Jett takes the chair beside Teag’s high chair and settles Teag into it. I wait for him to move back to the right side of the big oak dining table and take his place at Michael’s right but he doesn’t. He stays beside Teag, and reluctantly, avoiding everyone’s eyes I move to the other side of my son. We’re both flanking Teag as if we’re his parents.
I’m silent throughout the meal. And wonder yet again how somebody as slender as Marjorie can cook such succulent, delicious meals. As bites disappear into my mouth, I feed Teag a bowl of garden fresh green beans which he paints across his face without really eating it. As dinner comes to a close, I jump up, mumble my apologies and hustle Teag back upstairs to prepare him for bed.
I stay upstairs until I hear everybody go to bed, then checking on a sleeping Teag one more time before I come back down to the kitchen. It’s deserted. I pull on a light jacket and head outside into the night.
Making my way back up the little hill, I pause when I feel eyes on me from behind a large pine tree standing in my path.
He comes out, “Why are you staying here with my family?” his voice is soft, curious.
I settle down into a pile of soft grass, wrap the jacket firmly around me from the cooling night air.
I shrug, “because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Jett sits down a few feet away, his back against the pine tree, “Your family-”
“Teag is my family!” I cut him off.
The night’s clear and I catch his pained grimace. “Your parents cut you loose?”
I nod stiffly, catch my lip between my teeth. We had rarely spoken about my parents. But Jett knew what they wanted for me, an arrow-straight career, to live in the city, I’d always been afraid I’d suffocate from it all. I’d escaped by coming out here with Jett to the ranch.
“What happened, Ang?” Jett asks after a long moment.
I still, rest my head on my ankle. The words start to come and I don’t know where they’re coming from. They just are.
“I fell in love with him.”
“Thought you were in love with me,” Jett reasons quietly, his voice grates low with inhuman control.
My eyes snap to his and the pain I feel mirrors the look on his face. “That didn’t stop.”
“Then why?” he roars and catapults to his feet. He stomps over to me, grips my arms in his and hauls me with only a fraction of the strength of a man who is primed to make his living off the land. I jolt to my feet. Breathing hard, I stare up at him. But even in his rage I would never be afraid of Jett. But that did not mitigate his intimidation factor one jot. I’d forgotten that he’s well over six feet tall, perhaps an inch taller than Colt had been. Somewhere in the last year since we’d met he’d gone from my college sweetheart to a man. One who apparently had a short leash when it came to bullshit.
He rakes my wide eyes with a remorseless gaze. “You can’t love two men Ang, that’s not fucking possible!” he barks, answering his own question.
I’d grown up to. I wrench myself out of his hold, pain goes outward from my heart and starts to beat in my blood, I glare up at him. I’m shaking and spluttering, “I did and I do,” I shout, I shove a finger to my chest. “I’m obviously screwed up, I don’t know why. But before I knew it, he was there in my heart and I couldn’t push him out.”
Jett sneers down at me, his lips pull back over white teeth. “That’s a weak excuse!”
I swing away from him, but he cuts across me, blocks my path, “Stay put,” he bellows, “You don’t get to fuck up my heart and tell me you couldn’t stop it!”
I stagger back, furious and ashamed. Cornered I lash out, “You can’t control what I feel Jett,” I storm up into his rigid face.
Jett flings himself back from me, as if he can no longer trust himself so close to me. He rakes a hand savagely through his hair, which I notice for the first time has grown down to nip at his collar.
“You didn’t have to sleep with him,” he groans, his voice thick with betrayal.
His pain silences me. Mocks all the outrage and anger I feel. I hang my head and look off into the black patches of night cloaked hills about our little valley.
I smile without humor, “I know. But he gave me Teag. He’s the only thing I’ve got left that belongs with me.”
Jett’s head snaps up, his eyes are flint hard, “that’s not true,” he laughs a harrowing, derisive sound, “but I wish to God that it was.”
Reeling from his words, I’m unprepared for how fast he closes the distance between us. Startled, an involuntary cry rasps from my throat. He immediately stills and my terror drains away as his hand slowly descends to my upturned face. His rough fingers flutter to my cheeks, skirt the bridge of my nose and the edges around my quaking lips. His touch beckons me to tilt my head back into it.
