Crossing Nevada

by Jeannie Watt

“Beth Ann...”

  “I think the girls are getting a bit carried away with their new friend.”

  “Tess.”

  “Tess.” She looked at her trailer, then back at him. “Do you honestly think she’s here for the long haul?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “What’s going to happen when she leaves?” She folded her arms over her chest. “The girls lose again. How fair is it to allow Lizzie to fall in love with someone who has no plans of sticking around?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest less time at her house for one thing. They don’t need to stop by every single day.” She let out a sigh. “It’s setting them up for a fall later, Zach. And I know you worry about that as much as I do.”

  “We can’t control everything in their lives, Beth Ann.”

  “But there are some things we can control, and we can keep them from getting involved to the point that it’ll be devastating when...Tess...leaves.”

  Zach rubbed his fingers over his eyes.

  “Think about it, Zach. They get attached, she takes off. I can’t blame her, because she obviously doesn’t belong here, but the girls tend to hold on tight.” One corner of her mouth tightened. “For obvious reasons.”

  “People are going to come and go from their lives, Beth Ann.”

  “Yes. Of course they are. But right now, they’re still recovering.”

  Them? Or her?

  “It’s been three years.”

  “I know how long it’s been,” she snapped and then she pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, Zach.”

  He reached out to touch her shoulder. “It’s all right.”

  “I know this woman is novel to the girls. She draws and bakes cookies and there’s this air of, I don’t know, mystery about her. But when Lizzie starts wanting to call her on the phone, I think enough is enough. But they’re your daughters, Zach. You have to do what you think best.”

  Zach could so remember his mother using similar tactics—laying everything out logically and then basically daring him to do the right thing. It was still a surprisingly effective tactic.

  So the big question was whether Beth Ann had a legitimate concern, or whether she was unhappy seeing the girls bond to someone else.

  He could understand her concern...but that didn’t make it right.

  * * *

  TESS’S NEW LAWN mower was nice. Very nice. As usual, she found the box waiting for her on the porch and after tearing into it and reading the directions, discovered that all she had to do was put the handle on with a couple of bolts—and get oil. The fuel she’d anticipated, but oil...not so much.

  The mercantile had oil. The mercantile had everything except for actually fresh “fresh produce.”

  A small school bus idled next to the school a few blocks down the street from where Tess parked in front of the mercantile. School had to be out for the day, but there were no cars in front of the store, no one picking up a few things before collecting the kids after school. And the store was blessedly empty, or so she thought until Tess rounded the corner at the end of the first aisle and ran smack into the woman she’d seen driving into Zach’s place more than once. This had to be his sister-in-law, Beth Ann.

  For a moment the woman simply stared at her, then her expression hardened slightly.

  “I’m sorry,” Tess said. She adjusted the hair over her scarred cheek before attempting to squeeze past her in the narrow aisle.

  “My fault,” Beth Ann said, standing square in Tess’s path. “Are you settling into your place okay?”

  “I’ve been here a couple of months,” Tess said with a slight frown, “so yes, I’m settled.”

  “Are you staying long?”

  What the...? “I signed a lease on the place,” Tess said shortly. Something was going on here and she didn’t like the feel of it one bit.

  Beth Ann smiled apologetically. “I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just that rural life is sometimes different than people expect.”

  “How do you know I’ve never lived rural before?” Tess asked with a clip to her voice. But before Beth Ann could come up with an answer to the question, Tess said, “Never mind. If you’ll excuse me?” and edged past her. She didn’t want a confrontation with Zach’s sister-in-law and she felt one brewing.

  “Zach and my nieces have been through a lot,” the woman blurted from behind her. Tess turned slowly to face her, a disbelieving frown on her face. She was going to go into this here? Now? Color rose in Beth Ann’s face, but she didn’t back down or apologize. Instead she said, “They don’t need more loss in their lives.”

  “I can’t believe you’re telling me this.” The one thing that Tess had in her life that made her feel a spark of joy and this woman was trying to ruin it.

  “My nieces are still fragile. They cling tightly to people they get attached to and they’re getting attached to you.”

  “So what do you want?” Tess asked.

  Beth Ann pointed a finger at Tess. “I want you to be very careful not to hurt my girls any more than they’ve already been hurt.”

  Tess opened her mouth to respond, then thought better of it and turned and walked away without a word. She was not getting into this discussion here. Now.

  Never.

  She walked to the rear corner of the store where the oil was stored, found the type she needed, despite the fact that she was so upset she could barely read the label, then brought it up front and plopped it down on the counter. Ann made no comment as she rang up the single purchase and Beth Ann had either left the store or was down an aisle.

  Tess stalked out of the store, got into her car and dropped the bag on the seat beside her. Had that really happened? Had she just been blatantly and unexpectedly warned off?

