by Jill Shalvis
Tucker dropped into one of the chairs in front of Callie’s desk. “She’s off limits.”
“Really? Says who?”
“Says me.”
Jake shot him a look of disbelief.
“She’s not like one of those cheerleaders, all right? She gives a shit about people, about everyone. I mean, look how she’s protecting all of us, no questions asked. She trusts us, Jake. For no reason other than her heart tells her to. She’s been hurt, and still, she trusts.”
“What do you mean, hurt?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered why we’re all so close here? It’s because we all have one thing in common. Sucky pasts, Callie included. So don’t even think about fucking with her.”
“How about,” Jake said very quietly, “unless it involves you, you mind your own business, especially when it comes to Callie and me?”
Tucker’s voice was just as quiet when he stood and got in Jake’s face. “This is my business. She cares about me, Jake. She saved my life by letting me have this job, and I’m not going to repay that by letting you screw with her head.”
Jake laughed incredulously. “She cares about you? How about me? How about how much I care about you? I dragged your sorry ass here. I gave you this job, not Callie. I asked her to keep you here.”
Tucker stared at him stonily.
“Ah hell.” Jake shoved his fingers through his hair and turned in a slow circle, searching for his cool. It was a hard time coming. Things were just so damn complicated. His feelings for Callie, his feelings about not being able to work, and now these problems here at the ranch. It was all changing his perspective, and he was so tired of thinking.
Tucker still didn’t say a word and Jake shook his head. “Forget it. Just forget it.” And like Callie had only a moment before, he walked out.
“There you go,” Tucker said when he was alone. “Walking away again.”
11
Head throbbing with stress, worry, and a bunch of assorted other things, Callie started across the yard toward her cabin, the way lit by a blanket of stars. Halfway there, Shep met her, nudging her hand with the top of his head.
At his unconditional love, a lump grew in her throat the size of a regulation football. “Hey, boy. Got your family tucked in for the night?”
He panted alongside her, relaxed and at ease, so she knew everything was okay in the barn at least. The puppies had nearly doubled in size since they’d found them. She’d been checking on them every day, even if Tiger still wouldn’t let her touch them.
Letting herself into her cabin, she pulled her shades and started stripping. She needed a hot bath, aspirin, and bed, and not in any special order. Down to her favorite soft silk camisole and panties, she moved toward her CD player. Some music would help her relax, help her think. She had a lot of thinking to do, but unfortunately, her cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts.
“You sound upset again,” Michael said.
Upset? Try tense enough to shatter. “I’m okay.”
“Truth, Cal. You’re working too hard. Is it worth it?”
“You mean the ranch?”
“I mean Jake. You’re heading for hurt.”
“I can take care of myself.” She rubbed her temples but the ache only increased. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen you do it for years.” He let out a long breath. “Look, just give it all up and marry me. You can do whatever you want all day long.”
She laughed, as he’d meant her to. “So you’d turn me into a housewife now, is that it?”
“Oh yeah.”
Laughing again, she plopped to her bed and stared at the ceiling. “You know I can’t cook. I can hardly make a bed, and I don’t look good in an apron.”
“I’ll hire a cook, and who needs a made bed? And I bet you look hot in an apron.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “Good-night, Michael.” She tossed her phone aside, slipped on her head-phones, then hit the POWER button. Her ears filled with Sheryl Crow singing about how the “first cut is the deepest.”
Callie knew the feeling. The room was warm and her head pounded. She stretched out on her back on the cool wood floor and closed her eyes, wondering how the hell she could fix all that was wrong in her world.
A cold, wet something brushed her tummy and her eyes flew open, landing on two large brown ones. “Shep.” She let out a laugh, pushed the dog away, and rolled to her belly. Sheryl continue to wail in her ears, blocking out Callie’s world, and she closed her eyes again. Animals loose, Sierra mistreated, her Jeep messed with, serum and money missing…
What was happening to her quiet, calm, beautiful world?
Sheryl eased into another song, and Callie sighed, some of the tension finally leaving her body as sheer exhaustion took over.
Jake walked outside, into the night. One of the horses let out a soft whinny, and then another. A pig snorted, and a cow moaned. From somewhere in the hills, not nearly far enough away, a coyote howled.
Had he ever thought this place silent? Without thinking, he stepped onto the grass. A sound came from behind him. He whipped around, and stared into the unblinking eyes of Goose. She honked at him and lowered her head for attack.
“Damn it—”
Menacingly, she honked again, and pawed the ground with her webbed feet.
Jake wasn’t a fool. Sometimes a man had to run. So he turned and loped off the grass. Her grass.
Goose chased him to the very edge, glaring at him triumphantly, her feet firmly on her domain.
“I’d go on a diet if I were you,” he warned, and crossed to the cabins. He looked at Tucker’s and remembered his words.
“She saved my life by letting me have this job, and I’m not going to repay that by letting you screw with her head.”
