Max (7 Brides for 7 Brothers Book 5) Read online

  She walked over to the stall that said Applegate’s No Regrets. “This is Champ. He’s the future of Applegate Farm.”

  Max went over and peered into the stall. A handsome horse was busy devouring his food, the scent of sweet grain and molasses permeating the air as he ate. It was the horse she’d been riding when Max arrived.

  He put a hand on one of the bars, and the horse lifted his nose and nudged Max’s fingers before diving into his bowl again. It was unexpected and oddly comforting in a way. Like when he’d been a kid and they’d gone on that vacation a few months before Mom died. He’d liked feeding the horses carrots. Mom had shown him how to do it.

  “Hold it like this, Max. Curl your fist around the bottom—there, like that.”

  The horse had taken half the carrot in the first bite. In the second, Mom helped him hold on while the horse took more. And then she’d had him lay his palm flat with the remaining piece on top. The horse nuzzled his palm, soft lips tickling as the carrot disappeared.

  “He’s a sweetie,” Ellie was saying. “Gentle for a stud.”

  Max fixed his gaze on her again, and she cocked her head to the side.

  “Do you ride?” she asked.

  “Not unless it’s got a clutch and handlebars. But I rode a couple of times as a kid. Trail horses. Nothing fancy.”

  “Your mother didn’t ride at all?”

  “Not regularly, no. She rode the trail horses on vacation. That’s all I remember.”

  “She used to spend time on the farm here.” Ellie dropped her gaze, stroking Champ’s nose through the bars. “She rode with my mom a lot. I think she even went on the show circuit one summer.”

  For some reason, Max’s chest felt tight. His mother had been gone more than twenty years now and he was used to it. She was a memory. A distant, pleasant memory. But to know she’d been here? That she’d set foot on this property and spent time riding the horses?

  It was oddly emotional for him. He hadn’t expected that at all.

  “I’m sorry,” Ellie said, and he snapped his gaze to hers. She was frowning.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice hoarser than he expected it to be.

  She shrugged. “You looked as if you were hurting. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  He didn’t know why, but he reached for her hand where it rested on the bar, covering it with his own. A current of heat flashed through him. Her eyes widened for a second, but she quickly masked her reaction.

  “I’m not upset. Just thinking.” It wasn’t the truth, but he wasn’t inclined to share his sorrows with a stranger. With anyone really. And yet he wished he could for a change.

  “I’m glad I didn’t upset you.” She cleared her throat and carefully extracted her hand. He tried not to let it bother him, though it frustrated him on some level. There was attraction here, definitely. But it was probably best not to explore it. He had a brief thought that he could seduce her and talk her into selling the farm that way. As a warrior, he was accustomed to using all his skills to attack the enemy and win the battle.

  But this wasn’t a war and she wasn’t the enemy, even if she did frustrate him.

  No, he wouldn’t seduce her. He only needed to use logic and facts to get her to sell. He had a brief vision of his father on his deathbed, deciding what to leave each of his sons. What had made Dad choose Applegate Farm for him, a soldier? And why hadn’t Dad told him that Mom had spent time here? Of course he’d known about it. Or maybe Dad had been so doped up on painkillers that he hadn’t really thought about each bequest.

  You know that’s not true. There’s a reason for everything Dad did. A master plan. Because that’s the kind of man he was.

  Yes, the kind of man who planned his own death once he’d known it was coming was not the kind of man who scattered bequests as if they were birdshot aimed at the side of a barn.

  Ellie was still gazing at the horse, hands in her pockets, not saying a word. Max remembered his conversation with Knox and thought maybe now was the time to mention her mother. Especially since Ellie had mentioned her first.

  “You said your mother borrowed the money from my dad—but her name’s not on the paperwork. Did she retire?”

  She sighed. “Momma died two years ago. If she was still here, believe me, she wouldn’t have retired.”

  Her smile seemed forced. He wanted to reach out and smooth the corners, but he knew she wasn’t going to accept that.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Real smooth, Einstein.

  “No, it’s fine. She’s gone. There’s no other way to say it.” She sucked in a breath and rocked back on her heels. “Thanks for helping me feed. I need to get up to the house and work on some things.”

  “I’ll walk up with you. I still have carpeting to rip out.”

  “Wow, that’s right.” She shook her head slowly. “I keep forgetting you’ve moved yourself into my house like the new lord of the manor.”

  The acid was back in her tone, but it didn’t seem quite as venomous this time. He wondered why. And then he told himself it didn’t matter. He wanted to sell and she didn’t. They were at cross-purposes and always would be.

  “You know how to get me gone, Ellie.”

  Her jaw worked for a second and then hardened stubbornly. “Not happening, Brannigan. Not happening.”

  Ellie was supposed to be balancing the books and writing checks—yeah, checks, because so many of the people she dealt with, from the feed store that mixed her grain to the farrier who shod the horses, didn’t have online bill-pay options—but she was busy watching Max Brannigan carry carpet to the dumpster.

