“Say something, damn it. You’re freaking me out.”
She shook away from his touch and swallowed back the dinner climbing up her throat. “Carson.”
He sighed and rested on his haunches. “I told you I’d be back.”
Jenna’s life would never be the same again. Nothing was going to happen the way she wanted—not her plans for the future with Matt or what she hoped for Tommy—and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop the inevitable as it came at her like an avalanche.
All she’d wanted was to get out of town before this happened. She’d been so close. Weeks away. She thought about the pictures of Tommy hanging on the walls and her desk, on the bookshelves and TV stand. Photographic evidence of him was everywhere.
Not to mention the possibility that the shotgun blast had woken Tommy. He was a deep sleeper, but still. If he woke, he might come to investigate. And then what?
Her mind howled. She’d been so close to finishing her plans. So very close. And in the blink of an eye, it was over. She had no idea what the next five minutes would hold, much less the next days, months, and years.
She couldn’t tear her eyes from him as she stood, nor he from her. He tried to help her, but she refused. Once she was up, they just stood there staring at each other, Jenna trying not to throw up and Carson thinking God-only-knew-what.
“Did you really try to shoot me?”
Jenna flexed her fingers. She swung her focus to the shotgun, then to the smattering of holes in the wall below the window. “No, I . . .”
The sound of Jenna’s cell phone made both of them jump. It sat on her desk, glowing and vibrating as Matt’s ringtone played.
Oh, God. Matt was on his way here. She couldn’t have him walk in on this. Even if she could convince Carson to go away before he found out about the truth about Tommy, she needed time and space to figure out what she was going to do before she could even think about what to tell Matt.
Which meant she had to answer the phone. First, she had to get Carson out of the house before he saw Tommy’s pictures. He was already looking around, taking stock of the place.
She took her phone in hand and pointed it at the door. “Wait outside for me. Please.”
His eyes continued giving the room a once-over. He pointed to the toy bin next to the sofa. “You have a kid.”
Her stomach lurched. “Yes. And we’re not going to wake him up with this conversation. Wait on the bench outside and I’ll be right there.”
She opened her arms wide and was walking his way to usher him toward the door when the video chat chimed from her computer. She turned and saw Carrie smiling into the camera. “Hey, Jenna. I hear you in the room. I’m early so we could chat about the wedding.”
She backtracked to get in view of the webcam. “Hi, something’s come up here. I can’t do study group. I’ll tell you more later.”
The ringtone sounded again. The last ring before it flipped to voice mail. She pressed the accept call button. Carrie was saying something with a baffled expression, asking a question maybe, but Jenna couldn’t hear her.
Jenna looked at the camera on the top of her computer and pointed to the phone. “Got to take this call. I’ll talk to you soon.”
She closed the computer lid, aware at how rude that was to Carrie. She’d have to make up a worthy excuse for her bad behavior later, but she was in full damage-control mode now and nothing was going to slow her down, not even good manners.
“Hi. I’m just finishing something up,” she said into the phone. Carson stopped at the door and squatted, bringing the shotgun up with him as he came. Her throat constricted, seeing him armed like that in her house. He had to be at least fifty pounds of muscle heavier than he had been when he’d left Catcher Creek and he had a dangerous edge to him now that the sweet-natured misfit Carson she’d known never had.
“Jenna, are you still there?”
She shook her head, chasing the disparate thoughts away. “I’m here. Listen, can I put you on hold for a sec while I free up my hands?” At Matt’s hesitant assent, she muted the call.
Carson looked natural with a gun in his hands. Most Catcher Creek men did, as rural as their town was, so it shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did. It scared the hell out of her because it got her remembering his fury before he’d left town. Violent fury that had wanted to burn the whole world down. She’d realized in that final confrontation between them that the boy who’d been her best friend was lost forever.
He opened the chamber, popped the spent shell and removed the second one, which he pocketed. Then he propped the shotgun between the chair and the window and looked her way. “You gonna take that call or what?”