  Yes.

  It was almost as if the woman was jealous. Of her. A scarred woman with a local reputation for bitchiness.

  How much did Beth Ann know about the time Tess had been spending with Zach? Or was this only about the girls?

  And more important, was Beth Ann in love with her brother-in-law? Was that why she’d warned Tess off? She was living on the ranch. Still. And her sister had been married to him. Perhaps she had the same taste. The theory made sense.

  Tess lowered her forehead to the steering wheel. It was not her intention to put herself in the middle of a situation she didn’t understand—especially not under these circumstances—but she hated someone else trying to control her. She had little enough control of her life as it was. And more than that, she was surprised at how much she hated the idea of this woman being in love with Zach—or of Zach loving her back—even if she was certain she didn’t want to go any further than friendship with Zach.

  Okay, maybe friendship with benefits, if she was honest about the fantasies that edged into her mind, but that was it. What more could she have without confessing her whole ugly life—past and present—to him? When she might have to go into hiding at a moment’s notice if Eddie ever discovered her whereabouts?

  Not a hell of a lot. Nor did she want more than that.

  Tess raised her head, shook her hair back.

  Zach is not in love with his sister-in-law. Whatever Beth Ann felt, it was not reciprocated.

  She was fairly certain of that. Zach wasn’t the kind of guy to chase after her when he was involved with someone else. She’d run into enough of those kinds of guys to know them when she saw them. Zach wasn’t one.

  What
now?

  She was so damned tired of backing off, running, hiding, at the first sign of trouble—especially since she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Tess shoved the key into the ignition and started the car. Even though she wanted very much to drive straight to Zach’s place and sort things out, she went home. She’d sleep on the matter, take action—whatever that may be—tomorrow.

  * * *

  TESS WOKE UP the next morning knowing what she had to do. She enjoyed her time with Zach, enjoyed not living in total solitude, but realistically, how long could they go on like this? Sooner or later they’d have to make a move one way or another and Tess did not want to hurt anyone in his family—which could well happen.

  How fair was it to let the girls get wrapped up in helping her and then find out she had to leave?

  How fair was it to flirt with their father with every intention of walking away? It wasn’t like he was a single guy with no encumbrances. What he did affected his family—just as Beth Ann had intimated.

  Beth Ann may have pissed her off, but she’d spoken the truth about Tess’s situation with Zach and his kids.

  By midafternoon Tess had screwed up the courage to do what she had to do. She drove to Zach’s house instead of walking, wishing she’d followed her gut and done this yesterday when she’d been angry. It would have been so much easier then.

  After parking next to Zach’s truck, Tess walked to the house and knocked on the front door. She waited for several seconds then tried again. He wasn’t in the house. But he was here. Roscoe was in the corral, the four-wheeler was parked by the barn and she’d parked next to his truck. All forms of conveyance were accounted for.

  She started across the driveway when she heard the sound of metal hitting metal followed by a string of muffled curses.

  The barn. As usual. A veritable man cave, that barn.

  She walked through the open door into the cool interior of the old wooden building. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and by the time they did, Zach had set aside the torch he was using on the frame of a trailer and pulled off the protective goggles.

  “Hey,” he said as he set the goggles on the bed of the trailer. “I didn’t expect you today.” But he did look happy to see her, which stirred something deep inside, but she did her best to ignore it.

  “I came to talk about riding.”

  A shadow crossed his face at her cold tone. “What about it?”

  She walked over to the trailer and put a hand on the steel side rails and spoke the blunt truth. “This isn’t going to work, Zach.”

  “What isn’t?” he asked, but he knew exactly what she was talking about. She was damned certain of it, but if he wanted her to explain, then she would.

  “The riding lessons. You. Me.” His eyebrows lifted and Tess gestured impatiently before blurting, “There’s more going on between us than riding lessons and maybe there shouldn’t be.”

  “Why not?” he asked after a few long seconds of silence.

  “Why not? Fewer complications.”

  “Complications like my daughters?” Now there was a cool undertone to his voice.

  “No. I enjoy your kids,” Tess responded automatically, truthfully. She did like his kids. “But if you and I—” she spread her palms “—then things might get, well, complicated. For them. Your kids, I mean.” Now she was babbling. It’d been a while since she’d broken off a relationship and she couldn’t remember it being this difficult. The crazy thing here was that she and Zach didn’t even have a relationship.

  “I see your point,” he said.

  “My life right now is...”

  “Complicated?” he asked. He didn’t smile, but somehow managed to project a feeling of reassurance.

  Ignore it.

  “You could say that,” Tess said.

  Zach took a couple of slow steps toward her, moving as if expecting her to bolt—a wise course of action and one she didn’t take. “I’d never do anything to hurt my daughters. Or anyone else.”

