He left them gathered in the living room with enough for them to rest easy for now. One thing they did get for sure...he had to talk to Shea. Make things right with her. Now.
His chest tight with fear and guilt, he climbed the stairs to her room. This wasn’t going to be easy. He’d hurt her with his thoughtlessness, and he doubted his mind would ever be able to erase the look of devastation on her face as she’d fled. Part him of him expected her to refuse to talk to him, though that wasn’t like Shea. But then who knew how much damage he’d done.
No matter what, he’d get her to listen, he thought, raising his fist to her door. No more being a coward. Too much was at stake. Jesus, he couldn’t imagine her gone from his life.
She didn’t answer his first knock or his second. He tried a third time. Was she ignoring him, or was she gone? His heart thudded. He turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. He had no damn business opening her door uninvited. He did anyway.
The bed was still made. With relief he saw her suitcase sitting on the luggage rack. But there was no sign of her. She wouldn’t be anywhere else in the house, but he had a damn good idea where she’d gone.
He hurried back down the stairs, saw her jacket still on the hook in the mudroom and didn’t stop for his. It was freezing outside, about fifteen degrees. Walking briskly, his heart slamming his chest, he barely felt the chill wind, but it finally registered that he should’ve brought her jacket.
Only the stable’s security lights were on, but he saw her standing in Caleb’s open stall, her cheek pressed to his neck while she stroked the roan’s side. She didn’t see him. With an agitated whinny, Caleb alerted her to Jesse’s presence. So the horse was mad at him, too.
Shea gave a start and looked over at him, then sharply turned away and dabbed at her eyes. He slowed his pace, giving her time. What he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and beg her forgiveness. That wouldn’t be enough. He owed her so much more.
“You should be wearing your jacket,” he said, stopping a safe distance out of reach and jamming his hands in his pockets.
“You, too.” She kept her gaze on Caleb, repeatedly stroking his ribs with a trembling hand.
“I’m sorry about you being ambushed in there.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was considering reenlisting.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Jesse. I understand, and I don’t regret any part of this past week.” Her voice shook and she stiffened her back. “I learned some things from you that I will always be grateful for.”
“I wasn’t hiding the reenlistment from you,” he said. “From my family, yes. I purposefully kept them in the dark.”
She still wouldn’t look at him, but the rhythm of her strokes changed. Her hand slowed until Caleb lowered his head and nudged her with his muzzle to continue.
“The end of the year was my deadline. I wasn’t going to tell them until after I made the decision. They would’ve tried to change my mind and I wanted to stay as objective as possible. What a farce. I know that now, because of you.”
She lowered her hand and turned to look at him. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed. She didn’t speak.
“I’m not cut out for the military. I joined partly because it was expected, but also because I was feeling restless and displaced. When I was given the opportunity to learn to fly I thought maybe a military career was the answer.” He sighed. “Then I got homesick. I hoped I’d come back to the Sundance and things would be different. If I learned to fly a chopper I could help bring the place into the twenty-first century. Roundup would be a breeze, we could expand... The truth is, I wanted to come back and be a hero. I wanted to be needed. I wanted to feel as if I belonged here again.”
Shivering, she hugged herself and rubbed her arms.
He wanted to hold her. It would be so easy to justify pulling her close. “You were totally right the other night. My family never made me feel those things. They’ve never stopped loving me or had a single thought that I didn’t deserve a place here. The economy doesn’t matter. We could be down to our last dollar and I would be no more dispensable than Cole or Trace or Rachel. I’m a McAllister. They didn’t forget that. I did.”
He almost choked on that admission and had to look away for a moment. “The thing is, I didn’t get all that until—I don’t know, maybe it all finally came together today. But the truth is, I didn’t tell you about reenlisting because it’s been one of the furthest things from my mind. This past week, with you, I was happy—” He stopped to swallow. “I didn’t believe I could ever be this happy again, and I didn’t want the feeling to go away. I don’t want it to go away.”
He moved closer to her and she took a step toward him.
“I’d miss you, Shea. I’d miss your courage. I could handle being a soldier again if I had to, I could handle deployment. I can handle anything except not having you in my life. I love you.” He took the last few steps to reach her but she was already flinging herself at him. He caught her in his arms. She’d taught him how to love and be loved. He had a feeling he had a lot more to learn from her.
“Oh, Jesse.” She sniffed and buried her face against his neck. “My feet aren’t touching the ground so don’t drop me.”
“Is that all you have to say?” He laughed, letting himself breathe now that he knew he hadn’t blown the best thing to ever happen to him.
“I’m thinking.”
“I’ll save you some brain power,” he said, and felt her smile against his skin. “It’s only been a week, I know. But I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” He kissed her ear, her hair. Loosening his hold, he let her slide down his body until her feet hit the floor and their eyes met. “I know you have a job you love in San Jose, but somehow we can make this work. If you want to.”
