Love Me Tender

by Wendy Vella

  “They talked about Bob and Nancy’s sexual peculiarities... in detail,” Jack drawled, and Rory felt herself blushing again.

  “It was a shock,” she added.

  “And then some. You should have seen her face.”

  “Yes thanks, Jack, there is no need to go on about it.”

  “Touchy,” he mocked. “Now let’s get moving in case the weather changes.”

  “No, I’m not going.” She shook her head to reaffirm her words. “I don’t know how to ride.... Well, maybe a little, but not very well.”

  “No time like the present to learn, and you have all of us to help you,” Joe said, kissing his wife on the cheek. “You, Grace, and Aunt Jess go on back to the house now, honey, it’s cold out here.”

  “I’m pregnant, Joe, not sick,” Bailey said gently.

  “Told you,” Luke said to Jack, who pulled money out of his pocket and handed it to his brother.

  “What the hell was that?” Joe frowned.

  “Luke said you’d show three signs of overprotectiveness toward your wife before 2:00 p.m. today, and that was the third,” Jack said. “Not sure why I keep backing you, bro, our little brother is fleecing me big time. So harden up, will you.”

  “You’re betting on me!” Joe thundered.

  “Ha ha, I think it’s brilliant.” Bailey clapped delighted.

  “Brothers,” Joe muttered, heading into a stall, disgruntled. “And get back to the house, wife!”

  “We’re baking gingerbread. Come up after, Rory, and we’ll warm you up with coffee.”

  “Sure,” she said, raising her hand as they walked away with the box of dolls. Grace still had one clutched to her chest.

  “You owe me,” Jack whispered in Rory’s ear.

  “I apologized.”

  “But I didn’t forgive you, so you have to do more for that apology, and going for a ride is a start. Plus, I have your daddy’s briefcase, and I know you want that back.”

  “Asshole.”

  “I’m thinking Rae for Rory,” Luke said, leading out a horse. Granted, it was smaller than the behemoth Jack had been riding, but sitting on it would still put her high enough off the ground that if she fell she’d break something.

  She could lift a hoof, and do the other things vets did, but she’d never plucked up the courage to ride again, no matter how much she’d wanted to. The few times she’d tried had been a disaster when she was younger, possibly because she’d wanted to excel at everything and hadn’t.

  “Look, I don’t want to ruin your ride, so you guys go on, and I’ll get a lesson another time. Plus, I have stuff to do.”

  “What stuff?” Jack asked.

  “Stuff, you know, things,” she said, looking at the door where escape lay.

  “Stuff can wait,” Dylan said, coming out with a horse at the same time as his wife.

  “This should fit.” Joe came up behind her, pulled off her cap, and plunked a helmet on her head. Jack then stepped in and adjusted it.

  “I—ah, Jack, I don’t want to do this.”

  “Sure you do. Just think of it as penance for verbally annihilating me after that superb session of—”

  “Stop,” she hissed. “And I apologized.”

  “Ah, but I didn’t accept it.”

  Chapter 22

  “Tell me what you know about riding and horses,” Jack asked Rory.

  “They have four legs and large teeth that bite.”

  He couldn’t help the smile. She was so cute standing there with that helmet jammed over her curls, trying not to look scared witless. She’d come here to apologize, and that had been a surprise, but then he knew she was a good person already, no matter how she tried to portray herself otherwise. The problem was they seemed to constantly strike sparks off each other, and not always in a good way. It was a strange thing, when he could usually get on with most people.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Princess. Trust me, us,” he added, looking around at his family.

  “I don’t want to do this, Jack.” Her pretty eyes pleaded with him.

  “Sure you do. You told me that day you came to see Arthur you wanted to learn to ride. Here’s your chance.”

  “I was lying,” she said quickly, her eyes moving at warp speed as she took in the horses and his family members.

  “No, you weren’t. Now be a big, brave girl, Princess, you got this.”

