by Jill Shalvis
Tucker wore only his boxers, hair wild, but God bless him, he held two steaming mugs, and was sipping from one. Jake sat up and braced for the usual shaft of pain to go through his aching body, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t come. “Macy’s a goddess.”
“Yeah.” Tucker nodded toward his shoulder. “Getting better?”
“Is that longing I hear in your voice?” Jake stood up and took the mug of coffee.
“Well, you did say you’d go back to firefighting as soon as you were fit.”
A pang of nerves went through him. When the hell would he be fit? “Which would get me out of here, of course. And out of your hair.”
Tucker just sipped his coffee.
“The love and caring in the room is overwhelming,” Jake said dryly, and turned away. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Yeah—Holy shit.”
Jake glanced over his shoulder. Tucker’s gaze was locked on Jake’s back.
“A burn?”
“Yeah.”
Tucker let out a low whistle. “That fire really screwed you up.”
“Not too bad. Don’t worry, Tuck, I’ll be gone soon enough.” One way or another. He moved toward the bathroom, thinking maybe a shower would help improve his sudden bad mood. He took great pleasure in getting to the bathroom first for a change, where he planned on using all the hot water. On principal, he slammed the door behind him.
He took a good hard look at himself in the mirror. He was tanner than he’d been, and some of the exhaustion had left his face. Despite the two-day-old beard he looked healthier than when he’d first arrived.
And yet he’d been here, what, nearly three weeks? Amy still jumped when he so much as looked at her. Stone and Eddie went out every night and had never invited him, not once. His own brother couldn’t wait for him to heal and go far, far away, and Callie…
Callie actually thought he could kiss her the way he’d kissed her, and then turn around and sleep with Cici. Flattering.
And worse than all that, he didn’t have a frigging clue as to what to do with the rest of his life if he couldn’t go back to firefighting, which was beginning to look like the case.
“Jake.” Tucker knocked at the bathroom door.
“I’m not done.” He grabbed his toothbrush, turned on the sink.
“About last night, when Callie got stuck in the shed with those fumes…”
Jake turned off the water. “What about it?”
“You realized before anyone else that she’d been gone too long.”
“Jesus. I didn’t shut her in there—”
“I didn’t think you did. I’m trying to thank you, damn it.”
Jake craned his neck and stared at the closed door. “Thank me?”
“Yeah. For the help.”
“For the help,” he repeated slowly, and set down his toothbrush. Polite, he’d give his brother that. “I don’t want to be thanked, Tucker, like…like I’m some guest.”
“You are a guest.”
At that, he hauled open the door. “I have as much a right to be here as you do. Or maybe you’ve forgotten who brought you here, who owns the land and signs your paychecks.”
Tucker’s eyes flashed. “Don’t worry, I’ve never forgotten who dumped me here.”
“Dumped?” Jake gaped at him. “I didn’t—”
“I was used to it by then though.”
“Are you talking about when I went to San Diego? When you were five and—”
“I remember how old I was when you walked out.”
“Tucker—”
“I missed you.” On that furiously uttered admission, Tucker turned away, moving around the couch as he started hunting up clothes. He jammed a bare foot into a discarded pair of jeans that turned out to be Jake’s. “Shit.” He threw them at Jake, who caught them just before they hit him in the face. “We’re fucking slobs,” he muttered, and hunted up a pair of his own.
Jake stood there still holding his jeans, shocked. “I tried to see you. But—”
“Mom wouldn’t let you. Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
“You don’t believe it.”
Tucker buttoned up his jeans and looked at Jake. “Why would she keep us apart?”
Because she was a selfish bitch, was Jake’s first thought. But Mary Ann had treated Tucker differently. He’d been her baby in a way Jake had never been, because when Jake had been born, Mary Ann had still been a baby herself.
“She said you took off, that you never looked back.” Tucker stood there shirtless and barefooted. For once his expression was clear of derision or anger, just a need to know.