A slow smile lifted her lips as if she had a secret no one else knew. “I do want to,” she said. “I want you.”
Jesse held her face between his hands and kissed her. Kissed her with everything he had. He wasn’t much for talking, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to show her that he meant every one of those three words.
Hearing her whimper made him feel like he could do anything. Right now that meant picking her up again and taking her straight over to the long ladder leading up to the loft.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her breathlessness making him grin.
“There are a few things a city slicker like you still doesn’t know about life on a ranch.”
“For example?”
He set her down, but they wouldn’t be apart for long. “Like what a real roll in the hay is like.”
“Hay?” she asked, her smile getting a little wobbly. “Scratchy hay?”
He laughed. What else was he going to do with a woman like Shea? “Trust me.”
Caleb whinnied as they raced up the ladder, but the horse was out of luck. Shea was all his.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Just One Night by Nancy Warren.
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1
“SICK LEAVE?” Rob Klassen yelled, unable to believe what he was hearing from the editor of World Week, the international current affairs magazine he’d worked for as a photojournalist for twelve years. “I’m not sick!”
Gary Wallanger pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto his desktop cluttered with Rob’s proof sheets documenti
ng a skirmish in a small town near the Ras Ajdir border between Tunisia and Libya. “What do you suggest I call it? Shot-in-the-ass leave? You damned near got yourself killed. Again.”
Gary didn’t like his people getting too close to the action they were reporting on and his glare was fierce.
Rob put all his weight on his good leg, but even so, the throbbing in his left thigh was hard to ignore. “I was running away as fast as I could.”
“I saw the hospital report. You were running toward the shooter. Bad luck for you. They can tell those things from the entry and exit wounds.” In the uncomfortable silence that followed Rob heard the roar of traffic, honking cabs and sirens on the Manhattan streets far below. He hadn’t counted on Gary finding out the details he’d have rather kept to himself.
“You want to be a war hero,” his editor snapped, “join the forces. We report news. We don’t make it.”
Another beat ticked by.
“There were bullets flying everywhere. I got disoriented.”
“Bull. You were playing hero again, weren’t you?”
Rob could still picture the toddler cowering behind an oil drum. Yeah, his boss would have been happier if he’d left her scared and crying in the line of gunfire. But he was the one who had to wake up every morning and look himself in the mirror. Truth was he hadn’t thought at all. He’d merely dashed over to the girl and hauled her to safety. Getting shot hadn’t been in his plan.
Would he have acted any differently if he’d known what the outcome would be? He sure as hell hoped not.
He knew better than to tell Gary any of that. “You don’t win Pulitzers with a telephoto lens. I needed to get close enough to capture the real story.”
“Close enough to take a bullet in the leg.”
“That was unfortunate,” Rob admitted. “I can still handle a camera though. I can still walk.” He made a big show of stalking across the carpeted office, scooting around the obstacle course of stacked back issues, piled newspapers and a leaning tower of reference books. If he concentrated he could manage to stride without a limp or a wince though he could feel sweat begin to break out from the effort.
“No.” The single word stopped him in his tracks.
He turned. “I’m the best you’ve got. You have to send me back out on assignment.”
“I will. As soon as you can run a mile in six.”
“A mile in six minutes? Why so fast?”
Gary’s voice was as dry as the North African desert. “So the next time you have to run for your life you can make it.”
Rob paused for breath and grabbed a chair back for support. He and Gary had been friends for a long time and he knew the guy was making the right decision even if it did piss him off. “It was pure bad luck. If I’d dodged right instead of left...”
“You know most people would be pretty happy to be alive if they were you. And they’d be thrilled to get a paid vacation.” Gary picked up his glasses and settled himself behind his desk.
“They patched me up at the closest military hospital. It was nothing but a flesh wound.”
“The bullet nicked your femur. I do know how to read a hospital report.”
Damn.
“Go home. Rest up. The world will continue to be full of trouble when you get back.” Rob knew Gary was still aggravated by the fact that he didn’t compliment him on his photos, which they both knew to be superb. Instead of getting the praise he deserved, he was being sent home like a kid who’d screwed up.
He scowled.
Home.
He’d been on the road so much in the past few years that home was usually wherever he stashed his backpack.
If he’d ever had a home, it was in Fremont, Washington, a suburb of Seattle that prided itself on celebrating counterculture, considering itself the center of the universe and officially endorsing the right to be peculiar. Fremont seemed a fitting destination for him right now that he was feeling both self-centered and peculiar. Besides, it was the only place he could think of to go even though everything that had made the place home was now gone.
“All right. But I heal fast. I’ll be running six-minute miles in a couple weeks. Tops.”
“You’ll be under a doctor’s care and I’ll be needing the physician’s report before I can reinstate you for any assignments in the field.”
