As she followed the other woman back into the dining room, Jayne was thankful that her friend hadn't mentioned—or had any reaction whatsoever to—the bruises on her face. She didn't think that she could stand to see the pitying look she'd seen on most people's faces whenever she had sported those, or others, over the years.
The next morning, Brownie was as good as her word, and when Jayne awoke, she saw that it was nearly ten-thirty.
She was usually an early riser, but apparently, she'd needed the sleep. And for the first time in a very long time, she had slept very well and deeply.
When she wandered down the hall toward the kitchen, wondering where her son was, she looked out the sliders at the end of the dining room and saw him being chased by a Pace-monster. He was laughing and giggling so hard that he could barely run, and every once in a while, Pace would grab him and hold him up above his head while he literally screamed and giggled helplessly.
Then Pace would put him back down and begin to stalk him again.
Auntie Brownie, meanwhile, was observing them both from a lounge chair with an adoring look on her face.
As she was making herself an egg and some toast for breakfast, she heard the sliders move, knowing who it was without looking.
"Thank you for watching him this morning."
"I told you that I would."
"I didn't even hear you come in and get him."
"I know, you were dead to the world."
"And he's even still alive! Miracles will never cease!"
For that, she got a smack from her best friend.
When she sat down to eat her breakfast, Pace came in, wearing her son on his shoulders. His face was all smiles the entire time, and the big man didn't seem to mind those inevitably sticky little fingers glomming onto his face.
"Good morning. Did you sleep well?"
"I did, thank you," she answered shyly.
"We decided to occupy him outside, so he could run off some energy and hopefully not wake you up."
"It worked. I don't think I've slept this late since college—or maybe ever. Thank you."
Pace carefully lifted Brae off his shoulders, but instead of putting him down, he took a seat and perched the boy on his knees. "Does he take a nap in the morning, usually?"
It was a very good question, frankly, especially coming from someone she would bet had even less experience with kids than his sister did. "No. He naps in the afternoon for a couple of hours if I can get him down. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't."
She could feel his eyes darting to her, even though she refused to look at him.
"Well, we'll do our best to tire him out this morning. I forgot to ask you last night, but would you have any objections to me showing him the horse barns?"
"No, not if you're up for it. I bet he'd love it."
"Great!" Pace seemed genuinely happy to do it as he stood with Braeden on his hip. "You gals wanna come with?"
It felt like a very long time since anyone had called her a "gal", not that she objected, necessarily.
"Yes!" Brownie replied for them both.
Jayne wasn't at all sure about it. Where they'd not spent much time around kids, she'd not spent any time at all around horses, except for her very infrequent visits out here. And during exactly none of those visits had she done anything in connection with horses or cattle. But apparently, that was about to change.
She'd only brought jeans and t-shirts or the occasional blouse, so at least she was dressed correctly for the occasion. They all trooped out across the yard to the large, immaculately kept building. The double doors were wide open, and there were people buzzing around, all of whom smiled brightly and called him boss or Pace, and Brownie, well, Brownie.
So he could have a better view than his diminutive height, Braeden was back on Pace's shoulders, looking happy and excited to be there. And Jayne had to admit, he seemed like a natural.
They stopped at the first stall, where a reddish-brown horse immediately hung her head out, nuzzling at Pace's shirt pocket, to Braeden's delight. He squealed and reared a bit back, having been slightly startled that the horse was coming so close, but Pace spoke to him softly and confidently, letting him know that there was nothing to be afraid of, and eventually, he was even brave enough to reach down and pat the horse's muzzle.
"This is Lady. She's getting a bit long in the tooth, but she's a great kid's horse. Maybe Brae could learn to ride on her."
Jayne looked a little alarmed at that suggestion from where she was hanging back in the group, staying well away from the horse's reach and looking slightly apprehensive herself.
They walked slowly past every stall, only some of which were occupied. Troy was a beautiful buckskin gelding that did the same thing as Lady, snuffling for truffles in his shirt pocket and coming up empty. Then there was Coral, a black mare just about to drop a foal. She looked tired, and Jayne had an instant sense of empathy for the poor horse. She'd been there, too.
Along the other side, there was Star, and she did, indeed, have a star on her forehead, in white against her otherwise reddish coat, and the last horse was Mischief, Pace's personal horse, and a stallion.
He seemed a bit fractious, at least until Pace handed Braeden to his sister and he went to stand in front of the horse and speak to it in much the same voice he'd used with her at the car and Braeden when he'd been afraid of Lady.
"Brown, why don't you take Braeden in and show him the tack room."
Brownie knew how to take a hint, guiding the little guy through another set of doors to where all the saddles and bridles and other equipment was stored.
As soon as they were gone, he turned to Jayne. "Are you afraid of horses, Jayne?"
It was put to her as just a question—she didn't sense any judgment coming from him at all.
Jayne shrugged. "I don't know. Haven't been around them much."
Pace wandered over to a shelf near one of the empty stalls, where there was a bag of Starlight hard candy peppermints—the red and white striped ones.