He wanted a real answer. Jake didn’t know if the one he had was good enough. “If I’d never looked back, how would I have known you were in trouble?”
Tucker stared at him for a long moment. “You called us?”
Jake nodded. “It was hard to keep track of you with her moving you guys around, but I did the best I could.”
Tucker looked confused. “She said…”
“That I’d left without a word? Yeah, she always was fond of playing the victim.”
Tucker frowned, and after a long moment, turned away. “Save me some hot water.”
“Yeah.” Well, Jake wondered, had he expected Tucker to smile and hug him and say all was well? That was never going to happen. He shut the bathroom door and cranked on the hot water. When he came out, Tucker was gone and Jake had a message on his cell from Joe.
“No news on the lawsuit,” Joe said on the message. “But there was a reporter at the fire station today wanting a press picture of you. So was a group of women who claimed to run your fan club. They wanted pictures, too.” Joe’s voice held amusement. “Maybe I should hunt up some from over the years and put them on eBay, raise some funds for the station…”
Jake tossed his cell phone to his bed. He left the cabin thinking it was all well and good for Joe to make fun, he could still do his job. He hadn’t been forced out of a career he loved with all his heart.
And Jake hadn’t been forced out, either, he assured himself. At least not yet. But his shoulder twitched and so did something deep inside. Knowing damn well it was the denial and fear, the same feelings that haunted his dreams at night, he walked faster, but there was no running from such dark emotions. They followed him everywhere.
The sun hadn’t yet risen. He put one foot on the grass and, predictably, Goose came running. Jake lifted his foot off and she skidded to a stop in front of him, guarding, waiting for him to make a move.
“What do you do, have hate meetings with Moe?” he asked. He could almost see his father in the damn goose’s dark gaze. Look at what I built without you. Look at what you wanted no part of. Look at what I left you to screw up.…
He turned his back on the damn goose. Tucker was in the pasture doing something with the horses there. He could see his blue silhouette as the first sunbeams flashed over the rocky, bushy mountains like flames. He hadn’t asked anyone if that was how the ranch had gotten its name, and that bothered him. Suddenly he wanted to know, not that Tucker would tell him. Shivering in the chilly air, he kept walking. Voices came out of the barn, Stone’s and Eddie’s. The sun rose quickly now. Way out beyond the pasture, coming in from the hills like the opening credits of a western, was a horse and rider.
Even knowing it was Callie riding, Jake still wished he could switch the channel and find a good basketball game instead.
Goose let out a honk, probably to a bird who dared land on her precious grass, but Jake figured the sound for his father’s spirit, laughing at him.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten dinner last night. Between Callie getting stuck in the shed and him hurting his shoulder and his subsequent massage, he’d missed the barbeque, and his mouth watered at the thought. The food had been surprisingly good out here but, damn, he missed drive-thrus. He missed Starbucks. He missed jelly-filled donuts on the way to his shift at the firehouse.
And that wasn’t all. He missed
surfing on lazy mornings. He missed the roar of the waves. He missed the green rolling hills.
Beneath his feet he could feel the vibration of Sierra galloping closer. Callie wore her cowboy hat, long, red hair streaming out behind her as she effortlessly rode the rough terrain.
He’d never known a woman like her. She was tough yet soft, sweet yet hard. A challenge through and through. She rode Sierra in, slowed her down.
Sierra didn’t like slowing down. Still raring to go, she trotted around, tossing her head, snorting her displeasure at having to stop. “Shh,” Callie soothed, and looked at Jake. “You going to try to rescue me again?”
“Nope.”
“Did the massage help?”
“Yep.”
Sierra snorted again, then nudged Jake’s chest with her nose.
“Sierra, stop it.” Callie swung a leg over and hopped down. Hair a little wild, hat hanging down her back now, she stroked the horse’s long neck. “She thinks all men around here carry treats.”
“Guess she doesn’t realize I’m not really one of you.”
