His gaze shot to her face.
Her cheeks turned a darker red, the way his own cheeks felt, burning hot, as if someone had stretched the skin on his face too tightly.
The skin on his entire body felt too tight. Damn.
He didn’t want to want the Goth girl, but he’d seen too much kindness and compassion in her beneath the hard-edged exterior to believe she was truly bad.
But was she truly good? How about having a kid when she was still a kid herself? And how about not telling the father he had a kid?
With a start, he realized he worried for more than just Liam’s sake. He worried for himself. Vicki had put him through the wringer. He couldn’t go through that again.
But she only looks like Vicki.
Yeah, but why those clothes and the piercings everywhere and the tattoo? What was she hiding? What if it called to that part of himself he thought he’d buried, the side that led to bad decisions and poor choices? He had to protect himself.
“I thought there was bronc busting here today,” he said, his tone all business.
“It’s at the Hungry Hollow.”
Hungry Hollow was the neighboring working ranch that Hank’s mother, Leila, owned.
“Everyone went over a while ago,” she said.
“Why didn’t you go?”
She shrugged with only one shoulder, as if even that was an effort. She looked stunned in a deer-in-the-headlights kind of way.
He was intelligent. She was sharp-tongued, quick. Why the hell couldn’t either of them think of a thing to say?
Muttering “Thanks,” he turned toward the Jeep, but spun back with an abruptness that startled her.
“What happened last—”
Panic swept across her face and she held up a staying hand, as if to say, “Don’t ask.”
He nodded.
Just as well. Did he really want to know the answer?
He headed to the Jeep and rode out to the Hungry Hollow.
When he got there, he stared at the teeming pack of men and women surrounding the corral and, to his surprise, didn’t feel like hanging out with them today.
He wanted to be with Janey. That thought puzzled him and scared him and unsettled him, and he needed to explore it.
Without stepping foot outside of his truck, he spun it around and headed into town.
He stopped at the grocery store and bought the fixings for a picnic. Not that he knew much about picnicking, but he put in an honest effort.
He ran over to the rectory to pick up Liam.
“Where are you taking him?” Dad asked.
“On a picnic.” He looked his dad in the eye. “Once I got to the bronc busting, I just didn’t feel like doing it. Thanks for being willing to take care of Liam so I could do that.”
It had been a real concession on Dad’s part to watch Liam so he could rodeo. Guilt, perhaps, after yesterday’s fiasco with Max and the powwow, or maybe the trouble Hardisty had caused Janey last night, had motivated Walter.
C.J. buckled Liam into his car seat in the Jeep, then headed down the highway again.
This time when he drove into the Sheltering Arms, Janey was reading under the willow on the front lawn. She seemed to like that spot a lot.
She stood when she saw the Jeep, her mouth hanging open, her half-eaten chocolate bar in her hand.
He got out and approached her, his heart doing a funny little dance.
“Hey,” he said, tongue-tied again.
“Hey, yourself.” He watched her swallow.
C.J. nodded his head toward the bar. “That all you’re planning to eat for lunch?”
She looked at the chocolate as if she’d forgotten it was there. She shrugged. “I didn’t feel like cooking anything.”
“You want to go on a picnic?”
“With you?”
“With Liam and me.”
She nodded and placed her book on the lawn chair.
“You need anything from the house?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Okay, let’s go.”
She walked beside him to the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. She greeted Liam and he cried, “Janey!” and giggled.
C.J. noticed the candy bar in her hand, forgotten. He took it from her and bit a huge chunk out of it. Sweet. Good. Great. He wished he could taste her on it.
She watched him, stared at his lips while he chewed. He stared at her pretty mouth and wanted to trade spit with her. Dumb idea.
“Me!” Liam yelled from the backseat. He pointed at the candy bar.
“What do you say?” Janey asked, half turning in her seat to look at Liam.
“Please.” He clapped his hands.
While looking Janey in the eye, C.J. tossed the end of the candy bar into the backseat where it landed on Liam’s chest. Bull’s-eye.
She laughed.
Liam giggled.
C.J.’s heart swelled.
He drove them to his ranch but continued down the lane past the house to a clearing near a small pond. He used to love this spot as a kid.
He stepped out of the Jeep and handed a threadbare quilt of his grandmother’s to Janey.
“Pick a flat spot and spread that out.”
Liam raced across the clearing and threw himself onto the quilt Janey was trying to straighten out.
“Hey, buster,” she said. “How am I supposed to get this straight so we can eat?”
Liam rolled on the quilt and giggled.
Before taking the food out of the vehicle, C.J. strode over and picked up two corners of the quilt. He cocked one eyebrow at Janey and she caught on right away. She grabbed the other two corners and they lifted the quilt off the ground.
Liam rolled toward the middle. At a nod from C.J., they threw him up into the air and caught him when he fell back to the quilt. He laughed the deep belly laugh of a child.
Something inside of C.J. warmed. How could he ever get enough of that sound?
They did it again and again until Janey had to stop.
“My arms are burning,” she said, her cheeks pink, her smile wide.
