Uncertain Loyalties (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 4)

by Patricia Watters

  "I just want to show up and see what's going on," Rick said to his cousin. "If everything's okay we'll leave. And I don't have a thing for Sophie. We're friends, and right now her head's all messed up and she needs help."

  "Hell Rick. You've been sniffing around Sophie for years, and you're not even subtle about it. Even Maddy's figured it out the last time Sophie was here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She told Dad you were always staring at Sophie and it wasn't polite to stare. Dad just laughed it off and said that's because you like her and she's pretty. Yeah, you definitely have a thing for Sophie."

  "I don't want to get into that right now," Rick said, "but what's it going to be? You coming along as backup?"

  "Backup for what? Sophie telling you to shove it, or Buzz Newman and his brothers taking offense to a couple of Hansens showing up uninvited and deciding to throw us out bodily. We're not exactly welcome over there."

  "This isn't high school," Rick countered. "I like to think we're adults now. Besides, we'd just be stopping by to see if Sophie needed a ride home in case there's drinking."

  "You know there'll be drinking," Adam said, "which is why Buzz's bashes end up with everyone screwing everyone and staying overnight. Guaranteed. From what I've heard, they don't even break into separate rooms. It's all done right out in the open. You watch me and I'll watch you and we'll all get horny together."

  Adam had a way of laying it all out, which didn’t ease Rick's mind. "That's exactly why I can't let Sophie be there," he said. "She has no idea what goes on at parties like that, and I know she's never had sex before."

  Adam looked askance at him. "Is that what she told you?"

  "She didn't have to," Rick said. "You know the way she's been raised."

  "I also know she probably wouldn't admit it to you if she had had sex because she'd get a lecture from you. Maybe if you stopped treating her like a big brother and started treating her like you do the women you date she'd start to look at you differently?"

  "If I ever tried anything with Sophie she'd put me in my place, " Rick said. "She laid out the rules years ago and I don't intend to test them right now. Maybe someday, but not while she's in a self-destructive mode."

  "Do her folks know she's here?" Adam asked.

  "Yeah. I called and told them. I imagine they're on their way by now."

  "Pretty lame for the parents of someone Sophie's age to do," Adam said. "No wonder she's finally broken loose."

  "There's nothing wrong with the way Sophie was raised," Rick snapped, even though he'd wondered over the years if her folks weren't far too strict. But Sophie never seemed to mind the rules when she was growing up, so he never thought to question them, and until this visit, she'd been every guy's dream of the perfect wife. Maybe more his than the others. But now he was having a little taste of reality, and what he tasted was pretty bitter. "It's already after eleven and I want to get going," he said. "You coming?"

  "I suppose," Adam replied, "but if things get out of hand, you owe me."

  Rick rapped Adam on the back. "Things won't get out of hand," he assured him, while wishing he believed it himself.

  The drive to the Newman ranch was via seven miles of winding gravel road, which gave Rick time to mull over his approach to Buzz as to why he and Adam were showing up uninvited just short of midnight...

  Which fell flat, fifteen minutes later, when Buzz eyed him with suspicion, and said, "Sorry, Hansen, this is a private party."

  "I know, but I need to talk to Sophie."

  Buzz gave him a one sided smile. "She's busy right now."

  "Doing what?"

  "If you really want to know, getting screwed."

  "The hell she is!" Rick shoved Buzz aside and marched into a dimly-lit room reeking of pot smoke and filled with bodies sitting and reclining and standing pressed together. "Where is she?" he asked Buzz, who was standing a few feet away.

  "Look around, Hansen," Buzz replied. "You might have to lift a few guys off her though. She's a pretty hot little number. Where have you been hiding her?"

  Rick's gaze dragged over couples entangled in every conceivable position, whether having sex or making out, he didn't know or care, but from what he saw, Sophie wasn't among them. Then he heard the distinctive sound of her laughter. Not the laughter when she was happy and being the Sophie he knew, but the laughter he'd heard earlier when she was drunk.