Callie stopped petting the horse for one telling moment. “Maybe it’s not her who thinks you’re not. Maybe it’s you.”
He looked at her, and she looked right back, silently daring him to say otherwise, but damn if she wasn’t right, not that he’d admit it.
Eddie stuck his head out of the barn. “Could use some help this morning. Shep’s girlfriend won’t let me into the tack room again.”
“Tiger?”
“Don’t tell me the old guy has more than one girlfriend.”
Callie looked relieved not to have it be more serious, and grabbed Sierra’s reins.
“What are you going to do, go get yourself bitten?” Jake asked.
“Hopefully not.”
Jake let out a breath. “I’ll go.”
“So you are going to rescue me again after all.”
“Looks like it.”
15
Callie decided to let Eddie and Jake deal with Tiger so that she could walk through the corral and visit the horses, spending a few minutes with each of them. Patches, one of their older mares, was limping, and Callie checked her hooves. “There,” she soothed, picking out a little pebble. “That’ll be better.”
And so was she for not having to spend the time with Jake. Jake with the haunting eyes and sexy body that she couldn’t stop dreaming of. Patches turned her head and eyed the young woman walking toward them. Amy came to a stop at the fencing with her black jeans, black boots, black hair spiked straight up, her face carefully blank.
Her expression reminded Callie of Tucker, and how he’d looked his first few months on the ranch, so desperately needing to be cool, and yet just as desperate for acceptance. “Hey.” She added a smile to see if the girl would smile back. She didn’t. “Everything okay in the kitchen?”
“Yeah.” Amy shifted her feet. “I saw you out the window. I, uh, got breakfast ready early so I could come talk to you.”
“Sure.” She saw Tucker watching them from across the yard, and then he started toward them. Amy saw him, then let out a slow, tense breath. “Is something wrong?” Callie asked her.
Amy wiped her hands on her apron, then shoved them in her back pockets. “I didn’t take your money,” she said. “But I’ll leave if you want me to.”
“No.” Tucker had come close. “You’re not going anywhere, not like this.”
“Of course she’s not going anywhere.” Callie stuck the hoof pick in her back pocket and moved toward the fence. She hooked her hands in it and climbed over. “Amy, did anyone here act like they thought you stole money?”
Tucker made a sound low in his throat. “No one would.”
“No,” Amy admitted. “They didn’t.”
“Did someone ask you to leave?”
“No.”
Callie looked at Tucker, then back to Amy. She’d tried softness, she’d tried compassion and understanding. What else could she do?
Tucker still stood there, his fists clenched, ready to take on the world for this girl, and it was just romantic enough to make Callie sigh. She didn’t believe Amy to be behind the ranch’s problems; she never had. She’d hoped to chalk it all up to strange coincidence, or bad luck, but she wasn’t that naïve. Someone was responsible, and as far as the law or the sheriff went, Amy was a strong suspect. “If no one’s accused you, and no one’s asked you to leave, then why are you out here wasting both of our time?”
Amy stopped looking at her boots and met Callie’s gaze. “I just wanted you to know I didn’t do it.”
“I already know that.”
Amy blinked, looking so confused she broke Callie’s heart. “How?”
“Because you’re a part of us now,” Tucker said simply.
“And because I figure a thief wouldn’t stick around beating herself up about what people think of her,” Callie said. “A thief certainly wouldn’t ask me if I thought she’d done it, and a thief wouldn’t be standing here right now trying to get me to fire her.”
“I don’t want to be fired.”
“Good. Because you’re not.”
Amy stared at her for a long moment, and then her lips curved. Before the smile fully formed, she covered her mouth. “I’ve…got to get back to the kitchen.”
“Sure, but Amy? The smiling thing? Keep that. It looks good on you.”
“Yeah,” Tucker agreed inanely, nodding, looking a little cupid-struck.
Amy’s smile spread, and then she whirled and ran all the way back to the house.
