For weeks, she’d listened to every single, female employee at the ranch gushing about both men, obviously smitten by their rodeo status. Abby had attempted to act indifferent, but she’d been curious about Guy and Jack.
Ray had asked her if she wanted to come along. Seated behind her steering wheel, Abby had refused, a touch nervous about meeting the rodeo Casanovas.
She’d been about to say goodbye to Ray when he’d broken out in a sweat and had clutched at his chest. She’d gotten help quickly, was told by the paramedics that Ray had had a heart attack before they’d pulled away to take him to the hospital.
Abby had driven to the airport to get Guy and Jack.
“You were so worried about Ray.” Jack turned and moved near. “I remember the way you came up to Guy, touched him, told him the news about his uncle as gently as you could.”
“I didn’t want to panic him.”
“I think you’re the only reason he didn’t. You were cool in a crisis.” Was there any memory of her forgotten? “You always were.”
She met his eyes steadily, even as she knew if she stared too long he could make her forget the hurt, weaken her. On that night, she’d driven Guy and Jack to the hospital. They’d waited with Guy until word had come that Ray was okay.
Later, rain had begun. Drops had dueled with the windshield wipers as she’d sat in the car with Jack and driven him to the ranch. Until that moment, she’d been too concerned for Ray to think about the man who, with a smile, buckled women’s knees. Then Jack’s eyes had locked with hers. In an instant, she’d known she was as lost to his riveting good looks as every admirer or groupie he’d attracted. The next morning he’d sat in the ranch dining room and smiled at her. From that moment on, they were inseparable.
Unable to resist, Jack touched a strand of her hair. It still felt like silk threads between his fingers. He knew that she had a right to want no part of him. He’d left her. But there had been a moment the next day when he’d thought they could still have a chance. A phone call to the ranch had told him differently. “Why did you leave here so quickly?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Why did I? You left first.” Frowning, she said, “Wait a minute. How do you know I left quickly?”
Was there any point in rehashing the past? “I called the next morning to talk to you.”
Vulnerability suddenly riding high, Abby swayed back. “You called?” He called. What if...? Don’t go there, she warned herself. She wanted to ask questions, but he’d moved closer. With his breath fluttering across her face, even thinking took effort. And all the what ifs in the world wouldn’t change anything now.
“I wasn’t leaving you, Abby.” He spoke the truth. “I was leaving Sam. When I called, Lili told me you’d packed and left at eight that morning.” Lightly he stroked a thumb across her wrist, then moved his fingers higher on her arm. In the slight muscle of her forearm, he felt her tense almost combatively. But beneath his spread fingers, he’d also felt her pulse scramble. “Did you ever wonder what might have been between us?”
She didn’t need a man who would leave without a second thought. For Austin, she needed a stable man, one who was willing to accept the responsibilities of a family. Jack had made clear years ago he wasn’t that man. “We wouldn’t have lasted.”
He dealt with a flash of annoyance. “So all that happened was for the best?”
“Probably.”
An urge to prove her wrong strengthened.
“I still want what you don’t,” Abby said simply.
“Roots, home, family.”
To be with him, she’d pretended she didn’t want any of that. But he knew her better than she realized. “Yes, I did always want that.”
Jack studied her closely. In the darkness, her skin appeared pale. He leaned toward her and slipped his fingers through strands of her hair, then cupped the back of her head to draw her face a hairbreadth from his. “And I always wanted you.”
His voice curled around her like a caress. Rain softly pattered against the ground. Overhead, thunder cracked as if determined to shake the buildings below it, while inside her a storm of a different kind brewed.
When he brushed a knuckle across her throat, she stopped breathing. She could have pulled back, moved away. But she didn’t. She wanted to prove that it was over. So when his mouth slanted across hers, she parted her lips, accepted his kiss. In the next instant, she called herself a fool. Pleasure slithered through her, and all the years of yearning for his taste took over.
On a sigh, she closed her eyes while she savored the moment, memorized everything, from the gentleness of his arms on her back to the strength of his body against hers. Rain pelted against the roof as if keeping time with the cadence of her heart.
Molded to his body, she felt heat flow from him into her. She recognized the danger building within her, but she didn’t pull away. She strained against him. Another sigh escaped from her throat as his breath warmed her mouth.
She wished he meant nothing to her. She wished she could walk away and not crave more. But the firm, warm lips on hers reminded her of the loneliness and aching that she’d felt since the last time she’d stood like this in his arms. Familiar sensations dissolved the years. She felt as if it was yesterday, when he filled her days with such happiness, when she was so in love she couldn’t think straight. Lips clinging to his, she drifted back in time with him for another moment. Only a moment.
Yesterdays are over, a small voice in her brain nagged. And so were they. Before she couldn’t, before all that was wrong between them was forgotten, she tore her mouth from his. “Please. It is over,” she insisted more for herself than him, even as she wanted to fall back into his arms.
She didn’t dare give him time to respond. Still breathless, she left the barn and rushed toward the lodge. With the rain pouring down on her, she laid a fingertip against her lips. They felt warm and swollen. He wanted only moment to moment with her, she tried to remember. She wanted more, deserved more. Austin deserved more.