He really thought Jake would mess with Callie, purposely hurt her. The knowledge both burned and shamed, because it could quite possibly be true.
There was no denying Jake felt something for her, and up front that something appeared to be no different than what he’d felt for any of the women in his past.
But he knew this time there was another layer to the attraction between them. He knew it, felt it, dreamed it. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
Callie seemed happy enough to shrug it all off, and that would have been Jake’s choice, too, but there was more at stake now than just emotions.
Someone was trying to get to her, trying to unnerve her, hurt her where her heart lay. And though she was tough as nails, fiercely independent and strong-willed, it was working. It was getting to her. He could see it in her eyes, in the grim lines of her mouth, in the exhausted way she’d held her body.
He’d been wallowing in his own problems for so long it felt good to think of something else, someone else, and as he stood there beneath a night sky, a surge of something filled his chest. It took him a moment to recognize it as the same feeling that had always come over him when he was working on a fire or a rescue.
He had a purpose. He was needed. Since that was rare these days, he began walking again, toward Callie’s cabin now. She might not want his help, or want him to check on her, but she was damn well going to get both.
When she didn’t answer his knock, he jiggled her door handle. It was unlocked, damn it. Didn’t she know how stupid that was? He pushed it open. “Callie.”
Light from the small kitchen spilled into the living room. A blue display from a CD player glared in the far corner. Lying on her belly on the floor in front of it, a set of headphones holding back her wild hair, was Callie.
At the sight of her, he sucked in a breath. She wore only a thin, silky camisole and panties, in a pale color that seemed to glow in the dark and didn’t do a thing to cover the tight, curvy body he’d been dying to touch again.
Her head was down on her bent arms, her face turned away from him. She hadn’t moved an inch. Concern propelled him forward, and he hunkered down at her side, a hand on her back. “Callie—”
&n
bsp; She nearly jerked right out of her skin, rolling away from him to her side, then up to her knees. “Jake? What the hell are you doing?”
“I just—”
“You don’t knock?” She leapt to her feet and put a hand over her heart. Her nipples pressed against the thin silk, and in spite of himself, he couldn’t tear his gaze off her, though he did take a moment to bless her lingerie fetish.
“You should have knocked!”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Maybe I didn’t want company!” Whirling around, she revealed a silk wedgie, and a gorgeous ass. It wasn’t nice to look, but he’d never been all that nice.
She grabbed her jeans off the floor and shoved a leg in. Nearly falling over, she shoved her other leg in, then glared at him. “Stop looking at me!”
He tipped his head back and studied the ceiling. “You said your head hurt. I was worried that it was related to your fall in the barn—”
“That was a week ago. This is just a regular stress headache.” She snapped her jeans, jerked up her zipper. Sent more daggers his way.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Did I say I was falling apart and needed a keeper? No! I’ve told you, I don’t need a hero.” She whirled around in a circle, looking for her shirt, her breasts jiggling enticingly in her fury. “And I said stop looking at me!” Scooping up her shirt, she held it to her breasts, two high spots of color on her cheeks as she pointed at the door.
But the camisole had slits on the sides, and he’d just seen the vivid black and blue and green bruise on her ribs. That, added to her stress, and the pain in her eyes from her headache, made him hurt for her. He knew, God he knew, how it felt to be overwhelmed, hurting and alone, and he could no more walk away in that moment than stop breathing. He took her hand and pulled her around to the front of her couch. “Sit.”
“No—”
He put a hand in the middle of bare chest and pushed. With a squeal, she went down, plopping to the soft cushions. He moved around behind her, and sliding his fingers into her long hair, began to massage her head.
A strangled sort of moan came from her lips.
“I’m sorry.” He leaned over her. “What did you say?”
She merely moaned again as he kept massaging her scalp.
“Callie?”
“Shh. I’ll go back to yelling at you in a minute.” Her eyes were closed, her throat exposed. She still held her shirt up to her breasts. “Just don’t even think about stopping.”
“I won’t.”
For long moments there was nothing but silence and the sound of their breathing as he touched her, and when he finished, he merely shifted his attention to the back of her neck, letting out a disparaging sound. “You have a rock quarry in here.”
She just let out another little moan that he shouldn’t have found so wildly sexy.
“You’re letting it all get to you,” he murmured.
“No, I’m not.”
“Of course you are. You’re human, and at some point even you’re going to have to admit it.” Beneath his fingers, her skin was soft and creamy smooth. He wanted to put his mouth on her, but the knots beneath the surface of all that creamy, soft skin tore at him.
“All I need is to relax enough to get some good sleep,” she mumbled.
“I only know one surefire way to relax before going to sleep.”
“A drink?”
“An orgasm.” Preferably for the both of them.
She snorted her opinion of that so he kept massaging her. When he’d finished her neck, she leaned forward, giving him better access to her shoulders. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “I don’t know what to do with you.”
He had plenty of ideas.
“It’s just that you’re…”
“What?”
