by Vella, Wendy
“I heard Mrs. Howard got into you again the other day, Joe. Why the hell do you put up with it?” Jack said. “Woman’s a bitch.”
“And I raised hell, so she’s within her rights to make me pay,” Joe said.
“You’ve paid already,” Luke said. “More than paid, and you need to let her know it. She thinks she has way more power in this town than she actually has. Jack calls her a remora.”
“Which is what exactly?” Joe asked.
“One of those little fish that sit on whales and get an easy ride.”
“Nice description.” Piper high-fived Jack.
“I don’t need anyone fighting my battles.” Joe eyeballed his siblings. “For the most this town has forgiven me. There’s just a few who haven’t, and I can handle them,” Joe lied. In fact, they pissed him off, and twisted his gut into knots when they came at him, but he’d never let them know that.
CHAPTER NINE
Bailey played at Apple Sours last night. She and Joe worked out she’d come in Thursdays and Saturdays. One night was honky-tonk, the other blues. She’d never enjoyed playing more. Two weeks she’d been in Ryker, and as yet had no desire to leave.
She felt safe here, which was strange as she’d never been unsafe—no one had ever threatened her. But something about this place wrapped around her like a warm shawl.
Bailey made sure that any time she spent with Joe was in company. He disturbed her, and dredged up memories that were better left buried, so she’d tried to put contact in the polite yet distant category. She’d caught him watching her more than once, frowning, as if she was a puzzle he couldn’t work out. Hell, she couldn’t even work herself out, so there was no way he’d have a chance.
After Maggie had left for work this morning, she’d headed out the door. Today she would do what she’d wanted to since coming back. Bailey walked down the drive that had once held her home. She’d avoided it, and there was no reason to. Maggs hadn’t brought the subject up either, which had been fine with her, but now felt the right time to let another ghost rest. Once, she’d been happy enough here; it was time to put the fear of what she’d find to bed.
The day was crisp, and a breeze played in the air. The beauty before her was breathtaking. With the twins constant companions on her right, she approached her old home. Bailey had once walked or ridden over every inch of the property she was approaching. The fences had been redone. Post and rail, they looked good. Her eyes followed the line of the drive. She’d just go halfway, so no one saw her. Close enough to see the house and look around.
Her old home was still there, and relief had her exhaling as she saw the condition of it, painted a soft gray now, with darker gray trim. Bailey released the breath she’d been holding as she saw that whoever lived there now was looking after it. The front pillars had been stoned up to halfway, the driveway still a circle, but now sealed. Flowers and shrubs planted, and the grass mown. In fact, it looked better than she’d ever seen it. Relieved, she let her eyes wander to the huge set of outbuildings in a paddock further back. The current owners were working it. Those buildings hadn’t been here before.
“Hello.” She approached the fence where two horses stood, holding out one hand. “Aren’t you both beautiful.”
One was black as midnight, with a long silken mane, the other a chestnut with soft brown eyes. Bailey loved horses.
She ran a hand down their silken necks, and leaned in to inhale their special scent as she wondered on her next move. She did love it here, but couldn’t stay forever. Bailey needed to make a plan for the future. She couldn’t live in limbo with no direction much as she enjoyed having no restrictions pressing down on her. Odd jobs here and there were fun, but not indefinitely, especially if she couldn’t get her grandfather to release her money.
Hooking her arms around the neck of the horse, Bailey rested her head on its long forehead. Once, she’d ridden every day, and sometimes twice. Horses and music had always been her passion. She missed them both now, but it had taken a while to come to that with her music.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but the sound of hooves had her easing back. She looked beyond the horses, and saw a man riding toward her, but it was the dog at his side that told her who it was.
Joe Trainer wore a worn gray T-shirt, jeans, and boots. On his head was a navy cap. She didn’t remember him riding, but then he also hadn’t played the piano either. He sat a horse well. His tall, rangy body looked good up there.
“Hi, Bailey.”
“Wh-what are you doing here? I didn’t know you rode.”
Buzz barked for her to notice him; she stuck a hand through the fence and scratched his head.
“We own this property now.”
Shock had her stepping back.
“Y-you own this? Why did no one tell me? Maggs—”
“Was probably waiting for you to ask her about it, and as she has no idea of the history we share, didn’t think it was important to mention that I now own it.”
Bailey couldn’t drag her eyes from him. Joe now lived in her house.
“I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I wasn’t sure how you’d react?”
Bailey didn’t know how she felt.
“Talk to me, Bailey.”
“I— You’ve made improvements, they look good.” She forced herself to say the words as she turned to look again at the house. Joe lived here, on the land she’d grown up on. Why was that a struggle for her to comprehend? She’d been gone so long, and had known someone would live here... just not him.
“I really am sorry—”
“S-so these are your horses that I’m hugging?” She cut him off.