  He’d stopped what he was doing and offered to help her feed, and she’d been bitchy to him in the end. She hadn’t been raised that way, but then again, why should she feel a moment’s remorse over snapping at him? He wanted to sell her farm, and she had to keep sight of that fact. She didn’t have a lot of options here. She could stall for the next five months, but if Champ didn’t win in Louisville and she couldn’t sell him, she was up a creek without a paddle.

  There was no other plan besides that one. Show Champ to a big win in August and sell him in order to pay off the note—or what used to be the note. If Max wanted more than her mother had borrowed… Well, she had no idea how she was going to deal with that.

  Surely he was capable of some sympathy. She thought of him standing in the barn and looking lost when they talked about his mother. Then he’d touched Ellie’s hand, and she’d thought she might come out of her skin. That had certainly been a surprise. Electricity had zipped along her nerve endings, firing all kinds of sizzling sensations, and she’d felt an ache of need unlike any she could ever recall before.

  Which was silly because she wasn’t inexperienced. She’d had sex, though not a lot of it, and she’d been pretty excited about the process at the time. Max was not more exciting than any other man she’d been with.

  You mean all two of them, Ellie?

  She blew out a breath. Yes, two of them. Two men in her life ever. The second one, Dave, had been long-term. Hell, she’d thought they would get married someday. He’d talked about it. She’d talked about it. But they never made a plan—and then Momma got sick and started behaving erratically, and Dave had given up one day. Just walked in and said he couldn’t take it anymore.

  Ellie didn’t even tear up thinking about it. Not anymore. She’d been pissed, sure. And then she’d had her hands full with Momma and she’d realized what was important in life.

  Men were not important. Or reliable. She should have known that considering her father had abandoned them when she was three, but she’d been optimistic.

  Well, no more. She knew better now.

  And yet she watched Max work and wondered what it might be like to run her hands over those muscles. To press her mouth to his and see if the fireworks in her belly grew bigger and better.

  She turned to go back to the desk, and her gaze landed on a picture tucked into one of the built-in bookshelves. Two girls
sat on top of horses, smiling into the camera as if there was nothing in this world better than what they were doing at that moment. They looked full of life and hope.

  Ellie went over and picked up the picture. She knew which one was Momma, but she’d never really thought about the other one. The picture had been a fixture for so long, tucked in with others, that Ellie never noticed it. Until right then, of course. Almost as if she’d been meant to pick it out from the rest today of all days.

  She had a feeling who the other girl was. She could almost see Max’s eyes in this girl. She should show him the picture. She clutched it for a moment, thinking. And then she set it down on her desk and sank into the seat. She had work to do, and he was busy doing work of his own.

  Was she angry that he was here? Yes, of course. But she had to admit that she wasn’t really all that upset if he wanted to improve his room. One less thing for her to do.

  It hit her forcefully then that Applegate Farm was no longer hers. No longer even possibly hers, which it had been so long as she paid the loan. It was his. His alone. He couldn’t sell it without her permission until September, true—but he could sell it then. And he would sell it, and all her horses with it.

  If she let him sell it now, she’d have half the money. She could start over somewhere smaller, right? Her and Champ.

  Everything inside her rebelled. Her stomach sank into her toes and her heart ached. If she didn’t have her family farm, what would she have? She couldn’t imagine the emptiness in her life if she didn’t have this connection to her past. She was a steward of her family’s legacy, but what a tattered legacy it was these days.

  And Max was planning to sell it. Unless she convinced him not to. Could she do that? Could she show him there were reasons to keep the farm? Or reasons to give her the time she needed to buy it from him?

  Hope swirled inside her like a tiny butterfly, rising and circling. This situation was not ideal. He was here, in her home, and he was the enemy to her way of life.

  But she could show him the beauty of it, couldn’t she? She could make him see how special Champ was. She could spend her time educating him about saddlebreds rather than taking offense at his ignorance and looking for reasons to fight with him about the future.

  For whatever reason, Colin Brannigan had given her a chance when he’d put that year into the contract, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Starting right now, she was going to prove to Max that he was wrong, that there was value here if he would just look for it. His mother had loved this place at one time. She’d been happy here, according to Momma.

  Max could be happy too. Why not?

  Ellie put her hands on either side of her face and stared at the desk calendar with its scribblings and phone numbers around the edges. She knew nothing about Max, other than who his father was. She also knew he wasn’t afraid of hard work, which had been a surprise, but maybe that could work to her advantage.

  She would get him involved in the day-to-day business of the farm. If he spent time with the horses, maybe he’d get attached to them.

  “Wishful thinking,” she muttered.

  Yeah, maybe it was. But she had no choice except to try.

  5

  Max pulled up the tack strips left around the room and carried them outside. Then he went searching for a broom and dustpan. He found them in a closet outside the kitchen. When he closed the door, Ellie was standing there.

  He’d heard her coming, so it wasn’t a surprise. She smiled at him, which was a surprise.

  “How’s it coming?”

  “Just about to sweep up. You want to see?”

  “Sure.” She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a key. “Forgot to give you this earlier.”

  “Thanks,” he said. It was warm from her pocket as he tucked it into his jeans. He tried not to think of how it had lain against her body. “Come on and let me show you the room.”

