by Jess Bentley
Dammit. He is flirting. The sexy bastard. “I’m sure I can manage.”
Amusement still dancing in his eyes, he leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.
I lie down on the soft bed and stare at the ceiling. This room—this house—might be disguised as an old, country-style cabin, but there is luxury hidden everywhere. I can already tell that the bed is nicer than any I have ever slept on. The rugs spread over the thick planks of hardwood floor throughout the house look a little worn around the edges, but I suspect that’s because they are some sort of original, handwoven art pieces rather than plain old rugs. I slide my hands over the quilt I’m lying on. Handsewn. Quality.
The Hollisters are rich, there is no doubt about it. What they aren’t, is ostentatious.
My mind whirls as I lay on the soft quilt with a full belly. I’m still so angry with Clay that I could spit. That’s not an expression I’d ever understood before, but I get it now.
I thought my research skills were under par, and that’s why I hadn’t been able to find the dude I’d somehow allowed myself to have a one-night stand with. The “Xander Hall” I had somehow created a life with. But he’d lied about his name.
And I don’t like being lied to.
I’d intended to tell him about the baby if I ever found him. But now I’m not sure I even want to say anything to him. The idea feels selfish to me, not something I ever thought I would’ve considered. But what kind of a man lies about his name and then skips out before morning? I’m a grown-up, I could’ve handled it if he’d wanted to leave in the morning. Heck, if he’d woken me up and simply said he needed to go, I would’ve handled it better. A simple note would have been fine.
No, I don’t owe this man anything. I’ll wait. I have a few days at the Hollister Ranch—even though my instincts are screaming at me to get out of here as soon as possible. But I owe it to myself, owe it to my baby, to find out what kind of guy Clay Hollister really is before I admit that I’m pregnant.
I have tell him, and soon. Keep this secret wouldn’t be right. But I can take a few days to judge what kind of man he is. To decide what I want before telling him.
A knock sounds at the door. It’s soft, but it startles me all the same.
My stomach knotting, I approach the door. With a deep breath, I open it.
Trey. Not Clay. I’m not entirely sure if I’m disappointed or relieved.
“You left your purse downstairs, and I thought you might need it tonight.” He holds my purse out, and I reach out and take it from him. My hand brushes his, and my low belly tenses, this time not with trepidation.
Our eyes lock, and I can tell that he feels it, too.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “Goodnight.”
After he says goodnight, I shut the door.
Damn. I have to watch out for that. I’m attracted to Trey too, which makes sense with them being identical and all, but it’s definitely inconvenient. And not something I can deal with on top of being pregnant.
Chapter 5
Trey
It doesn’t take me long to find Clay. He’s in the billiards room, where he always goes when he’s stressed or needs time to think. To my surprise, Joshua is with him. But Joshua isn’t playing pool, nor is he talking to Clay. Instead, he’s sitting on a chair in the corner reading a book. Not shocking. Joshua listens and watches far more than he speaks. It’s a trait that Clay doesn’t share.
Clay’s glances at me. “Get it over with.”
“How can you be so irresponsible?” It’s pretty obvious to me what has happened. I don’t need a full explanation. Jessa’s wording about leaving before morning without saying goodbye makes it pretty obvious. But the fact that she called Clay “Xander” makes the whole thing cringe-worthy.
“I have needs, like any other red-blooded man,” Clay says bluntly.
“Maybe you should suppress them a little better,” I snap without thinking.
Clay bursts out laughing, eyes dancing with amusement. “I’m not a robot.”
The insinuation is clear, and his words sting, because they’re true. I don’t date. I don’t have casual sex. But despite what my brothers must think, I’m no robot either. Hell, even Joshua dates—though rarely. I glance at my other brother for help, but he merely shrugs.
“Why the fake name?” I ask. That’s the part that really bugs the shit out of me.
“Because we’re Hollisters,” Clay says, all amusement leaving his voice. “And while some of the media attention we’ve been getting is good, it brings out predators, too. The people who are just after money. I prefer to fly under the radar.”
