Ari stopped her car just a few feet before the long driveway that led to the ranch. She slipped the gear shift into park and let the vehicle idle.
“Okay, bottom line time, cupcake. Yesterday was a wedding, and crap happens at weddings. Romance is in the air, and some of it gets on the guests, kinda like an invisible cosmic confetti—or the stench of a belching, badly tended trash fire. You had a few sexy dances, some really good conversation…” Ari’s words tapered off, echoing in the car and in the black hole of loneliness inside her that she had made a habit of ignoring. She swallowed over the lump in her throat even as she tried to blink away the blurriness that obscured her vision of the ranch house.
“You had a few sexy dances, some really good conversation, and your heart began to melt and you felt more alive than you have since before the night that fucking pervert climbed into your bed and stole your future.” Ari closed her eyes. “Shit, shit, shit.” There were a dozen, very good reasons why she should not turn down that driveway just ahead and keep that…that date she’d made yesterday with those two quarterbacks.
A dozen reasons to turn around and only one to go forward.
She wanted to. She wanted to explore the way she felt when she was with those two men. She wanted to see if that sense of rightness, of belonging, of connection was real.
Since she’d been old enough to consider such matters realistically she had told herself that there could never be, would never be, any romance for her. No romance, no marriage, no happy-ever-after. Such things didn’t even exist. They were all traps, fantasies and lies told by….by whoever the hell it was who told those lies. She’d believed that with all of her heart since she was fourteen years old and forced to leave everything and everyone she’d ever known and live on the street.
But what if she’d been wrong?
What if she hadn’t been? What if this—putting the car into gear, turning down that drive, and taking that next step was the mistake?
I have to know. I have to know if that was real, if it could be real. Right now she was more terrified than she’d been in a decade. But the years of being alone, of staying alone, not just physically and mentally, but emotionally, had made her a little bit hard and a whole lot bitter.
She was tired of feeling hard and bitter.
Fuck it. Just fuck it.
She put the car in drive, turned into the driveway and headed toward the house. At the last moment she saw those two men by the barn, standing by the railing side by side, watching her.
Maybe they’d watched her as she’d stopped her car, maybe they hadn’t. That didn’t matter. She held everything tight inside—as if she knew that if she could just hold it all for a few more minutes, then everything was going to be all right.
She stopped the car and shoved the shifter into park and turned off the engine. Before she could rethink everything, she threw open her car door and then headed toward them.
It only vaguely registered that they were walking toward her, too.
“You better not be fucking jerking me around here because I don’t think I could take it!”
“Hang on to your pixie dust, Tinker Bell,” Jackson said. He reached out and drew her into his arms. Cord pressed against her back as Jackson lifted her face with his hand. His fingers were gentle as he brushed the tears off her cheek—tears she hadn’t even realized were there.
“We won’t jerk you around, but we’re not going to baby you, either. You’re too much your own woman to want to be coddled in life.”
“One day at a time, Red. Let’s see what’s here.”
Then Jackson bent down and laid his mouth on hers and kissed her. His tongue didn’t coax or beg, but slid right into her mouth and set about setting her ablaze. He stopped way too soon, and then Cord turned her into his arms and laid his lips on hers, too.
For one heartbeat before his own unique flavor drowned her as his brother’s had, she could taste both of them on her tongue at the same time.
Somehow, in that instant, all the raging inside her quieted, and something that felt like hope began to bloom.
Chapter 5
“Take a deep breath. Better yet, take two. You’re doing great, Red. You’re all right. Trust me.” Cord noticed his tone softened when he spoke to her. He couldn’t help it. She looked so damned cute, and she was trying so damned hard not to look nervous.
“Yeah, about that whole trust thing…I should probably tell you I don’t do that very well.”
“I’m shocked to hear that.” Jackson said that with absolutely no inflection whatsoever.
That bit of sarcasm put a smile on his face. His brother had an entirely different philosophy in mind when it came to dealing with Ari, apparently. One look into Jackson’s eyes and Cord realized he was no less affected by her nearness, or the trust she’d actually extended to them so far.
They’d both held their breaths as they’d watched her on the road earlier, car stopped, likely arguing with herself as to whether she should actually come to them or not. He’d never felt so relieved in his life when she gunned that engine and drove straight for them.
“Smart-ass.”
Although Ari’s knuckles were still white as they grasped the pommel of the saddle, her tone of voice told Cord she was beginning to relax, just a little.
He covered her hands with one of his. “When you’re ready to stop, just tell us.”
“I have to say that watching people ride horses from a distance looked easier than it feels right now… but I want to do this. I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Oh yeah? So why haven’t you?” Jackson laid one hand on her right leg.
With his brother on the other side of the horse, they were both protecting Ari. Plus, they’d put her on the back of Sunrise. She was a placid mare, and an excellent saddle horse.
She was also one of their three personal horses they’d brought with them from Montana. Since Jackson had insisted they drive instead of fly, it had made sense to bring their horses with them.