They lowered the quilt to the ground. Liam scrambled off and ran after a butterfly. C.J. watched Janey spread out the quilt.
What was happening here? What was he doing?
Hell if he knew.
He retrieved the food he’d bought earlier.
Liam had run out of interest in butterflies and was pulling the blossoms from the stalks of wildflowers.
Janey knelt on the far edge of the quilt and helped C.J. unload the bags.
“Why did you come back to get me?” she asked.
C.J. stopped what he was doing and stared at the pattern of the quilt, at the muted greens and blues and yellows.
“I don’t know.”
He looked up at her and she watched him, expression solemn.
“I just felt like being with you today.” He shrugged. That was the best he could do. He hadn’t looked at his motivation too closely. “Why did you come?”
“I don’t know,” she said and looked around at Liam running in the field, at the trees overhead, at the small pool of water, as if she’d come for the scenery. As if it was any prettier here than on Hank Shelter’s ranch.
So. She wasn’t looking too closely at her own feelings either. Fine. They could keep it light, maybe the best course of action today.
Liam made a beeline for the water and C.J. jumped to his feet and caught him before he fell in.
“Lunch first, buddy, then we’ll talk about swimming.”
Liam squirmed in his arms and cried. He broke away from C.J. and threw himself on Janey. She barely managed to keep them both upright.
“Wanna go in the water,” he yelled.
“Later,” she said. “Daddy wants to have lunch first.”
“I don’t like Daddy.”
“Kids say things like that all the time,” she whispered while Liam dived for the grocery bags. “They don’t mean them.”
“Yeah, I th
ink this one does,” C.J. answered. He knew he sounded low, but his skin was still itchy with Janey so close and his heart was still breaking every time his own flesh and blood turned away from him.
Janey helped him make lunch.
A cantaloupe rolled out of one of the bags. Liam hit it with his hand and said, “Want some, please.”
Janey picked it up and looked around, lifted bags and looked into them. Looked at C.J.
“What?” he asked.
“Did you bring a knife?”
A knife. Crap. “No.” His face burned. He was a hell of a picnic packer.
A smile kicked up one corner of Janey’s mouth.
Liam smacked the melon. “Please, I want some!”
“Liam, your daddy forgot to bring a knife. The only thing you’re going to be doing with this is using it as a drum.”
Liam grinned and squatted on his haunches. He pounded on the cantaloupe until his palms were red.
C.J. handed him a sandwich that Liam left lying on a paper napkin. Janey handed it to Liam and he ate it. C.J. looked away.
After lunch, he rolled his pant legs up to his knees.
He reached for Liam but the boy scooted toward Janey.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Just thought I’d strip him to his drawers and take him into the water.”
Janey pulled Liam’s T-shirt over his head then pulled off his pants until he stood in only his underwear.
When C.J. stuck out his hand to walk to the water, Liam dived into Janey’s arms.
“You!” he shouted.
“Liam, say, ‘Will you take me, please?’” Janey said.
He cocked his head to one side. “Will you take me, please?”
“Your daddy would like to take you in the water.”
“No. Daddy leave.”
C.J.’s head shot up. He stared at his son. God, the pain. What more could he possibly do for his son? Why wasn’t it ever enough?
“You want him to leave?” Janey asked. “Liam, that’s not nice.”
“No, Daddy won’t leave now. Daddy will leave.”
Janey frowned at C.J. “What does he mean?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Okay, listen,” Janey said, getting on her attitude again. “Daddy isn’t leaving now. We’re all going into the water together. Got it?”
“’Kay,” Liam said and waited while Janey rolled up the legs of her overalls.
They walked to the pond together, Janey holding one of Liam’s hands and C.J. holding his other, but only because Janey put her foot down and forced him to.
The water was cool in the shade, so C.J. directed them toward a sunny spot. His boy laughed and splashed his feet.
Despite the gloom and pure frustration he felt that Liam still didn’t accept him, C.J. smiled. There was something so sweet about doing fatherly things.
“You like this?” Janey asked.
“Yeah. Now that I’ve had a taste of fatherhood, I want to do more of it. I want a passel of kids running free on my land, coming home to the suppers I provide for them and to sleep in their beds under my roof.”
A look of such longing crossed Janey’s face that C.J. asked, “What’s wrong?”
He watched her mind work, watched her pull herself together until she said, “Nothing.”
Liar.
“That’s a really nice image,” she said and stepped away to wander through the bulrushes at the far end of the pond.
Liam moved to follow her but slipped. His head went under the water. C.J. grabbed him under the arms and pulled him out.
Liam came up sputtering and wailed. A soggy, muddy superhero drooped down Liam’s bum.
“Easy,” C.J. said, patting him on the back. “You’re all right.”
“Janey,” Liam screamed and Janey strode back through the water and took him from C.J.
“You’re tired,” she said. “Time for a nap.”
She carried him to the blanket where she took off his underwear and dried him with a corner of the quilt. She pulled his clothes on, then settled him in the middle of the quilt and lay down beside him.
C.J. felt the frustration of his own not doing for his son.
He stepped out of the water and lay down on the other side of Liam. Janey was pulling her beautiful Madonna routine again lying beside Liam, all soft curves and gentle touches on the child’s hair.