He held out a handful of them to her. "Here." He looked around the stable. "Unwrap five of them, please."
She did as he said, putting the wrappers in the handy garbage can, then trying to hand them back to him.
"No, I don't want them. I want you to feed one to each of the horses."
He was standing in front of Lady's stall with his hand out to her.
Jayne came to him but did not touch him in any way.
"Put the mint in the center of your palm, and keep your hand and fingers flat. She's very gentle and would never deliberately bite you, I promise. And she loves peppermints."
Although he was now patting the beautiful creature, Lady could smell that she was the one with the treats, and she extended her neck toward Jayne, who approached her with her hand posed exactly as he had suggested.
Her lips felt dry but funny, soft but kind of rubbery, almost, and before she knew it, she could hear the horse crunching away on the mint.
"Wanna pet her?"
Surprising herself, she nodded vigorously.
Lady was wearing a halter, which he had a loose hold on, not that he needed it. "She loves to get neck scratches and forehead scratches. She likes human contact, so she's a good gateway horse."
Jayne had to laugh at that, and when she did, Pace's breath caught in his chest. He didn't know her all that well, but well enough to gather that laughing and fun and happiness hadn't been common experiences for her over the past few years, when they damned well should have been.
They revisited the other three horses, and they were all perfectly behaved.
"Mischief is very aptly named, and he used to be quite a handful. He's still high-spirited, which isn't a fault, but he'll be gentle with you, I promise."
Her eyes darted to his at the way he'd put that, but she didn't say anything, bravely stepping up to the horse—who was half again the size of the rest of them, at least—with the treat on her palm.
He took it perfectly the
n lowered his head to her.
"He's asking for pats," Pace informed her. "He likes you, and he doesn't like very many people. He's got taste."
She almost smiled at that, and she did blush. Pace felt a sense of elation that surprised him with its strength.
Later that evening, he said goodnight before heading to bed.
"You girls going to stay up?"
"For a while, I think," Brownie answered.
"Well, don't get into trouble, and try to keep it down to a dull roar, huh?" he teased as he turned to head down the hallway.
"Thank you for taking Braeden and me to see the horses," Jayne felt compelled to blurt out.
He turned back and caught her eye for a split second, before she looked down again. "You're very welcome."
Then he was gone.
"You did really well. I thought you were scared of horses."
"I am!" Jayne confessed. "But your brother seemed to notice that, and while you were showing Braeden the tack room, he showed me how to feed them a treat—one of the peppermints that you guys keep on hand."
"Ah, yes. He can work wonders with those things."
Jayne's eyebrows rose at her friend's comment.
Then Brownie realized how what she'd said must've sounded to Jayne, and she began to laugh. "Oh, fuck, I didn't mean that way!"
Shrugging, Jayne returned, "Well, I can tell you that I wasn't about to ask how you knew that."
"Oh, gross! No, what I meant is that he's really great with horses—with difficult horses in particular, like Mischief, who was half feral when Pace rescued him. That horse was literally on his way to becoming dog food if Pace hadn't taken him. He's gotten such a reputation with horses that people bring them to him because they know he can straighten them out."
"A horse whisperer."
"Something like that. The peppermints are a part of his method, besides the fact that he's very calm and never angry with them. He never, ever speaks harshly to them, and I've seen him get kicked in the you know where. He always says that's his fault for not being careful about being in range or being in range before the horse was ready for it. He never blames the horse."
She took a sip of her wine, aware that her friend was listening raptly, although she was trying not to let Brownie see that she was. "I know for a fact that, when Mischief first arrived, he wouldn't let anyone near him. But Pace kept leaving a peppermint on his stall door—once a day or so, I guess. At first, he'd do it and leave, but eventually, he'd hang around, longer and longer, until the horse made the connection between him and the treat.
"And now, he's a big lunk. Still cantankerous sometimes—just so Pace knows that he's capable of rebelling, I think. But overall, he's as much of a sweetheart as a stallion can be, especially for Pace."
"He let me give him a treat and pat him."
"He'd do anything for Pace. Eventually, we'll get you riding—not Mischief, but Star or Lady."
Jayne had to laugh at that, and her friend was kind of startled at the sound, since she hadn't heard it very often from her friend, in the past year in particular.
"I don't know about that."
"Pace'll be glad to teach you."
"No, if anyone's going to do that, it's going to be you, not him."
"I keep telling you, he may be a big guy, but my brother is a total teddy bear. And, frankly, he's the better teacher."
"Don't care."
Brownie actually saw her friend shudder—physically shake—at the thought. "Damn, that bastard really did a number on you," she said with a grimace, watching the smile dissolve from her friend's face and wishing she'd kept her big, fat mouth shut.
Especially when Jayne, who was staring at the hands in her lap, admitted rawly, "Yeah, he did."
Brownie moved from the armchair she'd been occupying to the couch to pull her friend into a warm hug. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Feel free to smack me one; it would make me feel better if you did."
Although she was on the verge of sobbing on her friend's shoulder, Jayne instead pulled herself back from that brink, saying, "Be careful what you wish for."
