by Dawn McClure
What she’d just said made him think she might still have some country left in her.
He was in a funk. He had to pull himself out of it and put the past behind him. What’s done was done, and there was nothing he could do to bring either of them back into his life.
He didn’t interact with her for the remainder of the morning. It was a short morning. The cattle weren’t off in a faraway grazing field. They were close enough to home that moving them went quickly, and because of the skill of those around him—efficiently. Once they got the herd into the field Sophie wanted, everyone was more than ready to head into the house and warm up with steaming hot bowls of chili.
That morning he’d been prepared to decline Sophie’s offer, but he didn’t feel like leaving now. Sticking around for lunch sounded like a better idea.
Everyone went their own way back at the barn. Some put up horses, others went to help Sophie in the house. John had thought Mel was one of them until he heard her voice in the barn. He headed in that direction, a smile claiming his features, even though he knew he didn’t have much to smile about. Yeah. Seeing Mel felt like coming home after a long day now that all that awkwardness was gone.
“I got some great pictures,” he heard her say. She must be on the phone. He thought he’d heard her say she’d left it back in her room.
She continued talking. “It was so cold, but once we all got moving, I forgot all about it. And the scenery was just gorgeous. The readers are going to love it.” She paused, and John was just about to pass the stall she was in. “All right. I love you too. Bye.”
John froze, and the horse he’d been leading stopped alongside him. It was as though his entire body had been shocked by those four words, “I love you too.” Who was she talking to? Her boyfriend?
Mel closed the gate to her stall at that moment, and turned and saw him standing there, almost bumping into him. She jumped back in surprise, her hand going to her throat. “Oh, hey. I thought you were already at the house.”
“I thought you said you left your phone in your room.” His voice held a rough edge to it. Almost as though he were accusing her of something. Which was absolutely ridiculous. Her life—and whoever was in it—was none of his damned business.
Some of the color from being in the cold all morning left her cheeks. She glanced away and shrugged. “My mom was on the porch with my phone. Said it had been ringing like crazy while we were on the drive.”
“Boyfriend worried about you?” He sounded like a petulant boy. He cleared his throat and led his horse farther into the barn. Actually, the way he was acting reminded him a lot of how Mike had acted when he’d broken up with his first girlfriend. He’d been a freshman in high school. He’d pouted a lot and it had driven John crazy.
John was a grown man. There was no reason to feel this way.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he heard her say from behind him.
Now why had he expected her to deny having a boyfriend? Nonetheless, when she’d confirmed that whoever she’d said she loved on the other end of that call was her boyfriend, that horrible sensation of something being just beneath his skin amplified. It was the same feeling he’d gotten when Jessica informed him she was going back to Texas to be with Ben’s biological father.
He had to get out of there. He was acting like a schoolboy, and he was acting that way over a person he hadn’t seen in years. Just went to show how badly he was dealing with Jessica and Ben’s loss. He cleared his throat. “They say that storm is going to push in some warmer temps just before it dumps on us,” he said over his shoulder. “There’ll be ice accumulation before the ten or so inches of snowfall. Be careful driving Christmas Eve. It’s going to be nasty outside and you’re not used to it.”
Brian, who’d been at the other end of the stalls, took his horse’s reins. John gave him a quick nod and turned to head back out of the barn now that he didn’t have to stay and tend to the horse.
“Aren’t you coming in for chili?” she asked as he passed her on the way out.
He shook his head, not even bothering to look at her. “I have a thousand and one things to do before the storm gets here. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“John—”
He turned to face her just long enough to bring his hand up and tip his hat to her. “Have a nice day,” he said, then turned and beat feet out of the barn.
His emotional state had flatlined and it was all he could do to remain at a steady walk. As long as that steady walk was leading him in the direction opposite of her, he figured he’d be fine in just a few passing moments. Hell, with the way he was acting, he was going to have to shave the small beard he had going on. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear he was going to cry.
