by Lissa- Sugar
That set them off again.
Jaimie finally wiped her eyes, went to the wet bar and brought back three miniature bottles of pinot grigio.
“To hell with glasses,” she said, handing them around.
They unscrewed the caps and clinked bottles.
“To Raoul’s penis,” said Emily. “Here’s hoping the fish stock rotted it off.”
The Wilde sisters tilted the bottles to their lips and emptied them in a few long swallows. There were a couple of errant giggles. Then Jaimie cleared her throat.
“The bastard.”
“Believe me, I called him more than that.”
“And you were out of a job.”
Lissa nodded. “Not just that job. I was out of consideration for any good job.”
“Didn’t you tell people what had happened?”
“I was upset. And humiliated. That scene… I can laugh at it now, but I couldn’t, not then. The entire thing was horrible. What he’d done to me, how I’d let him play me for such a fool…”
“You mean, you kept quiet?”
“Yes. By the time I tried to speak up, Raoul had destroyed my reputation. He said that I’d collapsed under pressure, that I’d walked out in the middle of the dinner service. By the time I tried to tell someone the truth, she just gave me this look, you know, a that’s-a-truly-pathetic-story look, and I knew it was all over.”
“And after that?”
“After that, I took any restaurant job I could find.”
“You should have called us,” Emily said indignantly. “Any of us. All of us.”
“Right. Just the way you called when you were broke and desperate in New York.”
Emily flushed. “Point made.”
“And then you saw an ad for a job at that ranch?”
“My agent called me about it. I thought it was for a chef’s position at one of those pricey spas. I flew up and when I realized what the job really was, I was pissed off.”
“I’ll bet,” Jaimie said grimly.
“I wasn’t going to stay. But a huge snowstorm blew in and I was stuck, so I made a couple of meals. Well, I was there, wasn’t I?” she said, skipping over the part where she and Nick had despised each other, the part where she’d agreed to trade a cooked meal for room and board.
“But the snow stopped, eventually.”
“Uh huh.”
“And?”
“And—and, things changed.”
“You discovered your real career was in feeding a bunch of grimy cowboys?”
“They weren’t grimy! And no, I didn’t decide that was what I wanted to do with my life. But…”
“But?”
“But—” She looked at her sisters. “But,” she said softly, “I got to know Nick.”
“Know him?” Jaimie said.
Lissa flushed. “Nick wasn’t hiding. He was healing.”
“So he claims,” Emily said. “We haven’t paid attention. Something about a stunt gone wrong?”
Lissa hesitated, but there was no longer any reason to keep Nick’s secret. She told her sisters what had happened, how seriously Nick had been injured, not only physically but emotionally.
“That must have been rough,” Jaimie said softly.
“It was. But he’s strong. He got through it. And I—”
“And you?”
“And I—I began to care for him.”
“Holy crap, Melissa! You’re in love with him!”
“No!”
“Don’t give me that BS! You’re in love with the man.”
“Maybe,” Lissa said softly.
“What about him? Is he in love with you?”
“For God’s sakes, James, what is this? An interrogation?”
“Meaning, you don’t know if he loves you or not.”
“Meaning, I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“Dammit, Melissa—”
“What has he told you?” Emily said. “About what’s going on now.”
“I haven’t—I haven’t spoken with him since early this morning.”
“Meaning?” Jaimie demanded.
“Don’t look at me like that. He’s busy. Incredibly busy.”
“So let’s get this straight. He sent you away—”
“He had to deal with the media!”
“And he hasn’t called you.”
“No.”
Jaimie’s eyes narrowed. “How about calling him?”
Lissa stared at her sister. How about that, indeed? Between worrying about Nick and checking for calls from him and then discovering that her name and lies about her were plastered everywhere, she’d missed the obvious.
She didn’t have to wait for Nick’s call. She could call him.
“Lissa? How about calling him?”
Lissa rose to her feet. She looked at her sisters. They looked at each other.
Emily swung away, picked up the TV remote control, turned on the enormous flat-screen set that hung over a long buffet table and turned the volume to low. Jaimie looked at the screen, too, as if she really gave a damn about watching whatever stupid program was on.
Lissa drew a long breath, let it out and walked to the far end of the sitting room, called up her contacts list and hit the icon for Nick’s cell number.
It rang. And rang. And rang again. There was a faint click. OK. Not Nick, but his voice mail…
“Welcome to GlobalPhone. We cannot complete your call at this time. Please check the number and dial again.”
Frowning, she disconnected. Redialed by touching the icon again. Once more, the call went through. The phone rang and rang and then, click…
“Welcome to GlobalPhone. We cannot complete your call at this time. Please check the number and dial again.”
Obviously, there was some kind of glitch.
She placed the call again, this time using the keypad, touching her index finger to one digit at a time.
It didn’t matter.
The phone rang. The automated message came on.
She ended the call.
OK. Definitely, a glitch. Well, GlobalPhone was her carrier, too. The number for customer service was right in her contacts list. She chose it, went through the nonsense of its electronic switchboard—
“GlobalPhone,” a voice said briskly. “How may I help you?”