Fuck. We’re going to need some beers for this. I walk to the small fridge we keep in the billiards room for that purpose and grab three bottles. I hand them out to my brothers and open my own. I take a long drink and try to gather my thoughts.
I’m irritated as fuck. But I’m not sure if it’s just Clay’s actions, or the fact that the pretty reporter is already under my skin. And hell, maybe I’m a little jealous. I haven’t been with anyone since Claire, so maybe it’s just that. But maybe it’s Jessa, too. She’s beautiful and obviously intelligent, with a keen sense of humor if the way she tortured Clay is any indication. I like her, and I don’t feel that way often.
“Changing your first name is pretty fucking weird,” Joshua says, finally with a little input. He closes his book and then opens his beer.
Clay shrugs. “Yeah well, it just came out. I wasn’t exactly hunting for a date that night. But...” Clay closes his eyes and rocks back on his heels, balancing by using his pool cue like a cane with his unopened beer in the other hand.
Silence falls over the room for a moment. And I can’t find an argument for what my brother doesn’t say. I can’t blame him for going after Jessa. Hell, I don’t think I’d have been able to blame him if he’d brought her home with him, announcing they were engaged or some such nonsense. But the whole thing is creating a fucking mess.
“I’ll take the lead with her, try to do most of the interviewing, showing her around. It’ll avoid some awkwardness,” I say, finally. Then I take another long drink of my beer. The idea of spending the next few days with Jessa isn’t an unpleasant one. But it is a dangerous one. I don’t have room in my life, in my heart, for another woman. Especially not one who’d already hooked up with my brother and because of it was mad enough to eat iron and spit nails.
Clay’s brows furrow and he frowns. Finally, he says, “You probably should.”
I set my beer on one of the tables and pick up a pool cue. Clay gathers the balls. I break, and for a few minutes, we play in silence. Both of us play like shit, while Joshua watches from the sidelines.
After far too many misses, Joshua downs his beer then shakes his head. “You guys suck.”
I can’t argue that, so I take the next shot and try to stop thinking about the sexy journalist upstairs.
“What you say to a draw?” Clay eventually says, amused at our terrible level of play.
“One more game,” I say, just because I can’t leave it like this. All of the Hollister boys can hold their own at the pool, even Joshua, who rarely steps up to a game. Hell, Tyler, our younger brother who been avoiding coming home lately as much as Joshua avoids playing pool, is practically a pool shark. Hell, given Tyler’s predilection for bending the law in the past, he might very well be one.
“It’s your funeral,” Clay says.
Joshua glances up from his book and snorts.
Our heads are clearly not in the game. Instead, they’re on the woman upstairs. Even Joshua seems distracted from his book. I don’t know what’s going through Clay and Joshua’s heads, but I’m trying to focus on getting through the next few days with a minimal amount of drama. That her smile feels like sunshine and her curvy ass would fit perfectly into my palms is not what I’m thinking about.
I’m about ready to throw in the towel at pool, when one of the ranch hands walks into the billiards room. The hand is one of the new ones, s
o it takes me a second to remember his name. Caleb. That’s it.
Caleb’s eyes are wide and his voice tight. “Hi guys. Do y’all know if Griz is supposed to be working on one of the trucks?”
The kid is nervous, and he wipes his hands on his jeans repeatedly. He knows damn well Griz, our foreman for the last couple years, isn’t a mechanic. Anyone who has talked to Griz about trucks for longer than five minutes would know it. He’s the type who likes to talk bigger and longer than he should, especially about shit he doesn’t really understand. I don’t know Caleb well, yet. But I do remember part of his application for work included a year-long stint of working at his uncle’s shop.
Clay walks over and claps him on the shoulder. “Everything all right, man?”
“Griz isn’t a mechanic,” I say. Griz probably knows a little less than I do about fixing trucks. And I know just enough to be dangerous. Sure, I could probably get myself home if something broke down on the side of the road, but I sure as hell wouldn’t trust me on any of the newer trucks. The damn things are run by computers.
