Rugged

by Tatiana March

  “I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in,” she said.

  “That’s fine.” Lifting his chin like a bloodhound, he savored the air. “Smells good.”

  “Lasagna. I had two. I cooked both. You can reheat the second tomorrow.”

  He shrugged off his sheepskin coat.

  To his surprise, Rachel reached out to hang up the garment.

  “Don’t,” he warned her. “It’s dirty. I had to carry an orphan calf into the barn. If you get me a cloth from under the kitchen sink, I’ll sponge the coat clean on the porch.”

  She hurried away and returned with a rag made from an old T-shirt. He took it from her and went back outside. She followed and settled a few paces away, watching him as he wiped away the dirt in methodical sweeps.

  “You have a calf in the barn?” she said. “Can I go and see it?”

  “Tomorrow,” he promised, not telling her the animal might die.

  “What happened?” She reached out and held the edge of the coat taut for him.

  “A cow had a broken leg. I had to shoot her. I left my horse by the lake brought the orphan calf in with the tractor. It’s parked near your cabin. I usually stop there. The last stretch is uphill and it’s harder to turn.”

  He spoke in short sentences, the long day draining his energy.

  “Do you lose many animals?”

  “Some. The winters can be hard.”

  Her clear gray eyes shone with sympathy. Today, her hair was twisted into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, although wisps had broken loose to curl around her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes.” He inspected the coat before pulling it back on. “Pour me a drink of whiskey. There’s a bottle in the kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator. I’ll go back to the tractor and carry up the groceries I collected from Martha’s house.”

  Don’t, Jed told himself as he waded through the snow. Don’t get used to her.

  * * * *

  Logs crackled in the big stone fireplace. A smoky scent of pine filled the vaulted living room. Jed sprawled on one sofa, watching Rachel sitting across from him. She had let her hair down. The leaping flames made the curls glint with gold and copper and bronze.

  She raised her glass and tasted. “Yuck!” Her face puckered in disgust.

  “You don’t drink alcohol?” Jed took a sip of whiskey and relished the trail of fire it left in its wake.

  “Not this rotgut,” she replied. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of good California Chardonnay, would you?”

  “No. I don’t like white wine. Drink should warm you up, not cool you down.” He reached over to the radio he carried from room to room and switched it on, fiddling with the dial until he found a classical music station.

  “Don’t you have a TV?” Rachel asked.

  “No.”

  “And the computer in the den looks pretty kaput.”

  “Dead as a…whatever.” He raised one arm and made a sweeping gesture. A mellow heat was flowing through his veins as his body was finally beginning to thaw after the cold day of working outdoors.

  “Who made these?” Rachel got up from the sofa and ran her hand over one of the timber soldiers. Her other arm curled around the sculpture, making it look like a lover’s embrace.

  Jed felt his breath catch. A hollow ache settled in his gut. He adjusted his position on the sofa to hide the swelling in his groin. “My grandfather,” he said hoarsely. “He lost his eyesight in his old age.”

  “They’re wonderful.”

  “They are soldiers.” He paused, then carried on hesitantly, unsettled by his reaction to her innocent display. “My uncle, my father’s only brother, died in Vietnam. There’s one of these for every man in his unit who didn’t come back. The one you’re touching is Simon Bancroft.”

  She turned to him. “Has Melvin seen these, or Philippe?”

  “The fashion people?” He made a scornful sound. “I don’t invite them here.”

  “Don’t let them see these.” She spoke in all earnestness. “If you do, they’ll pester you to do a magazine feature, or lend the works for an exhibition. The sculptures are wonderful on their own, but with that story attached to them, they’d be a publicity goldmine.”

  Jed shrugged, his main concern getting his body under control.

  The music on the radio changed.

  “Oh, I love this. I’ve always wanted to dance to this.” Rachel held the timber soldier in her arms and swayed to the waltz from the Jazz Suite by Shostakovich. A moment later, she spun around, waving at Jed to come over and take Simon Bancroft’s place.

  His mouth went dry. “I don’t know how to dance,” he said gruffly.

  “It’s easy. All you have to do is count one-two-three.” She whirled around the room, her arms around an invisible man, weaving between the soldiers, slowly making her way back toward him.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” he protested.

  She reached out for him, pulling him to his feet, guiding his hands into position. He didn’t resist when she settled his right arm around her waist and laced the fingers of her right hand into his left.

  “One-two-three, one-two-three,” she murmured, and tried to whirl.

  His feet, his big and clumsy feet, shuffled awkwardly. It was no use. He’d never learn, never fit in, and the fierce masculine pride inside him blotted out all reason. He made a couple of exaggerated funny leaps, turning it into a silly joke.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Why do men always have to goof about when they don’t know how to do something?” Her expression reflected hurt. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. I just wanted to dance to this lovely music, and I thought you might like to learn.”

  At her gentle reproach, his muscles went rigid and his feet refused to move.

  Inside him, wanting her, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, battled with wanting no involvement at all with the feminine sex. Jed withdrew his arms from around her and sought refuge in the anger he’d nursed since that hot summer’s day when he’d caused a fracas with the photo shoot.

