by Aria Ford
We had, I recalled, had a perfectly ordinary, pleasant chat. We'd settled our differences about the rudeness thing, and I actually quite liked him. So why was there something in those memories that was chafing at me badly?
I think it's because I liked him.
I was mad at myself for the very idea of it. I was a twenty-seven year old junior lawyer. I didn't need to go getting interested in a guy who came from another world to me. Another world about which Alex still owed me an explanation.
“Alex!” my aunt said warmly. I looked up as my brother entered the kitchen. I really needed to talk with him.
“Alex!” I said. “Come and join me.”
He nodded. Came and took a seat beside me.
“Hey, Darbs. You look stressed. Listen, I'm sorry...” he began.
“Don't worry about it,” I cut him off sharply. It was settled now – I'd even extended my flight. There wasn't much good to be had in arguing about it in front of my family: I wasn't about to let them know I didn't really want to be here, now was I?
“Fine,” he said with some surprise.
“Listen, Alex. I wanted to ask you about...”
“Eggs, Darby. I did two. Sunny side up, right?”
“Yes. Thank you, auntie.”
“No problem,” she said with a big smile as she put a plate of delicious-looking breakfast in front of me.
“Now,” I said to Alex. “I need to ask you about Jared.”
“Later,” he said quickly. He gave a meaningful glance at the cousins and I sighed. I supposed he was right. Whatever background story the guy had, he didn't need it aired over morning coffee.
All the same, the frustration ignited in me. I needed to know. It was the least he could do.
After breakfast, I caught up with him in the back yard. He was standing drinking more coffee, watching the hills.
“Okay,” I said briskly. “There's no one around.”
He sighed. “Okay.”
“So?”
“Darby, Jared's a guy who was in tough circumstances. I met him by chance one day. I helped him out. That's the story.”
“Helped him out?” I asked, frowning. “In what way?”
“Dammit, Darby,” he snapped, surprising me utterly. “Isn't that enough?”
“Hey!” I said, feeling hurt. “You said you'd tell me. That explanation's as bad as no explanation. And why be so defensive? I haven't done anything!”
I surprised myself by feeling tears in my eyes. It wasn't just the shock of my kind, reasonable brother suddenly snapping at me, considerable though that was. It was work pressure, and my confrontation with Jared, and how much he confused me.
“Darby...” he said gently.
“No!” I said. “Dammit, Alex. You seem dedicated to messing me around this week. I knew it was a bad idea for me to go to this thing in the beginning. And I never thought you'd make it harder for me.”
“I'm sorry...” Alex started.
“I don't want to hear you're sorry,” I said hotly, blinking. “I want you to understand that I'm tense and stressed and I trusted you to get me back to work and instead you let us both get persuaded, like you always do.”
“Darby...”
I closed my eyes. When he sounded hurt I couldn't resist it. But I had enough and I wasn't going to have any more. I turned on my heel and walked away.
Luckily, I'd hired a car. All in all, it seemed the easiest way to get from the nearest airport and out to here and back again. That was another problem – I'd have to renew the lease now that I was staying for longer. Or take it back and get a new one. Or just go back with Alex, always assuming his flight and mine were close together.
In any case, the car was a blessing. I hopped in, slammed the door and sped off down the dusty road.
I had been going for about twenty minutes, letting my anger cool, when I noticed something.
A distinctly unpleasant smell. It was coming from the engine.
Moments later, I stalled in the middle of the road.
“Oh, for...”
I wanted to cry. I leaned on the steering-wheel and did a silent scream. I was here, stuck in the middle of nowhere, with an overheated engine and no visible help in sight.
I did have my phone, but what would be better? The help I might get from my uncle, or the help I certainly would get from the AA, but probably after a wait.
I dialed my aunt's number.
While I waited for her to answer the phone, I stared out of the window trying to strive for calm. Of all the places I could have broken down, I guess at least this one was picturesque. I could see the wavering outline of hills, the sun making the sky almost white above them, it was so blue. A haze clung to them, making everything magical and deterring my stress slightly.
I seemed to be stopped near a gateway of some sort, which was good. If I got desperate – if neither my aunt nor the AA was particularly helpful – I could maybe alert someone working on that farm.
I waited for a few more seconds, then hung up. I was about to call again when someone came out of the gateway.
I stared.
The someone was dressed in jeans and a denim jacket. He was on a horse. His muscly shoulders rippled in the sunlight. It was Jared.
I felt my heart jolt and then sink. He had seen me. He was coming over.
He tapped on the window.
“Hey,” he said, quite politely. “You having trouble? I can help.”