“Yes, and I have no problem with you cuddling them. Everyone needs a hug now and again, even my horses.”
Bailey needed to leave. “I have to go, b-bye.”
“Why are you always running away from me?”
She’d turned away and started walking; he and Buzz were keeping pace with her inside the paddock.
“I’m not running from you.”
“Prove it then. Come and let me show you what we’ve done here.”
“No, thanks.”
“You just said you weren’t running from me, and yet that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
She looked up at him. The man had no right to be that hot.
“I play in your b-bar, if I was avoiding you I wouldn’t do that.”
“You’re only around me when there’s company.”
Bailey didn’t answer him because it was the truth, they both knew it, so she kept walking.
“Come and meet the horses. We have plenty more on the pasture out back, and stables. Let me show you around, Bailey. Please.”
“I was just going for a walk, but thanks.”
“Do you still ride?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Would you like to now?”
Bailey battled down the surge of excitement at the thought of riding again. “No, but thanks.”
“Why are you saying no when you clearly want to say yes?”
“I’m not!”
“You are. So unless you’re out of practice or scared, what’s stopping you—other than it’s me who’s offering.”
Bailey felt heat creep into her cheeks.
“I can ride, as you very well know, and I’m not scared—”
“So that leaves me.”
He was smiling at her now, teasing her.
“It has nothing to do with you, and you h-have an overinflated opinion of yourself.”
Shut up, Bailey.
“Very possibly. But we’re friends, so no reason at all why you can’t come for a ride with your friend.”
“We were friends.”
He tilted his head to one side, and studied her.
“I didn’t realize there was a time limit on our friendship.”
“Neither did I.”
�
�And there’s the fifteen-ton elephant in the room,” he said. “The letters.”
“Just leave it, Joe.”
“Come with me, Bailey, and I’ll tell you why I didn’t reply to any of the ones you wrote me.”
“I don’t think any good can come from discussing that, Joe.” Bailey wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.
“How about we go for a ride, and you can ask a few questions if you want, and I’ll answer them.”
“I d-don’t have questions. I told you, the past is better left there.”
“You were never a good liar, Bailey Jones. Come on, ride with me for old times’ sake.”
The lure of being on a horse was the only thing that had her nodding. Not the time she would spend in his company.
“There now, that wasn’t hard.” He moved his mount closer to the fence between them. “You climb on over, and I’ll give you a ride to the stables.”
“I can walk.” There was no way she wanted to get on that horse with him.
“For someone who comes across as reserved, and once hated confrontation and being difficult, you surely are.”
Bailey kind of liked the idea that maybe she was a bit difficult.
“Just do it, Bailey, I don’t have all day.”
She should have turned and walked away, but no, she let him goad her into staying. He used to goad her into most things. Gripping the fence, she climbed on top, then squealed as hands grabbed her. She was placed gently in front of Joe.
“A bit of warning!”
“I told you I was giving you a lift to the stables. Now relax, I don’t bite.”
“Ha,” Bailey managed, her mouth now dry. One of his arms banded around her waist, hauling her closer, and suddenly she was surrounded by Joe Trainer. The solid planes of his chest pressed to her back, her thighs resting on his. His other hand held the reins and she noted the silver band on his finger again, and wondered who had given it to him.
“So you didn’t write any bad stuff in the letters, but I read between the lines. You weren’t happy all the time in Boston. What was it really like?”
“Okay.”
“Now tell me the truth.”
“Joe, there’s no point to this. Those years don’t matter anymore.”
“I think there is a point, and they matter to me. You’re uncomfortable around me, and not for a good reason, so if we talk that may help.”
“Good reason?”
“You think I’m sexy as hell and—”
“Right, got it, thanks.” She cut him off.
His laugh was a deep rumble against her back.
“So tell me the truth, Bailey. Were you happy?”
“I hated it.” She said the words quickly to cover her embarrassment. But mostly because I missed you so much it was a physical pain inside me.
“Why?”
“Just because. Tell me about the horses, Joe.”
“Why, Bailey?”
“Everyone had friends,” she snapped, “at the school my grandfather sent me to. I didn’t, and wasn’t that good at making them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I did okay, and then I got a scholarship to Juilliard, and was with people like me.”
“Like you?”
“Focused, dedicated... maybe a bit different.”
“And you loved that?”
“Of course.” She’d liked parts of it. The music and the being away from her grandfather and mother. She’d hated that Joe wasn’t there, because even two years after she’d left him, she still pined for him. She’d been a foolish girl to do so, but when you were lonely, and your life not that happy, you clung to what had once made you that way.
“Truth?”
She smiled at his word. They’d spoken that way to each other once. Both knowing when the other lied.
“Partially.”
He snorted at that.
“And you don’t want to explain further?”
“So your family own this, and the bar?” Bailey changed the subject.
“I own the bar, but the family owns this, and the cafe, plus property in town. We started acquiring a few years after I came back.”