  “You’re no different from the fashion models,” he told her. “They chase after me, trying to make a fool of me.”

  Rachel gave him a searching glance. In it, he read curiosity mixed with pity.

  “Did it ever occur to you that those women might have a genuine interest in getting to know you?” she asked softly.

  “Interest?” His tone was bitter. “Why would they be interested in me?”

  He hadn’t even realized that his hand had crept up to the scars on his cheek until Rachel caught his wrist and pulled his arm down. “You’re a fool,” she said, and then she ran her fingertips over his cheek in a feathery touch. “The scars don’t matter at all. In fact, they quite suit you. They give you a nice rugged look.”

  Her gentle gesture sent shivers rushing along his skin.

  If he didn’t watch out, she’d stamp herself like a brand on his heart. His lonely life would never be the same again, would never be enough, would never let him feel a moment’s peace after she was gone.

  He grasped her wrists and pushed her back a step, holding her in an iron grip.

  “Don’t touch me like that,” he growled.

  Her chin rose. Her clear gray eyes searched his. “I’m sorry,” she said, very calmly, very politely, and twisted free of his hold. “I won’t do it again. The food is ready, in case you want to eat. Or, would you rather I go and leave you in peace?”

  “No.” He drew in a harsh breath. “Stay. I’ll go and check on the calf.”

  He fled outside. Fled from his own turbulent emotions, from her eyes that saw too much, and most of all, Jed fled before he could say or do anything that could send her walking in anger down the hill.

  Because if she left, she might not come back.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry.”

  Rachel heard the quiet words and looked up across the table.


  She’d felt Jed’s gaze lingering on her while they ate in silence. Wary, like a wild animal aware of traps in his path, he’d returned from the barn. He’d asked her to delay the meal by another five minutes while he washed, and had come back downstairs dressed in a clean chambray shirt, the tips of his black hair damp from a hurried shower.

  Now, in the bright electric light, his features didn’t seem quite as brooding as they had in the flickering candlelight of the previous two nights. The dark eyes and high cheekbones gave him an exotic look that made her suspect he had some native blood.

  “I said I’m sorry.” His tone was curt.

  Rachel didn’t reply. She wasn’t going tell him it’s okay. In her world, people were responsible for their actions. They couldn’t go about saying nasty things, hurting everyone around them, just because they were all torn up inside.

  That’s what bullies did, and she wouldn’t tolerate being bullied.

  “I’m clumsy around women,” Jed continued. “I don’t know what to do, how to behave.” He picked up the glass salt shaker and studied it. “I grew up without a mother. I don’t have a sister, and I haven’t had a date in ten years, since I was twenty-four.”

  Rachel hardened herself against the vulnerable tone in his voice.

  “And that gives you the right to be nasty to me?” she said evenly.

  “No, it doesn’t.” His shoulders sank. “I’m sorry.”

  She waited, but his attention remained on the salt shaker.

  “What happened to your mother?” she asked.

  “She left, and then she died. It’s not a pretty story.”

  Rachel poked at her food. The oppressive atmosphere between them had killed her appetite. She longed to ease the mood, and she wanted to find out more about what had made Jed into such a complex, unpredictable man. She laid down her fork and stared at him in challenge.

  “I bet that the story of my father is worse than that of your mother.”

  His dark brows gathered into an angry frown. “Are you trying to turn a family tragedy into a joke?”

  Rachel hesitated but brushed aside her doubts. Maybe the time had come for her to learn to open up about her own past. She could practice on a stranger, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t spread her secrets.

  “Is it better to laugh or to cry?” she asked.

  One corner of Jed’s mouth tilted up. “All right. What are the stakes?”

  “If you win, I’ll do your books. If I win, you’ll fix the electrics in the cabin.”

  “You’re on.” Jed lowered the salt shaker, pushed his plate away and crossed his forearms over the table, leaning forward in a combatant manner. “My mother met a musician in one of the bars in Jackson. A drummer in a second rate rock band. I was two years old. She left us and got pregnant by the other man. A year later, the guy dumped her. My father asked her to come back, but she wouldn’t. She loved the other guy. She fell apart, got hooked on drink and drugs. My father wanted to take the kid. They were still married, and he considered himself responsible. She refused. She loved the drummer, hoped that the kid would make him come back, but he never showed up again. My mother died of an overdose. The kid—my little half-brother—was found dead in his crib. They think he died of neglect between his mother dying and her body being found.”

  Rachel leaned back in her seat. The words rattled inside her head. Jed had delivered the story at a breakneck speed, and she needed a few moments to make sense of it, to accept that what he’d told her could be true.

  “Jesus,” she whispered. “You win.”

  He sent her a grim smile. “The worst of it is that my father never stopped blaming himself. He always referred to her as my wife, and to the kid as your little brother. He arranged a funeral service for them. I was five. I remember being angry and confused that I had to stand there and pretend to be sad for a woman I could barely remember and for a little brother I’d never even met.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rachel shook her head. “I shouldn’t have turned it into a game.”