Caleb shrugs and looks down, suddenly unsure. “It’s probably nothing. Can’t believe I ran in here.” He crosses his arms. “Hell, the man’s my boss.”
“Sure, but we’re his bosses,” Joshua says, in his quiet yet steady voice. “Tell us what you came to say. You’re not gonna get in trouble over it.”
When Caleb looks up, his eyes meet mine. “Well, boss. It’s just that I’ve seen Griz take a few parts off of one of the trucks. It’s one of the ones we haven’t used in a couple weeks; something on it needs to be fixed, I think. Maybe he was taking parts off of it off to fix it.”
“But that’s not what you think,” I say, anger already building in my chest. Parts have been going missing off of trucks for well over a year. Usually, ones that have been set aside because something is wrong with them, so we didn’t notice the missing parts until it was too late to go looking for them. Griz has always blamed the constant flow of ranch hands in and out of the ranch, but a niggling doubt has secretly been inside me for months. There was no evidence against Griz, but something inside of me has been starting to question his story for some time.
“Go on,” Clay says, his tone jovial and encouraging as if we weren’t talking about someone stealing from us.
I’m not fooled, I can feel the anger in both of my brothers. They’re both hiding it well, as I’m trying to. Scaring this kid will do nothing good for us, that’s for sure. And if he really saw Griz stealing from us, then I’d really feel like a shit for scaring him.
“I remember someone saying that truck is waiting for parts for the fuel system. But it wasn’t fuel system parts he was taking off. So I thought I should say something.” Caleb’s nervousness seems to fade a bit and he scowls. “I don’t like thieves. More than once, I’ve had stuff taken, working this kind of job. And it’s a shitty feeling when it happens.” His lips tighten with nerves. “Plus, and it’ll sound selfish, but I know where shit is going to roll if he really is stealing. And right now I’m at the bottom of that hill.”
Clay gives the young man’s shoulder a squeeze and then lets go. He is the new guy, there was no question. But from what I’ve seen he is a hell of a worker.
I know exactly which truck Caleb is talking about, a ten-year-old diesel. We aren’t waiting on parts for it anymore. We’re waiting for Alan, our diesel mechanic, to have time to get to it. We don’t keep a full-time mechanic on staff, because we just don’t have enough work for that. So when things get busy for Alan, we have to wait like everyone else.
“You did good coming to us,” I tell Caleb. And don’t you worry about it, we’ll take care of everything.”
After giving Joshua five minutes to change and sending Caleb back to the bunkhouse, we head for Griz’s cabin. Unlike the majority of the ranch hands who share a large bunkhouse, Griz gets his own small house. Partially because he’s the foreman, and partially because he’s worked here for a couple of years, and we like to reward hard work and loyal people. I’m starting to get the feeling that Griz, at the very least, isn’t loyal.
There’s a slight chill in the air—always is at night, even in the middle of summer at this elevation. Clay beats me to Griz’s door and knocks loudly. A good thirty seconds pass before Griz answers the door. That isn’t unusual given the time of night. It’s close to midnight now, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to wake him. But when the foreman opens the door, he is still dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved button up.
He glares at us from beneath dark, bushy eyebrows. A baseball cap covers his equally dark hair and peeks out from under the hat in such a way that it’s clear he’s behind on a needed haircut.
And there’s dark grease on his sleeves. Even from the doorway I can smell the diesel on him. He wasn’t just in the truck engine, he was doing something with the fuel system.
I fist my hands at my sides and grit my teeth. Hitting Griz will do little more than give the man an easy-to-win lawsuit. And I’ll be damned if I make a thief’s life that easy. If he is a thief—smelling like fuel isn’t a crime, after all. But damn me if it isn’t looking grim.
“What?” Griz says gruffly. Bill Grissom, or Griz as he goes by, has worked for the ranch for two or three years. I haven’t connected the dots before, but they’re clear in mind now. I don’t believe in finding a man guilty off the word of one man I barely know—Caleb. But we didn’t have a problem with theft before Griz started here. I simply didn’t connect those dots until now.
