by Cora Seton
“He will. The way he looks at you, he’ll be waving a ring in your face any day now.”
Jo stopped working. “How does he look at me?”
Lena made her face exaggeratedly moony. “Like this.”
“I doubt it’s like that.” Jo got back to work.
“Maybe not that bad, but close.” Lena grew serious. “You said he was too old for you, remember?”
“He is.”
“You said you wanted to be independent.”
“I do.”
“So why is he still here?”
Jo wasn’t sure how to answer that. When she asked herself why she hadn’t bucked him off yet, she kept coming back to his kindness—and that sense of loyalty she always felt when she touched him. The way he treated Max told her he was a good man. The way he treated her made her feel… cared for. Not in a motherly way like Cass cared for her—but in a masculine, cherishing way she’d always hoped a husband would feel for his wife.
Besides, he was building her a house.
Neither Sean nor Grant had a touch of loyalty in them, she thought, growing serious again. She hadn’t thought to consider that when she’d first been with them. That didn’t let her off the hook for making such bad choices, however. She’d felt the warning signals every time she’d touched them—
She’d simply chosen to ignore them.
At the time she’d been restless. Wanting something she’d never had. Wanting to belong, to feel attractive to a man. So she’d taken their words at face value and ignored what her touches revealed about them. How ironic that the minute she turned her back on her longings, Hunter had appeared.
“Just… think long and hard before you let him too close,” Lena said. “For all our sakes.” She left the barn before Jo could ask her what that meant.
She didn’t need to ask, though, did she? She knew what Lena feared—
If Jo finally picked a good man, the General would strengthen his control over the ranch.
If she picked a man like the previous two—
They could all wind up dead.
Chapter Four
‡
“I’m still here,” the voice on the other end of the phone connection said three days later.
“Glad to hear it.”
“Well, I’m not glad,” Marlon snapped. “I need to make May see sense. I can’t just let her destroy my family.”
“You have to do things right. Wait for the court case. Tell the judge what you want.” Hunter bit back a sigh. He was going over old ground.
“I want my family back!”
“You can’t force May to love you.” Hunter hadn’t meant to be so abrupt—not when Marlon’s mood was so precarious.
“Why did she stop? Tell me that. What did I do wrong?”
Hunter scrubbed his face with his hand. “Nothing. People change, sometimes. May wants something different, that’s all. You have to pull yourself together.”
“Right.” Marlon’s answer was gruff. “Like that’s so easy. She won’t even listen to me. She won’t take my calls. Won’t answer my texts. I don’t know what’s happening back there! What if she’s poisoning my kids against me?”
This was getting worse by the day. “When’s the next time she’s bringing them to see you?”
“She says they don’t want to see me. She says they don’t like me yelling at her.”
Marlon stopped pacing. He was alone in his room, which was a good thing with the direction this phone call was taking. “When did you yell at her?” That didn’t sound good at all.
“I didn’t—” Marlon broke off. “Maybe I raised my voice. I was upset, okay? The last time I flew home she made me pick them up at the grocery store instead of at the house. She called it neutral territory. She treated me like I’m some kind of sex offender. I’m their dad—and that’s my house!” His voice cracked, and Hunter’s gut tightened. Marlon was pushed to his limit, and he was afraid of what might happen next. That week five months ago—the week that had landed him in trouble in the first place—wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.
“What did I tell you about getting it together?” Hunter demanded. “You’re a grown man. If you want to be your children’s father, you need to start acting like one. Stop yelling at your wife. Stop scaring your kids. You’re sad; I get that. They’re sad, too. This isn’t a picnic for anyone, so grow a pair and act like an adult. You got it?”
Marlon was quiet so long Hunter was afraid he’d hung up.
“Can’t you go and talk to her? Fly down and fly back—just see what she’s doing? Make her see reason.”
Hunter’s heart sank. For one thing, he doubted it would do any good. May was done with her marriage to Marlon. She’d moved on and only wanted to sort out the details. Marlon wasn’t ready for that, but he had to be, or he’d find himself holding the short end of the stick as far as visitations with his kids were concerned. For another, Hunter had a mission here, and he doubted the General would like it if he left.
“I can’t go anywhere until after I marry Jo. You know that.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“I don’t know; I just got here.”
Marlon cut the call before Hunter could say another word, and Hunter sat back in the hard wooden chair at the desk in his guest bedroom, fighting a sickening feeling that everything he’d sacrificed so much to fix was about to blow up in his face.
Keep calm, he texted to Marlon. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.
He got no answer, but then he hadn’t expected one. He sometimes felt like he was dragging his friend through the days—or rather, tethering him to the world so he didn’t simply disappear. The dissolution of his family had unmanned Marlon in a way Hunter hadn’t thought possible. He’d barely made it to his friend’s side the day May had told Marlon she wanted a divorce, and if he’d let his team down chasing his friend around the country, he’d told himself ever since that he’d probably saved a life. Their daily phone calls were his guarantee that Marlon was still alive—still trying. He’d thought they were over the worst of it, but maybe the worst of it was just starting.
