Page 42 of She’s Like the Wind (A Modern Vintage Romance #12)

Maverick

T he sisters couldn’t look more different.

Celine is a blonde, petite woman with milky-white skin and blue eyes. Her blonde hair is lush, blow-dried, the loose waves flirting with her shoulders. She’s stunning in a Marilyn Monroe sort of way.

Aria is a brunette, tall—easily around five foot ten—with the kind of posture that comes from years spent in saddles and in fields, not from ballet classes or etiquette schools.

Her skin favors her father’s side of the family, a warm sun-gold tan that doesn’t fade with the seasons, and her features are strong, hard rather than delicate.

Her eyes are a dark brown with hints of hazel.

Her hair is pulled back in a no-nonsense French braid, with a few auburn wisps broken free to frame her rather plain face.

While Celine is wearing a lot of bling—jewelry she inherited from her mother, Aria wears only a watch and small pearl drop earrings.

Her black dress tells me and everyone else who looks at her that she doesn’t have any curves. Her tits are small. Her ass is passable.

Even her coat is impractical and far removed from Celine’s mink.

I watch her with curiosity, which is natural since I’ve heard a lot about her from Celine, but this is the first time I’m seeing her.

Aria doesn’t have Celine’s high-sculpted cheekbones or bee-stung lips.

Her nose is small and slightly crooked, like it was broken once and never set right.

Her eyes—wide, clear, and unblinking—aren’t brimming with tears, but carry the weight of old sorrow.

She wears no lipstick, no artifice, just a softness that feels lived-in.

By most standards, she’s plain.

But she stands out.

Her face may not be beautiful in the usual way, but it is… arresting .

I’m not the only one who’s thinking of the older Delgado sister. Aria is taking up plenty of real estate in Celine’s head.

“She’s only here because he’s dead,” she says mournfully as we drive to the ranch house in my Chrysler. I have one of the ranch hands driving us for the day, so the three of us are seated in the back.

“He’s her father, too,” I murmur before I can stop myself.

I don’t want to be part of the Delgado family drama, but I feel an irrational need to defend Aria.

“ She doesn’t care ,” Celine spits out.

I didn’t argue, but I saw the pain in Aria’s eyes. She’s grieving—there’s no mistaking that—and it was only confirmed when I watched her hang back, then lower herself to the cold earth beside her father’s grave.

She lay there, silent, curled close to the stone like a daughter searching for comfort one last time. There was something raw and childlike in the gesture, but not performative.

Aria doesn’t appear to cry for show; she mourns in quiet shadows. She holds everything in, only letting it out when no one’s looking.

Celine, on the other hand, wears grief like a costume. She plays it for the crowd. She’s good at it.

“Come on, Celine, just because she’s not wailing like you, doesn’t mean shit,” her husband snaps.

We’re not in public, and Hudson has dropped the good-husband routine.

I became part of Celine’s circle about a year ago, when things between us got… friendly .

Not close, but friendly enough.

Hudson had left her and Wildflower Canyon to shack up with his mistress, only to come crawling back a few months later, hat in hand, full of regret.

I felt sorry for her then.

She made overtures—flirted, hinted—but I never took the bait. I don’t sleep with married women, no matter how messy their marital lives are.

Celine and Hudson are a strangely co-dependent couple.

I’ve told Celine more than once—usually when she’s in full rant mode about Hudson—to just divorce him already. She calls him a loser, says she deserves better. I don’t disagree. But no matter how often she swears she’s done, it always loops back to the same old cycle: hate, love, blame, need.

Like clockwork.

Like an addiction?

“You always had a soft spot for her,” Celine complains, tears filling her eyes.

She cries easily. At the drop of a nine-gallon hat, as the cliché goes.

There’s something soft about Celine that makes a man want to protect her, take care of her.

That’s not a feeling that her sister evokes. No, she looks like someone who can take care of herself. There is a hard-as-nails quality about her. And I don’t think she appreciates a man who opens the door for her or pays her tab.

“I’ve known Aria longer than I’ve known you,” Hudson remarks as he looks out of the car window.

Aria and Hudson had been friends, from what I gathered, and had come to Wildflower Canyon for a visit. She’d just been twenty and Hudson a year older. He had fallen in love with Celine, who is two years her sister’s junior.

They married in a hurry because Celine was pregnant.

After the miscarriage, she couldn’t get pregnant again. Not being able to have children has taken its toll on them. It’s another crack in a foundation already worn thin.

“You are my husband, not hers.”