If things work out and we end up staying and taking Grandma Kate up on that offer, we might breed her with one of Chase and Brian’s stallions. Or they might look into heading on over to Divine. Chase said there was a ranch there—the Divine Creek Ranch—that had a string of Andalusian stallions second to none.
“I just never knew how to go about it, I guess. Oh!” That last came out as a squeak as Sunrise moved just a little.
“Easy there, Tinker Bell. Sunrise is a horse, not a statue. She’s just shifting her weight around a bit is all.”
“You probably think I’m just being a stupid city girl.”
“We think nothing of the sort, Ari.” Cord squeezed her hands. “You’ve never been on a horse before, but here you are, up there in that saddle, ready to give it a shot. You’ve shown us you’re not a coward.”
“We happen to like that a lot,” Jackson said.
Ari blinked her eyes, and then she gave them a small smile. It occurred to Cord that she wasn’t real used to compliments. He guessed when a woman made it a practice to hold herself back from people, there would be a lot of things she wasn’t used to.
“I’m not brave, really. I’m kind of shaking inside.”
“Sweetheart, courage doesn’t mean a lack of fear. It means acting in spite of the fear that’s quaking inside you.”
“Maybe if you talk to me…I’m not sure I get how you’re related to the rest of the Benedicts, here.”
“How about if we talk and walk?” Jackson tilted his head. “Once around the paddock, with you hanging on just the way you are. We’ll control the horse this first time.”
She inhaled deeply and then exhaled. “Yeah, okay. I can’t just sit here doing nothing all day.”
“You could if you wanted to,” Cord said. “We certainly wouldn’t mind. But let’s take those first few steps, anyway.”
“Okay.”
They began to move, the three of them—well, four if she counted Sunrise. The horse showed her training, wal
king where she was led, her pace a simple walk. Cord figured she understood that the rider on her back was completely inexperienced.
“Our grandfather, Emerson Benedict, was one of five sons of James, Jacob, and Rosie Benedict,” Jackson said. “James and Jacob were Sarah, Caleb, and Joshua’s sons. Those were the Benedicts that settled this land in the 1890s.”
“So your grandpa was Kate’s husbands’ cousin.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cord said. “When he was twenty-five, and just after the Second World War, he decided that he didn’t want to stay in Lusty any longer. He loved his parents but didn’t agree with their lifestyle, which was the lifestyle of several of the families living here at the time.”
“Parental disapproval in reverse.”
“Yeah.” Jackson shook his head. “When I think about him as I knew him when we were growing up…well, he was kind of a forbidding figure, kind of cold and stiff. Not the kind of man who’d put his arms around a small child and give a hug. There was no touchy-feely in him at all.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
She’d said it without hesitation, and with such vehemence that Cord felt his heart trip. He had to put a huge effort into not showing his reaction to that very revealing quip.
“No, that’s not a bad thing,” Jackson agreed.
Cord met his brother’s gaze, and then flicked a quick look at Ari. Her attention was on the ground. That would never do.
“Sweetheart? Look up. Look around. Sometimes there’s nothing better in this world than the view from the back of the horse.”
She did, and doing that seemed to settle her just a little. They were halfway around the paddock, and he could see her moving in sync with the animal.
“You’ve found your seat.”
“If you mean I’ve relaxed into the saddle some, I guess I have. You know, neither of you are what I expected.”
“You’re too smart to have bought into all that ‘wonder twin’ hype we had tossed on us,” Jackson said.
“I’ve seen celebrities before, when I worked in Dallas. Some of them would strut around as if they were God’s gift to the world.”
“Yeah, there are a few dickheads in the bunch,” Cord said. “Guys who let their press go to their heads. I’ve heard it isn’t just professional athletes that it happens to, either. Assholes can be found every damn where, in every discipline. They can be actors, directors, singers, and writers.”
“We were raised fairly strictly, and taught the value of a man didn’t have anything to do with the dollars he could lay his hands on. That was grandfather’s influence, too, because he used to say that rich don’t excuse rude, or bad morals.” Jackson had one hand on Sunrise’s bridle and slowly stopped the horse.
“I guess that some things, then, transcend environment. Because I would say that would be a maxim the folks here would agree with. None of the Benedicts, Jessops, or Kendalls that I’ve met live rich. In fact, it took me a couple of months here before I realized that nearly everyone who lived in Lusty was rich.”
“That philosophy is probably the only thing the Montana Benedicts have in common with the Texas branch of the family,” Cord said.
“No, there’s one more thing. You’re ranchers. Despite that there are different corporations and such in the mix, at the heart of it, the ones here are ranchers, too. Benedicts, especially, I think, are tied to the land.”
Tied to the land. Cord thought Ari was pretty insightful to have gotten that, because he’d noticed the same thing.
Whether it was because they seemed to be blessed in keeping their small town on private land a sanctuary where they could live without censure, or whether it was just living simply, the result was that these Benedicts and Kendalls and Jessops were still on the land they’d claimed from the start of the families.
It was a strong, and lasting, connection between the two branches.
