“No.” He poured the whiskey down his throat, loathing the peaty malt as much as he loathed himself. J.D.’s sublime expression the night she’d tasted his Cristal swam in his brain. “Hit me again.”
“That’s some pricey stuff, handsome.” Her lips rounded a little when he pulled out his money clip and dropped several bills on the bar. “Okay. But if you’ve got car keys in your pocket, might as well hand them over, because you’re not going to be fit to drive anywhere for a while and our sheriff is a bit particular about that sort of thing.”
“I walked.”
She looked even more curious but she pulled down a heavy crystal glass, eschewed the shot glass altogether and poured several fingers. “Sip,” she advised before scooping up the cash and moving down the bar to fill another order.
He lifted the glass. The smell was strong. Familiar in the worst of ways.
“If you don’t like it, why’d you order it?”
“Living down to the heritage,” he murmured darkly. He lowered the glass to the bar and glanced at Ryan, who stood behind him, holding a beer in one hand and a pool cue in the other. “Might as well make it complete.”
“Heritages are a bitch,” Ryan agreed. He propped the cue against the bar and leaned over to toss his empty in a bin behind the bar.
Jake’s lips shifted. “What I’ve seen of yours is a cakewalk.” Every member he’d met of Ryan’s family had been beyond decent. “If there’s a drunk, womanizing, abusive bastard among the ranks, I’ll be very surprised.” His fingers turned the glass one way, then the other.
“Truth, justice and the American Way.” Ryan’s face was expressionless. “That’s them.”
J.D. hadn’t been so truthful. But could Jake really blame her? She’d wanted to protect the baby from a father like him. Same reason he’d always pushed his sons away.
He lifted the glass again. The fine whiskey touched his tongue. The taste was more sour than ever. He swallowed, anyway. Instead of feeling the edge of alcohol, though, he felt more coldly sober than ever.
The bartender sashayed by again, placing an icy beer in front of Ryan as she passed. “Hear you’re cleaning up at the tables.”
“Trying.” Ryan barely gave the woman a glance. “How’s the colt?”
“Sliding downhill faster than ever.” He gave the man the details. “J.D. won’t see reason.”
“She never has when it comes to horses. Only thing she puts ahead of them are the people she loves.”
Jake tossed back the rest of his drink. It burned all the way down and still left him cold. “I gave Lat a chance. Not even J.D. could get him through. But she’d rather pretend he’s got some sort of future left to him than face reality. She’s not going to forgive me when I do what has to be done.”
But Ryan shook his head. “J.D.’s no fool. If putting Latitude down ends up being the only answer left, she’ll be the first one to tell you.”
“She’s naive. Too softhearted for her own good.”
Ryan snorted. “You talking about her and that horse, or her and you?”
“No difference. Prospects are the same either way. Dead.” Jake tossed another bill on the bar as he pushed off the stool. “Beer’s on me.” He turned away.
“Jake.” Ryan stopped him with the pool cue across his chest. “I’ve seen the way you are together. You keep thinking the way you are, and regret’s gonna become your best friend.”
Jake eyed the cue. “You delivering it with that?”
Ryan’s smile was grim. “Nobody’ll have to lift a finger, ‘cause that kind of regret comes from inside.” He tapped the end of the cue against Jake’s chest. “It’s a helluva lot more painful.”
“Not as painful as knowing I’ll drive her away in the end, too.” The booze was working its black magic, after all, loosening his lips in a way he didn’t like at all. He headed toward the door, never more anxious to escape.
Only Ryan’s pool cue barred the way again. “Obviously, you don’t know J.D. as well as you think you do. She doesn’t let anyone push her anywhere. If she goes, it’s because she wants to go.”
“And she will,” Jake said flatly. “Just like my mother when I was a kid. Hell, just like my aunt did today with my sons.” He yanked the cue out of Ryan’s hand.
Ryan just replaced the cue with his body. “Your aunt and sons are at J.D.’s parents’ place.” In less than a blink, the cue was in his hand again and Jake wasn’t even sure how it had gotten there.
