by Alexa Davis
I took her hand and kissed her knuckles as we waited for Tuck to appear through the elevator doors. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped a foot off the floor in fright. Eyes wide in panic, I glanced over at C.J., who was pursing her lips to keep from laughing, with one hand over her heart.
“Damn you Tuck!” I cursed at him, trying to get my bearings. C.J. stood off to one side, tears in the corners of her eyes. I figured if they weren’t because she was sad, I could forgive Tuck for scaring the ever-living hell out of me, and I wrapped him in a bear hug.
“You must be C.J.,” he said, holding out a hand to her. She reached out and he captured her hand between his own and bent over it as though he was going to kiss it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Tucker. Jackson has told me so much about you,” she replied, looking at him quizzically until he released her hand.
“So, other than getting to meet your girl before the big family shindig, to what do I owe the pleasure, Bro?” I motioned him to one side of the foyer and C.J. followed, and we sat in the oversized armchairs by a table covered in magazines.
“Danny’s worried about some trouble you’ve been having, and wanted me to see if there was anything I could do to give you some leverage with Carl,” I started.
Tucker sighed and looked at the floor between his knees. “I don’t want your help Jackson. I have to handle this on my own,” he said. “I mean, who’s the older brother here? You going to break into Equifax and give me perfect credit, too?”
“Don’t be stupid. Perfect credit would, in and of itself, raise flags.” He arched his eyebrows at me. “I was asked to come offer my assistance. I was just going to look at a few emails and see if there was any information that would be useful to you. We want to help you, Tucker. You’re our brother, and you don’t deserve this.”
C.J. sat across from us, arms folded in front of her. She looked unhappy again, and Tucker hadn’t missed it.
“What do you think about his, C.J.?”
“I hate it.”
I stared at her, mouth gaping. “I don’t mind him playing at hacking to help people protect themselves from real hackers, but I don’t want him going to jail. I see all of you together, and I’m so mad I could cry. Who risks everything that Jackson has for a high?”
“I don’t think I’m going to get a high off some email espionage,” I argued.
“Then you need to look in the mirror, because you are as lit as Christmas morning.” She shook her head. “You asked, I answered. It’s not up to me, and I’m not going to go storming off just because you don’t care. But, you should. I have no one. If I died, Shelby would care, and a few people I’ve never even met in person, and then, because they were paying me for entertainment and there’s no one to give them a refund.”
I didn’t know what to say or do, but Tucker reached out and put his hand on her knee. “I’ve already heard from two brothers and two sisters-in-law today, talking about how beautiful, and sweet, and funny you are. You don’t have to have no one. You have us. Hell, it sounded like the guys would trade Jackson for you in a hostage situation.”
I coughed out a laugh and nodded at her when she looked at me. “I’d put my money on that being a true story. Why didn’t you just tell me that before?”
“It’s who you are, Jackson. You’re a hacker, and you’re not a white hat, either. You like the darkest side of grey you can skim across without actually crossing the line,” she asserted. I opened my mouth to argue, and she held up her hand and leaned forward. “If you could, would you use Jameson’s credit card to order two hundred pizzas, sent to a sorority, or make it look like he embezzled from his company for his last vacation?”
I laughed. “Those are pretty good ideas, but Tucker would get mad if he won the fight with such an obvious cheat.”
“It’s my fight to win or lose,” said Tucker. “I’m not sinking to his level, I won’t give him the satisfaction.”
“We can’t stand watching him do this to you anymore,” I told him. “And I feel confident speaking on behalf of the guys who asked me to fly home just to take care of this.”
Tucker looked at C.J., who was carefully ignoring us both. She picked up a magazine and stared down, but didn’t seem to be reading, and never turned the page.
“Go home, Jackson. I’ll see you for dinner.” Tucker stood and C.J. put the magazine down and stood up too. “I have to take care of this my way. But, I will. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there tonight.”
I stammered and grabbed his arm. “If this is going to come to blows, don’t you think I should be there?”
Tucker laughed and smacked at me, shoving me off him. “If I beat the guy up, it won’t be in this building. Go on, get. I’ll see you soon.” He took C.J.’s hand and held it. “It was a real pleasure meeting you, miss C.J.”
He walked us to my truck, while I tried to think of something else to say. “Don’t, Jackson,” he cut me off when I tried. “I got this. I let it go too long, and I shouldn’t have put my family in a position where they thought they had to protect me.” He turned to C.J., and pulled her into a big hug. “I will see you later, beautiful. Thanks for being honest. You have a lot of integrity. I like that.”
“Thanks for being so nice to me. I’ll see you later,” C.J. replied. We climbed in the truck and I sat quietly, without starting it.
“I don’t want to endanger what we have, C.J.”
“I know you won’t on purpose. But, I don’t think it occurs to you when you’re in that space in your head. All you see is the puzzle, and you can’t help but try to solve it.”
