“You should talk to them. Well, maybe you should talk to Rye. I think Noah and James have a slightly different story, but they do have a lot in common with the twins. By the time I got here and met and married my Nell, Ellen and Noah’s dad were gone, but I heard the stories. They were a lovely family. Very tight knit. They had to be. Ranching is a hard business. The Circle G is big and requires a lot from a man. The way I understood it, Fred and Brian always made sure Ellen had what she needed. It would have been harder on their own. When she got sick, one of them was always with her. James grew up believing in that lifestyle and then his brother was gone. The last couple of years, he’s tried to replace Noah. He’s shared women with Logan and Wolf, but I don’t think it was the same. And then Logan and Wolf left. James is in a bad place, but I think he has what he needs to come back.”
“I don’t know. Noah seems to think he can get his brother back. I don’t know what he wants me to do.”
“I want you to do whatever comes naturally.” Noah walked into the tent.
“Spy much?” How long had he been standing there?
“Had to catch my breath. Not used to walking a mile at nine thousand plus feet anymore.” Noah took a seat in one of the chairs Henry had set up. “My asshole brother stole my dog, didn’t he?”
Henry laughed. “Well, the word is you stole his girl.”
Noah shrugged. “That didn’t take long. I take it they can still hear things from the kitchen?”
“What?” Hope asked, praying they didn’t mean what she thought they meant.
“Everyone knows that the pipes at Stella’s carry sound. If you’re standing in the kitchen, you can hear what’s going on in the upstairs apartment. When Stella lived there, she used to yell down at the kitchen staff.”
“And it never occurred to you to mention that to me?” Now she really wished she didn’t sing when she cleaned.
Noah shrugged, his hair falling over his forehead. “I was busy at the time. I also wished I’d closed and locked the damn door, but you were way too tempting, darlin’. I wasn’t thinking about anything but you.”
“Does everyone know?” The Bliss grapevine worked quickly.
“Hey, everyone.” Rachel Harper walked in carrying three white bags. “I stopped in at the diner to pick up a coffee, and Stella asked me to drop these off here. She said something about Hope ordering takeout, and then she laughed about you calling someone Sir. I take it that’s you, Noah.”
Noah didn’t have the decency to blush. He simply grabbed one of the bags. “Thank god, I’m starving.”
He had the burger halfway down his throat before Rachel could pass Hope her lunch.
The strawberry blonde’s lips quirked up. “Stella said you didn’t specify a dressing, so she gave you ranch since it’s obvious you really like being out on the ranch, and she said you should watch out because cowboys like to lasso pretty little fillies. I have no idea what she meant.”
Noah grinned as he grabbed some fries. “I do.”
Rachel laughed because she obviously did, too.
Hope huffed. “Damn you, Noah. Now everyone knows.”
“Well, I was going to tell everyone anyway. I wasn’t going to hide it. Jamie told those two new boys that you were taken. Why does he get to stake a claim but I don’t?”
“Stake a claim?” Nell asked as she walked in. “Noah Bennett? Are you talking about Hope? She’s a person, not a piece of land. And it would be offensive even if you were talking about land. And are you eating meat in my tent?”
“No, ma’am,” he lied as he swallowed the last of his burger.
Nell eyed him. “Well, I have to believe you because I give all of the universe’s children the benefit of the doubt. Now, you can finish up those fries that better have been fried in vegan oil and then you can give us a hand. We already have people walking around and looking. I just met some very nice squatchers who would love some zucchini bread.”
Noah groaned. “I hate squatchers. They make all kinds of noise, and they set up those cameras all over the forest, and then Mel sees the infrared and thinks the aliens are watching him. I’ve had to tromp through the woods more than once to make sure Mel didn’t take one out.”
“I forgot about that,” Nell admitted. “Maybe we should go warn them.”
Noah winked as he walked out with Nell.
“I’ll go get the bread and the price tags,” Henry said. “You sit down and eat. Rest. Or Jamie will have my hide, and I like my hide.”
“What on earth is a squatcher?” Rachel asked. “I missed Woo Woo Fest last year. I couldn’t get out of bed. My morning sickness was awful.”
Rachel had been in Bliss for roughly three months longer than Hope, but Hope had worked this particular festival last year. Nate had growled for four days straight. Hope wondered how Cam was coping. “It’s like a ghost hunter except they hunt Sasquatch.”
Rachel sank down into the chair Noah had vacated. “Bigfoot? They really think Bigfoot is here? I thought that was just Mel.”
“I think they think Bigfoot is everywhere. We get a lot of Sasquatch sightings. Mel showed me on his computer once. He also showed me that ninety percent of the sightings align with the nudist nature walks. He’s pretty sure that Carl from the community is responsible. He really needs to wax, apparently. They’re really harmless. They’ll hike out into the woods and make all sorts of Sasquatch mating calls. I have no idea why they think they know what a Sasquatch sounds like when he’s in the mood for love. Really, the only thing annoying about them is the fact that they try to work the word squatching into every sentence.”
Hope pulled out her salad and the cup of soup. She was hungry. Really good sex made her hungry. She had to smile. Despite the fact that she’d slept with his brother, James had taken her hand and made sure she got out of the truck okay. He’d insisted on walking her to the Flanders’s tent and having a man-to-man with Henry about what she could and couldn’t do. He was acting like a Neanderthal, and she thought it was sexy.
Was she really thinking about it? Was she really thinking about trying to have a relationship with two brothers?
“I take it this one is James’s lunch?” Rachel asked.
Hope waved a hand. “Go for it. He fled the scene, you can eat his lunch.”
“Good. I’m trying to diet, but it just doesn’t work. Today is the first day in months I don’t have my baby girl on my hip. It would be nice to just have lunch and talk to someone. Jen and Stef might have come back, but I swear they’ve barely left the playroom.” She dug into James’s turkey sandwich. “And Callie is up to her ears in diapers and men. She’s going to breathe a sigh of relief when those men finally go back to work.”
Hope took a spoonful of Stella’s truly excellent tortilla soup, deeply grateful that Rachel had brought it to her. “Stef might not have come out of his playroom in a while, but he apparently managed to arrange for Noah to return.”
Rachel took a drag off James’s Coke. “That’s the King of Bliss for you. He’s always got his hands in whatever pie is cooking.”
“Why would he bring Noah back here if everyone’s so mad at him?” Everyone they had met had been rough on Noah, including Rachel’s hubbies. They had both given Noah hell.
“I think Stef knows that after a while, everyone will calm down. Since Noah showed up yesterday, he’s been just about all Max and Rye can talk about. I’ve heard a bunch of stories about their childhood. I didn’t grow up in a small town. I grew up in Dallas. Kids played with kids their own age, but it wasn’t that way here. There were so few kids around that they all hung out even though Noah and James were a little younger. I had no idea how close they used to be. Apparently after Noah left town, James retreated. I know he had the ranch to deal with, but I never knew that Max and Rye missed him. And I had no idea Noah existed at all. But yesterday I heard some of the craziest stories. Stef always knows what he’s doing. Max might growl at Noah for a month or two, but he’ll come around. Noah is family.”