Page 123 of The Mountain Echoes

“Haven’t you been busy?” she counters.

I arch a brow, amused. “Sure. Planting the orchard, getting the fieldwork going, vaccinating the herd…you know…ranch stuff.”

Celine gives a breezy little laugh. “Well, don’t overdo it. The ranch, from what I hear, is barely breathing. Might be best to accept that it’s circling the drain.”

I smile sharply. “I thought you didn’t care what happened at Longhorn.”

“Of course I care, darling,” she coos. “It’s our inheritance.”

Vera comes out with a drink—it’s pink like Celine’s nails. A fucking cosmopolitan in Longhorn seems just as inappropriate as all the French-antique shit she’s got all over the house.

“Thanks, darlin’.” Celine takes a sip and makes a humming sound.

“Vera, go home, yeah?” I instruct.

Vera looks at Celine pointedly, and when I glare at her, she wiggles her eyebrows and reluctantly leaves. My guess, Vera and Nadine have made a deal that one of them will be around the house when Celine is there to keep me from killing her.

“You know Mav and I were together for a while,” Celine drops the bomb casually.

It hits its target, but I don’t let her see it. The thought of Maverick doing what Hudson did is all but crippling.

“No,really?” I say sarcastically. “Does Mavrick know?”

She glances at me, the corners of her mouth tugging up in pure contempt. “You think he’sreallyinterested in you?”

As steady as I felt with Maverick before my sister came back to town, one cutting remark from her threatens to unravel me. The old reflex stirs—doubt, shame, that gnawing voice that says I’ll never be enough.

Stop letting her control you with your insecurities, Aria. Celine doesn’t hold your worth. Every time she tore you down, you let her. You handed her the blade and braced for the cut.

Not anymore.

I stand in my boots, covered in sweat and dust, and know I’ve earned every inch of the ground beneath me.

She doesn’t get to take that from me. No one does.

I smirk. “Considerin’ he’s in my bed every night…yeah, I think he’s interested in me.”

Her eyes flashanger. “He’s using you.”

“What makes you think I’m not the one using him?” I lean against the porch railing. “Not that you’d know ‘cause he never went there with you, but he’s damn good with his hands.”

There’s a strange lightness in me—I wish I’d known, back when I was a child, how freeing it would feel not to fear the damage Celine could do because this liberty is delectable, almost as good as a Grand Cru Burgundy.

“Oh, please! Is that what he told you that he and I haven’t had sex?”

I don’t let her see that she’s making me doubt Maverick, despite myself.

You know him, Aria. He won’t have an affair with a married woman. He has morals. You’ve seen them. Trust him.

“Doesn’t matter who he fucked in the past. I’m the one he’s fuckin’ now.” My words are bolder than I feel.

Hudson comes out then, his face like thunder. “Celine, we have dinner with the Adairs in a couple of hours.”

Celine sets her half-drunk glass of cosmopolitan down. “Lovely reunion. We should do it again!” She claps her hands together. “Well, I’m going to change. Hudson”—she calls over her shoulder as she walks into the house like she fucking owns it, which she doesn’t—"I’m going to need you to zip my dress up, baby.”

“I’ll be there.” Hudson picks up Celine’s drink and sniffs it. Then knocks it back.

I guess it’s happy hoursomewhere!