  He’d moved the furniture up against one wall, which hadn’t been difficult considering there was only a bed, a night table, and a dresser in the room.

  Ellie stopped in the doorway, her eyebrows lifting as her gaze scanned the floor. “I had no idea. I mean, I knew there was hardwood under the carpet, but I didn’t know it was in such good shape. The room was carpeted before I was born.”

  “Looks like hand-scraped oak.”

  “The planks are wider than the wood in the hall and living room.”

  “Looks like this was probably a later addition to the main house.”

  She walked into the room and turned around. “Doesn’t look so bad now, does it?”

  “These old houses never do when you dig down to the bones.”

  She gave him a look. “I didn’t know old houses were your thing.”

  He shrugged. “They aren’t, but I’ve helped with a reno project or two. Spent a summer building homes for Habitat for Humanity.”

  He started to sweep up the dirt. Ellie didn’t leave like he’d expected her to. Instead, she moved off to one side while he worked. Then she grabbed the dustpan and held it while he pushed the dirt into it.

  “Thanks.”

  She stood. “No problem.”

  The floor looked a hundred times better than it had. He didn’t know why he’d started ripping out the carpet, but he’d needed something to do, and that was the most immediate problem he could tackle.

  Plus he’d been pissed that she’d put him in this room and thought it was enough to make him leave. He knew that’s why she’d done it. The room was old, musty, hot, and not lived in. But he could fix that.

  It was already cooler since he’d opened the vents, and the musty smell was much better now that the carpet was gone. The funny thing was, he’d stayed in worse. Hell, there had been nights when he’d had nothing but sand or rock for a bed. Navy SEALs didn’t exactly rent hotel rooms when infiltrating a target.

  Ellie didn’t know he’d been a SEAL, of course, which was why she thought he would run at the first sign of inconvenience or discomfort. It was as laughable as it was annoying.

  “So what next?” she asked, and he met her gaze, found himself looking into green eyes so pretty and pure that they made him wistful for the days before he knew how cruel the world could be.

  “Needs polishing. No stripping or sanding just yet, though it should probably be done in the next few months.”

  She nodded, her gaze straying over the room that was already brighter now that the carpet was gone. “I haven’t been in here in so long that I’d forgotten how big it was.”

  “What was this room used for?”

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It was a sitting room when I was little, but later it was Granny’s bedroom for a few years until she couldn’t go up the stairs to bathe anymore and we had to move her to a nursing home. Momma wanted to put in a bathroom, but Granny wouldn’t hear of it. Said it was too much money and a waste.”

  “This would be a great master bedroom with an added bath.”

  “It would. I’ve always thought that—but it wasn’t a priority, so it’s never been done.”

  He took the dustpan from her, and their fingers brushed briefly. She gasped and then turned red and he wanted to chuckle. Except he was dealing with his own reaction to the contact.

  “I’ll open the windows tomorrow.” He sounded gruff, but he couldn’t help it. “Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  She licked her bottom lip nervously, and his entire body stiffened. Fucking hell.

  “Hey, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can open them all. Every window in this house has been painted shut.”

  “I’ll take a look.”

  “Do you need help moving the furniture and putting the bed back together?”

  “No. I’m just going to toss the mattress on the floor for the night.”

  She looked guilty. “It’s not the most comfortable mattress, I’m afraid.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s still a mattress.”

  She blinked at him. “You say that like yo
u sleep on floors a lot.”

  “Floors. Packed dirt. Sand. Rocks. Yeah, a mattress is a luxury.”

  Her expression was one of confusion. “Are you an extreme athlete or something?”

  He laughed. Of course she’d heard of Luke’s exploits. And she’d probably seen Hunter’s photographs in National Geographic along with other nature publications. Both brothers were known for living on the edge. Max lived over the edge. Mired in the muck and blood and the detritus of war.

  But that wasn’t something the world wanted to know. It wasn’t glamorous or daring. It was suicidal in a far more sinister way.

  “No, I’m not. I’m a soldier, Ellie.” He still had trouble thinking of himself that way since a SEAL was technically a sailor, but it’s what others understood, so it was the term he used.

  Her mouth dropped open just enough that he thought about kissing it closed. He wouldn’t though.

  “A soldier? Like in the military?”

  He took the dustpan and broom and walked out of the room and back to the kitchen where he dumped the pan and stored it in the closet with the broom again. Ellie was there when he turned around, just like she had been when he’d first gone for the supplies.

  Her brows were drawn low and she looked… worried. That was new.

  “Not quite,” he told her, because it was no use lying to her. “I was in the Navy for eight years, and then I got out and went to work as a private contractor.”

  That was the simple version. The more complicated version was that he’d vowed to leave the Navy after he and his men were caught in a clusterfuck of an operation and half of them died. He’d finished his time and gotten out, no matter that his commanding officer had begged him to stay.

  “A private contractor? I don’t understand. You said you were a soldier.”

  “I am. I was a SEAL, and I have a very special skill set that I hire out in the service of, uh, our nation’s goals overseas.”