  Tess cleared her throat. “Meaning me?” She needed to take a step back...really she did.

  “For one. Me, for another. But,” he said as he continued to close the space between them, until her breasts were lightly touching his chest, “I don’t see any reason we can’t proceed...as long as we understand each other’s limitations.” She’d wondered what it would feel like to press herself against him and now...now she wanted to do just that so badly she almost shook. This breakup was not going according to plan.

  “How will we do that?” she asked.

  His hand came up to cup her injured cheek, his touch warm and reassuring and yet somehow deliciously sensual. “Communication.”

  That word came close to jerking Tess back to reality. “I don’t—”

  “I’m not asking for full disclosure,” he said. “Just honesty.”

  “I can honestly tell you I don’t do well with questions.”

  “Then I can honestly tell you that I’ll keep them to a minimum. And if you don’t like the questions I do ask, you don’t have to answer.”

  “You could do that?” she asked on a note of disbelief, trying not to let the way his thumb lightly caressed her scarred face sway her into believing something she shouldn’t.

  “Sometimes I’m surprised by what I can do,” he said.

  “Limitations,” Tess said.

  “We both have them. We will not ignore them.”

  That was reassuring. The words Tess needed to hear and to believe. She brought her hand up to his cheek, mirroring the way he was touching her. “Promise?” she asked softly. Her hand slid around the back of his neck and when she felt the corded muscles there, she realized that for all his calmly reassuring words and movements, he was as tense as she was. And she really, really needed to kiss him.

  Zach was of the same mind. His free hand settled on her lower back, gently pressing her into him, as his lips came down to hers. Tess met him halfway, touching, tasting. Savoring.

  Zach gathered her against him as the kiss deepened and it was only when the workbench was pressing into her back that Tess realized they’d been moving backward.

  Tess’s knees were shaky when Zach finally lifted his head. One thing was certain—this was not a mercy kiss, a you’re-okay-despite-the-scars kiss—and any minuscule doubts she’d had on that front dissipated. Zach wanted her. She could feel him pressing against her thigh, hard as hell, making her want nothing more than to haul him home, take him to bed. It’d been such a long, long time for her. Probably for him, too.

  “I won’t ask for anything you can’t give,” he said softly.

  “All right.” Her voice was so husky she barely recognized it.

  “The girls will be coming home soon, so maybe we can talk about this later?” He smiled a little. “At the next riding lesson?”

  Tess smiled back then pulled his head down to kiss him one more time. Just because she wanted to. “Later,” she said against his mouth.

  The words had barely left her lips when she heard a car drive in. Beth Ann, of course. She smiled at Zach, wryly, then stepped away from him.

  “Tess,” Darcy called a few seconds later as the girls came racing into the barn. “What are you doing here?” The girls didn’t know about the riding lessons, and they almost certainly didn’t know that she and their father had been spending so much time together. But they seemed so happy to see her it made her heart twist a little.

  “Just stopped by for a minute to talk,�
� she said.

  “Can you stay for a while and see my dolls?” Lizzie asked.

  “Sorry.” This time she did chance a look at Beth Ann, whose face was unreadable. The woman was good. “Maybe another day. I have to get home now.”

  “Where are you at in your sewing project?” Darcy asked.

  “About to set in the sleeve.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said on a sputter.

  “Thanks,” Tess said. She glanced up at Zach, smiled quickly. “See you all later.”

  Her breathing was still not quite normal when she opened her car door and got inside.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THIS ISN’T YOUR first rodeo. You’ve been kissed by hotter guys than Zach Nolan.

  No, you haven’t.

  Tess pressed her fingers to her still warm cheeks as she got out of her car and started for her house, more oblivious to her surroundings than she’d been since moving to this place. And now that she was away from Zach, she was thinking straighter. Kind of.

  Damn but that guy could kiss. And she wanted to do so much more. She wanted to feel a man’s body against hers, in hers, feel whole again...but she didn’t want to hurt anyone in the process.

  Was that possible? Could they operate within the parameters Zach had suggested? Observing each other’s limitations, answering only the questions they—technically she—felt comfortable answering?

  She had secrets, he had kids. Zach was a protective dad and Tess knew instinctively that his needs would not override his daughters’ happiness...but that didn’t mean he didn’t want some action on the Q.T. He was a guy, after all.

  Was she willing to give some action on the Q.T.?

  A tingle of anticipation went through her at the thought. Question answered.

  The dogs went nuts when she opened the door, turning circles in their joy to see her alive and well. “Settle down,” she said, fighting a tired smile. They both sat, grinning doggie grins at her.

  “I wish you guys could give advice,” Tess muttered as she went to the kitchen to get the dog treats out of the cupboard. Or that she could call a friend. She couldn’t—not without answering a lot of questions, like what had happened to her and where she’d been.