by Nicole Helm
Probably read into them correctly too and then razz him mercilessly. Jack was used to taking Gabe’s harassment, but mostly over things that didn’t matter.
Rose mattered somehow.
Unfortunately, there were no possible lies here, so he could only go with the truth and hope Gabe didn’t blow it out of proportion. “Rose is coming out.”
Gabe didn’t reply. He stood there looking vaguely disapproving, but Jack wasn’t about to get sucked into a debate. He just kept focusing on getting the two saddles together.
“So,” Gabe said.
“So,” Jack repeated.
“Acting like it’s not weird doesn’t make it not weird.”
“I’m not acting like it’s not weird. I know it’s a little out there, but welcome to my life,” Jack returned.
“Look, the pretending for your ex or whatever, I guess it’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things. What I don’t understand is why that has to include you and Rose spending a lot of time together now.”
“We don’t have a lot of time to sit down and talk. This will be a nice, quiet place to figure out how this whole thing is going to go down.”
“I get you want to stick it to Madison. And part of me wants to full-fledged support this, but…”
Jack stopped what he was doing, surprised at Gabe’s disapproval. “But what?”
“Honestly? The more I think about it, the more I’ve watched you the past week, the more I think it’s a mistake.”
“I expect this from Alex, not from you,” Jack returned. “I can make my own choices.”
“I know you can, but I thought you might consider the opinion of someone who cares about you. My mistake.”
Jack took a deep breath. He didn’t want to lash out at Gabe for no reason. And there was no reason to be irritated or even angry that Gabe was expressing an opinion. It took a bit of work to not have that reaction though. Lashing out had been his MO for about two years, and he wanted the next couple of weeks to be weeks of change. He wanted to evolve into something else—a guy with a future, instead of one hung up on the past. So he worked very hard to make sure his tone was genuine instead of antagonistic.
“What’s such a mistake about it? It’s a lie, yeah, and maybe it’s childish to want to prove something, but I have to accept that she and Mike are married and have a kid. I don’t have to accept her pity. And quite frankly, I won’t give my brother the satisfaction of knowing he broke me.”
“It’s not that I object to that. It’s that I object to and maybe have concerns about the woman you’re bringing into this whole thing.”
“You have concerns about Rose?”
“I like Rose and all, but I don’t know a thing about her, and neither do you. Are you sure you can trust her with this?”
“Trust her with what? All she has to do is pretend to be my girlfriend.”
“Do you trust her to watch your back? Actually help with what you want help with? She could just as easily fly off at the mouth and say something stupid. She could take whatever information you tell her and twist it. Maybe she’s great and nice and everything, but the bottom line is, you don’t know her. Much like Madison, you only think you do.”
Jack tried to keep his angry first response buried deep. This was Gabe trying to protect him. Gabe had trust and loyalty issues, and he cared about Jack. This was a friend thing, but the comparison to Madison hurt, and the need to defend Rose bubbled up inside him.
He took a deep breath and swallowed down all those twisting, emotional reactions and tried to come up with a tempered response. “I appreciate your concern,” Jack said stiffly.
Gabe scoffed and interrupted. “But you’re not gonna do anything about it. Great.”
“Maybe I thought I knew Madison, and that turned out to be very much not the case, but Rose isn’t… It’s a favor. She’s not going to fly off at the mouth or anything else. She’s a friend.”
“That you’ve known how long?”
“Rose is a good person,” Jack replied firmly, keeping a lid on his temper by sheer force of will. “And she’s been good to me for no reason.”
“Everyone always has a reason, Jack.”
“So is this about my baggage or yours?” he snapped at Gabe.
“Or mine?” a female voice asked from the door.
Gabe closed his eyes and swore. Jack could only stare at Rose, standing in the sparkling, early sunlight shining through the open stable doors.
“I thought you, uh, said you weren’t waking up early.”
“I didn’t plan to, but my body had other ideas. I didn’t know arriving early would mean hearing questions of my character.”
Gabe stared back at her, blank and fierce. Which was not usually Gabe’s way of doing things. He kept the blank and the fierce well hidden under a layer of pretend good nature.
“I don’t know shit about your character, Rose. I believe that was my point. And if you hurt my friend—”
“Oh goody, threats. Were you hoping I’d run away crying or try to fight you?”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “I’m out of here.” He disappeared out the doors before Jack could come up with anything to say to fix this situation.
“He’s just protective,” Jack offered lamely to Rose.
“He’s just right. I’m nobody to you, Jack. I’m not a good person, and you probably shouldn’t trust me.”
“But you’re here.”
She blinked at that. There was some deep, dark emotion swirling in the depths of her eyes he didn’t know how to label, and he really didn’t know how to fix.
It also wasn’t any of his business. He and Rose were friends of sorts, and okay, they’d kissed. And yes, he would like to do a whole lot more than that, but that didn’t make it his job to fix her. She’d made it really clear that she didn’t want him to try.