I doubt it, I thought. You're part of my trouble.
I smiled tightly.
“Maybe,” I said.
He smiled. “Engine's overheated,” he said. “I'll get some water. Refill the radiator. We'll have it going again in no time. You'll see.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Jared
I couldn't quite believe it when I saw her.
I had noticed the car, standing stalled in the middle of the road out to the ranch. It wasn't a busy road, which was lucky, or it would have been in danger of being in an accident. It was the fact that it wasn't a busy road that made me notice it in the first place.
I rode over from where we were about to head out to the field and had a look. Maybe I could help the guy who'd stalled there. I rode over to investigate.
As the woman at the driver's-seat leaned back, looking out of the window, I saw her full-face and I stared at her. It was her!
Alex's sister.
That was when I'd tapped on the window.
“Can I help?”
“Maybe.”
I smiled. This was my area of expertise – besides house-painting, the only trade I'd ever really learned about was engines.
“Engine's overheated,” I'd said. “I'll get some water. Refill the radiator. We'll have it going in no time.”
She's scowled at me. Not that any expression on that beautiful, gentle-eyed face could have been called a “scowl”. Not exactly. But all the same, this came pretty close. I frowned.
“I'm sorry if I...”
“Don't worry about it,” she said briskly. “You're right. You can help. Thanks,” she added belatedly.
I nodded. “No problem,” I said. “I guess you know the oil's okay too?” I asked. I was showing off. I was hoping to impress her with my knowledge of engines, scanty as it might be. I wanted her to be impressed.
She rolled her eyes. “It's not my car, Jared. But yes. The oil is fine, or so the car-hire people tell me, anyway.”
“Good,” I said. I'd never hired a car in my life before, so how would I know anything about it? But one thing I did know about was overheating.
“I'll go get water,” I said.
She nodded. “Thanks.”
By the time I returned from the barns, a watering-can of water with me, she had alighted from the car and was standing near the front window.
“Oh,” I said. “The hood is up?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I can do that part, I think.”
Her words were acid-sharp, and I should have backed off, but I didn't.
/>
“Good,” I said.
She scowled again. “Listen, mister.”
I sighed. “Sorry,” I said.
She beamed at me. “That's better. Now, let's get this car in working order again.”
I smiled as she waited for me to fill up the radiator, then headed into the car to turn the ignition and check all was working as it should. It was.
“Thanks,” she said. She sounded relieved. And impressed. Well, maybe I was making myself hear that part. But all the same, she sounded impressed to me.
“It's nothing,” I said shyly. I felt awkward. I hadn't exactly had much practice in things like this.
“Well,” she drew in a long breath. “I guess I owe you lunch.”
I stared at her. My brain fizzled with amazement. “Really?” I caught myself, realizing I must be gawping like a fool at her. “I mean...wow. Thanks. I accept.”
She smiled. It was a funny, secretive sort of smile. I wondered what it was all about. When she looked up at me her blue eyes held something that was as confusing as the smile. I shivered.
“Okay,” she said. “Well, where is a good place to eat in this town? Actually, I know. We'll go to Hillview.”
Hillview. That was Green river's answer to fancy dining. I had walked past it a few times. It was the town's way of catering for the tourists. It was all matte wood and pale green lettering and elegance. She was going to take me? To that place? No way!
“Uh... I mean. Thank you. A lot.”
She laughed. When she laughed, her head tipped back, exposing that pale throat. I stared at the tender skin and the images that ran through my mind had very little to do with restaurants. Or cars.
I coughed, trying to bring my mind away from the crazy alternative world in which I was sleeping with Alex's sister. She was so damn sexy, with those pale pink lips with their moist-edged shine and gentle curves that I couldn't help myself fantasizing that way, but I knew I shouldn't.
I don't even know her name.
At that thought, I decided to do something I'd never done before.
“I guess we didn't ever meet, really,” I said shyly. “I'm Jared Mitchell.”
“I'm Darby Gilmore.”
Darby. Nice name. Unusual.
We shook hands and the touch of her hand was like electricity, it jolted through my hand and up to my elbow, then to my heart.
I took my hand away quickly. I swallowed hard.
Her eyes were looking into mine. She wasn't smiling, not exactly. Blue and intense, those eyes held mine the way a magnet does scrap iron. They drew me into her and I felt as if the world was standing still a moment.
“Okay,” she said, breaking the weird atmosphere abruptly. “Well. I'll see you there in about twenty minutes, then?”
“Great,” I said. My voice came out tight and awkward, not like my voice at all. I tried to clear my throat but it didn't seem to help. I looked away from her for a moment. “In twenty minutes.”