Callie watched Tucker watch Amy. “Something going on with you two?”
“Are you kidding? She won’t let me within five feet of her.”
She eyed the longing on his face. “But you’d like there to be something going on.”
He lifted a shoulder, the casual gesture belying the expression of yearning on his face.
As the days passed, Jake found himself far more active at the ranch than he ever intended, due to Stone taking off for some unexpected personal time.
Jake got more up front and personal with the pigs, hens, cows, and horses than he’d ever intended. Each day he finished work exhausted and filthy. Not all that different from firefighting, really, but when he fought fires, he didn’t also smell like a manure.
That, apparently, was just a little bonus.
Callie kept mum about Stone’s disappearance, which didn’t seem to sit well with the others. After lunch one day, he heard angry voices coming out of the barn.
“He’s my own brother, damn it.” This from Eddie.
“You think I’ve forgotten that?” Callie asked, an octave above polite.
Jake moved to the doorway to see what was up. Eddie’s jaw was bunched, his eyes desperate. “You can tell me what’s wrong,” he said to Callie. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
Her regret and sorrow conveyed in every line of her taut body, she shook her head. “I promised. Eddie, I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, including you.”
“Callie—”
“Don’t make me say it again. I’m sorry for it, but that’s the end of it. Now leave it.”
Jake stepped closer for support, but Eddie did drop it. The tension remained though, between all of them. Worse, they were still short-handed because Jake couldn’t lead expeditions or do anything that required actual skill.
Their weekend guests—nine sisters, there for fun without their individual families—had signed up for a two-day trek, complete with tents, no electricity, and no beds.
Jake’s personal nightmare, but Tucker eyed him. “You’re in. You’re joining the misfit posse.”
“No way,” Jake said.
“Yes way. We need you.”
“Callie shouldn’t stay alone for two days,” Jake said, quite pleased with what he thought was a brilliant excuse.
Unfortunately Callie heard him, and came close. “What did you just say?”
“You shouldn’t be here alone.”
Tucker
winced. “Dude, not a good idea—”
“I take care of myself,” Callie said in a glacial tone.
Tucker shot him a tried-to-tell-you look.
“I’m not questioning your ability to take care of yourself,” Jake said, exasperated. “I’m just saying there’s been a lot of goings on, and I don’t want you alone.”
“I have Amy.”
“Great. Two women.”
Even Eddie winced at that one.
Callie narrowed her eyes. “Marge and Lou will be around as well, and I can always call for help. Michael would come in a heartbeat, and anyway, you’ll be on a radio. Have fun camping, Jake.”
Have fun? Not a chance in hell.
Jake figured Eddie and Tucker had made him go on the trip because they needed a good laugh, but it turned out they really did need three men to handle all the horses, not to mention the rambunctious, flirty, over-the-top sisters, who ranged in age from nineteen to forty-two and turned out to be more wild than the cheerleaders.
For some reason Jake had decided to try to ride Moe instead of Molly. The big rugged tan horse drew him, mostly because he seemed to like everyone but Jake, but also because it was a connection to his father. He wouldn’t have admitted that he needed that connection, but he did.
Moe did let him grab ahold of his reins, and even waited quietly until Jake had pulled himself up and seated himself.
Then he bucked.
“Whoa, whoa.” Tucker ran over, soothing the animal with such ease that Jake just gritted his teeth and got down.
“You crazy?” Tucker asked Jake.
“Yeah.” Moe seemed to smile at him as he stalked off to get Molly.
He got on the quieter horse, and half an hour into the ride, they’d entered a vertical labyrinth from which they could see at least fifty miles in all directions. Clear springs seeped from narrow canyons, falling from hillsides alive with mesquite and piñons and yuccas. Tucker came up close on Homer, then jerked his head to the sharp drop-off edge, marked by a series of high, jagged rocks that seemed to point to the sky. “Richard’s Peak. It was his favorite place.”