I nodded. “I’m glad you like Austin, it makes me happy to see you enjoying yourself so much.”
“I can’t believe you ever wanted to leave. It feels like home here.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, it does. But, for a long time, it didn’t. Maybe what it was missing, is you.”
She shook her head. “I learned that people are too temporary in life to make them your home,” she replied sadly. “You have to take life one day at a time, and do what’s best for you.”
“That’s an awful bleak outlook for someone who seems so happy all the time.”
“That’s how I stay happy. I don’t depend on somebody else.”
I started the truck and backed out to the road. “Well, you best start learning how to depend on people. Because you’re one of us now, and, as you might have noticed, depending on each other is part of the bargain.”
“I’m not asking…”
“I know you’re not asking. I’m telling you, right now, to knock that shit off. I know I’ll let you down, but I’ll lift you up a whole helluva lot more often. So, take it in stride, sure. But don’t ever think you can’t depend on me and mine to help you, hold you, and be there for you. I’m so mad at you right now for thinking I would ever walk away…” I broke off before I could say too much.
“Do you love me, Jackson?” she asked quietly.
I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. “How could you not know…” I took a deep breath. “Yes, Carina Jade Rivers, I love you.” I stared straight ahead, trying to not get us killed before I could introduce her to my parents.
“I love you too, if you care to know.”
I shook my head. “You show me that just about every minute of every day. I didn’t need to hear it. Guess I haven’t been doing a very good job.”
“Or, you’ve never been with someone for whom every relationship, ever, has been about what she can do for them.” She tapped the window with her finger. “I make it hard, sometimes, don’t I?”
“Yup. But, you’re a beautiful woman. I expect you have to be a little more cautious than I do.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, you’ll only be talked into leaving paradise for a dirty city full of liars and fakes. I could be really hurt.”
I didn’t have a response, so we didn’t talk the last half of the drive. What she said really bothered me, though. I’d already started to question whether I
needed Stanford. How much of my choices had been based on being with her?
39. Carina
Jackson told me to watch as we started up the winding drive, and I stared out the window, looking for something amazing. I knew what he meant the moment I saw the big gate come into view, with the brand for Lago Colina Ranch under the giant letters. The gate was open; he said they rarely closed it, only if there was a need to keep escaped livestock from getting out to the road and hit. The gate was wood and stone, and the lettering had been burnt into the wood so it stood out black against the almost white-blue of the mountain sky.
I turned and gaped at him, then craned my neck to look out every side, as we drove further into the trees. When they opened back up, it was to a huge drive that led up to a home so massive I would’ve called it a mansion if weren’t such a classic country farmhouse. Jackson explained that at one time, every employee had been housed under the roof with the family, until the men asked to build their own space, away from the growing children they didn’t want adopting their bad habits.
As we pulled up to the stairs to the veranda that stretched the length of the front of the house, Rachel and Danny, and an older man and woman came down to meet us. The tiny woman had Jackson’s eyes, and the man had his shoulders, but even if they hadn’t looked like him, I would’ve known the keepers of the Lago Colina Ranch from their bearing alone.
“Carina, this is my mother, Hannah, and my father Franklin Hargrave. My Dad is the fourth generation of Hargraves to own this land, and take care of the wild mustangs that live here.” His mother hugged me, and his father nodded, but kept his distance. He was imposing and silent, but when Jackson was hugging his mother, he winked at me and offered me the ghost of a smile.
Jackson then introduced me to the lady who ran the house, Patty, and the horse master, Pete. I stopped being able to recall names after a dozen more ranch hands and cowpokes and I thought maybe a carpenter in there somewhere. I had never been so grateful to see someone I hardly knew as I was when Callie and George walked through the door with bottles of wine and sympathetic smiles.
Jackson finally put himself between me and the growing number of curious people coming in from the fields and led me to the back patio, a wide, roofed open space with a fireplace at one end, and the longest table I’d ever seen running nearly from end to end. Platters of food started being sent out the door, and the ranch hands all helped, moving with the ease of years as a team.
I lost track of the conversations going on around me as I struggled to empty my plate, and just nodded politely when is seemed someone was addressing me directly. It was as daunting as a convention floor, picking out a single conversation among the all the noises of ranch hands and brothers, but I could catch some teasing aimed at Jackson for his choice in girlfriends, and hoped that his mother and father weren’t catching the raunchiest parts.
Thankfully, dinner was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Several hands started picking up empty platters and plates, and carting them back into the door that I assumed led to the kitchen. Someone lit the fireplace and other brought out coolers of beer for people to grab as they sat down, or as most of the hands did, went to their cabins. Rachel pulled me over to the fire and introduced me to a girl my age, Verica, who had been sitting at the other end of the table at dinner with the man named Pete, who I remembered from introductions.
