by Gigi Moore
“I already had Maria fix up the guestroom for Tam—”
“You actually let her do something?”
“Pull in your horns, boy, and stop bein’ a clever trousers.”
Jax chuckled and drained the last of his milk before snatching a napkin from the holder on the island and wiping his mouth. Far be it from him to look for trouble. “Need me to do anything to welcome home our girl?”
“Now that’s the right attitude. Not like your brother giving me lip when I gave him the news, the whole time telling me all the reasons she shouldn’t and didn’t need to come home.”
Jax didn’t want to point out that this wasn’t Tamara’s home anymore. New York was.
Pop had made it clear that this would always be her home whether Bailey talked to his daughter or not.
“Can’t just turn off my feelings like a faucet, you ol’ coot, and I ain’t gonna.”
This little piece had been delivered to shut Bailey up right and proper the last time he and Pop had words about Pop’s calling Tamara and volunteering news of her well-being to Bailey when Bailey hadn’t asked for it.
“So you’re not setting her up in Bailey’s ranch house then,” Jax teased, already knowing the answer. Bailey probably didn’t even know his daughter was on her way to The Double R.
Wow, Jax thought the fireworks that would go off during the father and daughter’s little reunion would be something to see and hear.
Jax gave the pyrotechnics engineer of the upcoming event a look and just grinned.
“Don’t ask fool questions, boy.” Pop returned his grin. “Well, don’t just sit there like you ain’t got nothin’ to do.”
“You want me to go into town to get a cake?”
“I asked Maria to make a devil’s food. Tamara’s favorite.”
“I remember.” Tamara had liked chocolate anything as a kid. He didn’t think she had left behind the addiction. Maybe she’d upgraded the form of her supply but Jax figured Maria’s cake could compete with any highfalutin’ Yankee confection Tamara might have tried in the ensuing years since her departure.
He polished off his sandwich and got up to put his saucer and glass in the dishwasher.
“Got some other things for you to get though.”
Jax paused as his father pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it over to him. He took it and glanced through the list of items. At least the old man wasn’t going overboard, just the basics—a Welcome Home banner, balloons and streamers. He looked up from the paper to ask, “Is this just going to be a private affair? You know, you, me, Jess…Bailey?”
“Don’t you worry none about who’s comin’. Just get the stuff we need and help me set up when you get back.”
“You sure like cutting things close, ol’ man.” It would be a miracle if he got into town and got back with everything before Jess made it back with Tamara. But he figured his pop held things close to his vest to keep Bailey out of the loop as long as possible.
“Don’t you worry none. Things’ll work out. Guarantee it.”
Jax smiled and left, each step out of the house to his truck making is heart fill and pump with anticipation and unaccustomed desire.
When Jess initially informed him of Tamara’s impending arrival, Jax had toyed with the idea of offering to go with his brother to pick her up, but decided against being the designated third wheel. Despite his brother’s grudging affection and ambivalence about her return, Jax knew how possessive Jess could be over Tamara. Having her in a one mile radius with someone else other than him sniffing after her would only turn up his brother’s aggression and overprotective instincts.
He wondered how Jess would take sharing her company with Jax, much less the rest of the ranch. Or did his brother really expect to keep her to himself during her stay?
To be sure, Jeremiah would have some say about that. The ol’ man already chomped at the bit, ready to lavish all the attention on Tamara that a long lost daughter deserved.
Bailey proved another story, but Jax couldn’t really see him totally ignoring his only child during her stay. And even if he did try some nonsense like that, Jeremiah would be on his hide, kicking up a row about his responsibility to the girl before anyone could blink an eye. Aside from having a special affinity for Tamara, Jeremiah valued family ties, and Jax knew the behavior of his best friend of over thirty years disappointed his pop.
The two men had a lot in common despite the seven years separating them, the least of which being their history as single fathers raising their young children alone. Their love of the land and hard work ran a close second, a love they tried to instill in their children from the cradle. Arguably, this love took a little more with Jess than it had with Jax and Tamara.
Speaking for himself, he did love the land, but didn’t have the same passion for ranching as his brother and father though he proved a natural at certain aspects of the occupation, specifically the physical aspects. He didn’t feel right unless engaged in some activity where he worked up a sweat.
His own disillusionment made him wonder exactly how Tamara could be happy as a lawyer in New York. Had she really found what she’d been craving after all those years she’d been passing time on the ranch with them? Or was she just as restless in her position as Jax was in his?
The idea that he could have anything in common with Tamara, aside from their shared history on the ranch together, made Jax wonder at his past failures. They had necessitated him returning to the family homestead as he’d promised his father he would if the rodeo gig didn’t work out. He hated dwelling on it, but Tamara’s return brought on a bout of nostalgia that Jax hadn’t allowed himself in years, forcing him to put his feelings about his father and his past under a microscope for the first time in a long time.