Lissa cleared her throat. “I’m having a problem trying to reach someone.” She explained it all. That she’d called three separate times, that she’d reached the same automated message each time.
“Do you happen to know the message, ma’am?”
She did. By now, she knew it by heart, and she repeated it word for word.
“The thing is, I don’t understand the part about checking the number because I absolutely know the number I’ve called is correct.”
“I’m sure it is, Miss,” the rep said. “What that message means is—”
Lissa listened. And listened. She reached behind her for a chair and sat down.
“I see,” she said. “Thank you. No, no, there’s nothing else.”
“Lissa?”
She looked across the room. Emily and Jaimie were standing with their backs to the television screen.
“Lissa,” Jaimie said, “you should probably see—”
Emily elbowed Jaimie in the ribs. “What’s the matter?”
Lissa’s lips felt as dry as the Mojave Desert. She moistened them with the tip of her tongue.
“It’s… It’s…” She paused. “I called Nicholas.”
“And?”
“And I got a weird message.”
“What kind of weird message?”
“A recording. I thought it meant that his phone was, you know, overloaded. I mean, everybody he ever knew is probably trying to reach him, but—”
“But?”
“But what it means is that—is that the person you’re calling has—has changed his number.”
Jaimie’s expression turned grim. “He changed his number without telling you?�
�
“It’s probably a mistake,” Lissa said. She was shaking. Dammit! She was shaking! “Just some kind of screw-up, you know?”
Jaimie and Emily looked at each other. Then Emily picked up the TV remote. She and Jaimie moved to the sides of the set as Emily turned up the sound.
“… plans are just that right now,” a slightly rough, wonderfully familiar male voice said.
Lissa caught her breath, rose to her feet and whispered Nick’s name. And, yes, it was Nick on the TV screen, tall and handsome with that sexy, lazy smile on his lips.
“They’re still only plans, but Beverly and I are discussing what happens next, and I promise, you guys will be the first to know.”
Beverly?” Lissa said in bewilderment.
“The redhead,” Jaimie said. “The one plastered to his side like glue.”
Lissa tore her gaze from Nick, settled it on the woman beside him, a spectacular redhead who was gazing up at him with adoration.
“Did you ever give up hope, Beverly?” a voice called out.
The redhead laughed and put her arm through Nick’s.
“Never,” she said.
“And you had no idea what had happened to him?”
“No. Nick didn’t let any of us know. Not even me.”
“Nick?” A sea of microphones and cameras swung in Nick’s direction. “Is there anything more you’d like to say about what happened in Afghanistan?”
The sexy smile faded from Nick’s mouth.
“Nothing beyond what I’ve already told you. It was an honor to have known those men. They were the true embodiment of heroism and I’ll never forget them.”
Voices rang out; Nick raised his hand.
“The rest is for their families. I’m going to meet with them individually, if they’ll have me, and none of it—none of it—will be for public discussion or display.”
Lissa felt the sting of tears in her eyes. This was the Nicholas she knew. The real one. The man she loved.
“Nick? What about that woman? Your cook?”
Nick’s expression turned to stone.
“What about her?”
“Well, those pictures of you with her… Can we have some details about her?”
“I’ve told you. No, you can’t.”
“Looks like she was a lot more than—”
“She was kind and generous at a time when kindness and generosity were what I—”
Lissa snatched the remote from her sister’s hand. The screen went dark.
For a very long time, no one spoke.
Could you really feel your heart breaking?
“Liss,” Emily said.
Lissa’s words cut across hers. “Wow,” she said brightly, “wasn’t that a nice thing for him to say about me? Really nice…”
It was no good. She couldn’t pretend, couldn’t maintain the lie. She began to cry, silently, desperately. Emily moaned and threw her arms around her. Jaimie started to, but the hotel telephone rang and she grabbed it.
“Hello? Travis? And Jake. And Caleb. All three of you. Well, that’s—that’s… Yes. We just saw…. No, no, it isn’t a problem. It was just a, you know, just a job… The photos?” Jaimie turned away. “Could we talk about this some other time? Because now isn’t—” Her voice rose. “Jesus, are you guys dense? We are not going to talk about—”
Lissa took the phone from Jaimie’s hand.
“I was an idiot,” she said. Her voice shook a little, but her words were clear and decisive. “OK? Have we got that straight? I was a fool and it’s over and if you really want to help me, you can just—you can let the whole thing go and—and—What? That’s crazy! You were all in Europe and now you’re at JFK, waiting for one of the family jets? Listen, if this is because of me, if you lunatics are flying to El Sueño because you think I’m going there, too, if any of you are dumb enough to think I’m going to behave like a—like a lovesick teenybopper and bawl my eyes out…”
Jaimie took the phone back.
“Here’s what’s happening,” she said crisply. “We’re going home. Right away. Yes. We’ll meet you there. Oh, for heaven’s sake, of course with Lissa! Yes, I know what she said… Look, just get in touch with Marco and Zach. Tell them… Fine. In that case, we’ll see you all soon.” Jaimie hung up the phone and turned toward Lissa. “Did you hear what I said? We’re all going to the ranch—and neither Em nor I will put up with any arguments.”