He’d watched for nearly a year as Alex had thrown his whole life into trying to fix everything—himself, Gabe and Jack, the ranch and the foundation—and make it perfect. Even before everything that had happened overseas, Jack had known that would never work. You couldn’t fix the past, and you couldn’t fix people. There was too much midwestern practicality in him to feel otherwise.
There was also such an incredible desire to fix something for someone and feel useful. To feel as though he had a purpose aside from moving cattle from one pasture to another or checking fences to make sure they didn’t escape.
In a few months, this ranch would be more than that, but for now, it was just cows. And he was just a man scrambling and failing at feeling whole. A broken man had no business trying to help a broken woman.
But it felt like that was exactly what they could do for each other.
“So are you going to teach me to ride or what?”
He smiled at her, because what else was there to do? “If you’re ready, I’m ready.”
* * *
Rose hadn’t known what to expect with this whole learning how to ride a horse thing. She’d spent the walk over to the stables berating herself for agreeing to it, not to mention showing up early—and just about every other moment she’d spent in Jack’s presence. The inward berating had only increased when she’d overheard Gabe voicing his very intelligent concerns. If she had half a brain, she’d have been walking away from Jack too, not letting him teach her how to get on a horse. She wouldn’t be following him around on said horse, listening to him talk as he checked fences and did other very manly looking things.
The cowboy hat so did not help. He looked like every fantasy cowboy that had graced the covers of Billie’s romance novels—so much so that Rose fell into a few too many fantasies as Jack led her all around Revival Ranch on Pansy, the very calm and gentle horse he’d saddled for her.
Rose knew she had no business walking this very thin and dangerous line, but it didn’t stop her. After all, she’d do
ne a lot of things she had no business doing in her life.
Jack chatted on about his family, and Rose found herself rapt. She was supposed to be learning to pretend to be the girlfriend, but instead, she actually wanted to know. He had the kind of family she’d only dreamed about while she was growing up. He had two loving parents, his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins nearby. He made it sound idyllic even though she knew the idyllic was tempered. Because he didn’t mention Madison, and surely if the woman had been his intended since he was born, then she would’ve featured in the memories he was sharing with Rose.
Still, he talked about his sister who was in med school with a certain awe and big-brother pride. He talked about his other sister who would be visiting and how she had some hipster store or stand or something, selling jams and jellies and pies and whatnot. And there was that same odd thing in his voice. Pride and awe, even if he was a little disdainful of the end result.
He spoke about his parents as if they were angels. If the stories he told about his grandfather, who had some bizarre little airport in the middle of nowhere, were all true, the man was a god among men.
Rose had nothing to share back. All the family she’d ever known was her parents. If her grandparents were alive, she didn’t know it or them. Her mom had a sister who had stopped trying to help them long before Rose was born. Apart from that, Rose had no sense of family except her sisters.
So she understood the pride Jack had for his—if she had that, she’d be proud too. But that tone in his voice wound inside her like hope, and what did she have to hope for? There was nothing to hope for when it came to Jack Armstrong.
Armstrong. Even his name was perfect.
Rose refused to feel disappointment when they arrived back at the stables. She had work to do at the bar. She had a life to lead that didn’t allow for this flight of childhood fantasy. Pretty horses and strong men.
No matter that this reality had lived up to the fantasy of a little girl who’d always wanted a horse. She knew what it was like now to have the feeling of the wind in her hair and a beautiful Montana ranch spread out before her as if she had all the freedom in the world—the dream she had dreamed with singular ferocity for her entire childhood.
Then she’d grown up and found it on her own without a promise from any man. It was important to remember that every time Jack made her feel completely like a ball of emotion and softness and, well, feelings for him in particular.
She had built a life of her own creation, and no one could take that away from her if she didn’t let them. No one could make her feel against her will. Well, no one could make her act on it anyway.
Jack dismounted, and she winced as he landed on what was clearly his bad leg. He sucked it up and played it off, but it must’ve hurt. Did riding the horse bother his injuries? His limp was significantly more pronounced than it had been before they’d gotten on the horses.
She wasn’t about to mention it though, because that would not be what he wanted to hear, and it was not the conversation she wanted to have.
At least she’d thought that would be the last conversation she’d want to have—until Becca walked into the stables. Rose didn’t know Becca very well, but she knew the look of a determined woman.
Which meant Rose needed to get out of here and fast.
“Well, I should get going,” Rose blurted, and then realized how stupid she sounded, considering she was still sitting on top of the horse.
Jack smiled up at her. “I think you’re going to have to get off the horse first.”
Heat flamed into her cheeks, and Rose was absolutely horrified. She hadn’t blushed when one of the teachers from school had asked her point-blank if she needed help. She hadn’t blushed when someone had caught her pulling a half-eaten sandwich out of the cafeteria trash can.
Now she was blushing because she’d done something stupid in front of Jack? This crap had to stop. Rose cleared her throat, ignoring the easy humor in Jack’s blue eyes, the way little wrinkles fanned out from the corners. Never mind that he was younger than her.