  Catching sight of her sitting sideways across a guy's lap with one of the guy's hands inside her top and the other shoved down the front of her pants, he rushed over and dragged the guy's hands from her, drawing a gasp of surprise from Sophie, then scooped Sophie up in his arms and carried her out the house and headed to where Adam was leaning against the truck.

  To his surprise, Sophie didn't protest. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and tucked her face into his neck and said, in a sluggish voice, and with a breath reeking of pot and booze, "I never got screwed. Close, but no cigar."

  "Yeah, well in a few minutes you're going to have a cold shower and then we are going to talk." He opened the passenger side of the truck and told Adam to drive, then shoved Sophie in and climbed in beside her.

  Sophie cuddled up against him and said in a slow, measured voice, "Are... you gonna... be Mizter Goody Two Shoezzz... tonight? See, I got it right thiz time. Or are you gonna finish... what that guy started?"

  Adam peered around Sophie and said to Rick, "You might want to rethink the virgin thing. She knows her way around a man."

  "Thank you Adam," Sophie said. "Rick doezn't seem... to think I'm cabaable."

  "You're capable," Rick said, "and you damned near completed the job. That guy, whose name you probably don't know, had his hands all over you and you didn't do a thing to stop him. You want guys touching you all over?"

  "I want something," Sophie said. "I'm tired of being... Mizz Pure-azz-the-driven-snow. If you hadn't showed up... I wouldn't still be. Pure that izz. Not snow."

  "Pull your top up," Rick said. "It's halfway down your front."

  "Actually it'z haveway down my breasts," Sophie enunciated, "but you probably never notizzed... since vets are doctors... and doctors don't look at womenzz's breasts... well I guezzz they do... but not that way. But that guy at the party did. He pulled my top down... and he looked... and I juzzz laughed. And then you came and ruined things."

  "You're drunk and you're disgusting," Rick said, "so just be quiet."

  "Juzz be quiet," Sophie mimicked, then cuddled against Rick and put her hand on his thigh.

  Rick said nothing, but having Sophie draped against him for the first time in his life, and the feel of her palm on his thigh and her knuckles against his crotch was definitely having an effect on him, although it wasn't the scene that had played over in his mind throughout the years. Never in his fantasies could he have imagined Sophie drunk and throwing herself at him. Throwing herself at any man, he corrected. He was no different from the rest.

  Once back at the ranch, Rick said to Adam, "Drop us off at the cabin on the end. There's no one there until late tomorrow morning and this needs to be dealt with tonight."

  Following Rick's instructions, Adam eased past a string of log cabins and pulled to a halt. Rick hopped out and caught Sophie up in his arms as she tumbled out of the truck. He kneed the door closed and carried Sophie into the cabin, kicking the door shut. After dumping her on the bed, he went in the bathroom and turned on the light, then returned to the darkened room and said, "Either go take a shower on your own or I'll strip off your clothes and throw you in to sober you up, but after that we're going to talk."

  Sophie sat up in bed and splayed out her arms. "Okay then…" she said, "you can strippet… strippeded… umm… do what you said."

  Rick eyed her with uncertainty. "I'm not kidding Soph."

  Sophie let out a deep, throaty laugh. "I'm… not kidding… either," she said in a sluggish voice. "You dragged me from… something I was liking… and now I'm not liking it… and you owe me." She raised her a
rms high for him to strip off her shirt.

  "Fine, have it your way." Grabbing her shirt, Rick tugged it over her head and tossed it on the floor then in one tug, dragged off her jersey capris that came off with her underpants.

  Pulling her upright he dragged her, stumbling and laughing her low, throaty laugh, into the bathroom, shoved her into the shower and turned on the cold water. She let out a cry as the blast hit her, and followed that with a string of expletives Rick didn't know were in her vocabulary.

  Shutting the bathroom door with force, Rick went to sit on the bed and try to figure out what to do next. This whole episode with Sophie was so unexpected he was at a loss how to deal with it. He was also uncertain about his feelings now. Until Sophie arrived this time he'd had things laid out for the summer, gradually changing a lifelong relationship from platonic to love, and ultimately talking marriage. For him it seemed a lifetime in the making. For her, obviously he was nothing more than good old Rick, the guy who'd always been available for hanging out with whenever she and her family were at the ranch.