To hell with that. He wasn’t going to cry over a woman he hadn’t seen in almost a decade, all because he’d overheard her tell her boyfriend on the phone that she loved him. What in the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t been emotionally invested in Melanie Edwards for years.
Emotionally invested? When the hell did he even think along those terms? Emotionally invested? Had he ever put those two words together in a sentence in his entire life? His emotions had been rubbed raw by losing Ben, and seeing Mel had reminded him what it had felt like losing her all those years ago. That was all there was to the way he was feeling. Nothing more.
Maybe he should stop getting so close to people who were only going to up and leave.
This is ridiculous. She’s not yours anymore. So why was he feeling this way?
He opened the door to his truck without a word to George, who was milling around on the porch waiting for Brian and Mel, and probably him. Thinking it best, John gave him a little wave before sliding into the cab. He didn’t want one hundred and one questions from any of them the next time he saw them.
Finally in the truck and leaving the Edward’s property, he was able to breathe.
On the way back home several images popped into his mind on what kind of man she was likely dating. Suit, tie, perfectly trimmed hair. Probably shined his shoes on a weekly basis. He’d give her the kind of house those types of women liked. New, manicured lawn with several trees and bushes of various sizes, marble countertops and hardwood floors. Nice neighborhood. No doubt she wouldn’t smell cow shit when she opened her windows for fresh air.
Actually, none of it mattered. Now that he’d helped herd the cattle closer to the ranch, he’d probably only see Mel in passing on Christmas Eve, and Lord knew she wouldn’t be back in Pine Grove for years.
At least, this time around, that’s what he hoped.
_______
“Hey, I thought John was going to stay for chili. What’d you do to run him off?”
For half a second Mel was offended at what George said as she came up to the steps to the porch, Brian on her tail, but she knew exactly why John had hightailed it out of there, so technically George was right. She had run him off. But she didn’t want to tell him the part about Liam. She just wasn’t ready to talk about him to her brothers yet. “He said something about having to get things done at his own ranch before the storm came.”
As they filed into the house, she looked back out at the driveway where John’s truck had been not ten minutes before. Why had what she’d said to Liam bothered him? Why would he care if she told another man that she loved him? And why had his reaction bothered her?
She’d had the strangest sensation of having cheated on John. On John! A man she hadn’t seen in years. That crazy feeling had come over her when she’d realized that John had overheard her. And then he’d taken off like his backend was on fire, making her feel even worse.
The hallway was crowded with the three of them taking off their boots and distributing them in the black rubber boot tray by the door. She closed the front door against the cold, wishing John had stayed for chili. She had a funny feeling that he had intended to stay, but had changed his mind when he’d heard her tell Liam she loved him.
But that could just be in he
r head. She was a writer. She made stories up in her head a lot when it came to what she thought people were thinking, and most of the time they just weren’t true.
So why had he taken off like he was mad or upset?
If he’d smelled the chili that was surely hot and ready in the crockpot like she had when she’d walked through the door, he might have stayed. From what she remembered, he loved her mom’s chili. Mel had made the same recipe for Liam once and he’d hated it. Liam liked Italian. He wasn’t into, what he called, hick food. He hadn’t even tried the cornbread that night, only gave it a strange look.
She’d had two helpings.
“He’s been acting strange ever since Jessica left with Ben. I mean, who can blame him? John took that kid everywhere. Football games, school, out on the ranch with him. Bet he misses that kid more than he does her,” George said.
She slipped out of her jacket, but missed the hook when she attempted to hang it because she’d been staring at George. “Who are they? What kid?”
George rubbed his hands together to warm them up. Brian, obviously uninterested in the subject, disappeared into the kitchen, likely following the spicy smell of fresh chili. “Guess you weren’t here. He was going out with a woman named Jessica…oh, for the last couple years.” George shrugged as though he wasn’t sure how long the two had been together. As though the floor hadn’t just shifted beneath their feet. “She worked at the bank in town. Cute, if you’re into blondes, but slightly trashy, if you know what I mean. Anyway, about a month or two ago she broke up with John and left with her son. From what I heard they were headed to Texas.”