Celine has tears streaming down her face.

Of course, she does. She’s one of those women who manage to look beautiful even when they cry, like a heroine from a Jane Austen novel, delicate and tragic.

When my sister Joy cries, it’s full-on blotchy skin, red nose, and hiccupping sobs.

In sharp contrast, Celine’s sorrow photographs well.

I watch almost unperturbed.

I’ve been with this couple often enough over the past couple of years, since I've gotten to know them, to know that this kind of drama is part of their marriage.

Hudson says hurtful things that she probably goads him into by nagging him or being needy. Then, she cries and….

“Baby, come on.” Hudson pulls her into his arms and kisses her hair with the air of an exhausted man.

She sobs softly.

As much as I like Celine, the way she spirals whenever Hudson is around tests the limits of my patience.

I turn away from them, wishing the driver would get us to Longhorn Ranch fast so I can get a drink.

I intend to talk to Aria while she’s here, which, according to Celine, is not going to be for long. The will’s being read in two days, after which I’m hoping to finalize the deal and fold Longhorn into Kincaid Farms.

I’m going to make sure everyone who works there is taken care of. Earl can do whatever he wants—I will take care of him. Nadine, I’m hoping will stay on. She’s the reason that Longhorn has been surviving—she runs the farm and orchards with mechanical precision. She’ll be an asset across my company.

The Longhorn herd’s not as large as it used to be. It shouldn’t be hard to integrate it into mine.

Give it six months , I calculate, and Longhorn will be completely absorbed.

I’ve already gone over the price with Celine, and she liked all the zeroes. It’s a fair market rate. I’m not doing her any favors. She’ll get half, same as Aria, unless Rami tinkered with his will.

Though if you ask Celine, her sister doesn’t deserve a damn thing—she left, after all. Ran away when things got hard.

I disagree on that account. Neither Celine nor Hudson has done much for Longhorn, considering they lived here.

Hudson worked in accounting for a while, but then Rami fired him.

Celine spends more time in Aspen, which is where I get together with her socially.

I’ve been keeping her at an arm’s distance as she’s made it clear she’d like us to start our sexual relationship. But call me traditional! I believe in the sanctity of marriage—even if neither Celine nor her husband seems to.

“Why did she have to come?” Celine mumbles against Hudson’s chest.

“She’ll leave soon,” he assures her.

My mind wanders back to Aria Delgado.

I can see her standing over her father’s grave, huddled in that inappropriate coat.

I’ve been told she’s the flighty, selfish older sister—the one who bolted to California chasing dreams and men. That’s the story most people tell around Wildflower Canyon.

But talk to the folks who really knew Aria, and the accounts don’t all line up. Some say she had her reasons.

Still, the facts are facts: she left, and she never came back. Not for holidays. Not for harvest. Not until Rami died.

“ She may not want to sell ,” Nadine warned me just yesterday when I met her at the co-op in town.

It’s just bluster, I’m sure of it.

Resurrecting Longhorn will take time, grit, and a whole lot of resources—none of which I imagine a woman who walked away from her roots is willing to invest, especially given the ranch’s financial state.

She’s not going to last—not when cattle die, fences snap, and winter hangs on like a bad grudge. She knows fuck all about farming. She apparently works at some fancy winery in Napa Valley—that ain’t gonna help her in an honest-to-God ranch in Wildflower Canyon.

I mean, what is she going to do with it? Walk through the farm and pastures in those high heels she wore to the funeral?

By the time we arrive at the ranch house, Celine has fixed her makeup, and the couple is back to showing off their golden glow.

In Wildflower Canyon and Aspen, Celine is well-liked and popular.

She gets invited to all the society nonsense that we now have because of people like Kaz Chase and the tech bro lot moving here. She’s also involved with some of the volunteer work that the city does.

Her marriage might be in the toilet, but I don’t judge her for that. People stay together for all kinds of reasons.

“Oh, Duke, thanks so much for coming.” Celine gives Duke Wilder, owner of the biggest ranch in Colorado, a hug.

He’s known her for a while and likes her, as I do.

Elena, his wife, is not a hugger, so she extends a hand and shakes Celine’s, smiles politely, says “ I’m sorry for your loss, ” and then walks up to me, rolling her eyes.

She’s one of the few people who openly don’t like Celine, which includes my sister.

They both say there’s something fake about her.

Elena is an excellent horse trainer and a close friend, but I don’t know if she’s the best judge of character, considering she’s hooked up with Duke.