by Caro LaFever
That was odd. Jess assumed she’d have to run one more gauntlet of charm and coaxing before escaping into the plane. Relief swelled, but along with it, to her disgust, rose a twinge of hurt. It was best she never saw Nick Townsend again, though. Going forward, any communication would be between their respective lawyers.
It was for the best.
Following the old man, she entered the kitchen to find Mrs. Wallach waiting, her worried face a mask of wrinkles. “Nick just stepped out,” she said. “He’ll be right back.”
“He stepped out, so he doesn’t have to face his wife,” her employer growled. “He’s not coming back until we’re gone.”
The housekeeper’s eyes widened. “He’ll want to say goodbye.”
“No, he won’t.” Edward Townsend gestured between the two women. “Now, say goodbye to Jessica.”
Jess feared tears as she was wrapped into a strong hug, except they seemed to have frozen inside her, along with everything else.
Mrs. Wallach leaned away. “I just wish—”
“No amount of wishing is going to do a damn thing,” the old man cut in. “Let’s go.”
Following him through the length of the ranch, she kept her focus on him, instead of looking for another man. One last glimpse, one more time to look at those celestial-blue eyes and delicious lips and…
Don’t think about him.
Edward Townsend jerked open the door, letting the cold air blow in. The wind was brisk. Still, it no longer howled, and it wasn’t filled with ice, either. He stomped across the porch, pulling her suitcase through the drifts of snow. Not allowing herself to glance around, she followed him to the Jeep, its engine purring warmth into the cold air.
The drive felt endless, the silence deafening.
She’d half expected he’d make another pitch, but the old man merely grumbled at the weather a time or two, keeping his gaze on the snow-covered road in front of them. The whole thing was so anti-climatic, it took her aback. Priming herself for attack after attack, and instead finding nothing except silent snow and cold acceptance—it froze the last part of her heart.
The plane loomed from the fog like a gigantic piece of modernity, so alien in the desolate, harsh land.
Without a word, he clambered out of the Jeep and yanked her suitcase from the backseat. Handing it over to the waiting attendant at the bottom of the stairs, he turned to glare at her one last time as she scrambled from the truck. “Can’t believe it.”
She came to a stop, one foot still in the car. “What?”
No, no, my Jessie. ¿Qué?
In one split second, all the frost and ice inside her melted, bringing a flood of tears to her eyes.
“Now that’s more like it.” With a stride, he came to her side and, with surprising agility, kneeled in front of her. “Don’t leave my boy.”
Genuine emotion filled the old blue eyes. A mix of anxiety, hope, and more than anything, love.
Love for his boy.
“I can’t stay,” she gulped. “He tricked me.”
“Yeah.” The drawl was drawn out, a long sigh of agreement. “And your father and I did, too.”
“So you can see, why I can’t…I can’t…”
“You have your pride, I get that.” A gnarled hand dropped onto her knee and squeezed. “But sometimes pride gets in the way of doing what’s right.”
Her tearful gulp turned into a choked laugh. “Look who’s talking.”
“Yeah,” he drawled again. A twinkle of bemusement filled the blue of his eyes. “I reckon you’re right.”
“Mr. Townsend—”
“Ed. I told you what to call me a time or two.”
“Ed.” Before she gave in, she grabbed her purse and put both feet on the snowy tarmac. “I have to leave.”
“My boy is heartbroken, I’ll have you know.” He rose, reluctantly, grimacing. “I hate to see it.”
“He could have any woman in the world.” The realization had strummed in her for so many days, Jess felt as if it were imprinted in her soul.
“But he only wants you.” The old man’s words were stout and sure. “I knew as soon as I saw him with you, you’re the one for him.”
“I’m not.” Pushing aside her trembling heart, she grasped onto her pride. It was the only thing she had. “He says and does whatever he has to in order to win.”
He looked nonplussed, before letting a scowl cross his face. “He loves you.”