“Great.”
She got into her car and drove away. I stood there like I was made of stone. I watched the cloud of dust follow it as she drove away, heading back into town.
That left me with some explaining.
At that moment, any amount of explaining would have been worth time with her. I walked back onto the farm, found my horse and headed back to the barn.
There, I found Jeff. The others had all already gone to the fields.
“There you are!” he said. “What happened? Where were you?”
I sighed. “It's a long story. Listen, could you tell the others I have to go? Just for an hour, two hours? It's kinda urgent...” I trailed away lamely.
Jeff frowned uncertainly. “Well, fine,” he said. “But just don't do it again, okay? It's late on in the season and we need all the spare hands we have around here.”
I nodded, feeling bad for leaving them with the extra workload. But what could I do? This was the chance of a lifetime!
“Thanks,” I said.
I headed back to the shed where we kept our clean clothes, showered and changed. The cracked mirror on the wall above the sink showed me a long face with a firm jaw and big blue eyes, a thin scar above one where I'd just avoided having a far worse injury in a street-fight. I supposed I wasn't too bad. I combed my hair. Then I found my own rusty, ancient Mazda pickup and headed into town.
To have lunch with Darby.
Now I knew her name.
I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking about her. She had looked so good standing there in the dusty road, a blue shirt and darker blue jeans and that pale hair in a big cloud around her face. She wasn't just sexy – and yes, the erection I could feel stirring in the front of my jeans was showing me that – but she was beautiful. Really beautiful.
I snorted. I was not the kind of guy who thought like that. I wasn't, usually, the kind of guy who thought very much about anything in particular. I'd given up on it when I was a kid and my thoughts had been such a frightening, caging place that I'd wanted to join my mother in her world of drink-hazed oblivion. But now I was thinking. And I thought that woman was one of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen before.
I would have laughed at myself, except that I hadn't ever felt so serious about something before.
CHAPTER FIVE
Darby
I drove to the Hillview restaurant. I felt an odd sensation in the pit of my tummy. It was something like apprehension.
“Why am I doing this to myself?” I asked myself.
I had already had serious misgivings about Jared – his rudeness when we first met, the mystery about him, my brother's secrecy – so why do this?
Because you're interested in him.
I sighed. Not interested as in, like, interested. Interested as in, he's an enigma.
At least, that was what I was telling myself. In my heart, I knew otherwise. I knew there was something about the big blue eyes and the tousled hair, not to mention the massive shoulders, that had caught my attention. I liked him and it wasn't all in the sense of warmth about his having repaired my engine when I needed help.
In fact, the engine thing was a bit of a sticking point. I wasn't sure how I felt about his intervention. I was grateful, but I didn't want to be indebted to this stranger. Somehow it wasn't comfortable for me.
I told myself that was why I'd decided to take him out for lunch. To discharge the debt. But that didn't really fit.
If that was all, why had I taken care that my hair looked good? That I had fresh lipstick? That my shirt did in fact look as good as I remembered so there wasn't any reason to stress about going home for another one?
“Dammit, Darby. Stop it!”
I closed my eyes and composed myself. I was here. In the car-park of the Hillview. The local tourists on the lookout for “real Wyoming” were all arriving for lunch. Not that they were likely to find “real” Wyoming there.
I drew in a deep breath and got out of my car. Joined the throng.
Inside, I took a table for two and sat and waited. I felt a bit conspicuous. I looked around the interior of the restaurant – all raw wood and Swedish-style furnishings with accents in green and slate. It was a nice place. It wasn't appreciably different from anywhere I would eat in Newton, except that the clients were more mixed and touristy and that the waiters had a Wyoming accent.
“Water, miss?”
“I'm expecting company,” I said. “I'll wait.”
“Okay, miss.”
I leaned back and looked out of the windows, feeling restless.
Just as I was thinking he'd decided not to come, my eye caught someone in denim walking through the door.
I caught my breath. He might have come from a “difficult” past, but the man was a natural heart-throb. He had such good looks and a stunning body. I couldn't draw my eyes away and nor, it seemed, could anyone else.
“A table, sir?” one of the waitresses asked him with a grin.
I surprised myself by feeling just a little possessive. He was here to s
ee me. Not to have lunch.
“Uh...I'm looking for. Oh!”
I saw his eyes find me and my confusion and jealousy evaporated.
“Hi,” I said, feeling surprisingly shy. This Jared – washed, dressed and in a public setting – was a different Jared than the one I'd met the other night. Or this morning. I had to admit I liked what I saw.