She released a ragged exhale, blinking. She’d forgotten about Matt on the line. “Yes. Wait outside. I’ll be right there.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk. I want you to know that. You and I have unfinished business that’s six years overdue.”
Boy howdy, did they ever. And if there was any way she could bargain with God to let her live the rest of her life out without finishing that business, she’d give just about anything. “Okay, I know. Just, please. Outside.”
Nodding, he walked out and stood just beyond the door, inspecting the spot below the window where the shotgun spray had hit from the inside. He glanced her way. “Not too much damage. Nothing a little putty and paint can’t fix.”
She nodded. Whatever. She wasn’t going to be in this house much longer anyway. As soon as she could get Carson off her property, she’d start packing.
Wow. That was it, wasn’t it? Tonight, she was going to have to grab Tommy and run—her backup plan if Carson ever returned. She’d reasoned it out years ago, but never thought she’d have to go through with it. Funny how life was. She was close to making the move anyway. But close didn’t cut it, not with her worst-case scenario unfolding before her eyes. The thought of abandoning all her plans and running away to Santa Fe got her heart racing all over again in panic.
With a hand on her chest, she shut the front door, took a few calming breaths so Matt wouldn’t hear any hint of strain in her voice and unmuted the phone. “Hey, good-lookin’. Sorry to make you wait like that. How’s Jake?”
Matt sank into his chair, staring at the blank touch screen on the phone long after his call with Jenna had ended. She’d asked him not to come over. Straight up told him to leave her alone tonight. And with his work schedule and her school, it’d be next weekend before he saw her again—if he saw her again. The calm he’d found by hunting with Jake was evaporating.
It’d been a great afternoon. In minutes flat, he and Jake had rustled up more than enough firepower to hunt with. The rifle from Kellan’s truck, the shotgun that had been hanging over his fireplace, and a backup from Kellan’s foreman, who’d also pointed them to the ranch’s impressive stash of ammo. Jake’s amusement at the ease with which they’d armed themselves for the hunt had been enough to get Matt out of his head. It was nice to see Jake’s grief lift a little, if only briefly.
The relief from Matt’s troubles had shattered the moment he’d heard Jenna’s tense, distant voice on the line. Then again, what had he expected? He’d dropped a bomb on her that morning, forcing her to decide now whether she could be with a man like him for the rest of her life without regret.
Judging by her shuttered emotions and request that he not stop by to see her one last time for the week, he could predict what her choice would be. Darkness simmered inside him, but he tried to take solace that this was happening now rather than a year or two down the road. Though he was already falling hard for Jenna, he and Tommy hadn’t bonded yet to where he’d suffer devastation at the loss. Sure, he was already half in love with the little guy, but who wouldn’t be? The kid was adorable and smart and full of gumption like his mom.
Jake stretched his legs out past the railing of Kellan’s back deck, his dinner plate on his lap with nothing but bones from their dinner of barbecued rabbit. “What’s up? You headed to Jenna’
s place?”
Matt set his phone on the railing ledge and poked at the rabbit’s foot sitting there. He’d cleaned and saved it as a gift for Tommy, but now he wondered if he’d ever get the chance to give it to him.
“No.” He cleared his throat. “She said she has a lot to do tonight, and now that the wedding’s over, she’s tired.”
Jake tossed a bone off the deck into the darkness. “Sounds like a lame chick excuse to me.”
Kellan’s dog, Max, trotted to the edge of the deck, his eyes following the trajectory of the bone. If the poor thing had been a few years younger, he probably would’ve lit off after it, but instead he sank to his belly next to Jake’s chair.
Matt ground his molars together. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”
Jake dropped his hand onto Max’s head and gave him a rough scratch between the ears. “How long have you and Jenna been together? I don’t remember seeing you around last Christmas when I was here.”
“That’s around the time I met Jenna and her sisters, but we just decided to start dating last night at the wedding.”