When she'd let go but hadn't moved much away, Brownie began to play with one of Jayne's long curls. "Hey, if you ever want to talk about it, you know I'm here, right? I can't think that you've had much time to process on the drive out here, especially not with Braeden right there."
"I-I haven't done any processing of what happened," Jayne admitted. "I just left, and now I'm dealing with all of the changes I wrought in doing that, good, bad, and indifferent. I haven't cried, I haven't gotten angry, I just…haven't dealt with it."
Brownie patted Jayne's hands. "Well, like I said. I'm here, and once we get you settled into a good job, maybe you could get some counseling."
"I don't know about that."
"I do. It'll help. Believe me. And even if you didn't have any big situations to handle, it's an hour a week where someone is paid to listen to you talk about yourself. It's paradise."
Sometimes Brownie was so gleefully, unrepentantly self-centered, it was hilarious, and it was hard to tell whether she was just trying to make Jayne laugh.
"Well, you know me well enough to know that I'm not really fond of being the center of attention."
"That's because you never really have been when it's good attention. Your family was a wreck, I'm sorry to say, and then you ended up with that scumbag bastard. We need to find you someone who will treat you like the queen you are."
Jayne snorted. "Where? Here? In the ass end of nowhere?"
Brownie gave her friend a considering look. "He might be closer than you know."
After gulping the last of her wine, Jayne's utter skepticism shone through in her voice. "Don't even go there. That would be just a ridiculous thing."
"It absolutely would not! It would be the perfect thing for you both! I know for a fact that Pace wants to get married and have kids. He's got money, he's rock steady, and he's the definition of trustworthy."
"Right. The hunky ex-football player turned rancher and the unremarkable woman who just got out of a bad relationship and comes with a two-year-old. That's not going to happen."
"You never know. It might," Brownie countered.
Putting her wine glass in the dishwasher, Jayne headed down the hallway toward her own room. "When pigs fly, Miss B. Night!"
"Night. Sleep well," Brownie answered absently, the topic of their last conversation distracting her and filling her mind with possibilities.
Chapter 3
Pace had tried to get to sleep, but he couldn't. He heard the two of them laughing in the living room, but their voices were pleasant and they weren't keeping him awake.
Well, one of them wasn't, anyway.
He tried for more than an hour but just ended up frustrated. They had long since gone to bed, the both of them, so he threw on a robe and headed for his study, which was on the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms. The first thing he did was pour himself a shot of whiskey, which sometimes helped him sleep.
But as he stood there thinking about, with the glass in his hand, pictures of Jayne's face, which was usually so naturally pretty, with beautiful skin, in its present condition. And the longer he played pictures over and over again in his mind, the angrier he got.
His sister hadn't told him very much about Jayne's relationship with her husband, but she'd let a bit more slip about the reason why Jayne was staying with them this time. And what little he learned was more than enough to alarm him and stir the protective instincts he'd always had toward his sister more than enough to easily extend them to Jayne.
No wonder she flinched away from physical contact with him. She was a small, delicate woman, and he'd seen a few pictures of her husband. Jake, or Jack, or whoever, was only a little smaller than he was. The idea that she'd had to endure such pain and fear all alone made him want to roar and pound his fists into the other man's face.
Instead, Pace ended up clenching his drink so hard that it broke in his hand,
giving him a not inconsiderable cut near the base of his thumb. It wasn't anywhere near deep enough to need stitches, and he bandaged it himself, cursing himself for being an idiot as he did so.
But even when he'd finally crawled back under the covers long moments later, he kept seeing images of her bruised face, wishing he had the right to tenderly kiss them better.
Despite the fact that she hadn't been there very often and hadn't been there very long this visit, either, as the days passed, Jayne did begin to slowly feel more comfortable at the ranch. She was, of course, already almost too comfortable around Brownie, and to her surprise, although Pace could be quite intense at times, which made her uneasy, he, too, seemed to be doing everything he could to help her chill out as much as possible.
Braeden had quickly begun looking at Pace adoringly, as if he was a superhero, and Jayne supposed that, to her little man's eyes, he really was. Unlike his father, who largely wanted nothing to do with him, considering him little more than an annoyance, Pace showered Brae with something he craved—positive, male attention. He didn't seem to mind at all that he'd acquired a tiny shadow, since Braeden followed him everywhere—even into the bathroom, despite the fact that his mother was mortified when she found out that had happened.
But Pace took it in stride and didn't seem in the least concerned.
"Wow, you're a bit red there, Jayne," he teased.
"Of course, I am! You should have told him no!"
Pace shrugged. "I'm fine with it if you are. If he does something that bothers me, I'll tell him, gently but firmly. Okay?"
She could feel his eyes on her—whenever they landed there, which was becoming more and more frequent—as if they were his hands instead, and that discomfited her even more than the bathroom debacle. Staring at her hands to avoid returning his gaze, Jayne answered softly, "All right." Then she squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye, which surprised him, saying in a no-nonsense tone, "But he is never to be hit or spanked."
His Runaway Bride Page 3