“You boys all right?” The blond bartender appeared beside them, settling her hands on their shoulders. “I don’t need any trouble in here.”
Jake shook her off, eyeing Ryan. “How do you know?”
“Because Dan mentioned it when I called to let him know I’d taken care of the horses at J.D.’s place.” Ryan didn’t back down. “I don’t know what’s gone on in your past, but around here it looks to me like you’re the only one doing any running out.”
Jake stepped around Ryan and headed for the exit. The air slapped him hard in the face when he reached the sidewalk. Somehow, Ryan managed to beat him there. “Now where are you going?”
“To Dan and Maggie’s.”
The other man let out a bark of laughter that sent vapors clouding around their heads. “You ain’t gonna get there on foot, man.”
Jake grimaced. “I know that.” He stepped off the curb and nearly landed on his face.
“Come on, Cinderella,” Ryan muttered, pulling Jake up. “How many shots did you have?”
“Just about six.” The bartender had followed them out. She held out Jake’s coat. “Think he might be wanting this.”
Jake straightened up and pulled on his coat. He turned in the direction of the motel. “You’re starting to irritate me,” he told Ryan, who silently kept pace.
“And you’re not in any shape to drive.” He gestured toward a pickup parked slantwise into the curb. “Get in.”
He got in and Ryan headed out of town, only stopping long enough to buy two cups of coffee from a convenience store along the way. “It’s the middle of the night. You want to show up there stinking drunk?”
If he’d felt stinking drunk, he might have felt better. He drank the coffee, anyway.
Daniel and Maggie Clay’s house was dark when they arrived, but Ryan didn’t seem to have any trouble finding his way around as they moved quietly through the rooms to the downstairs. “My cousins and I pretty much grew up in each other’s houses,” he told him softly as he flipped on a small lamp. “Boys are in there,” he gestured to one darkened doorway. “Susan’s across the hall.”
Jake stared into the shadows. He wasn’t even aware of Ryan silently disappearing again.
It’s never too late.
J.D. had told him that. Susan had told him that.
He followed the gleam of yellow light through the doorway. The sight of the untidy humps in the two beds there nearly undid him.
He hadn’t wanted to let himself believe it. But they really were there.
They hadn’t left.
It wasn’t too late.
He moved to the side of the closest bed. Pulled the quilt back across Connor’s splayed limbs. His son mumbled something into his pillow and shoved his leg right back out from beneath the bedding.
Same thing he’d done when he was a baby.
Zach on the other hand was flat on his back, pillows tumbling half off the bed, his arms tossed over his head, snoring softly.
Jake picked up the pillow, his fingers digging into it. His eyes burned and he sank down onto the foot of Zach’s bed. The snoring halted and he was abruptly staring into his son’s eyes. “Mom’s dead,” Zach said flatly.
“God, no.” Jake tossed the pillow on to the bed. “No, Zach. Your mom is fine.”
Zach didn’t budge. “Then what’re you doing here?”
He ran his hands down his face. He could still taste the whiskey on his tongue, mingled with the worst coffee he’d ever drunk. He looked at his son. “I’m sorry about Adam.�
� His voice was raw. “I know you loved him. That you miss him.”
Zach sat up, pulling his knees up beneath the blankets. Drawing his feet farther away from where Jake sat. “So?” He looked across at Connor, but his brother still slept.
“So, I wanted you to know that.” His jaw ached. “And to know that I—” God. Getting the words out shouldn’t be so hard. “That I love you.”
Zach, though, wasn’t going to be that easy of a sell. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared a little harder, obviously unimpressed. “So?”
Running Forco and its several thousand employees was easier than facing down a rightfully suspicious nine-year-old. “So, I know I’m not much of a replacement for Adam, but I’m gonna try.”
“Yeah, right,” Zach muttered. “By paying the tuition at places like Penley.”
