d never really had homey, that he could remember. Before his life had been hockey, hockey, and more hockey…well, he didn’t remember that time—didn’t particularly want to. The months leading up to his parents’ decision to get divorced had been…not good for him, but when Dad had put him on the ice and told him his troubles didn’t matter there, his whole life had become hockey. And since it had saved him, even Mom hadn’t been able to argue.
There hadn’t been home-cooked meals and tables set. More like a sandwich and a piece of fruit from Mom when she was on the go, and being taken out to restaurants when he’d been with Dad.
“So, um, this is a nice place.” Dan had never considered himself bad at small talk. But he was quickly realizing he’d never sat around in silence, because people usually wanted to talk to him, ask him questions. He’d never been counted on to be the conversation starter.
“I’m sure you’re used to a lot nicer.”
“Well, my grandparents’ place isn’t exactly the Ritz.”
“The old Paulle place, right?”
“Yeah, you know it?”
Caleb shrugged, glancing back at the kitchen. “Back in high school, no one was living out there. It was put to use, you could say.”
“Know anything about a llama?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. So, teenagers were out there making out a decade ago?”
“Among other things.” Out of nowhere, Caleb seemed incredibly stiff and uncomfortable. “Hey, you want a beer?”
“Sure.”
“Be back.” Caleb disappeared and suddenly Dan was standing in the middle of a decent-sized dining room alone. The furniture was nice. Old, sure, but the kind that looked like family heirlooms.
He didn’t belong here. The intensity of that feeling struck him hard, a panic that squeezed at his lungs. This was all old and real and it belonged. It had grown from this earth and been here for centuries, and who the hell was he?
Taking on his grandparents’ ranch had been more of a whim, an escape, and it hadn’t come with a heavy sense of responsibility. After all, his grandparents weren’t likely to ever make it back to Montana, and what little memories Dan had of the place weren’t those of lifelong love and devotion. Mom had certainly never been eager to make the trek up here. She’d escaped the minute she’d been old enough.
But the Shaw house? It screamed all those things, and for some reasons he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—define, it scared the bejesus out of him.