Not until she reached the hallway to her room did she allow the emotion strangling her to grab hold. He was everything she’d ever wanted. It was a fact she’d been trying to deny for eight years.
At the door she stopped, closed her eyes and rested her forehead against it. Both familiar and new feelings, some she’d thought she’d buried eight years ago, engulfed her. She’d been so sure that when she saw him she would feel nothing.
She fought the tightening in her throat, the tears smarting her eyes. As her heart finally slowed to a normal pace, she wasn’t certain what she felt for him would ever be over.
Chapter Four
With morning, Abby felt only annoyance that Jack could still tilt her world, still make her weak. She knew she was vulnerable to him, but she was also determined not to let one kiss and the feelings he stirred override good sense.
In the kitchen with Wendy, she rolled out dough for piecrust with more gusto than necessary. Until she left the ranch, she had to remember she never would have seen Jack again if her aunt wasn’t marrying Sam.
Wondering about Austin in the dining room, she wiped her hands on a towel, then wandered out of the kitchen. She spotted him sitting at a window table with her aunt and Sam.
“We’ve been discussing fishing,” her aunt informed Abby with her approach. She couldn’t help noticing that Laura and Sam wore matching smiles.
Head bent, Austin dipped his spoon into a bowl of dinosaur-shaped cereal. “Sam is going to let me borrow his best lure.”
Fishing had been on his mind before they left Boston. “That’s nice.”
“So it’s okay if I go?”
“Go?” Abby realized they weren’t discussing something he might do in the future.
“Jack said we could go fishing.”
Uneasiness intensified within her. What was happening here?
“I told him that I’d never been fishing. He said that was the best reason to go.” Austin looked absolutely thrilled. “So can I?
You could go, too, Mom. Do you want to?”
Staring at the delight dancing in her son’s eyes, she would have given him anything he’d asked for at that moment. “You can go.”
“You, too, Mom? Will you go with us?”
They’d done so little together since arriving. “Did Jack say when?”
“Today. This afternoon,” he said. “Or do you have to help Wendy?”
“We’re almost done until later.” She touched his arm. “But I have some finishing up to do.” Assured he wasn’t eating alone, she ambled back to the kitchen to finish the pies. As soon as she was done, she planned to find Jack. She needed to understand why he’d invited Austin to spend an afternoon with him.
Not for the first time, Wendy thanked her when she returned to the kitchen. “I promise I’ll have someone hired before next weekend,” she said while she set cans of blueberry-pie filling on the counter.
“Don’t worry.”
“I really don’t know what I would have done this weekend if you weren’t helping.” Wendy set the edge of a can against an electric can opener. “Saturday evenings are hectic enough when everyone is here.”
Abby thought she was exaggerating her importance. Even shorthanded, Wendy ran the kitchen efficiently. While they worked, they reminisced. Abby reminded her of the time she’d siphoned gas out of Guy’s truck so they’d be stuck alone for a while
Unabashedly, Wendy admitted, “I’d do anything to get his attention.”
“It worked.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Wendy said on a laugh.
They worked for nearly another hour, but they had fun talking about old times. After finishing the pies, Abby peeked into the dining room. Austin was gone, but Sam and Laura hadn’t left.
His head bent close to Laura’s, Sam laughed at something her aunt had said, and his huge hand enveloped hers. They seemed so engrossed in each other. Abby realized how long it had been since she’d been that absorbed in what a man was saying to her. “Aunt Laura,” she said as she approached the table, “do you know where Austin went?”
Laura looked up at her. “He was quite excited about seeing the rooster,” she said.
“Last I saw him,” Sam cut in, “he was going out the door with Jack.”
Again? Abby managed not to frown until she was walking away. At some moment, when Jack was with Austin, would he sense the boy was his son?
After questioning a ranch hand about Jack’s whereabouts, Abby learned he’d been seen in the barn. Inside, she wandered along the horse stalls, stilling as she heard first Austin’s then Jack’s voice.
“Do you want it to go in here?” her son was asking.
“That’s right,” Jack answered. “Move the hay from here to the bin.”
Abby watched Austin working beside his father. Pitchfork in hand, he poked it into a mound of hay. She thought she’d been quiet. But in a sudden move, Austin swung around and faced her with the pitchfork prongs.
“Be careful with that,” Jack told him.
“I will.” Beaming, he resumed the task Jack had given him. “We’re working real hard,” he told Abby.
“I can see that.”
Jack hadn’t been surprised by the boy’s willingness to work. He was Abby’s son. She had never been pure fluff. During one afternoon, he’d been sunk as he watched her back up a team and keep it steady while hay was stacked. It was hard work even for a man, but that was Abby. She would try her hand at everything from making biscuits to herding the cattle.
Abby waited until Austin moved into a distant stall, then spoke low to Jack so only he heard. “We need to talk.”
Definitely she had something on her mind, Jack guessed by her give-me-your-attention-now tone. He set down the grain and leaned a hand against a post.