“Jig is up, Griz. Why don’t you give us back those truck parts and anything else you’ve stolen.” Clay’s words are harsh. He doesn’t have the same thoughts on innocent until proven guilty that I do. Clay has always gone with his gut.
Joshua reaches over and grips Clay’s upper arm. Behind his glasses, his expression is still even. Of all for Hollister brothers, Joshua is the most even-tempered of us. The most logical. We’ve always given him shit for being the nerd of the family, but the man uses his brain more than the rest of us.
“The fuck are you talking about, boy? I haven’t done anything.” Griz says. His graying eyebrows furrow and his face goes red. Griz is in his early forties, no more than a decade older than the three of us, but he’s the kind of man who carries an attitude of superiority. This is not something about him I’ve ever found endearing, but the man always seemed to do a good job managing the ranch hands.
Hell, maybe I’ve gotten lazy. I have been relieved since we brought Griz on. Being able to rely on him meant that I didn’t have to be up at four-thirty every morning to make sure animals were fed and shit got shoveled. We’ve had foremen before, of course. But we spent a year finding Griz after old Jim had finally retired. And he’d been the foreman since before we took over the ranch, since before our parents died.
A twinge of sadness pulls at me at the thought. I still miss them every day.
“The fuck you say,” Clay challenges him. Always full of eloquence, that one.
I step between my brothers and Griz’s attention switches to me. Then his gaze starts back and forth between the three of us and his foot slides back. As if he wants to run.
Fuck innocent until proven guilty. The man’s body language told me everything I need to know.
“Stay with him,” I tell Clay. Then, with Griz shouting obscenities at us, Joshua and I head into his cabin. In less than ten minutes, we find half a dozen things he stole from around the ranch, including the parts from the diesel. Probably already listed on eBay.
I tell Joshua to leave the stolen shit where it lies. And he follows me back out of the cabin.
“You’ll get off our land tonight,” I tell Griz. “You get out of here tonight we won’t press charges. But if any of that shit is gone in the morning,” I say, pointing at the cabin. “Or anything else turns up missing tonight, I’ll have the sheriff up your ass so quick you won’t know what hit you.”
Griz had quieted, but at my words, his face flushes again, and he opens his mouth wi
de. But before he can get in another tirade, Clay cuffs him in the back of the head. “You do what Trey says. Or it won’t be the sheriff you have to worry about.”
Clay’s face is nearly as red as Griz’s, and I almost tell him to calm down. But that might give Griz the impression we’re not a united front, so I cross my arms and glare down at our now former foreman.
“You heard them,” Joshua says, his voice amazingly still even. But we’re triplets, I can hear the hint of anger belying his tone. “Don’t make trouble. Some engine parts aren’t worth your freedom.”
Griz’s mouth snaps shut. And as one, the three of us turn and head back toward the house. As far as Griz knows, we’re trusting that he’ll leave. Or hell, maybe he thinks we’re too stupid to watch him.
But we will be watching.
Chapter 6
Jessa
I wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs—normally a dream come true since I think bacon should be its own food group. But not today. I immediately have to run for the bathroom. After vomiting the little bit of liquid in my stomach, I feel better.
“Freaking morning sickness,” I mutter to myself. And I mentally vow that today, I’m not going to faint in front of anyone. No matter what.
Of course, I could hardly be in for a shock like I had last night. My baby’s freaking father. What are the odds?
I brush my teeth and take a quick shower, then I dress in jeans and sneakers. I pull on a camisole and a button up. The blouse is cotton so should be comfortable. I’m a city girl at heart but wearing anything too fancy on the ranch would be silly. I’d trip over myself in heels and no doubt make myself appear even more foolish than I did fainting everywhere.
I head downstairs to the kitchen, happy that the smell of breakfast is now almost enticing. On the other side of the kitchen is a huge dining room. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but the lights weren’t on in that area of the house. Besides, I’d been too distracted by meeting Xander—Clay—again. Not to mention utterly mortified after fainting in front of my hosts.