Football had been the only thing that distinguished and distanced him from his brother and the work they both did on the ranch. Football had been the only thing that belonged to him. The more he excelled at it, the more he understood exactly why Tamara had been so passionate about the law and going to school away from home. When he’d been in school, even though he hadn’t lived on campus, he’d had a sense of freedom and fulfillment that living on the ranch had never afforded him.
When he’d gotten injured and could no longer play, at least not competitively, he couldn’t help feeling that his father rejoiced in his setback. He knew his pop wasn’t being mean-spirited. The ol’ man had just wanted him home, by any means necessary and even at the cost of Jax’s aspirations. His pop came from the old school, and believed in a hard and honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. He tried to rouse in Jax and Jess the same enthusiasm he had for The Double R. The ranch made upt their heritage, he always told them, and would pass down to them and their sons and daughters after all. Thus, Jax and Jess needed to take an active interest in the ranch’s success, and failure, as soon as and as much as possible.
Jax hated that he couldn’t find the same sense of satisfaction at working the ranch as his brother and father. He often wondered what he missed inside him and what kind of a pariah he would be if they knew just how much he resented having to come back home after only four years on the rodeo circuit.
Would Pop wash his hands of him the same way Bailey had washed his of Tamara if he found out the circuit still kept his blood warm, that the call of competition still drove him?
Chapter 3
Tamara deplaned at Vail/Eagle County Airport not knowing what to expect or what kind of reception she would get from her father. She didn’t even know who would be picking her up from the airport, only that someone would and not to worry.
Jeremiah had made the arrangements. She trusted him. She knew he had something up his sleeve though. She had been suspicious from the moment she got off the phone with him to call her travel agent right to the moment she’d boarded her plane at Kennedy Airport.
He’d been evasive about aspects of her father’s accident enough to make her antennae go up. Jeremiah’s caginess led her to
believe that her father’s injury proved worse than he had revealed or that her father wasn’t even aware of her trip, and probably wouldn’t approve of her traveling half-way across the country to see him laid up and incapacitated. Either possibility did not sit well with Tamara’s conscience.
Much like Jeremiah, her father demonstrated pride and stubbornness. And herein lay the problem and why they hadn’t spoken in almost two decades—her pride and stubbornness.
When she put it into that perspective, palpable regret coursed through her until she remembered why she wasn’t speaking to her father.
Tamara headed to baggage retrieval with her one carry-on strapped slung over one shoulder. The memories of her last few months at The Double R came back to her in a rush of unaccustomed nostalgia that nearly keeled her over.
Damn, she had thought she’d gotten over the place by now.
She had been in New York so long , living, working and playing the way city people did, that her father probably wouldn’t recognize the woman she’d become. She’d become citified the epitome of a city slicker, the antithesis of how she had been brought up on The Double R.
She had become her mother.
More than Jeremiah’s call informing her of her father’s accident and summoning her back to her childhood home, , she hated being anything like the woman who had abandoned her when Tamara barely got out of diapers. But she couldn’t escape her heritage or the truth. From all the things she had heard about Jasmine Carpenter, Tamara thought herself more like the woman than not, more like her than she wanted to admit.
She already knew how much she looked like the woman—not because her dad kept any pictures of her mother around, but because everyone who’d ever known her mother told her so as Tamara grew up. And, from as far back as she could remember and according to her father, she had suffered from the same wanderlust that had her mother up and leaving the ranch without a backward glance.
In the last few days, however, she’d been wondering more and more about her mother and the circumstances that had led to her departure, especially after her own fiancé, James’ defection no more than a couple of weeks ago.
She squeezed sketchy information out of her father at best. Jeremiah and his wife Paula, her surrogate mom, had filled Tamara in on the sordid details of her parents’ relationship and breakup, and even then they shared their biases, couldn’t get passed their friendship with her father. On the other hand, Jeremiah and Paula portrayed her mom as a materialistic, wild, and reckless opportunist who’d only married Tamara’s father for the glamorous life she thought his participation on the rodeo circuit could provide.
When the injuries piled up and the tournament victories and money fell off, her father decided to call it quits and settle down. He said he didn’t want to live on the road away from his wife and baby so many weeks out of the year, the rodeo lifestyle not what he wanted for his family.
To hear Jeremiah tell the story, it had been a match made in heaven—her father’s good fortune that The Double R had an opening for ranch foreman and The Double R’s good fortune to land a man like her father to help run it.
What her father lacked in experience, according to Jeremiah, he more than made up for in raw talent and enthusiasm. And the rest, as they say, was history. The two men’s working relationship spawned a thirty-plus-year friendship, and the inception of Tamara’s upbringing on the ranch.
As a lawyer, and curious by nature, Tamara didn’t think things this cut and dried. She liked to hear every side of a story. After all these years, she had only heard her father’s side. She loved him and Jeremiah and cherished Paula’s memory, but that wasn’t enough anymore.
She wondered what kind of picture her mother painted of her ex-husband when she related the tale of their separation and divorce to her friends. Did her mother paint Dad as the bad guy in her scenario the way Tamara painted James?