A shot of lust raged through C.J.’s body and with it, anger. He didn’t want to desire this Goth beauty with the sometimes angelic face and black fall of hair caressing her shoulder, her heavenly body lying only a couple of feet away and tempting him.
He needed a woman of whom the state of Montana would approve, one who didn’t look and dress like Liam’s mother—the woman the social workers had taken Liam from and put into his, C.J.’s, safekeeping.
He rose on his elbow, lunged across his sleeping son and grabbed Janey’s chin, met her mouth with his wide-open and seeking, with his tongue demanding let me in.
She didn’t. She sagged against him for a moment then pulled back. Tried to break away.
He held her chin hard, trying to bite into her, to feed from her essence on the desperate answers he needed to questions he couldn’t frame.
Her palm landed hard on the side of his head. Stunned by the pain, he pulled away.
“What—”
She stared at him, wide-eyed and terrified, and he shook himself.
“Sorry.” His breath whooshed out of him like steam from a locomotive. “Sorry.”
He hung his head and scraped his nails across his scalp. “I don’t know why I did that.” He reached a hand to comfort her, but she scooted toward the edge of the quilt and onto the grass.
“Stop. I won’t hurt you.” He sucked in a deep breath and held it, then let it blow out of him in a calming arc. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Janey edged back onto the blanket, but watched him warily. “Why did you kiss me?” Her voice sounded thin.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you bring me out here to do that?”
“No,” he shouted. Liam stirred and C.J. lowered his voice. “I just wanted to be with you, and Liam. I don’t know exactly why I kissed you.”
“Don’t do it again.”
He turned and stared at her. “I won’t.” With his gaze, he willed her to believe him. She seemed to.
“I’m living with a lot of stress these days,” he said. “That’s not a great excuse, I know, but I can’t seem to keep myself on an even keel.”
She made a sound that might have been agreement.
“I need money,” he said. “I might lose the ranch and I might lose Liam and I can’t stand the thought of either thing happening.”
“Why is it so important to raise him on the ranch? You can raise a kid anywhere as long as you give him a lot of love.”
“I know, but…” How could he explain? “I grew up with my mom and dad in the rectory beside the church. It was dark and cramped and confining. Dad’s many rules suffocated me. The ranch, though, symbolized freedom for as far back as I can remember. It was all about fun and fresh air and hard work, too, and I loved it. I want the same for Liam.”
He cut his hand through the air. “I don’t want him in a crowded apartment or a small house. I want him running free on the land.”
They lapsed into silence and left soon after Liam woke up.
Liam cried when C.J. dropped Janey off at the Sheltering Arms, setting C.J.’s already ragged nerves on edge.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“HANK, CAN YOU DRIVE ME to Sweet Talk?” Janey asked after Sunday night’s supper.
Hank looked up from the book he was reading to a child sitting on his lap. “You’re going in to work tonight? At this time? Does C.J. have a big order or something?”“No, I’m moving into the apartment over the store.”
Hank’s eyebrows shot up. “You are?”
“Yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you. I don’t have a lot of stuff. If you�
��re too tired, I can probably carry my clothes over in two trips, but it might be dark by the time I walk into town the second time.”
“No way are you walking into town tonight. Of course I’ll drive you.” He handed Justin to Willie, who picked up in the story where Hank had left off.
Janey ran upstairs to get the bags she’d packed. She didn’t have much and it was mostly secondhand, but it was hers.
Just as she left her washroom with her toiletries in her arms, Amy showed up.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. I’m renting the apartment above the store.”
Amy watched her dump her makeup and shampoo into a plastic shopping bag and said, “Stop. I’ll be right back.”
She returned a minute later with a black satin cosmetic bag.
“Here,” she said. “Put all that in here.”
It was beautiful and so feminine—so much like Amy herself. Janey had never owned anything like it and vowed that one day when she’d made her dream come true, when she worked at a business and wore pink lipstick, she’d buy herself a bag as pretty as this one.
“Thanks, I’ll get it back to you later in the week.”
“No. It’s yours.”
The gesture nearly knocked her to her knees. They were so good to her. Amy and Hank had done so much for her. Janey could never repay their kindness. She ran her fingers over the fabric and whispered, “Thank you, Amy. I’ll take very good care of it.”
Amy gave Janey’s hand a squeeze. “I know you will.”
They carried Janey’s bags downstairs where Gladys and Hannah waited.
“News travels fast in this house,” Janey said.
Hannah gave her a bag chock-full of food and groceries. Gladys wrapped Janey in her arms and whispered, “I’ll miss you.”
Amy did the same. “If it doesn’t work out, come straight back home, okay?”
Home. Oh, Amy, I love you, too.
Janey tried not to show it but she felt teary-eyed. These people were her friends and she felt so blessed to have found them in the last year.
Hank helped her load her stuff in the truck.
They were quiet on the drive, until they reached the town limits.
“Sorry to drag you out so late,” Janey said. “You’ve been busy lately, though, and I really wanted to get moved in.”
A Cowboy's Plan Page 13