Jake snorted. “Dating. That’s one way to put what you two were up to at the wedding. Maybe she thought you were rushing it so she wants to slow things down. That sounds like some kind of wacky logic a chick would dream up.”
Matt didn’t want to get into the nuts and bolts of his and Jenna’s situation with Jake, but the man had a point. Jumping into the sack with Jenna might not have been his brightest move, not because they were rushing it, but because if he hadn’t known how sublime their chemistry was in bed, it might’ve been less painful to absorb the breakup he was more certain by the minute was coming. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel as raw and ready to shatter as he did now, waiting for her to issue her verdict.
He forced the dark thoughts away. “I can’t believe you’d bring up what happened at the wedding between me and Jenna after what we walked in on. What I should be doing right now is kicking your ass in defense of my sister’s honor.”
Jake’s lips twitched into a jocular smile, but his eyes remained heavy with the dark grief. “I could use a good fight right now, if that’s what you want. I might even let you get a few hits in.”
Jake was clearly kidding, but Matt sensed the truth in his offer, as well as the pain. He’d lost his partner today. Probably his best friend. Matt could see how sparring might help take away the hurt for a few minutes, as hunting had.
That was the thing about grief. You constantly had to invent new ways to cope, even if it only got the rock off your chest for a few minutes at a time. Too bad Matt wasn’t in the mood to show up at work the next day with black eyes and bruises. “Sorry. Fistfighting with an LAPD SWAT officer is right there at the top of my list of things not to do. Ever.”
Jake chortled. “Smart man.” He winged another bone into the darkness. Max stood, ears up. Jake stroked his back until the old dog lay down again. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not sorry about your sister and me. Nobody’s honor was compromised or any bullshit like that. There’s nothing wrong with two people giving each other what they need, and I definitely needed a distraction from what was going on with . . .” He swallowed, narrowing his eyes at the dark horizon. “With Nick. You probably don’t want to hear me say it, but there it is anyway.”
All Matt could do was nod. Nope, he definitely didn’t need to hear that, but he took comfort in the revelation that he could count on Jake for honesty. That was rare in a friend.
“I liked being on the horse today,” Jake said. “I didn’t expect to, but it was cool. Wouldn’t mind doing that again if I got the chance. Tara said your family breeds and trains horses, so you grew up in a place like this ranch, I guess?”
“Kind of like this, but Circle R Ranch is at a higher elevation so there’s more greenery. Kellan’s land is set up for cattle breeding, grazing, and beef processing. My family deals in horses so our property has more fences, corrals, and stables, that sort of thing. Another difference is that Kellan’s ranch is quieter than my family’s because besides breeding horses, my parents run a therapeutic riding center for people with disabilities, so the ranch is always crawling with people and cars. My house is on the property, but a mile away with its own entrance road. One of my older brothers and his family live on the ranch, too, closer to my parents’ house.”
“I’ve never heard of horse therapy. Is that like a kind of physical therapy?”
“Physical therapy, mental therapy, all that stuff. Being on a horse is good for the soul.”
Jake pressed the bottom of his shoe against the rail and rocked the chair onto its back two legs. “I can see that. That’s why you took me out today, isn’t it?”
Matt shrugged. “Partly. I like to ride and hunt when I’m down or something’s bothering me. You get the benefit of working with a horse, plus in order to hit anything you’re trying to shoot, you have to clear your mind.”
“If you love horses so much, why didn’t you stay in the family biz?”
At the time he’d made his career choice, grief over his SCO diagnosis had been fresh. Being around his family with their pitying attitudes and unwanted advice had made him feel even worse, as had watching all the children and their families coming for equine therapy. “I’m happy as a lawyer.”
Jake dropped the front two legs of the chair down with a thunk. “You’re a lawyer? How did I miss that? Please don’t tell me you’re a criminal defense attorney, because if that’s the case then we might have to brawl after all. Those dicks make my job harder than it has to be.”
“Oil law.”