She followed George into the kitchen, numb from both the cold and the news of John’s little absent family. Her mother hadn’t told her about a Jessica, and she certainly hadn’t told her about a kid named Ben. Suddenly John’s being good with kids made sense. How badly was he hurting at their absence? “They were together for two years?” she asked, repeating what George had just said. Two years. Wow. She wondered if John had ever proposed. Wondered if he’d ever felt empty when Jessica hadn’t been around.
George turned to Brian, who was seated at the dining room table in the next room. “How long were John and Jess together?” he called out.
John and Jess? Even had a nice ring to it.
Brian rolled his flannel sleeves up around his forearms. “Oh, probably close to two years.”
Why hadn’t her mother ever mentioned Jessica or her son Ben? Mel sat down at the dining room table next to Brian, who obviously knew more about this than George did. “Were they engaged?”
“No, he never proposed to her, but she lived with him for a long while. I think he spent more time with Ben than he ever did with Jess.” Brian shook his head. “Man, I feel sorry for that kid. You’d have thought John was his real dad by the way he treated him. It was rare that you saw John without Ben if school was out for the day. Ben would either be at the shop with him or out on the ranch working with him.”
George called from the kitchen, “I’ll dish out the chili and cornbread. Can someone call for mom? I don’t know where she disappeared to.”
Suddenly Mel wasn’t very hungry. John had stepped up to a woman’s son and raised him for nearly two years? Of course John had created a life for himself after Mel had left. What did she expect when she came home? That he’d been sitting at his desk writing love letters and waiting for her return—of course not. But a family? She hadn’t expected that at all. Why the hell did she care?
“What did she look like?” she asked.
Brian and George looked at her, both wearing the same look that begged the question, “Why do you care?”
“I mean, I’m just curious,” she said without much conviction. Curious hell. She was going to get this woman’s last name and stalk her on Facebook and Instagram before dinner.
Brian glanced at George and shrugged. “I guess she was good looking. Probably almost five foot eleven and skinny.”
“Yeah, she was tall and skinny as hell,” George added, giving Brian a look. “Wore lots of makeup. Trashy. Without the makeup she wouldn’t have been pretty at all. Not like you.”
Finally catching on, Brian quickly shook his head a little too vigorously. “She wasn’t near as pretty as you.”
Mel wanted to slap the both of them. She was now under the assumption that Jessica was a gorgeous, leggy blonde who knew how to contour—something Mel could never master. Her jealous bone starting vibrating like a plucked violin string. “No?” she asked dryly, wanting to crawl under the table and die.
“Nope,” Brian said.
“Not even close,” George threw in. “No boobies either. Flat chested as all get out.”
Brian started to say something else and then looked at George and snorted. “What the hell? Boobies?”
She ignored them and got up from the table, needing a little air, even as cold as it was. Once in the hallway she grabbed her jacket off the floor and shoved her arms into it. The look on John’s face earlier, when she’d ended her call with Liam and stepped out of the stall, hadn’t been the same look he’d had when she’d left Pine Grove for college, but it had been close.
He’d looked like he’d been betrayed.
She opened the front door and headed back into the cold, for once welcoming the sting. It sounded as though he’d been serious about this woman named Jessica. So why hadn’t he asked her to marry him? Mel’s heart had skidded inside her chest at the news of this mystery woman and child, as though she were invested in John’s love life—which she wasn’t. Not even a little. She had a boyfriend, and perhaps soon, a fiancé.
Whatever she was feeling toward John from what she’d learned just now was only because she was surprised by it. Just like Liam’s proposal. It had been a surprise. It wasn’t that she was entirely against it. Not entirely. Apparently she just disliked surprises.
She stopped just before she walked through the barn doors, that obnoxiously large wreath just above her head.