  “Couldn’t I stay in that nice warm ring, and you attach a lunging rein to the horse’s bridle, and we could walk in a circle?”

  “No, and you’re a vet, how can you be scared of horses?”

  “I’m not exactly scared of them, and I worked more with domestic animals than farm animals. Okay, maybe a few horses, but I wasn’t riding them. Lifting a hoof and checking them over is way easier than being perched on top of one.”

  Luke led the horse they had for her closer, and she eyed it warily.

  “So it’s the height thing?”

  “Definitely the height thing.”

  “This is Rae,” Jack said. “She is a gentle, sweet-natured mare who has eaten no one for at least six months. She’s responsive and will do as you direct her to—”

  “I don’t know how to direct a horse! I’m leaving.”

  Before she could take a step, he’d picked her up and swung her onto Rae’s back. “Relax,” he said gently, fitting her feet into the stirrups and shortening the leathers. They were small... tiny in his hand.

  “Nothing will happen. You’ll enjoy this, I promise.”

  “It’s a long way up.”

  Her hand was on his shoulder, fingers clenching.

  “Are you telling me no animal has kicked or bitten you? Nothing has taken a piece out of you with a claw?” The thought made his stomach queasy.

  “Of course, but my feet were on the ground.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t want to alert the animal to how I’m feeling. Animals are very intuitive, you know.”

  Jack eased her hand off the horse’s neck, and the other one off his shoulder, then held out the reins for her to grab.

  “Yes, they are, and I can assure you this one is a lady and would never hurt you.”

  He went through a few things with her, basic commands, then urged Luke up on one side and Joe the other while he went and got his horse.

  He could hear his brothers, Pip, and Dylan talking to her as he mounted, and when he returned she threw him a quick, tight smile, but Jack was sure he saw a flash of excitement in her eyes too.

  “Let’s go.” Joe rode out first with Pip, then Dylan. Luke followed.

  Jack rode beside Rory.

  “Take a nice big breath for me, Princess, and another. Good girl.” He talked to her as they rode down the property toward the trails. Small talk to reassure her he was there and calm her down.

  “Nice work, you have good hands.”

  “Which means what?”

  “That you’re not tugging on the horse’s mouth.”

  “Okay, good. I can’t imagine that’s very comfortable.”

  He snorted.

  “For the record, Rory, I didn’t think the other night was just sex. It was a surprise for me that we ended up doing what we did, and while that wasn’t my place of choice to do it, it happened, and there is no way I’m regretting that—”

  “Me either,” she said softly.

  “Excellent.”

  “I thought so.”

  “That’s an annoying trait.”

  “What?”

  “The need to have the last word.”

  “Surely not.”

  “As I’m the bigger person, I’m stopping now,” Jack said.

  “Excellent.”

  They rode for a while in silence, and Jack felt what he always did doing what he loved, with the people he loved... not Rory, but the others. The mountains were snowcapped, and the stillness told him there was more coming soon.

  “I love this time of year.”

  “Why
?” She shot him a look. “It’s cold, shops and streets are crazy busy, and sometime soon we’ll have to dig out the path to the front door.”

  “That’s a very negative attitude to take, young lady.”

  “Realistic.”

  “Look around you. There is no place like this one, and at this time of the year when it’s hunkering down for winter it’s even more special.”

  She did as he said, gaze going from left to right.

  “It’s magical, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ve been to other lovely places, but this is in my soul,” Jack said.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you miss it?”

  “Like a sharp pain in my side to begin with. But I’m not sure what I missed most. I mean, as a child I didn’t really appreciate the scenery, but the people and the feeling of belonging, now that I missed.”

  Her honesty surprised him.

  “What happened when you left Ryker?”

  She was looking forward now, her mind going back to a time she’d left behind long ago.

  “We rented a place near the prison. It was small and nothing like we were used to. Just another shock on top of so many the spoiled Haldanes had to endure.”