  It wasn't long before the water shut off and he could hear Sophie moving around, maybe stumbling around, he couldn't tell. After a couple minutes more she opened the door and emerged, wearing one towel in a turban around her head and another wrapped around her body and tucked down in front to hold it in place. From the look on her face he didn't know whether she was furious with him for carrying her away from the party, for stripping her and throwing her into the shower, or maybe angry with herself for the woman she was at the moment.

  Whatever was going on inside her, she aimed it at him in a voice that was still a little sluggish, but was also filled with venom. "Who the hell… do you think you are… dragging me… away from a party?"

  "Maybe a friend who gives a damn," Rick said. "You were drunk and hanging all over a guy you didn't even know and acting like the woman you accuse your mother of being."

  "Step-mother," Sophie corrected, then continued in slow, measured beats. "I take that back. She's my father's wife. And I want to go… to your mother's house. I'm comfortable there… and she's easy to talk to. And no… I don't want to talk about this with you… because you'll start sermonizing… like you always do… instead of listening. Your mother listens."

  "You don't want to go to my mother's because she listens," Rick said, "you want to go there because she won't stop you from doing whatever you want to do to screw up your life."

  Sophie propped her hands on her hips, and Rick wondered for a moment if the towel might come loose and drop off. He was tempted to throw her clothes at her and tell her to go back in the bathroom and get dressed and come out when she was decent, but what she wore to the party was anything but decent.

  Staring daggers at him, Sophie said, still in slow, measured beats, "Your problem is you just don't like your mother because she left your father."

  "What's going on with you right now is not about my mother and father, so let's just stick to that," Rick said.

  "What's going on with me is that for the first time in my life I'm finally free of restrictions that would choke a horse, and I'll thank you to leave me alone to enjoy it. Now, either drive me to your mother's place, or I'll walk."

  A part of the woman who was facing Rick now was the Sophie he'd known for years, the one who held up the hoop for him to jump through, demanding he drive her to his mother's place. The woman he'd seen draped in a guy's lap with his hands all over her, and who was confronting him now wearing only a towel, he didn’t know. "I guess you'd better start walking then," he said, deciding he'd had enough hoop jumping. "You can stay in the cabin tonight and tomorrow I'll take you to get your car. You'll be staying at the ranch from now on."

  The look on Sophie's face changed then, first to surprise that he was no longer her puppet, then to a subtle look of seduction. "If I stay, I'll expect you to stay with me," she said. "I told you I planned to get screwed and you took me away before it happened so you owe me."

  Her words were more controlled, but Rick knew she still had enough booze and pot in her to shed her inhibitions. "You're not getting screwed by me or anyone else tonight," he clipped.

  Her hand toying with the towel where it tucked into itself, she said, in a cynical voice, "Do you have some kind of a sexual hang-up, Rick? Has Mommy Dearest and her involvement with men made you so inhibited you can't get it up."

  Rick held her challenging gaze. This wasn't the woman he'd grown to love over the years. It was as if a stranger had invaded Sophie's body. "When did you start talking like this?" he asked.

  "I do have a vocabulary," Sophie replied. "I'm just learning to put the words together differently. Now, I'm getting cold, so either screw me or leave."

  Eyeing her with disgust, Rick said, "I'll be back in the morning to take you to get your car. Be dressed when I come." He left abruptly, slamming the door shut behind him.

  ***

  While immersed in warm water, Sophie gazed around the darkened interior of the cavern where a hot spring bubbled up into a rock pool. When she awakened at dawn with a splitting headache and a queasy stomach, and with only a dim recollection of the party the night before, she knew she had to be somewhere other than the cabin. She wasn't sure she could face Rick again. Ever. Although the party was a blur, what happened after the shower was clear, but confusing. She couldn't explain her behavior with Rick. She still couldn't believe she'd challenged his virility and all but demanded he have sex with her. So the only place she could think to go was Whispering Springs, where she could listen to the eerie sounds sifting through the mountain and try to make sense of everything that had happened over the past two days.