“No, he doesn’t.” He might want her body. He might enjoy her company. Yet, no man as beautiful and accomplished would want her, only her. At the end of the day, he saw her like all the other men she’d met. Not Jessica. But Jessica McDowell. “I’ve got to go.”
“Then, go.” He punched his cowboy hat down farther on his head and, with a stiff turn, strode back around the truck.
The last sight Jess had of a Townsend was the Jeep barreling away, down the road, returning to the ranch.
Turning, she faced her bleak future. Alone with her pride.
“Don’t be a fool.” His pa’s voice echoed in the barn. “Go after her.”
Nick ignored him, focusing on tightening the saddle on Caballo. He didn’t know why he hadn’t left the ranch the moment he could. The blizzard had ended two days ago. With Jessie gone for good, there was no reason to hang around here. With a father who grumbled about everything.
“Don’t be a fool,” his father said again.
“Pa.” He finally glanced up to meet two glaring blue eyes. “She’s gone. I lost. It happens.”
“It doesn’t happen to you.”
He arched surprised brows. “Did I lose my hearing at some point? I can’t believe my ears, because that sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“This is not the time to joke.” A scowl crossed his pa’s face. “Time is of the essence. Women get cold and hard fast.”
Swiveling away from his nickering horse, he peered over the boards of the stall, his brain ticking. “Like my mamá?”
“Never mind.” The old man waved the question away. “You need to return to Las Vegas and find your wife.”
“She’s not going to be my wife for much longer.” Knowing his Jessie, she already had her lawyers grinding away on the divorce. “And she isn’t in Las Vegas. That’s my home, not hers.”
“This ranch is your home.”
“Naw, Pa.” Nick chuckled. “Come on. I never fit in here. You never wanted me here.”
His old man’s expression went blank with surprise. “That’s not true.”
The old burn of anger tried to raise its head above the stew of desolation he’d sunk into the moment Jessie had rejected him, but it lost the will and sunk, too. Something had broken in him when he’d offered her everything and she’d said no. No with her cold words and her stiffening body. And more than anything, with the dead coldness in her eyes when he’d finally raised his head to look at her. To plead one more time.
The plea hadn’t come from his mouth. At least he had that.
The remnants of his pride.
Turning back to his horse, he tightened the cinch. “This ranch has been sold by you, Pa. So it’s not my home any more than it’s yours.”
“That wasn’t the plan.” A rough huff came from outside the stall. “That wasn’t what Clyde and I wanted.”
“But it’s what you got.” Nick noted the thought didn’t trouble him any longer. Perhaps having your heart crushed to dust had unexpected dividends. Taking Caballo’s reins, he slid the stall door open and led the horse out. “I’m going for a ride.”
“You need to convince her you love her.” His father stepped forward, a stiff figure of disapproval.
“Pa.” He stopped to look at the old man with faint amusement. It was the only emotion he could conjure at this point. “I did. She didn’t believe me.”
“I know my boy.” Old blue eyes glared. “I know you can do anything you set your mind to, Nicholas.”
Another emotion rose. This time one of astonishment. “I have to
get my hearing checked.”
“Listen.” A familiar, hard hand shot out to grab his arm, bringing him to a stop. “Clyde and I knew what we were doing.”
Nick gave him a snort, reminding him of how his Jessie used the technique so often and so well. Shying away from that memory because it would likely clutch at him and pull him deeper into depression, he pulled himself from his father’s grasp. “You didn’t, though, did you?”
“I sure did. Both Clyde and I knew.”
“This ranch,” he swept his hand toward the stalls and horses, “is going to be sold with the rest of the McDowell properties.”
“If you won’t go after your wife, then you can buy Ádh Ranch back.”
“No, I can’t, Pa. Your good friend, Clyde, made sure of that.”
“What?” Shock ricocheted across the old man’s face. “That wasn’t in the plan.”
No, no, my Jessie. ¿Qué?