She hadn’t carried a torch for John Harrison all these years. She just hadn’t. It wasn’t possible. And there were no damn chapters to close. Cindy didn’t know what she was talking about. There was no reason that finding out that John had a serious, live-in girlfriend for the past two years should bother her. Just like her telling Liam that she loved him over the phone shouldn’t bother him.
But it had. She’d seen it on his face.
She shook her head and pushed through the doors of the barn. Close this chapter. Right. She didn’t need to close a chapter. She needed to throw the book in the trash and give it a two-star review on Amazon. This plot sucked.
Chapter 9
It hadn’t been very long ago—a few months at most—that John had looked forward to Sundays. He figured most everyone enjoyed their weekends, but he hadn’t looked forward to a loud Friday or Saturday night like he once had. No. He’d enjoyed his day of rest.
He’d get up early and have a good, hot breakfast with Jessica and Ben. Sometimes he would make pancakes and sausage, and when Jessica was feeling up to the cooking, she’d always made bacon, eggs and toast. After breakfast he and Ben would head to church. Jessica usually stayed behind. She wasn’t fond of judgmental Christians, as she put it, so she’d usually clean up after breakfast and spend a quiet day around the house or head out with friends. After church he and Ben would putz around for the rest of the day by going fishing or hunting. Maybe catch a movie or go out to dinner. Jessica always came for the dinner.
Now he used his Sundays to get things done around the house, and this Sunday was no exception. No longer a day of rest, the Lord’s day had been relegated to simply getting shit done. He’d taken care of Sophie’s cattle drive yesterday, and checked his own cattle when he’d returned home, so today he could concentrate on all the little odds and ends on his property—a honey-do list without the honey.
Sophie had texted him twice yesterday evening, inviting him over for Sunday brunch. She’d been doing that ever since Jessica had l
eft him, so he knew the invitation had nothing to do with Mel today. He’d politely declined—twice—with the excuse that he had to get a lot done before the storm came tearing through the state. Truth was, after what he’d heard Mel say to her boyfriend yesterday, he just wasn’t in the mood. Mel had a life, and that life was never going to coincide with his again. He had to accept that.
Honestly, he thought he had accepted it. But the feeling that had come over him in that barn yesterday was nothing short of red-hot jealousy. The fact that he hadn’t felt jealous over her in years made no difference. Her being back in Pine Grove and seeing her face to face had woken something inside of him. He couldn’t deny it any longer.
Whoever the guy was on the other end of that line, John had wanted to knock him stupid—which, in and of itself, was stupid. That douche nugget wasn’t doing anything wrong. Mel wasn’t John’s girlfriend any longer. Hadn’t been in years. So yeah. The way he was feeling toward her and her douche nugget of a boyfriend was stupid and uncalled for.
So it was best he kept his distance from her, like he’d originally set out to do from the beginning, because it was becoming apparent that his brain and his heart were on a hiatus from each other. Nothing else could explain why he felt the way he did.
Which brought him back to the work at hand.
He looked at the laminate planks, staple gun and foam laid out before him. Today he was laying new floor in one of the second story bedrooms—a dark faux hardwood floor. He’d already laid new flooring in the master bedroom, and the downstairs had been done about a year ago. After the room he was currently working on was finished, he’d only have two more rooms and the hallway to go, and then he’d be finished with the flooring in the entire house.
Renovations on the house had gone remarkably quicker once Jess and Ben had left.
Tomorrow was going to be a slow day, since the shop was always closed on Christmas Eve, but the evening would be extremely busy once the sun set and the festivities on Main Street began. Maybe he could paint the master bathroom tomorrow morning just to get that chore out of the way. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be Christmas Eve morning or Christmas morning, for that matter. Those times were delegated for immediate family, of which he had none. But he was expected to grace his parent’s table, as was Mike, for Christmas dinner. That’d be in the afternoon, after everyone had gathered by their tree and opened presents.