  Jed directed a hard look at her. “Your turn.”

  His expression gave no indication of how he felt. She didn’t want to go on, but saw no way of backing out of sharing her own story now that he’d revealed his. A frisson traveled down the length of her spine. Their conversation had taken on a macabre tone, one of hard living and deathbed confessions, the sort of thing you see in art-house movies, where in the next moment someone kicks down the front door and shoots the place to pieces.

  She lowered her gaze and spoke in a monotone. “My mother was the sheltered only child of a couple who’d almost given up the hope of having kids when my grandmother finally became pregnant at thirty-eight. My grandfather was a small town doctor, my grandmother was his nurse, and when my mother grew up, she became their secretary. My grandparents died in a car wreck two days after my mother’s twenty-first birthday. They had life insurance. My mother fell in love with the adjustor from the insurance company and married him. They moved from Vermont to Los Angeles. My mother got pregnant. She thought they were happy. Six months later, her husband vanished. She notified the police. They discovered that he had never existed. All her money was gone. She had signed everything he’d put in front of her. The police thought he’d done it lots of times. His method was to work in insurance companies to identify vulnerable women who’d come into money. He’d marry them, siphon off their wealth and move on. The marriage was never valid. I don’t know what his real name is, and I don’t care if he’s alive or not. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a virgin birth. That man never existed.”

  Jed held up the bottle of whiskey, his gaze steady as he studied her. Rachel shook her head in refusal. Jed filled his own glass and drank a mouthful.

  “How did your mother support the two of you?” he asked.

  “She got a job with a telesales company, working from home. She felt she’d been a gullible fool. From that day on, she never did anything without finding out the facts. She wouldn’t as much as buy a packet of laundry detergent without reading every word on the box first. I grew up with that. That’s why I studied law. I grew up believing that if you knew the rules and followed them, you’d be safe.”

  Tears burned in Rachel’s eyes as the memories flooded back. She picked up a paper napkin from the table and began to tear it apart, not really wanting to continue, but unable to stop the flow of words.

  ‘My mother died two months after I graduated law school. She’d been ill. Breast cancer, but she never told me. She wanted me to finish my studies without having to worry about her.” Rachel flicked a glance up at Jed. “I was so angry at her for dying. All her life, she’d done everything for me. I had big plans. I was going to get a good job and earn lots of money, and then I could pay her back for all the sacrifices she’d made. I felt cheated because she died when she did.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “What kind of a crazy question is that?” Rachel’s hands clenched into fists around the shredded napkin. The tears broke free and rolled down her face. “Of course I loved her. She was my mother and father, my grandparents and the brothers and sisters I never had, all rolled into one. Of course I loved her.”

  “It’s all right,” Jed said, offering her the words of consolation she’d denied him a moment earlier, when he’d apologized for pushing her away when she touched his scar.

  Rachel opened her fists, letting the strips of paper scatter. She curled her hands over the edge of the table, trying to still her trembling fingers. Did Jed understand that she’d never talked to anyone about her past before? She raised her eyes, found him watching her. Tenderness and fear battled in his expression, as if he wanted to wrap her into a comforting hug but feared taking the first step toward intimacy.

  The volatile emotions of the evening threatened to overwhelm her, and she sought refuge in the practical. “I think that’s enough excitement for tonight,” she said, striving to sound calm. “I’d better wander back down the hill.”

  “
The fire in the cabin will have gone out hours ago.”

  “It won’t take me long to get the stove going again.”

  “Stay,” Jed said in a low voice. “There’s a spare bedroom.”

  Rachel pushed aside her surprise, pushed aside every thought except the sense of safety and warmth that flooded her at the thought of not having to return to the lonely cabin.

  “You won’t shoot me?” She managed a wan smile.

  “I won’t shoot you…or cause you any other harm.”

  “An occasional dose of that other harm has its merits,” she muttered.

  Jed jerked to his feet, knocking over the empty whiskey glass. “I’ll get you a hot water bottle. The bed hasn’t been aired for a while. There’s a separate bathroom. I can give you one of my shirts if you need something to use as a nightgown.”

  Rachel stared at him.

  He was babbling.

  I’m clumsy with women, he’d said.

  It wasn’t quite true.

  He was terrified.

  Chapter Four

  In the morning, Rachel came downstairs to find Jed sitting at the kitchen table, freshly shaved, the thick black hair neatly combed. He wore jeans, tall boots, and an olive green sweater with canvas patches on the elbows.

  “Good morning,” he said when he saw her. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes. The patchwork quilt kept me nice and warm.” She didn’t add that she’d felt delicate and feminine inside the big white cotton shirt she suspected was his Sunday best.

  Walking over to the table, she raked a guarded glance over him. Yesterday, when he took her up to the bedroom, he’d been friendly, although a little distant. He’d given her the shirt to wear and said an abrupt goodnight, insisting that he’d clear up in the kitchen. She didn’t know what to expect now.