She tried to remember what lessons he’d taught her about getting off the horse, but it was all gone because he’d had his big hand on her leg half the time. How was she supposed to pay attention with all that going on? She’d been too busy dreaming about things she had no business dreaming about.
Mainly something other than a horse between her legs.
“Let me help,” Jack said when she sat there like a mute lump. He put his hand on her hip and talked her through leveraging herself up and over the saddle and back down to the ground.
When she stumbled, Jack held her up, and she could smell him. The Montana summer. The horse. The leather. And it all worked together to scream Jack Jack Jack and want want want.
“Well, thanks for all that stuff,” Rose muttered. “I better get going.”
“No!” Becca all but shouted, stepping forward. “That’s why I came out here. We put together a picnic lunch, and you two are coming.”
A picnic lunch? What was this place? Little House on the Prairie? “No. Thank you. I can’t. I have work to do.”
“But you have to eat lunch. It makes sense to eat here. Then when you go home, you can get straight to work.”
And as if it was the most normal thing in the world, Becca linked arms with Rose.
“It’ll be great, and it’s all packed up. If you don’t come, food will go to waste.”
Rose looked helplessly at Jack, but he was only grinning.
“You’re supposed to help me,” she hissed at him.
“This is more fun,” he replied, adjusting that ridiculous cowboy hat on his head.
She glared at him, but she knew she wasn’t getting out of this. Clearly Becca had some plan. Maybe Rose wouldn’t be so nervous about going along with it if she hadn’t caught Gabe airing his concerns this morning, or if she hadn’t felt like her guts were tying themselves into knots. She knew she was letting herself down a path of incredible destruction, and not for herself. Not destruction of herself either. Destruction of poor Jack.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop it. She didn’t know why she was powerless here when she was powerful everywhere else.
Rose was not a good person, but she was a strong person. That was the foundation on which she’d rebuilt her life. Jack Armstrong made her completely weak. It was alarming and frightening and panicking, and yet here she was being led toward one of the trucks in front of the house.
“Why are we getting in a truck?”
“Oh, we’ve got this place all set up down by the creek. I packed all sorts of goodies, so I promise you won’t go hungry. And it’s an absolutely stunning view.”
“Well, who can say no to a stunning view,” Rose muttered.
Becca let go of her arm and pulled her keys out of her pocket, but before Rose could catch a breath, Jack slid his arm around her waist. Casual and easy as you please.
She sent him one of her most felling looks, but he was not felled. Even a little. He grinned instead. “Relax. We’ll have fun.”
“As fun as Gabe talking about how you can’t trust me?”
“Think of it this way—you’ll now have ample opportunity to make Gabe squirm. You like to make men uncomfortable.”
“I do not,” she blustered.
He leaned close, his mouth almost brushing her ear, sending a spark of unfair lust straight to her core. “Liar,” he murmured right up against her ear.
And yes, she was a liar. She was practically vibrating from the inside out from the simplest of things. He wasn’t even whispering in her ear. He was talking. He wasn’t kissing her. He just had his arm around her waist. His mouth wasn’t touching her ear, and yet everything in her wanted to center on that point of no contact.
She couldn’t even think about that or process it, because they’d stopped at the bed of the tr
uck.
Alex was sitting in the passenger seat, and Becca slid into the driver’s seat. Gabe and a kid were squished into the back seat. Apparently she and Jack were supposed to hop in the cab with a blond woman.
“Rose, this is Monica, our on-site therapist.”
“Hey,” Rose managed, forcing a smile.
“Hi,” Monica said with one of those knowing smiles that meant Jack had talked about her. He’d mentioned her to the on-site therapist.
So great, she wasn’t just faking a relationship. She was now a circus sideshow for his friends.
If it hadn’t been Jack, if it had been anyone else pulling this, she would’ve reverted to classic Rose behavior: off-putting, harsh, and sharp. She’d refined that kind of persona over the years of scraping by on her own and then being a female bar owner in a tough town. But this was Jack, and she didn’t want to piss off his friends. She didn’t want to piss off him. Her brain wanted her to be angry and treat him like dirt, but when he helped her into the truck cab, her heart knew it was the last thing she could possibly do.
She wanted to do the right thing with Jack. The good thing. She wanted his friends to like her, and she wanted him to like her.
She wanted to be the person she knew, deep down, she wasn’t.
But if this was pretend, her acting like his girlfriend for his family, giving it a little practice in front of his friends, even though they knew it was pretend, then maybe for the next few days that could be her pretend.
She could pretend to be the woman she wanted to be. Dangerous, yes, but when Jack scooted next to her, slinging his arm across her shoulders, how could she resist?
Chapter 12
Jack wasn’t sure what Becca was up to. She’d insisted the rest of them head down to the picnic spot while she and Alex lugged all the stuff. Normally, Jack would have argued, but letting it go meant he got to sit next to Rose on a blanket in the warmth of a beautiful summer afternoon and feel alive, really alive, for the first time since that grenade had gone off.