“Okay. I’ll give you a pass on that one.” He grinned and smacked Matt’s shoulder as though to make sure Matt knew he was kidding around, but Jake wasn’t the first law officer he’d met with an aversion to attorneys. Cops and lawyers didn’t exactly mesh in temperament or personalities.
Come to think of it, the two of them probably looked like the world’s oddest pair at the moment—a city cop and a country lawyer. But Matt genuinely liked Jake and got the impression the feeling was mutual.
“How did you decide to become a cop?”
Jake set his plate on the rail ledge and took up his beer bottle. “My dad pushed me to it.”
“Oh yeah? But your dad isn’t in law enforcement, is he?” Matt thought he would’ve remembered Kellan mentioning it if that were the case.
Jake huffed. “Not quite. More like a criminal. Went to prison when I was young, he and my mom. All I wanted out of my life was to be the opposite of them in every way, and so I figured what’s more opposite from a career criminal than a police officer? When I was going through the academy, I figured out that being a generally pissed-off, fearless son of a bitch worked in my favor. The job was a natural fit.”
“I thought there was a saying about an angry cop being a dead cop, or something like that.”
“It depends on what you do with the anger. I learned how to control it right away. I also learned to embrace my first training officer’s philosophy that when you have the skills, size, and temper to do harm, you also have to be man enough not to.”
Matt liked that philosophy. If a miracle happened and Jenna and he worked out and he got to help raise Tommy, that would be a lesson he’d want to pass on to him.
Thinking about becoming a family with Jenna and Tommy made him restless for the solitude of a long, dark drive to Santa Fe. He set his boots on the ground and picked up his phone. “I’d better hit the road. Got to be up early for work tomorrow morning.”
Jake stood too and offered Matt his hand to shake. “Hey, thanks for staying today. That was cool of you.”
They shook. “You bet. I’m always up for a hunt. Maybe if I come down to Catcher Creek next weekend we can do that again.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll probably leave for Cheyenne next Monday. Hey, don’t forget your rabbit’s foot.” He tossed it to Matt. “It might give you good luck with Jenna.”
He needed a whole lot more than luck for things to work ou
t with Jenna. “Thanks.”
Matt idled his car under the entrance arch to Kellan’s ranch, where the dirt road met the blacktop. The entrance to Jenna’s property was to the right, only a couple miles away. He wanted so badly to pop in and remind her of how good they were together. But she’d said she needed time and he owed her that much with the choice he was asking her to make.
It hurt like hell to know she was close, yet out of reach. But like his dad said, doing the right thing wasn’t easy. It was damn depressing how often Dad’s words rang true in Matt’s life. For once, he didn’t feel like doing the right thing. He wanted to break rules. Be selfish. Take. It wasn’t the man he had been raised to be and went against everything he stood for, but tonight he wanted to fight for Jenna’s love, brazenly. He wanted to show her everything she stood to lose if she cut him out of her life.
He looked left, toward the highway. It was nearing eight o’clock and he had a three-hour drive to get home after forty-eight hours of barely sleeping. The prudent thing to do would be to hit the highway while he still had a semblance of energy, rest up for work, and call Jenna in the morning.
“Screw it.”
No more wade-in-slowly guy. He sent one last look in the direction of the highway, eased his foot off the brake, and turned right. He needed one more kiss from Jenna, a real kiss this time instead of that peck on the cheek from earlier. Tired of playing it safe, he was going to go after what he wanted, consequences be damned.
Chapter Twelve
The last time Jenna had seen Carson, his face had been swollen and damaged, his body and spirit broken. Since that day, Carson had transformed into a taller, broader version of the lanky farm boy he’d been. Shorter hair, clearer eyes, fighting strong. Clearly, his time in the Marine Corps had hardened more than his body.
Under the yellow glow of Jenna’s porch light, they each staked a territory outside. Jenna stood in front of her kitchen window, jumpy with nerves, while Carson paced with measured steps along the white picket fence at the edge of the mangy-grass front yard, his face a web of shadows.
How to Rope a Real Man Page 16