He sighs wearily, “don’t you know I’d never hurt you?”
The tears I’d been holding in finally come. Tumbling over his fingers on my cheeks. This is why I’d stuck around.
A chance to win back his friendship. To stay in his life. And it’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.
I squeeze my eyes closed, feel my lids start to ache with the pressure. I fight not to reach for him. To touch him like he’s touching me.
He solves my problem for me. Draws me to him inches at a time, a gentle nudging that tells me he’ll let me go the moment I resist. His hands cupped around my cheek are warm and dry.
I surrender to the gentleness in him.
I move and my knee brushes his inner thigh. He moans, the sound is pained and needy. He grunts impatiently and hauls me the rest of the way so that I smack up against him with a muffled whoosh.
He rests his chin on the top of head and sighs with contentment, “What’re we gonna do, Ang?” he sounds as bewildered as I feel. And beneath it all I hear what hurts him so much, he doesn’t want to want me, but he does. I shudder against him desperately praying that he doesn’t wake up and toss me away from him. I couldn’t bare that, not after touching him again.
I don’t answer because I know there isn’t one. I take a half step closer and settle deeper into him, breathe in the fresh, coolness of mountain air sunk into his shirt. “Just hold me now,” I plea.
He obliges and lifts me higher, I wrap my arms about his broad shoulders and we don’t move for a long time.
Chapter fourteen
“Wake up!” Jett calls in my ear.
“What?” I mutter irritated. I turn from the sound to the relative peacefulness of the other side of my warm pillow.
He grumbles something beneath his breath and rips off the warm sheet from my body.
I yelp and bolt upright, shoot daggers up at him standing smug in well-worn wrangler jeans, a white chambray shirt tucked neatly in and the scuffed leather boots that he loves.
I squint behind him to the bedroom window, the sun’s just rising!
He grins diabolically at me, “get your lazy ass up and get crackin.”
I swing my legs off the bed, both our eyes fall to my naked legs. Sleeping in boy shorts has always been my thing. Jett looks away to the safety of my face, his grin is back in place, though it’s strained around the edges.
He tucks his thumb into the waist of his jeans which ride low on his lean hips, “I’ve got the horses saddled and packed for a day trip.”
I open my mouth in delight, then close it with a frown, “Thanks but I can’t leave Teag behind,” I glance at Teag’s white crib in the corner but he’s missing.
Jett harrumphs and stomps across the room to the door. He jerks an impudent brow at me. “Neither will I,” he says and leaves the room.
I watch the door swing softly shut behind him, and rub the last of the sleep from my eyes.
Thirty minutes later I’m outside, Teag attached securely to my back with a sturdy old Native American baby sling that Marjorie had used for both Colt and Jett. Marjorie had already given Teag breakfast when I came downstairs.
She startles me as she steps out of the kitchen door and c
omes over to me. Without warning she gives me long hug, then drops a kiss on Teag’s cheek, she steps back her eyes beaming, “Have fun.”
Jett helps me to mount my horse and then he does the same. We ride for about an hour in total silence. And I love it. The clean wind whipping past my face, the smell of fresh earth. It’s all so good. I soak it up greedily. Since Teag’s birth I’d not gone riding for long distances because I couldn’t stand being alone in the mountains anymore.
I shake off the grim thoughts and look around me. We’re heading west.
Jett looks over and grins at me. “Love it?” he asks.
I smile back, feeling light and alive again. “More than words,” I say and reach over to brush my hand on his leg. His smile disappears, replaced by a frown. Embarrassed I drop my hand, gulp down the knot of pain in my throat and look ahead, trying to imbue my voice with a light banter I prod him, “Where are we going?”
He points up ahead to a distant clump of hills that looks green and small from where we’re at. “Up to a spot where I’ll be working for the day,” he replies carelessly.
I drop my reins in shock, then snatch then back up. My eyes light up, “You’re a Forest Ranger?” I ask disbelievingly.