He glanced at his laptop screen. At least one thing was going right, he told himself with a sigh. The plans he’d designed for Jo’s house were done.
In between helping Jo, Lena and Brian with the chores around the ranch these past few days, doing his best to make himself indispensable, he’d spent every spare moment scouring house plans on the internet, downloading a drafting program and teaching himself to use it. He’d studied local housing codes, a variety of small home blogs and so many house images his vision had blurred, before beginning to create his own tailored plans for Jo’s little house.
Now it was perfect. Everything had its place and he was proud of all the space-saving tricks he’d managed to use. Everything would be at Jo’s fingertips when she moved in. More than that, it would be a handsome, snug home for someone starting out in life.
He hoped it would catch her fancy with its ingenious storage spaces and built-in furniture. He’d tried to make the small house seem airy—quite a trick, if he did say so himself.
He hoped that maybe—just maybe—if she admired his work, she might admire him, too.
Hunter hadn’t kissed Jo again, although he’d wanted to, because he could tell that she was pondering the connection between them and what she wanted to do about it. Another man might have pushed things, hoping to capitalize on his earlier success, but that wasn’t Hunter’s way. He knew what was at stake: his future, and that of the other men from USSOCOM—and the future of Jo and her sisters, too. After all, the General had threatened to sell the ranch if they didn’t all marry.
That didn’t mean he would railroad her. Jo deserved to make her own choice, so all he could do was show her his real self and hope she chose him after knowing him. Working together would reveal a lot about their temperaments, he’d decided—and whether or not their temperaments mixed.
Despite the way she’d kept her distan
ce, Hunter thought he’d detected interest from Jo once or twice in the past few days. She often watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking, and that revved him up. He wondered what she was thinking when her gaze ran over him speculatively. Sometimes he thought she was appreciating his athletic body.
Other times he feared something far different was running through her mind.
Was he old in her eyes? He used to take a certain pride in his world-weariness, feeling like it conveyed experience on the battlefield and helped him command respect.
Respect wasn’t what he wanted from Jo, however, and he was afraid he kept inadvertently advertising their age difference in ways she wouldn’t find compelling. He watched her as much as she watched him, trying to find the places they could connect. All he’d come up with so far was she liked his work ethic.
So he kept working.
She liked his affinity for Max, too, so whenever the puppy came near, he made sure to give it attention. Which he would have done regardless. He liked dogs.
Jo hadn’t said a word about Grant—about shooting the man, after stabbing him, and Hunter wondered about that. He remembered the first time he took down an enemy target. It wasn’t something you got over easily, and he’d been trained to the task. Jo didn’t seem fazed, but was that a smokescreen?
She wasn’t uncaring. Watching her around all the various animals on the ranch taught him she was highly intuitive about all kinds of living things. And she genuinely loved her dogs, her horses—and her sisters. She was guarded around him and he couldn’t blame her for that, but she wasn’t hardened in any way.
Which made him wonder what was going on in her head.
When Brian had told him the story of what Jo had done, Hunter wondered why none of the General’s daughters had entered the service. Seemed to him that more than one of them had shown remarkable grace under pressure. When he mentioned that to Brian, however, the other man said the General had actively dissuaded them from joining.
The Reeds had a complicated relationship with one another.
And Jo… he wasn’t sure what to make of her. The situation had to have affected her. Pulling a trigger on a man was one thing. Difficult enough, but it kept you at a distance from your adversary.
Stabbing a man—
Hunter wondered if other potential suitors would be afraid of Jo if they knew what she’d done. He wasn’t afraid of her. He understood that kind of loyalty. Jo had fought for her own life, but more importantly she’d fought for her sisters. She’d used cunning, trickery and strength.
She was something.
And he was going to build her a house. He was itching to start. As soon as he did, he’d get to work by her side day in, day out for weeks, and you got to know a person that way—good and bad.
What would they feel for each other when the house was done?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
Jo bent over the card table she’d dragged from the basement to her room several days ago, where she’d spread a large piece of drawing paper, worn thin in places from the number of times she’d erased lines. First she’d penciled a light grid to keep her measurements as accurate as possible. Then she’d spent hours scouring home design sites online to get ideas. She’d experimented with a number of different layouts before finding the one she liked best. She kept the samples she and Megan had collected from Renfrew’s nearby to get ideas about the interior.
Now it was done. More than done; it was wonderful, and Hunter would be impressed at what she’d managed to design. She’d made sure to check the county website and stay within all the code requirements, and she’d looked online to find out basic rules like the sizes of doors and windows, the location of plugs, efficient ways to keep the plumbing all in one area and more.
She’d been surprised at how interesting the process was—and how much she enjoyed it. She’d never thought of herself as particularly creative, but surveying the results of her work, she was pleased.
A knock at her door brought her to her feet. She crossed the room and opened it, and couldn’t help but smile at Hunter, who stood in the hall. “Perfect timing. Come on in, I’ve got something to show you.”
“I’ve got something to show you.” He swept past her, set the paper she’d been drawing on aside without a glance and plunked down the open laptop in his hand. “Look at this.”