  “Must have been rough.”

  “It really was. We were ripped away from everything familiar to us... everything we loved,” she said.

  “What happened next?”

  She shrugged, and Jack guessed the moment was over.

  “We went to school, studied, lived our lives, and moved on from this place.”

  He knew there was a lot more to the story she wasn’t telling him, but he didn’t want to pry, not now.

  But one day he would.

  “How’d you enjoy your first knitting club?”

  “Ha, like I had a choice. They arrived together, stormed into my house, and that was that.”

  “Answer the question.”

  The air whooshed out of her. “I liked it.”

  “Especially the stories about the sexual exploits, right?”

  “You know, Jack, they constantly preach to us about good manners and no cussing, but I’ve come to realize the same rules don’t apply to the elder generation as do to us.”

  “You’ve only just learned that?”

  Rory giggled, and it was a sweet sound.

  Ahead of them the others talked as they rode, and right there and then Jack could honestly say there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

  They climbed slowly, and he could see Rory was enjoying herself now.

  They’d had sex, and yes it was good... great even, but now they could be friends, he hoped.

  They’d been riding a while when Joe stopped. Jack could hear Buzz barking, but couldn’t see him.

  “What the hell is that dog barking at?” Jack said, dismounting and handing his reins to Luke.

  “Could be anything, but as it’s getting higher in pitch, my money’s on a bird or small animal.” Joe joined him.

  “Luke, watch Rory,” Jack said as he followed his brother off the trails and into the trees. Buzz was high on excitement when they reached him, his paws on the trunk of a tree as he barked.

  “Down!” Joe roared the command, and reluctantly the dog did as he asked, but he kept whining.

  Jack moved closer and looked up. “Is that a bobcat?”

  “It must be injured, because no way would it have stayed around to be barked at.”

  “There’s blood on the trunk,” Jack said.

  “Can’t leave it out here injured and hurting to die.”

  “No, I’ll go get my gun.” Jack headed back to where the others waited, dragging a reluctant Buzz with him.

  “There’s a bobcat up a tree injured.”

  “What are you going to do?” Rory said as he unstrapped his rifle.

  “Kill it. We can’t leave it out here hurting.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “Why?” Jack watched as she handed Luke her reins.

  “I might be able to help it.”

  “No way, it’s a wild cat. Stay on your horse.”

  “I’m going to take a look at it.”

  Before he could stop her, she’d slid off the horse and was hurrying down the trail.

  “Stop! Shit!”

  “She doesn’t take orders well is my guess,” Dylan drawled.

  Ignoring him, Pip, and Luke, who were giving him advice, Jack followed at a run.

  “It’s not a bobcat.” He heard Rory’s words as he arrived. “It’s a Maine coon.”

  “A what?” Joe was at her side, looking up the tree.

  “It’s a cat... a huge one.”

  “I told you to stop,” Jack snapped as he reached them. She ignored him, which riled him up more.

  “I need to get up there to see what’s wrong with it.”

  “Not happening.”

  “How would a domestic cat get out here and up that tree?”

  “It got lost is my guess, after wandering,” Rory said, lifting her leg up behind her. “Boost me up, Joe.”

  “Don’t boost her up!”

  His brother threw him a look. “She’s a vet. She’s more qualified than us to look at it.”

  “And that cat has claws and teeth.”

  “Shut up, Jack. Boost, Joe.”

  Before he could stop him, his brother had done as Rory asked.

  “It’s a cat, bro, chill out,” Joe said, stepping back to look up at Rory, who was now seated on a branch below the cat.

  “Chill out!” Jack wasn’t an irrational person normally, but he felt it now. “She could fall or be attacked. What if the cat launches at her?”

  “She’ll duck.”

  “Not funny,” Jack fumed. “And that looks like a bobcat even if she says different.”

  He felt sweat break out all over him as she climbed up to the branch the feline was on. Moving into position, he stood beneath her so he could catch her if she fell.