He bellows with laughter, his blue eyes dance with happiness, “I did take four years of forestry, engineering, biology-”
I punch him in the arm to make him shut up.
“Ouch,” he laughs and shoots me a wounded look.
I’m so delighted I give a fist pump of happiness. I want to stop and give him a hug and that’s just what I do.
Jett’s eyebrows shoot up as I pull firmly on the reins. My horse rears a little, Teag supremely indifferent on my back mews but subsides immediately. I slip down and rush over to Jett.
He’s on his feet and he meets me halfway, his eyes full of inquiry. I throw my arms around his neck and cling to him, laughing and splattering his face with kisses. He doesn’t respond at first. He stills and then he thaws and begins to kiss me back. He dots me with the same soft, little pecks I’m tossing all over his face.
Then he’s really kissing me. He captures my mouth, tugs on my lips and before I know it, he’d demanding entry and his tongue it sweet and ravenous, sending short, quick stabs into my softness. Shudders rip through me, want clenches my insides and hot on the heels of that comes doubt. I shove him back and we stand panting and facing each other.
He opens his mouth, I stop him with a wave of my hand as I fight to catch my breath, “It’s my fault,” I apologize, “I’m just so happy for you,” my eyes beam up at him, “you did what you were going to do.”
He covers the small distance between us. He tips my chin up, “So did you,” he says quietly. His blue eyes glow with sincerity.
I gulp and snort, “What? Like screw your brother, drop out of college and get knocked up?”
His mouth curls to the side in a grudging half smile. He holds my challenging gaze, “yeah,” he says simply. He goes back to his horse and mounts.
Two short stops to stretch our legs and six hours later with the sun already slipping from its perch in the sky we arrive at the cabin where Jett will do a few hours’ work. We’ll spend the night before heading back. It’s a two roomed cabin, perched on a short hill overlooking a dusky pine covered valley. A single fireplace juts from its side.
Jett unloads the saddlebags from the horses and secures them in a little corral at the back of the cabin. I step inside. A neatly made queen bed packed with colorful quilts sits in one corner beside a window, on the other side of the room is a small bunk bed with guard rails and a mosquito net hung from the ceiling above it. A small kitchen is at the front of the cabin. I go over and grab a glass from a cabinet. I gulp down two glasses of water that leave an iron taste in my mouth.
Jett comes into the room and comes straight to me. He helps unlace Teag from my back and then goes to quench his own thirst.
I go to the bathroom, freshen up and when I come back Jett’s gone. I nurse Teag in a rocking chair stashed in the cozy corner by the fireplace. Teag is asleep before I put him down in the bunk bed.
I rummage through the saddle bag, get out Ziplocs of cubed beef and vegetables for dinner and put them on to simmer. I sit and wait for thirty minutes but no Jett. I check on Teag one last time and head outside.
The wooden porch runs across the face of the cabin, the boards creak beneath my boots as I go down the steps.
“Jett?” I look around and spot a tent by the horse corral. Going over to it I pause.
“One sec,” Jett calls from inside, he comes out.
I touch the tent, not looking at him, “I thought we’d share the cabin,” I say quietly.
“No,” he responds and walks past me to a rock that hangs over the pine valley beneath us.
“Why?” I ask as I move to join him.
He stares out into the valley. “Do you have to ask that?” there is a note of underlying anger in his voice.
His rejection stings. I straighten up, pissed now. “Go ahead and sleep out here on the damned rocks and see if I care,” I snap.
He swings around to me, his eyes sharp, “If you didn’t care you wouldn’t be hissing like a cat,” he retorts calmly.
Bullseye.
I wince, try to think of a dozen way to get him to come back to the cabin. I settle on the most practical. “You can have the bed if you want. I don’t mind the floor.”
Jett’s back is to me again and it stiffens, the muscles go rigid beneath the thinness of his shirt. “It’s not the floor I want beneath me,” he admits roughly.
I tense, stop and then everything inside me floods with a rush of searing heat. I can feel it burning on my cheeks and I’m grateful that he’s looking away from me.