“Sexy,” she said, surprising him. “And you always smell good. How do you do that?”
“I’ve got nothing on you.” One of the silky straps fell from her shoulder. He helped the other fall, too. “You smell like—”
“Horses.”
“Yeah, horses.” He’d been going to say heaven. “And pigs, too.”
The sound that escaped her was definitely a laugh, and he smiled.
“Sometimes I think to myself, just jump him,” she said. “Just do it.”
“I’m all for that,” he said fervently.
“But then I look at you, really look at you, and I see a pain there. I don’t know what it is; missing your job, your life, or something else, but seeing it makes my heart squeeze.” She sighed. “I can’t lust after you and have it be simple if when I look into your eyes my heart squeezes.”
“I can cover my face so you can’t see my eyes.”
“Stop it. Stop making light of this.”
His smile faded, and he came around to kneel in front of her. “I am missing my world, you know that. Being out here is forcing me to think about things, make decisions that I don’t want to make.”
“Like selling the ranch.”
“Like selling,” he agreed. “Even when doing so to save my ass ends up changing others’ lives. I don’t want to do that to you, to any of you.”
“I know.”
“Being here, seeing what this place means to all of you, knowing I have to sell…it sucks.”
“Sometimes life sucks.”
“And then there’s you and me.”
“No, there’s not.”
“We have to face it, Callie.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s going to have to be willing to take its time,” she said. “Because my head is full. So is yours.”
“That’ll be new, taking my time with a woman. How’s the headache now?”
“Better, thanks to you.” She stood and slipped into her shirt. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I was embarrassed to be caught lying around in my underwear. It made me feel vulnerable.”
“Everyone feels vulnerable sometimes.”
“Even you?”
“Honey, I feel vulnerable every time I look at you.”
“That’s a pathetic come-on line.”
“That wasn’t a come-on line. It was the truth. And so was me being worried about you. Someone’s screwing with you out here. I don’t like it.”
“Someone’s screwing with the ranch.”
“It seems more personal than that. How sure are you about the crew—”
“Extremely.”
“Stone drinks. Lou’s boss says he’s a cheat. Amy won’t look me in the eyes. How can you be sure about any of them?”
She finished buttoning herself, and put her hands on her hips. “Which actually brings us to another point,” she said. “Have you noticed that this all started after you came here? Maybe someone’s messing with you.”
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Unless Tucker—”
“No,” she said firmly. “You know your brother better than that.”
“Actually, I don’t. He won’t let me in.”
“He feels betrayed. Deserted.”
“He told you that?”
“It’s obvious. You dumped him here and never looked back.”
“Yeah, that’s what I did.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling his own headache coming on. “We used to be close.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” He let out a harsh breath. “That’s not true. A lot happened.”
“Like what?”
“When I was young, my mother traveled extensively.”
“For her job?”
“You could say that. Her career was marrying men. She was gone a lot, even after Tucker was born. So I took care of him.” At the time it’d been about survival, for the both of them. It hadn’t been until later that he’d realized how much Tucker had meant to him. “Then I turned seventeen, graduated high school, and my mother got her fifth or sixth divorce. She had more time, and realized how close Tucker and I were. She hated that.”
“I don’t think I like your mo
ther.”
He laughed a little. “No, you wouldn’t. Tucker was five, and pretty self-contained. So she kicked me out and replaced all the men in her life with Tucker. And he became the center of her world. I went to San Diego, and they moved around a lot after that. I kept track of them the best I could, but she made it difficult. When I called, she didn’t want him to talk to me.”
“So Tucker thinks you left when he was five and never looked back?”
“I don’t know what he thinks.”
“He’s glad you’re here now.”
“Really? Because he just warned me to stay away from you or else.”
Callie blinked. “What?”
“Yeah. He thinks I’m going to do this.” He stepped close, bent his head and kissed her. “And this…” Pulling her close, he deepened the kiss.
With another of those sexy little sounds, she wrapped her arms around his neck, arched against him, and danced her tongue to his. And just like that, Jake was a goner, a complete goner as he glided his hands up her body, holding her face still because he couldn’t get enough. He was deathly afraid he could never get enough. Their bodies collided, shifted, and hungry for more he took it—until a shaft of pain shot through his shoulder.
“Sorry,” she gasped, and tried to pull free, but he held on to her.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he promised, thinking he’d take a thousand more hits like that, if she’d only stay close.
But she backed away. “You should go.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I need to think.”
“About…?”
“About all this. About you. About me. The way I throw myself in heart first.”
He stared at her, suddenly knowing where this was going.
“It’s just me,” she said. “Throwing myself in without looking. It’s how I work, even knowing I’m going to sink like a stone. And I’d do that here, with you, but Jake, I can’t be the only one.”
She already knew him that well, knew he’d never throw himself in and follow his heart.
“I think your idea of taking our time was a good one,” she said softly.
Caught by his own damn logic.