The females gathered around the fire and made fun of the men, telling me stories of how each had met their own Hargrave, a club of which Pete Call appeared to be an honorary member, as Verica chimed in with a blush, and how each had become part of the family. I was happy to sit and listen, and after a few minutes I stopped looking for Jackson, who had gone missing with his brothers about the same I’d sat with the girls.
They were an amazing family, and for maybe the hundredth time since the plane landed, I was jealous of the life that Jackson had wanted to run away from. I would have given anything to belong to this, and now, I couldn’t believe that he and I could stay together, because this kind of goodness didn’t happen in my life. There was no struggle to be accepted, no lies, and though I was sure there were a few perverts on the ranch, no predators.
I rubbed Slinky behind the ears as she sprawled across my lap and tried not to cry from sheer exhaustion and bone-deep loneliness. It was a relief to finally see Jackson coming toward me, but something he saw in my face made the smile disappear from his. It made me feel worse, and I carefully lifted Slinky off my lap and stood. I needed to find somewhere to be alone before I couldn’t hold in the tears any longer.
“Hey, hey, good-lookin’ how about we go inside for a little bit?” Jackson asked quietly as he grabbed my hand and led me inside. The hoots and jeers from his brothers were enough to break the dam, and scalding tears poured down my face as I tried to hide it from him.
He took me upstairs and led me into a room. I could tell even through the blur of my tears that it was his bedroom, for no other reason than the wall of computers and monitors. Even feeling like my world was falling apart, it made me chuckle to see the tens of thousands of dollars in computer and gaming equipment in the rustic bedroom.
He sat with me on the bed and held me without saying a word until the tears had run dry and I had wiped my face and nose on his t-shirt. He laughed and stripped it off over his head, and handed it to me to finish the job.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked into my hair, as I tried to staunch the flow of crying-induced snot with his Hollander tee.
“I’m lonely.” I felt stupid saying it out loud, but that was the crux of it all.
“But you’re always connected, always talking to people.”
“Yup. Faceless, sometimes nameless people online. I love my online friends. But I’m so damned jealous of your family, I can hardly stand it.” I sniffed and pulled away from him so I could see his face. “Your family would’ve loved my grandma. She was good people.”
“I knew that without you saying anything. She raised you to be who you are.” He went silent and played with my fingers, but I could tell he was thinking. “So, you started to cry, because you have to leave here?”
Hearing him say it out loud made me feel even more stupid for feeling it. “Basically, yes. But, if your family asks, tell them I’m bipolar or something. It might be less humiliating.”
He laughed and shoved me back onto the bed, lying down beside me and sliding his hand up under my shirt to cup my breast. I looked sideways at him and he laughed. The tone of it made gooseflesh raise up on my arms.
“Carina, you never have to be sad about leaving again. No matter where we go, or what we do, we’re going to do it together. That means that you’re home now. Anytime you need the ranch, or to ride a horse, or talk to a mom, or a sister, they are here. That’s what it means to be a Hargrave. You don’t have to marry me after three months of knowing me to be family. I promise I will never leave you stranded and alone. Forever or not. We’re in this together.”
“You would drop everything and bring me here to visit? Anytime?”
“I would put you on a plane for a girls’ lunch, if that was what it took for you to have a good day.”
“I can put myself on a plane.”
“But now, you don’t have to. You have someone to drop you off, pick you up, keep Stiles company, or carry him onto the plane to come with us.” He massaged my breast through my bra and jiggled it to make me smile. “I know you’re independent and amazing on your own. But I promise you, you never have to feel lonely again.”
I leaned in and kissed him, and his hand slid around to my back to pull me in close as he parted my lips with his tongue. I’d been with guys before, and never thought I’d be able to fall in love, when all I needed was a man. One who was willing to come to me, who was unlike anyone else I had ever known, unique and creative and amazing. A man who could hack computers in a cowboy hat, or build me wings that took me to heights I couldn’t reach alone. Nothing in this world was more unique and amazing to me than the man
who loved me enough that I had no choice to love him back. My California cowboy.
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ROUGH
By Alexa Davis
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Alexa Davis
CHAPTER ONE
NICK
I sat at the bar and wondered if twenty-four was the magic age when everyone realized they’re just wasting their lives, or if it was just me.
I turned twenty-four last week and now sitting at the bar in this loud, chaotic club, like I’ve done hundreds of times before, my head felt like it was going to explode, and at nine p.m., all I wanted to do was go home.
“Hey, Max, do you have any aspirin?”
The bartender, who knew me well, reached underneath the counter and then tossed two foil packs of Ibuprofen my way. I opened them, popped all four into my mouth, and washed them down with my beer.
In the club’s defense, my head had been pounding before I got here. My new trainer, Charlie, was all over my ass earlier today. He said I’ll get my ass kicked in the biggest match I’ve had to date because my head’s not completely into it. I tried to tell him that it might seem that way to someone who didn’t know me, but the night of the fight, I will be completely focused. I don’t lose – ever – and you’d think my record would speak for itself.