“But—”
Jo glanced at the screen he indicated. Were those… building plans?
“Here’s your house. Take a look—I thought of everything. You won’t believe it.” He sat in the chair she’d just vacated, looked around for another one, didn’t find it and waved her over. “Here—take my seat.” He stood up again and pushed her gently down into it before she could tell him that actually, the seat was hers. “See? Here’s your living room and kitchen. It’s an open-concept plan. Here’s the bathroom.” He was off and running, explaining everything in a tone that told her he was as excited about his ideas as she was about hers.
But he hadn’t even asked about her ideas. And now he was presenting his as if they were a done deal.
“Here’s the washer/dryer. I found one machine that acts as both; it’s really popular in Europe. And look at this. Your shower—”
“I don’t want a shower. I want a tub.” She had to say something—he wasn’t letting her get a word in edgewise, and Jo was beginning to get the feeling she always had when people tried to run her life. Like she was suffocating—trapped. She didn’t want to feel that way anymore. She’d finally begun to shake free of Cass’s mothering. She didn’t need a man to step in and tell her what to do.
“—is fitted right here, which… wait, what? A tub?”
That stopped him. Hunter straightened. Scratched his head. “I don’t think there’s room.”
“There is in my plans.” She reached for the paper he’d placed on the bed.
“Your plans?”
“Yes, my plans.” She moved his laptop aside and spread out the paper. “See? I’ve got an open concept, too, but my kitchen is over here, and here’s the bathroom—and it’s plenty big enough for a tub like this.”
“Jo, a tub isn’t practical—”
“I want a tub.”
“But I’ll have to change everything around.” Hunter pulled his laptop close again and frowned at the plans displayed on screen.
“No, you don’t, because my plans already have a tub.”
“That’s just a bunch of scribbles on a page. You don’t have measurements or—”
Jo stood up, scraping her chair over the wooden floor. “It’s not just a bunch of scribbles. Maybe I don’t have some fancy computer program, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it through. I did—and I measured everything down to the inch. It all fits and it all works and it’s all up to code.”
“Come on—”
She picked up the laptop. Shoved it into his hands. Went to the door and flung it open. “Get out.”
“Jo.”
“Out! The General didn’t send you to come and tell me what to do. He sent you to keep me happy. You said so yourself. Well, guess what? I’m not happy!”
She pointed to the hall. A moment later he pushed past her, strode away and slammed shut the door to the guest room.
Men, Jo thought, closing her door and crossing to her desk to straighten her crumpled plans. They treated you like you were invisible. Like you didn’t have a voice—or a brain. Well, she didn’t need Hunter.
She’d build her own damn house.
Chapter Five
‡
“It’s me,” Marlon said curtly when Hunter answered his phone four days later. “I’m fine. Later.”
“Hey—wait a minute!” Hunter paced the small guest bedroom, his phone jammed against his ear. “Tell me how you’re doing.” Marlon’s bitter tone grated on him, and so did the way he was acting—like he was doing Hunter a big favor by calling.
“What the hell do you care?”
“You know I care.” He was the one who
’d done the favor—one that would cost him for the rest of his life if he didn’t convince Jo to marry him. Seeing as how Jo hadn’t said a word to him since their argument, that didn’t seem likely.
“I’m doing the same as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. How am I supposed to be doing? My life is over—”
“No, it’s not.” Hunter had learned to put an end to this line of talk, fast, when Marlon got going on it. “You want to leave that legacy to your kids? You want them carrying the burden of your suicide the rest of their lives?” That was harsh, but at one time Marlon had thought about taking that path, and Hunter had risked his career to stop him. Marlon was past that, and he needed to stay there.
Silence greeted his blunt question. “Hell, no,” Marlon said finally. “Of course I don’t. I just don’t know what to do. I left twenty messages yesterday—”
“Jesus.” It was the worst thing Marlon could have done. As far as Hunter could see, May wanted an amicable divorce. She wanted to share custody over the kids, but if Marlon kept pushing her, she might change her mind.
“She finally called and said she’d sic the cops on me if I didn’t stop,” Marlon said bitterly. “Can you believe that?”
Hunter’s patience was wearing thin. “I put my career on the line—”
“I never asked you to!”
Marlon hung up. Hunter debated calling May, but what could he say to her she didn’t already know? He knew what she’d tell him; that Marlon was a big boy and had to fight his own battles. Did she realize how far Marlon had crashed when she’d asked for the divorce?
Should he tell her?
He didn’t think it was his place. Marlon would never forgive him; he knew that much. He always said Hunter interfered too much. That he thought he had far too many of the answers, even when no one was asking him questions.
All Hunter knew was Marlon might not be alive if he hadn’t followed Marlon the night May announced she wanted a divorce.
Hunter shoved his phone in his pocket and headed downstairs to grab some breakfast, still mulling the matter over. When he caught sight of Jo in the kitchen, he took in the stiffness of her posture and realized she was still angry with him, too—even after four days. Would she agree with Marlon that he was too bossy—too interfering?