  She glanced at the pile of clothes she'd worn to the party. When wearing them she'd felt daring and defiant, and when Buzz came for her he looked her up and down, and she smiled seductively, like she knew he was coming onto her but didn't care. That much she remembered. But once at the party, after she had a couple of drinks and started dragging on a joint someone passed around to her, and some nameless guy pulled her onto his lap and started doing things that seemed to heighten the effects of the booze and pot, everything became a blur, until Rick's face swam into view, confusing her and making her wonder how he got there, then remembering nothing until she was hit with a blast of icy water...

  A shadow fell over the entrance to the grotto. "I thought you might be here."

  Sophie looked up to see Rick's tall frame blocking the entry. Odd, she'd never noticed how thick his shoulders were until now, or the extent of his chest, nicely-defined beneath his navy tee shirt. Even in the subdued light she saw that he had well-developed biceps, like he'd been working out, which surprised her. It had been over a year since she'd last seen him and it was like she'd left behind a boy and returned to find a man, and it was a whole new experience.

  "You gave me a hell of a scare," Rick said, making no move to come in. "I thought you took off walking to town. I drove half way there looking for you."

  "After last night, I would've thought you'd be glad to be rid of me," Sophie said, while moving lower into the water so he wouldn't see her naked below the surface, yet finding it a little tantalizing too, Rick seeing her that way. It would be a strange new concept, wanting Rick to see her in a sexual way. That had not been the kind of relationship they'd had over the years.

  Continuing to stand at the entry, Rick said, "You ready to talk now?"

  "No," Sophie replied. "I came here to listen to the sounds and sort things out on my own. It works better that way." About the last thing she wanted was to rehash with Rick what happened at the party. She'd managed to block it out of her mind, or at least the pot and alcohol allowed her to do that. Demanding he have sex with her, and talking about that, was another. But she did intend to set a few things straight.

  "Just for the record. I didn't like what was going on at the party," she said, "but I'm not going back to living like a nun either, so don't try to lecture me on that."

  "Yeah, well, just for the record
, I can get it up," Rick said, "but you're not where I'm going to put it, to lay it out to you in your new vocabulary, but that doesn't mean I'll turn my back on what's going on with you right now, and we are going to talk."

  To Sophie's shocked surprise, Rick shrugged out of his tee shirt, tugged off his boots and socks, stripped down to his briefs and started into the pool. Even in the dusky twilight of the cavern she could see he was aroused, which disturbed her. They'd been friends since they were kids and it never occurred to her to look at him in any other way. The odd thing was, after the cold shower, when she stood in front of him wearing only a towel, she'd wanted him to take her virginity because she felt rebellious and defiant and was determined to go against everything her parents had preached over the years. Now, things were different. Having sex with Rick wasn't an option. It took her out of her comfort zone with him. She also suspected he'd stripped down to his briefs to prove he wasn't what she'd accused him of.

  Eyeing him across the water, she said, "I'm sorry about what I said last night. Obviously you don't have a problem. But it bothers me that you're like that with me. That's not the way it's supposed to be with us."

  "I'm a man," Rick said. "It happens, so forget what's going on and either listen to the sounds in here or talk things out."

  "I'll listen to the sounds," Sophie said, wondering why she hadn't countered Rick with the kind of verbal sparring she had in the past. Instead, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the rock sidewall and said nothing. Still, she couldn't seem to let go of the image of the well-muscled man Rick was now, and she became preoccupied with him in a totally new way. It was disturbing and confusing.

  After a while she was able to quiet her mind, and before long, eerie, haunting sounds began to emanate from the bowels of the mountain. The whole legend of voices driving away evil spirits was nothing but legend, but as she listened to the ethereal sounds, she felt a calmness that was unexpected for such a disturbing time in her life. She also felt a need to verbalize things she never intended to talk about.