“By not sending you to any more places where you don’t want to go. Like Penley.” He unclenched his fists. “By trying to be the kind of father you’ve always deserved. I know I’ve got a lot of years to make up for. I’m just saying that I’m going to try. And I—” He let out a breath. “I’m asking you to give me a chance. A chance to…do better.”
In the other bed, Connor stirred. He leaned up on his arms, eyeing them both. “What’s wrong?”
“Jake thinks he gets to have a do-over and act like a dad.”
Connor’s head dropped back to his pillow. “He is a dad,” he said sleepily. “He just never wanted to be.”
The words were like arrows. “I always wanted to be,” he corrected gruffly. “But I was afraid I’d screw up as badly as my father did.”
Connor’s head lifted. “What’d he do?”
“He drank and he made sure I knew he never loved me.”
Zach gave an exaggerated sniff. “And you’re different? You smell like the stuff Grandpa Bill has on New Year’s Eve.”
“I am different.” His hands fisted. “I will be different.”
Zach leaned forward, his narrow, gangly body tense. “Why do you care all of a sudden?”
“I’ve always cared. I love you. Both of you.” It’s never too late.
“It’s ’cause of J.D.” Connor plopped his head into his pillow again. “’Cause he’s in love with her.”
Jake jerked, staring at him. “What makes you say that?”
“Duh.” Zach rolled his eyes and gave him a pitying look. “Mom always says you’re the smartest man she ever knew. Like in business and stuff? But you are really dumb.”
He was surprised that his ex-wife had anything positive to say about him. “Then you’re gonna have to help me out some.”
“I like J.D.,” Connor offered. “When she has her baby, maybe he can come visit us in California.”
“Maybe you guys could stay here.”
“There’s no boarding school in Weaver,” Zach scoffed. “And you don’t live here, either.”
“There’s public school. And what if I were thinking about living here?”
“You’re not gonna take us away from Mom.”
“I’m not trying to,” he said. “But it’s going to be a long while, yet, before she’s home and can take care of you. You could stay here. And I’ll bring her out to visit you when she can travel.”
“You would?” Connor looked at him with pure shock.
“If that’s what it takes.” He could tolerate his ex-wife if it meant keeping the boys near. If it meant proving to J.D. that he could be the man she believed him to be. “So, are you gonna let me try?” He eyed them both. “I don’t expect to make things perfect overnight. I don’t expect to make things perfect, ever. I didn’t learn how to be a father from my father.” He squeezed the pillow tighter. “So, I’m going to have to learn from my sons.”
Connor and Zach looked at each other. Looked back at Jake. “I’m not calling you Dad,” Zach said after a minute.
“I don’t care what you call me.” He stood up between the two beds. “But make no mistake. I am your dad. If you pull another stunt like you did in the lab at Penley,” he looked into Connor’s face, “or do anything else stupid like jumping off the roof of the barn,” he looked into Zach’s, “you’re gonna pay the price. But you’re never going to have to wonder whether I love you. Got it?”
Zach slowly pulled the pillow out of Jake’s fist. “Yeah. Just don’t kill the pillow.”
He shoved the thing under his head and slid down into bed once again.
Connor lay down too, kicking his covers a little more. “Are y’gonna marry J.D.?”
The boys hadn’t pulled their punches with him so far, so Jake didn’t know why the question hit him so hard. “I wasn’t that good at marriage.” Until J.D., he’d never thought he’d have reason to care about it again.
“You weren’t that good at being a dad,” Zach pointed out, ever blunt. “But you’re trying that again, aren’t you?”
Chapter Seventeen
Jake wasn’t at the clinic when J.D. arrived there the next morning. But since she’d seen his fancy truck parked outside the Sleep Tite—sticking out like a sore thumb among the motley collection of other vehicles there—she wasn’t surprised.
What she was, was numb.
Numb in a way that had nothing to do with a pain pill.
She found Evan inside his clinic with Latitude.