Brushing off the memory, he slid his foot into the stirrup and threw his other leg over the horse. “Guess old Clyde made all sorts of deals with all sorts of people.”
His father grabbed onto Caballo’s reins. “What did he make you agree to?”
“If I didn’t win his daughter’s hand and heart, then I lost everything.” He looked impatiently at the man holding him back. Like always. “In the contract addendum I signed with him, it’s clear. No Jessie, no hotels, and certainly no ranch.”
“Addendum? What the hell?” The words roiled with rage. “He fooled me.”
“Maybe we fooled ourselves.” With a restless jerk, he tried to yank the reins from his father’s tight grip. “It’s over, Pa. Give up.”
“A Townsend never gives up.”
The statement had been said so many times in his childhood, Nick had once thought it was imprinted in his soul. Yet, the motto didn’t hold true. Maybe no motto really did. “Pa.”
“What?”
¿Qué?
The echo of the memory flashed through him. He needed to escape. He needed to ride. “Let me go.”
“Never.” But Edward Townsend dropped the reins and stepped back.
Without another word, he clucked at Caballo, squeezing his knees to tell him to canter. Not letting age stop him, the horse gallantly took off in a sharp clip. Out the open barn door, into the cool breeze. Temperatures had risen steadily during the last couple of days, and with the bright sun, the snow had melted into stubborn clumps. The hands had plowed several roads and all the main trails.
Especially one trail.
One that Nick had asked to be plowed specifically.
His father had glanced up, a sour expression on his face when the request had been made at the breakfast table this morning. But he hadn’t contradicted the request with an order of his own, and Tiny had come to the house just an hour ago to let Nick know it was done.
He needed to say goodbye.
The whiteness of the snow blinded when the sun laced its light across the barren land. Mountains rose along the western horizon, white as well. The air was crisp and clean, bringing in the cool scent of pine. Caballo required little direction, as if understanding where they were heading and remembering the trail the horse probably hadn’t taken in sixteen years.
It took an hour to arrive at his place.
The black granite crag loomed above him as he dismounted. Dropping the reins on the ground, he used his boots to push the melting snow away from the last of the summer’s grass. Caballo settled in for a snack, and Nick knew he wouldn’t go anywhere without him on his back.
The rock was slick in some places, but he’d climbed this cliff so many times the memories of certain crevices to plant your boot and the exact way to angle a body to reach the next level returned. Within a few minutes, he stood at the top, surveying the Townsend land. He didn’t know how long it would be before his Jessie’s machinations took this away. Yet, for now, it was still Townsend’s.
His Jessie.
“Not anymore,” he murmured into the soft breeze.
He didn’t let the sorrow take over. The desolation would swamp him once more, he was sure. But he needed this one moment, this one time to be on his rock. To remember who he’d been as a kid.
Crouching, he breathed in and out. Remembered the fourteen-year-old boy who’d found this place and made it his own. Remembered the substitute perch he’d given to Jessie when he hadn’t even known he’d loved her.
There was still comfort here.
Sí, he would never be the man his father wanted him to be. And sí, he would never be the man who Jessie loved. He still had something to hold on to, though.
He had himself to deal with. All the ugly, all the crazy, all the savage parts of him.
If he did nothing else, he’d pay repentance.
Maggie would be angry and worried. But he couldn’t go back to being the man he’d been before Jessica McDowell. A man who accumulated casinos and land. A man who piled money into his coffers fist over fist. A man who proved again and again…he was more than his father wanted. More than Edward Townsend would ever be.
It seemed so fruitless now. Pointless in so many ways.
Plucking a rock up, he rose and threw it far, far into the land and air. Far across the crevice and stones and sand. Far into his past and his present.
But not his future.
He didn’t really know what he’d do. Jessie had become his focal point in such a short time, it still stunned him. Yet when he’d looked into her mixed eyes that last time, after she’d accused him of something so ugly it had destroyed an essential part of him, he’d known.