  “You’re acting weird.”

  “Weird how?” Jack kept his eyes on her as she held out a hand. The cat hissed, but didn’t move away.

  “Protective, like Aurora May is important to you. I like it.”

  “I’m not. Rory has no one, I’m just looking out for her.” He winced as the cat swiped a huge paw at her. “You sure that’s not a bobcat?” he called up to her.

  “Yes. Its paw is damaged, the claws ripped out, and it has a torn ear.”

  “Okay, so it’ll be fine and I won’t shoot it, now come down.”

  “Can I have your jacket?”

  “What?”

  “Your jacket, or a blanket if you have it.”

  “Why do you want my jacket?”

  “To catch the cat,” Rory said with far more calm than he was feeling.

  “Why can’t you use yours?”

  “Harsh, Jack. The woman’s balancing on a branch that could break at any moment. How do you expect her to take her coat off?” Joe said. The smile on his face said he was now enjoying himself. “Be a gentleman and give her yours.”

  Muttering unflattering comments while keeping his eyes on Rory, he tore his jacket off. Handing it to his brother, he climbed up the tree to the branch below Rory and the cat. Joe threw him the jacket.

  “If you want to come down here, I’ll grab the cat.”

  “I can do it.”

  “He’s big, and likely angry. I’m stronger.”

  “I’ve got it.” She took the jacket off him.

  “I know you’re a vet, and about female equality, but this is just facts, Princess. I’m stronger, therefore I’m the best one to do it.”

  “He has a point.”

  They both looked down at Joe.

  “I’m strong enough to pick up a cat.” Rory’s toe was only inches from Jack now, and she used it to nudge him. “Really, don’t worry, I have this.”

  “When was the last time you lifted eighteen pounds?” Jack said.

  The cat let out a low, long yowl.

  “He’s in pain,” Rory s
aid, looking at the animal. “We need to help him, Jack.”

  “We do, and to do that you need to come down here so I can take your place. No way can you carry him down.”

  “How about I pass him to you?”

  He gave her a look that his siblings would have interpreted to mean he was at the end of his fuse. Rory ignored him and reached for the cat.

  “Careful.”

  “It’s all right,” she crooned in a voice he’d never heard before. “I want to help you, not hurt you, sweetie.”

  “Just throw the jacket over the cat, Rory. You can make friends with it later.”

  “It’s called empathy.”

  “It’s called being out on a limb in the bare-assed cold.”

  Below them Joe chuckled.

  They weren’t up a great height, but it was enough that a fall would hurt and possibly break a bone.

  She lowered the jacket over the terrified cat, and it let out a hissing yowl.

  “Grab it!”

  She did, lowering her weight over it.

  “Slide your hands under it and pick it up. Slowly!”

  “I’ve handled injured animals before,” she gritted out, doing as he said and pulling the animal to her chest.

  “Careful!” His heart nearly stopped as she wobbled. Grabbing her ankle, he steadied her. “Pass it to me.”

  She did as he asked, and Jack tied the arms of his jacket around the spitting feline.

  “Lower it to me,” Joe said.

  He did that, bracing his feet on the branch below. The cat fell the last few feet into his brother’s arms. Jack turned to help Rory down, and watched her wriggle over the edge, miss her footing, and start to fall.

  “Rory!” He lunged at her as she slipped, wrapping an arm around her and grabbing the trunk but he heard her hiss of pain as he wrenched her shoulder.

  Hauling her into his arms, he held her tight, the thud of their heartbeats matching.

  “Are you okay?” Jack whispered the words into her hair.

  “Yes, you saved me from hitting the ground.”

  He felt her lips on his chin.

  “Thank you.”

  He didn’t want to let her go, but knew he had to.

  “You could have broken your neck.”

  “Unlikely, but perhaps a limb.”

  “You’re arguing with me about this!”

  “It’s good for you to have people, especially women, disagree with you.”