The colt was lying down again and she slipped into the stall with him. His ears barely pricked with interest.
“How was his night?” She looked up at Evan but felt a little more hope drain away at his expression.
“I had to increase the pain drip to keep him comfortable.”
“Has Dr. Windsor been by, yet?”
“He and Jake left about an hour ago.”
She hadn’t expected them to meet so early. Her heart sank as surely as she did, sitting in the sand alongside the horse. “I don’t want to know what they said, do I.” It wasn’t a question.
“Probably not. You already know, anyway.”
She bit her lip. “What do you think?”
Evan crouched down beside her, running his long fingers over Latitude’s long neck. “I think Latitude has a hellacious battle on his hands.”
“One he can’t win?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You agree with Windsor, then?”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“Well what do you say, Evan?” Her voice rose a little but he just eyed her back with kind patience and she let out a sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Times like this when we all wish we had a crystal ball. We don’t. You know what Latitude is facing. The bone’s just the start of his problems. If it continues to heal, if the laminitis is successfully treated, if it doesn’t recur—or spread. He’ll never race to compete, but it’s conceivable that Lat could have a good, decent life. Getting him to that point, however, putting him through it—” He shook his head slightly and pushed himself to his feet.
“Letting go is sometimes the kinder act,” she whispered, struggling against the pressure building behind her eyes. “You’re going to handle it, then.” Who more qualified to end a horse’s life than a man trained to save it?
“I told Jake yesterday that I would if it came to this.”
She looked away. Stared blindly into the corners of the stall. “I’m going to stay with him.”
“Jake’s not going to allow that, J.D. Not when he knows how upset you are.”
“Some things Jake doesn’t get to decide.” She dragged a bag of peppermints out of her pocket and unwrapped one. “I’m staying.”
But unlike every other time she’d offered Latitude a mint, he didn’t take it.
He just slid his beautifully formed head over her knee, huffed a little, and closed his eyes.
She bowed her head, stroking her hand down his neck. Tears dripped down her face. Wiping them away only made room for more.
Evan left. Her parents arrived. Her brother. A parade of family. Every one of them tried to convince her to leave Latitude’s stall only
to back down, like Evan, in the face of her resolve.
When she heard yet another set of footsteps stop outside of the stall, she didn’t even look up. “I’m not leaving.”
“Ever?”
Her head snapped up at Jake’s gruff voice. She looked up at him.
He wore jeans and a black sweater. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was lined.
He looked as haggard as she felt and she ached even more inside.
She wouldn’t make the mistake again of thinking he’d come to this decision easily.
She curled her fingers into Latitude’s mane. The horse was awake, his liquid eyes shifting from her to Jake and back again. “I don’t agree with what you’re planning.” Her throat felt raw. “And I know that it’s your decision to make. But I’m going to stay with him to the end.”
He stepped into the stall, scattering a few peppermints when his boot knocked into the bag. Latitude’s prone position didn’t leave much room. He crouched down and picked up one of the plastic-wrapped candies. “Is Lat the only one you’d never give up on?”
The question came out of left field and the ache inside her grew even more acute. “I don’t give up on anything I love,” she said carefully.
He was silent for a long moment, seeming to stare at the candy in his hand. “What about anyone?”
Her heart jerked. “Or…any…one.”
“Even me?”
Her lips parted. She couldn’t have said a word to save her soul.
He shifted and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “Here.” He lifted it slightly when she just stared at it. “Take it.”
She swallowed and slowly slid the envelope out of his grasp. The envelope was plain white, except for a return address and logo for the Sleep Tite in the corner. And there was only one thin sheet inside when she looked. “What is it?”
“Proof of ownership. I’ve signed Latitude over to you.”
“What?”
His jaw canted slightly. “Money won’t be an issue.” His tone was ragged. “You can make whatever decisions you want about him. Treatment. Surgery. Whatever rehabilitation he needs. I’ll pay it all. And if the—when the day comes, you can turn him out to chase all the damn butterflies you want.”
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