It strikes me like a fist in the gut to realize that before all this I’d seen him as my best friend first, boyfriend second. But now he’s watching me like a man, slow and methodical. A burn begins in my belly.
I step up to the rock beside him, reach for his hand hung tense at his side. He flinches at my touch, then squeezes back reassuringly. I nuzzle the sleeve of his shirt, and savor the scent of fresh sweat and clean skin mingled with the musky odor of horse caught in his clothes, “I would like that.”
My world stops. The world with just me and Jett freeze beneath my feet, even the sound of the twilight breeze languorously swirling down off the mountainsides pause to listen.
Jett turns achingly slow down to face me. His mouth is a white line, his black brows wing low over eyes that are now impossibly blue. His focus narrows on my mouth, then eyes. “You want to fuck?” he demands crudely, his eyes take on a sardonic look. “What if I told you that may be all I’ll want from you?”
I stiffen and would’ve launched backwards but he grips my hands firmly and won’t let me retreat. His eyes arrow down into mine, his mouth twists in self-contempt, “I’ve had other women but …” his eyes grow dark and confused. He sucks in a ragged breath, then looks at me with all the pain I’ve inflicted on him fresh in his lean face. He shakes me softly, “they all wear your face,” he groans and drops my hands.
I try to stand as straight as I can so that he doesn’t dwarf me as he stands silent and dark. His eyes are the only visible points of vibrant turmoil in his face. My chin trembles as gut wrenching fear grips me.
Strangely I get where he’s coming from. He doesn’t want to be hurt again, by me. If this is all there is for us. I will live with that.
“I’ll risk that,” I say and I’m surprised by how strong my voice is.
His closes his eyes. I move up behind him and wrap my arms about his lean waist. I rest my head in the middle of his tense back and breathe deeply.
There’s no going back.
Chapter fifteen
We eat the stew in silence at the small dining table in the kitchen as twilight sets in.
Teag chuckles and coos on my lap, splatters Jett with some mashed pumpkin. I stifle a nervous laugh, “Sorry?”
Jett mumbles
something around a mouthful of stew. Waggles his brows outrageously at Teag who responds with a belly laugh.
The meal finishes. Jett stops me with a brown hand on my arm from picking up his plate, “I’ll clean up, take care of Teag.”
I keep my eyes averted from his and scurry into the bathroom with Teag. A warm tub, another bout of nursing and Teag drifts off again in minutes.
I tip toe back into the main room and place him on the top bunk.
Jett’s done cleaning up and he’s leaning beside the entry door. His eyes track me, I feel it flickering at the base of my neck and skimming down the middle of my back. I try to stand straight, blush as I wonder if he’ll find my body much changed. Nursing has made my breasts fuller, but I’d slimmed down even beyond what I was when we’d first met. Ranch chores will do that.
“Come with me,” he breaks the silence, holds out his hand.
I gulp and go to him, then stop and look back at Teag.
Jett bends down to the ledge of the window closet to the dining table, scoops up my baby monitor. “Don’t worry, we’ll be just outside.”
Jett locks the cabin. I follow him down the steps. He stops at the bottom of the steps, and grabs an ax from underneath the porch. Confused I follow him around the side of the building to the back.
He stops beside a pile of tree trunks that reach shoulder height. They are stacked neatly behind the cabin which sits on an uplift of land that tumbles down into a thick, green forest.
Comprehension dawns, “You’re going to chop firewood at night?”
He shrugs. “It’s part of my job. And it’s less sweaty that way.” He points to one of two small buildings off to the side which stand yards apart, “Get me a flashlight from that shed?”
A musty, wild animal scent hits me as I open the door to the shed. Feeling around in the dark I catch a switch hung from the ceiling and yank it. The light comes on and tools pop up on every surface of the wall. Lamps and flashlights sit side by side on a top shelf. Grabbing a large, upright flashlight I head back to him.
He takes it, turns it on. Lifts his ax and heads over to the pile of trees. Half a dozen swings later he’s halved it. He hauls it back to a tree stump and goes to town on it. Sharp chips fly through the air as the metal bites down into the still soft flesh of the tree.
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