It turned out your heart could be in pieces, but you could still laugh.
“The general would be proud of you, James,” Lissa said.
An hour later, one of the Wilde’s jets was soaring high above the clouds heading for Texas and Wilde’s Crossing, and for the sprawling kingdom called El Sueño, a place that would always be home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In the spring, the lush meadows and low ridges of the Wilde ranch always looked as if they’d been touched with an artist’s paintbrush.
They were bright with bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. Legend said that bluebonnets had been brought over from Spain centuries ago. It was a charming story, but like most charming stories, it wasn’t true.
Bluebonnets were true Texas natives. They might look delicate, but they were strong and determined, and Lissa was trying hard to learn from them.
Be strong. Be determined. And life will go on.
She’d been at El Sueño for four days. So was all the rest of her family, well, everyone except the general, and his absence was pretty much the standard.
John Hamilton Wilde had a world to run. A good thing, right now. It meant that nothing about Lissa’s situation had reached him.
But the rest of the Wilde clan—brothers and sisters and spouses, an almost-spouse and even babies—had Lissa’s world to organize.
Lissa clucked softly to her roan mare as she rode the animal to the top of a ridge.
They all meant well. And she loved them with all her heart, but she’d reached the point at which she’d have given anything for an hour of solitude.
This morning, she’d sneaked out of the house in search of some.
Everybody had still been asleep; the house had held an early-morning stillness. She’d tiptoed from her room as if she were still a little girl determined to avoid the housekeeper or one of the nannies who’d traipsed through the lives of the three Wilde sisters after their mom’s death, and gone to the stable.
Soft whinnies had greeted her.
She rubbed noses, said a few words to each horse. Then she’d saddled up the roan that she’d always loved and ridden here, through meadows alive with bluebonnets, past horses grazing on new spring grass, letting the roan find the way because, even after all these years, the mare knew her rider’s favorite early-morning trail.
Now, they were on the top of a ridge that looked out over land that endless generations of Wildes had claimed and worked and cherished, and Lissa, who had always thought of herself as a city person who just happened to have been born in the country, found herself seeing the meadows and, beyond them, the softly rolling hills of north Texas with new eyes.
It was a beautiful view, but not as beautiful as the dense stands of pine and aspen and, beyond them, the fierce mountain peaks that were the view from the Triple G.
She tried not to do that too often, to think about those mountains or anything even remotely connected to them, but it was hard to close your eyes at night without suddenly seeing Louie and Peaches chasing a small rubber mouse down the hall, or Brutus trundling toward her, his tail wagging so hard that she’d laugh as she got down on her knees and wrapped her arms around him. It was hard not to hear Ace’s gruff voice complimenting whatever it was she’d made for dinner, hard not to see the other men coming into the dining room, looking as eager and expectant as a bunch of kids on Christmas morning.
Most of all, worst of all, it was hard not to think about Nick.
To more than think about him.
To see his face in the shadows of the porch at night, to hear his voice t
elling her how much he wanted her, to feel his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her mouth.
When was that going to stop?
Because it had to stop. It had to, or she was going to go crazy. Or maybe her family, her wonderful family, was going to be the cause of her going crazy and, yes, she knew that they meant well.
Nobody talked about Nick. Nobody mentioned him.
Nobody raised the subject of what in hell they were all doing here when there’d been no plans for any of them to be here in the middle of March.
Instead, everybody bubbled.
There was no other way to describe it.
“Lissa!” her sisters and sisters-in-law would say when she walked into the room, their voices and faces filled with bright and totally artificial delight.
“Liss,” her brothers would say, beaming happily whenever they saw her, “you look great this morning!” Or this afternoon or this evening, because they were always there, being cheerful, being upbeat, and Marco and Zach treated her the same way because even if they didn’t carry the Wilde DNA, they were the same kind of men, caring, concerned, thoughtful and loving.
Amazing, that Nick had seemed to be like that, too.
Caring. Concerned. Thoughtful. Loving—but no, not loving. He had never mentioned love, and if she’d realized one thing these past few days, it was that falling in love with him had been her doing, not his.
And the truth was, she hadn’t fallen in love with him. She’d fallen in love with lust. With needing and being needed.
Nick had come into her life, or rather she’d come into his, when she’d been at a low point. No job. No future. No money. No anything to look forward to, except more worries.
And then, overnight, everything changed. She had a job. A purpose. A bunch of people to care about.
And a man.
A man who was funny and smart and sexy, who cared about her—because he had, he had cared about her, and whose fault was it if she’d confused that with love?
Plus, Nick had needed her. What woman didn’t want to be needed?
Add it all up and she had nothing to complain about. She’d had two weeks of incredible sex with an incredible guy who’d made her feel like the most important person in his life, and now it was over.
“Over,” she said briskly. The mare whinnied and tossed her head. Lissa smiled. “Exactly. I’m glad we agree.”