Abby saw a softness in his eyes she remembered well. How could she have believed that it would be simple to feel unaffected around him? “Jack, why did you tell Austin that you’d take him fishing?”
He stared at her mouth, remembered her taste even now. “You don’t want him to go?”
“No. He’s excited about going,” she said a little grudgingly as she realized how ungrateful she’d nearly sounded.
Despite the softening of her voice, he saw the challenge in her eyes. Though a delicate-looking woman, she was strong, her own person.
Abby made herself meet his stare, felt the pull, strong and insistent. “I want to know why you asked him.”
Looking down, he yanked a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his hands. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Jack—”
“Abby—” He mocked her exasperated tone. “The answer to your question is simple. Out here there’s an unspoken understanding. When someone does a favor for you, you do something for them. You’ve been helping us in the kitchen, so I wanted to do something for your boy.” Sam would have smiled at hearing Jack say “helping us.”
“So that’s why?”
“We’re taking your time away from him. It didn’t seem right that he should get the short end of the stick because you’d offered to help out.” Both puzzled and amused, he studied her thoughtfully. “He’s a good boy, Abby. He’s polite, respectful, appreciative. You raised a son you can be proud of.”
“Thank you.” He’d been easy to raise. She and Austin had always understood each other. Because of perfect compatibility, they rarely butted heads or had words of disagreement. She knew she was lucky. The funny thing about their harmonious relationship was how much Austin’s temperament and disposition were like Jack’s. He was his father’s son. And as she’d gotten along with Jack, she’d enjoyed a similar rapport with his son.
“I did what you said,” Austin announced with his return. Eagerness brightened his face. “Can we go now?”
Jack was looking forward to the afternoon of fishing as much as the boy was. On the road for months, he hadn’t fished since last summer. “We’re ready.”
“Are you coming with us, Mom?”
Clearly her son wanted her to accompany them. He was still young enough to like his mother’s company, even seek it out. “Yes, if I’m invited. I don’t need to go back to the kitchen until this evening.”
Jack grinned at her words. “You’re invited.”
Austin scanned his surroundings for a place to set the pitchfork. “I always have to do my chores first, before I can play.”
“What kind of chores?” Jack asked. He took the pitchfork from him and touched his shoulder to urge him toward the door.
Abby didn’t miss the ease of the moment between them.
“Mom has me take out the garbage,” Austin replied. “I don’t like the job.” He led the way outside. “It smells, but she said if I have a dog someday, I’ll have to clean up after him, and that smells, too.”
Jack chuckled. More than once, the kid had made him laugh. “Yeah, she’s right. You want a dog?”
“I can’t have one now.” Walking between them, he glanced up at Abby. “’Cause we live in an apartment.”
Abby estimated it would take another five years to afford the down payment for a house. While her mind had drifted with the private thought, a ranch hand had fallen into step with Jack.
“Some fellow selling feed says Sam ordered it,” the man said. “Sam went to town, and we don’t have a note from him about it. What should we do?”
Jack doubted Sam had placed the order. He’d bought feed only from Len Jensen’s Feed and Grain in town for the past twenty-five years. Scowling, he saw Guy coming close. “Tell him no.”
Guy waited until the ranch hand was out of hearing range. “Like it or not, you can’t get away from it. To the employees, you’ll always be the boss, too. Did Sam talk to you yet about staying?”
Jack stared out at the open rangeland. How, with all this space around him, could he feel so crowded?
Abby tried not to look interested in what they were discussing. She even pretended to direct Austin’s attention toward the hawk circling nearby.
“
He won’t,” Jack answered.
“He’ll have to.”
Jack wasn’t in the mood for this conversation, but he planned to end it once and for all. “Why will he have to?”
“Because Uncle Ray wants to retire.”
With a shrug, Jack brushed aside his comment. “Sam’s got a problem then, doesn’t he?”
Guy didn’t respond, and even after he walked away, Abby kept quiet. It was clear that Jack was still clinging to the freedom to travel on a whim with no responsibilities burdening him. But unlike a drifter who had no purpose, no destination in his wanderings, Jack always knew where he was headed—to wherever the next rodeo was.
Jack mentally swore. He had no intention of being ambushed into changing his plans. He was here for the wedding. Two weeks. No more. Then he was rejoining the rodeo circuit. “You know what?” he said to the boy beside him. “Before we leave, we need to get something.”
“What do we need?” Austin raised his face to Jack. For a split second, he looked so much like Abby that something tightened in Jack’s chest.
“Food. We need to get some food. Can’t go fishing without cookies and—”
“Candy,” Austin finished for him.
“And fruit,” Abby cut in, now that her son’s best interest was at stake, not to mention her pocketbook, as she thought about dentist bills.
“Candy bars used to be your life’s blood,” Jack said in a low voice when Austin had moved to a corral post to retrieve the cowboy hat that he’d gotten earlier from Sam.
“A conscience comes with motherhood. I even know the pyramid order.”
Humor laced his voice. “Pyramid order?”
“Of foods.” Abby sent him a withering look for not taking her seriously. “You know, so much fat, protein, carbohydrates, and...” She paused because he lost it and chuckled. “Never mind.”
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