“Oh, come on, Gary. Give me a freakin’ break.”
Once more the glasses came off and he was regarded by tired hazel eyes. “I am giving you a break. I could assign you to a desk right here in New York. That’s your other option.”
He shook his head. No way he was being trapped in a small space. He didn’t like feeling trapped. Not ever. “See you in a couple of weeks.”
Once he was out of Gary’s office and in the hallway Rob gave up the manly act and tried to put as little weight on his injured leg as possible.
“Rob, you should be on crutches,” a female voice called out.
He turned, recognizing the voice and mustering a happy-to-see-you smile. “Romona, hi.”
A print business reporter making the transition to television, Romona had the looks of a South American runway model and the brains of Hillary Clinton. They got together whenever they were both in New York. Neither had any interest in commitment but enjoyed each other’s company and bodies. “I heard you were hurt. How are you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Even though they’d never do anything as obvious as hug in public, the glance she sent him from tilted green eyes steamed around the edges. She dropped her voice. “Why don’t you come over later and I’ll kiss you all better?”
“I’m filthy. Haven’t shaved in days, had a haircut in weeks, my—”
“I like you scruffy. You look like a sunburned pirate.”
He knew he’d hit rock bottom when he realized he had no desire to spend the night with a passionate woman. His leg was burning, he had a vicious case of jet lag and he’d been pulled out of the field. He felt too worn-out tired even to get laid. All he wanted to do was hide out for a while and heal.
He shook his head attempting to appear more disappointed than he was. “Sorry. I have a plane to catch.”
She knew as well as he did that plane tickets could be changed and it was a measure of his exhaustion that this was the best excuse he could come up with.
She didn’t call him on it though, merely patted his arm and said, “Maybe next time.”
That was the great thing about Romona. She was a lot like him. He’d enjoyed any number of women over the years, loved sex, but had no interest in settling down. Career came first. Maybe it was shallow, and maybe there was a part of him that longed for a woman to comfort him, to listen to his stories, share his pain. The only woman who’d ever been like that, though, had been his grandmother. Ruefully, he suspected she’d been the love of his life.
And now she was gone.
He had so many frequent flyer miles that upgrading was no problem when he got to LaGuardia. He even scored an aisle seat so he could stretch his bad leg out a little.
Once airborne, he recalled that the family attorney had tried to talk to him about the Fremont house. What with getting shot and all, he hadn’t got around to calling back. He’d call him as soon as he got into Seattle.
It was something to do with Bellamy House, the old family place where he’d spent so much time with his grandmother.
He couldn’t imagine the place without her. As a stab of pain hit, he took out the paperback he’d brought and forced himself to read.
* * *
HAILEY FLEMING WAS a woman with an agenda. Two in fact. The electronic one that she relied on so heavily that she’d recently started keeping a backup paper day planner because the thought of somehow losing her electronic schedule made her feel too close to losing her mind for comfort.
She was nothing if not organized.
And both agendas told her that she was exactly on time for the best appointment of the day. An after-work glass of wine with
a colleague who’d become a close friend, Julia Atkinson.
As she made her way into the bistro off North Phinney Avenue, a former record store turned trendy bar, she scanned the tables and was not surprised to find she was the first to arrive. She was always early.
And Julia was always late.
She settled at a table and ordered a glass of white wine then spent ten minutes going through tomorrow’s appointments and writing some notes on improvements she wanted to make on her website.
“Am I late?” a breezy, breathless voice said as Julia swished into her chair, a loose black garment that resembled a combination sweater, poncho and cloak settling in around her.
“Of course you are. You’re always late.”
Julia’s red hair was newly cut into a curly bob and her full lips curved in a smile. “I was at the opening of a new furniture gallery which has brought in several fantastic new lines from Milan. I got chatting, and there were these delicious cookies. I left after three. It was the only way I could stop myself. I don’t feel guilty. I bet you did a day’s work while you waited.”
“Half a day’s anyway.”
A waiter arrived and Julia ordered a vodka tonic. Which meant she was on another of her diets. Which meant...
“I think I’ve met someone.” She sounded so excited that Hailey leaned forward.
“Tell me everything.”
Julia unbuttoned the cloak thing and draped it over the back of her chair, revealing a black-and-red dress enlivened by one of the hundreds of chunky, glitzy vintage necklaces she owned.
“He’s an engineer who lives downtown. He was married, but his wife left him and broke his heart.”
“Wow. That was fast. I just saw you last week. Where did you meet him?”
Julia’s drink came and she took a quick sip. “I haven’t actually met him yet.”
“Huh?”
She shrugged, and the slight movement made all the rhinestones in her jewelry glitter under the bar’s chandeliers. “I met him on LoveMatch.com.”
On a Snowy Christmas Night Page 20