* * * *
Well, today certainly has turned out to be a lot different than I thought it would be.
When she’d arrived and challenged them, tears streaming down her face, the last thing she’d expected was to be given some lessons on horseback riding, and then actually taking a trail ride with them.
They’d plopped a hat on her head, lathered her with sunscreen, and then led her—yes, she held the reins of this horse but they were very close by—down the garden path.
Literally, if not figuratively.
After a few turns around the paddock they’d deemed her ready for a sedate trail ride. So they walked the horses past the small veggie garden that Carrie had planted. Ari already knew enough about the climate in her adopted state that she knew there were some things good to plant at different times of the year, all year round.
She’d grown up in the city—Indianapolis—but had a cousin who’d lived out in rural Indiana. She recalled visiting in late September and helping her aunt and uncle with the harvesting of their garden, when there’d been a threat of frost.
Ari sure as hell didn’t miss the Indianapolis winters. The image of herself huddled, cold and alone and shivering on top of a grate with just a thin blanket for cover by a downtown office building flashed, and then melted away.
Over the last couple of months she’d had a lot of those little flashbacks. They seemed almost like still-life studies one might see in an upscale gallery. She imagined a showing, black and white pictures hung against a stark backdrop, depicting the life of a teen girl on the streets.
I’d stopped being a child the night that bastard raped me the first time. Yes, in a way she had, and she’d been homeless, because running away had been the better option than staying and being abused.
“Come back to us, Tinker Bell.”
Ari looked over at Jackson. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to zone out on you.”
“You’re entitled to your thoughts and space, Red,” Cord said. “You just looked really sad, and we didn’t like that.”
Ari shrugged. Normally she’d change the subject and then leave. But she didn’t want to do normal today. In a way, that kind of behavior was just like…running away all over again.
Ari had one clear moment, one crystal clear vision that in a way, she’d run away from home when she was fourteen and she hadn’t stopped running since in all these years.
And for the first time ever, she considered that maybe it was time to just stop.
“It was a sad time I was recalling. Sometimes, the memories just hit me.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, for the trail they were on had narrowed and they needed to go single file through a small little wooded area.
“When you’re ready to share those memories, Ari, we’re here.”
She was once more in the middle between the two men. She shot Jackson a quick look. “Thanks for not pushing.”
“Not that I won’t sometime in the future. But we’re still playing getting to know you.” Then he shrugged. “I’ve been hounded some by the media, folks I don’t know demanding to know why I retired, what it’s really all about—speculating, spreading rumors. So I appreciate that some things are private, and should only be shared voluntarily.”
“I guess that’s another side to celebrity I never thought about—the side that takes away your privacy and your rights as a human being.”
“That can and does happen,” Cord said. “If you let it.”
“The trick is not to let it,” Jackson said. “To remember that circumstances aren’t in control of your life. You are.”
Ari thought about his words as they finished their trail ride. She supposed in a way she’d proven that. She hadn’t stayed in her home. She hadn’t allowed the circumstances to control her life. She’d been the one in control, because she’d left.
Ari hadn’t realized that Cord and Jackson led her in a wide circle until she saw the barn and house ahead.
“I have to tell you, Red, I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this state of yours. I’ve been told I won’t see autumn-like weather until November.
I’m used to being up to my ass in snow in November.”
“Hey, it’s not my state.” She grinned at the men. She could recall the first year she’d spent in Texas. She’d arrived in September, and had managed to get a job cleaning offices at night in Dallas. She’d studied the locals and did her best to try to fit in. She’d done a pretty good job, for the most part, but gave herself away with her enthusiasm over a lack of snow, and then later her horror at how hot the summers got.
“You’re not from Texas?” Cord looked from her to his brother. “You sound Texan.”
That just tickled her. “I think the accent has sunk in over time. No, Texas is just where I happen to be.” Then she thought for a moment. “Just don’t mention the accent thing to any of the locals, all right? As far as they’re concerned, we’re the ones with the weird accents.”
“So, if you’re not from Texas, where are you from?” Jackson asked.
A simple question, and one that had a very simple answer. The question was, did she answer it honestly? Did she really take those first steps into something real with these men?
Could she trust her emotions and her instincts? She’d trusted her instincts since she’d been on her own. They’d never steered her wrong. She didn’t know if she understood why they were urging her to stay instead of run, but they were.
She’d seen folks lying to each other in relationships all her life. If she was going to have a relationship with these men, she was not going to have a lying one.
“I’m from Indiana. I grew up in Indianapolis. I left home when I was just fourteen years old. And that is all I want to tell you right now.”
Jackson nodded. “Fair enough. I think you told us more than you’ve ever told anyone, so that’s fine. For now.”
“We’re going to ask two favors of you.” Cord brought his horse to a stop and turned it so he could look right at her. She knew he fought his grin when Sunrise stopped all on her own. Ari wished she was in control here, but had the distinct impression that the horse, being the more seasoned rider, actually was.
Love Under Two Quarterbacks [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 6