Tamara gritted her teeth, angry at herself for breaking her promise. She wasn’t supposed to think about her breakup with James. This trip should have been the perfect opportunity for her to get her mind off of him. She wasn’t glad her father had been injured, but she welcomed the excuse it gave her to get out of New York and away from the flaming failure of her relationship with the man engaged to marry her until a few weeks ago.
How quickly things changed.
At least she wasn’t a toddler or little kid anymore and could take abandonment a lot better. It still hurt, especially with James’s asinine reasoning. Had he been more like her mother and just left without a word she might, have felt better about him leaving.
For the first time in a long time, she felt sympathy for her father and thought she might understand what he must have felt when her mother left him. This comprehension, however, did nothing to lessen her desire and need to know why her mother had left.
Tamara shook her head, realized she had been standing at the carousel for quite some time and among the last several passengers milling about waiting for their bags. The conveyor probably had gone around a few times, and she’d just missed her luggage, mired in her thoughts of the past.
She focused on the bags coming through the chute now and within a couple of minutes saw her Louis Vuitton suitcase appear and make its way toward her. She moved closer, jockeying for position at the carousel to grab the handle of her bag and lift it off of the conveyor.
The minute she touched the wheels of her suitcase to the floor, she started to feel anxious again, the reality of being back in Colorado setting in.
She’d always promised herself that once she left McCoy she would not come back, at least not to live. Not that she had had a bad childhood—her father had done everything he could to make up for the absence of her mother—but she didn’t cotton to the idea of going backwards in her life. After working her way up the echelons of society and her career, returning to the slow, simple life of The Double R definitely seemed like a step in the wrong direction for her. She liked the fast-pace and convenience, too used to and preferring the city-that-never-sleeps vibe.
But her dad was the only family she had, and he needed her.
At least this is what she told herself. The thought had driven her every move since she’d hung up from Jeremiah to make arrangements for her trip.
My father needs me.
She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since she’d left home. Her last image of him was that of the long, lean, and robust cowboy she had always admired. He had been a rough and ready man’s man, working his buckaroo crew hard. He had also been an overprotective and loving but stern disciplinarian trying to make sure his only child grew up with the right values.
Tamara had to remind herself that at sixty-five her father was, a senior citizen, even though she knew he would reject this notion.
She didn’t think she’d ever forgive him for Noah, but she could do no less than carry through with her plans and see to his recovery.
It wasn’t like she had anything else better to do. Her personal life was in the crapper. Though her career was flying high, she knew that her success and dedication to it was at least half the reason behind James’ departure. She knew her independence and success fueled his self-esteem issues. She kept telling herself that his chauvinistic attitude and desire to be the only star in their universe weren’t her crosses to bear. She couldn’t spend her life kowtowing to a man’s ego and being who and what she wasn’t just to make things pleasant and easy for him. She had left home eighteen years ago so she wouldn’t have to.
At least her workaholic tendencies had put her in good stead with her firm when it came time to ask for an indefinite leave of absence. She hadn’t taken a vacation or day off in the seven years since she’d been with McEntee, Brecker, Holzman & Frakt. She’d even dragged herself out of her sick bed and worked through a bad case of the flu last winter. Of course the profits she brought the company in numerous high-profile, lucrative lawsuits, and her reputation as one of her company’s most successful litigators, weighed heavily in her favor. Not to me
ntion her mentor David Frakt, particularly sensitive to her situation after recently losing his own father to a long illness, had passionately made a case for Tamara to go home and tend to her personal affairs without fear of losing her job.
If she had to have any romantic notions about anyone at her firm, Tamara thought, it would be for the firm’s youngest partner, but David’s marriage and devotion to his wife, Michelle, nipped these inclinations in the bud. She didn’t do married men. Nor did she do white men. She didn’t like to say never though and this motto had served her well in her life and her career so far.
Tamara took a deep breath as she made her way through the airport terminal looking for this person designated to pick her up.
She noticed a couple of uniformed limousine drivers holding up placards with names written across them, but didn’t see her name among them.
Several passengers who had been on the plane with her rushed by to raucously greet loved ones and friends before they all made their way out of the terminal.
Tamara decided to leave too. Maybe her pick-up waited for her outside somewhere. Besides, the fresh air would do her some good, maybe clear her head.
She shouldered her Keepall, expanded the handle to her suitcase to more easily wheel it behind her, and headed for the exit.
Tamara made it through the crowds and still hadn’t spotted anyone familiar, though a dozen or more men wearing cowboy hats, jeans and boots gave her more than a passing glance. She reminded herself that in Colorado the outfit proved a fashion statement as well as the state uniform so didn’t necessarily mean the men in question worked on a ranch, though nine times out of ten, they did.
Just when she’d been about to give up her search, someone cupped her elbow.
Tamara yelped at the unexpected contact and turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered cowboy with black Stetson tipped low over his face. He had to be at least six-two, towering head and shoulders over her five-seven, so she craned her neck to peek under the brim of his hat and could just make out the strong square jaw and sculpted cheekbones.