She wanted to know where he’d been before he’d come back, but then if she asked him questions, he had the right to do that as well, and Bailey didn’t want to talk about her life.
“You’re a woman, right?”
“I beg your pardon?” Bailey turned to face him, surprised at his words, and there he was again. Big, sexy Joe Trainer.
“You didn’t ask the question.”
“What question?” She made herself face forward and look between the horse’s ears.
“Most of the women I know would want to dissect where I’d been. And the girl you were would have asked at least five questions by now.”
“You make me sound nosy, and I object to the generalization that women are too.”
“You were always curious. You started off shy, but that didn’t last long once we got to know each other. I’d never met anyone with such an insatiable thirst for knowledge like you had.”
“It’s been years, Joe. I’ve changed, just like you. Besides, I like my privacy, which makes me respect yours.”
“I can’t imagine privacy was something you had a lot of while you were performing.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Tell me about your life, Bailey. What put those shadows in your eyes? Maybe like you once did for me, I can help you?”
“Thank you, but I don’t need help.” She turned again to look at him and found his eyes focused on her lips.
CHAPTER TEN
“It’s a hard line to take to not let anyone in, Bailey. A hard, lonely road. I know, I’ve travelled it a time or two.”
“It’s better that way, you don’t get hurt.”
“Like I hurt you?”
“I haven’t seen you in fifteen years, Joe. It would be arrogant to think I still cared, or that someone else hadn’t hurt me in that time.”
“Have they?”
“What?”
“Has someone hurt you?”
“I’m not discussing this with you. I want to ride, or let me down. This conversation is over.”
Leaving him had hurt her, Joe knew that, because it had sure as hell hurt him.
“For what it’s worth, I never meant to hurt you, Bailey. I lost my way for a while there.”
She was so close that he saw the scar again. “What happened?” He touched the small indentation.
“Glass, from the accident.”
“What accident? The one that left the scar on your arm?”
She nodded, her face inches from his. They simply stared at each other as every thought left Joe’s head. He ran his eyes over her face, settling on that plump lower lip.
“You’re beautiful, Bailey Jones.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Joe cupped the back of Bailey’s neck and held her still as he closed the distance between them.
“No, Joe.”
“Yes, Joe.” He brushed his lips over hers.
Sweet, he thought after the first touch, achingly sweet; his second thought was mistake . He had once considered this woman his soul mate, the person who understood him like no other. Then she’d been a child, now she was an adult, and he realized after that simple kiss that their connection was still there, only it was far more intense because he had a physical need for Bailey Jones now.
“I-I don’t like to be kissed.”
Her words brushed his lips, a husky lie. She was as touched as he by what they had just shared.
“Really, Joe. I don’t want you to kiss me again, I-it’s wrong.”
“Wrong how?” he managed to get out around the obstruction in his throat.
“We... what we were, this….” She struggled to say what she believed needed to be said.
“It sure as hell didn’t feel wrong.”
“B-but it is.”
“Why?”
She turned away, facing forward again.<
br />
“Too much history.”
“And that makes no sense, other than we need to talk.”
“No. That cannot happen again.”
It would, but he left that thought in his head.
“Sure, I got it. I won’t kiss you unless you ask me to. But the sparks between us are strong enough that you will, Bailey. You’ve felt them, I know you have, because you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I have n-not!”
“Yes, you have. But I’ll wait for you to come to me.”
“That won’t happen,” she snapped.
“Want to bet?”
“I d-don’t b-bet.” She stuttered out the words.
“You never stuttered as a child. How come you sometimes do now?”
She sucked in a sharp breath and turned away from him, so he was left staring at the back of her head.
“Why the stutter, Bailey?”
“It… just happens sometimes.”
“There has to be a reason. When did it start?”
She didn’t want to tell him, so he left it alone for now. She’d called him arrogant for believing he was the only one who’d hurt her, and yet he had a feeling that leaving Ryker, and him, had something to do with the person she had become.
Once she’d been fierce in her determination to achieve the goals she had set for her life. “I want to be independent and strong, Joe. I want to walk into a room and people see that I’m courageous.” He’d told her she was already courageous as far as he was concerned, but she’d dismissed his words. “I want to be more, Joe. I want to climb mountains and swim rivers.” They’d laughed over that one, as swimming hadn’t been her strength, but she’d vowed to change that.
“You ever learn to swim better?”
“Some” was all she said, so he decided to see if he could annoy her like he used to.
“So, for someone who doesn’t like kissing, you have a lovely mouth.”
She ignored him, her spine straightening.
“You sure grew up well, Miss Jones.” He tried to tease a response out of her. It usually worked with Piper. She ignored him again, so he stopped trying, and restored peace between them with small talk.
“I’ll take you on a tour if you like. Show you the changes?”
“I could get on a horse for that.”