He had to let her go free.
Like a young filly who’d been ridden hard and wrong, he’d damaged her. Not intentionally. Not even when he’d signed the ugly contract with her father. Except the fact was, he had. When his Jessie had turned more than mean, more than ugly, more than he’d ever expected her to be—he’d known it was his fault. Like a harmed filly attacking, his woman had kicked him right where it hurt because he deserved it. The only thing a man could do when he treated a young filly wrong was to let her go. Because the filly never forgot or forgave. And why should she?
Why should Jessie forgive him?
He was essentially an ugly man inside. She might say he was beautiful, yet that was only surface. Where it mattered, he was the ugly one and she was the beauty.
For the rest of his life, he’d remember that. Keep it close to the ashes of his heart.
Jerking around, he headed to the edge of the crag. The sun’s slant told him he’d have just enough time to get back to the ranch before the sky went black. He slid onto his belly and reached his boot for the first crevice in the climb. His leather-covered hand grabbed for the tip of the rock he’d always held on to as a kid, but he miscalculated. At the same time, the point of his boot slipped in a clump of snow. Before he could stop it, his body slithered off the peak, skating across the slice of ice he hadn’t realized clung to the top of the cliff.
Nick took one last glance at the sky as he flew. Not up this time, but down and down.
Chapter 35
“Good riddance,” Peter said the same thing for the four thousandth time.
“Stop saying that.” Surveying his taut figure as he stood outside the divorce lawyer’s office, Jess stepped into the hall. She ignored his answering scowl by stomping past the receptionist and through the lobby to the double doors leading out of the building.
“You know I’m right, Ginger Snap.” His crisp accent drifted around her, as he followed her to the limo. “I told you and told you. And I was right.”
“You’ve crowed about that over and over. I don’t need to hear it again.”
“But you do.” His craggy expression turned pained. “You haven’t got the bloke out of your head yet. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Whatever.” Climbing into the limo, she slid across the seat.
Peter came in behind her, and for once, kept quiet.
She turned to stare through the window at the New
York City streets. She’d done it. She’d taken the first step toward getting rid of her soon-to-be-ex-husband and losing any hope of running the McDowell hotels. For the moment, she still had access to the McDowell gem of a hotel that lay on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. But soon, within a few months, she’d lose that, too.
Lose the hotels.
Lose Nick Townsend.
The ever-present grief that had followed her onto the plane in the middle of Nevada two days ago welled once more in her chest. She couldn’t cry in front of Peter, though. He’d start his rant again. The rant he’d begun the moment he’d picked her up at the Las Vegas airport and shuffled her into the McDowell plane. Since then, he’d acted more like a worried hen than a silent bodyguard.
“You did what’s for the best,” he piped into her thoughts. “You needed to get rid of him.”
“And with him, the hotels,” she muttered to the window, knowing there were tears in her eyes.
“You can buy other hotels. Your father left you a pile of money.”
Except she didn’t want some random hotels. She wanted her hotels. The ones she’d grown up in. The ones she’d planned on owning. The ones she’d dreamed about and talked with Nick about.
“You need to get out of your funk, Jessica. You have to move forward.”
“Give me a break.” Jerking around, she scowled through her tears. “I’ve only been back for two days.”
“But you’ve had more than a week to come to grips with what that bloke did to you.” His fierce gaze zeroed in on the tears. “He’s not worth it.”
“What my father did to me.”
His expression went pained again. “He was sick and old.”
“He knew what he was doing,” she snapped. “He chose Nick more than a year ago.”
“To take your hotels from you.”
To take her heart, too.
Jess turned to the window once more, not willing to discuss it any longer. Eventually, her heart would heal. It had to, didn’t it? Eventually this decision she’d made—to stand tall, to take her pride back, to be on her own—eventually that decision would feel right.
Not like now, when it felt so terribly wrong.