The tall, rangy man didn’t move. His ash-blond hair was almost shoulder length and mussed, and a few days of beard darkened a strong jaw. He was planted firmly on the step down to the great room.
“If you’ll just listen…” Her voice trailed off at the intensity in his eyes that she could see now were a deep blue. “I won’t move. I won’t.” She didn’t even think of running. He towered over her by maybe a foot in height and outweighed her by way too much. Thankfully, he slowly lowered the shotgun to point it at the flagstone floor.
He looked kind of sick, or maybe he was drunk or hungover or had taken drugs or something. Whatever he was or wasn’t, she knew she had to get some control. When she saw him frown, she decided to play the sympathy card. “Are you okay? Is there some way I can help you?” He didn’t respond. “I’d be more than glad to help in any way I can.”
“No,” he said abruptly.
So much for sympathy. Maybe a good apology would work. “I’m really sorry for coming in like I did. I didn’t mean to scare you, honestly. I knocked and knocked and it’s freezing out there. The door wasn’t locked. I mean, I didn’t break in or anything. I actually have the house keys in my pocket, and I…” She let her words fade away when he stepped onto the flagstone floor and came closer to where she stood just past an old green couch.
She inched backward, but he veered toward the couch that faced the back wall. He never took his eyes off her as he sank down on the sagging cushions to face her. Thankfully, he laid the rifle by him on the seat.
Her stomach was knotting. “Thank you,” she said. “I…I really do hate guns. I mean, I’ve never even touched one, not that they’re bad.” She knew she was babbling but couldn’t stop. “I know around here you probably have a lot of guns, and you have every right to have those guns. But thank you for putting that down.”
He took a deep breath, exhaled, then said, “Pull one of the chairs over here to face me.”
His voice was low and edged with roughness. She didn’t have to be told twice and turned to the four pub chairs that formed a half circle in front of the stone fireplace. She motioned with her head toward the closest one and asked, “Is that one okay?”
“Great,” he said as he leaned to rest his forearms on his knees. He looked lean and hard in a rumpled black T-shirt that covered wide shoulders but exposed muscled biceps, and his worn jeans molded to strong thighs.
She pulled the chair across the flagstone and positioned it to face him. She sat, shaking her hands to try to ease the tingling in them, and she couldn’t believe the action sent her engagement ring flying off her finger and through the air, right at the man. It barely missed his shoulder to fall onto the cushions by the rifle. She knew it had to be resized but hadn’t had a chance… She didn’t think it was that loose.
He reached to picked up her ring and held it between his thumb and forefinger to study it. She wanted to jump up and snatch it back, but she made herself stay in the chair. “It’s impressive,” he said, but didn’t offer to return it to her. He closed his hand around it and kept staring at her.
It was cool in the room, but nothing close to the cold outside. “I’m going to unzip my jacket.”
He made a vague movement with his hand, and she undid it, then flipped her hood off and shook her hair out. She sat back and met those blue eyes again. What a mess. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Can we start again and pretend this never happened?”
He frowned at that. “What are you doing in here?”
“What are you doing here?” she countered and couldn’t believe she’d done that.
“I asked you first,” he said without any sign of annoyance.
“We’ll be here forever and never learn anything if one of us doesn’t break down and explain things.”
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE STARED AT the woman across from him as he kept his hand closed around the biggest diamond he’d ever seen. There was no more marshmallow jacket stained with coffee, but the same coppery red hair in loose ringlets fell around her shoulders. The woman who had called him a stupid jerk had eyes that were a true green. She pushed back into the chair and took a quick glance at his hand holding the ring. Then she fixed her eyes on him, just the way his were on her. This was turning into an old-fashioned stare-down.
If he hadn’t gone into the east wing to look for some more blankets for his makeshift bed on the couch, Jake knew he never would have known someone was there until it was too late. Even so, he’d almost stepped out into the entry and right into her when she’d been going down into the great room. With her back to him, he’d grabbed the shotgun off the wall right by the east wing hallway, then moved to the archway to reach in for the light switch just before she had.
He was trying to figure out what in the heck she’d been up to when he’d stumbled on her. No one should be here, but maybe it had gotten around that Sarge was gone and the house was empty. Squatters weren’t unknown in the area. If she broke in to stay here, how could she own a ring that could choke a horse? Maybe she’d taken it from another house that had been conveniently unlocked and empty. Or maybe he was overthinking everything and getting overprotective of Sarge and the ranch.
“You know what, this is stupid,” he watched her say. “I’ll start.”
She looked less afraid now, but her nervousness showed in the way she bit her lip. “First, I came here because I was asked to come here.”
That didn’t make sense at all. “Who asked you to?”
“Seth Reagan.”
The name hung between them. “Seth Reagan?” Jake repeated back to her, not certain he’d read her right.
“Yes, and he’s coming here soon, very soon.” A blush of color rose in her cheeks, and freckles he hadn’t noticed before showed up in a light dusting across her nose. “He’s pretty busy, but he’ll be here.”
“So, you’re engaged to Seth Reagan?”
He could see that startled her, and she quickly looked at his hand as he opened it and exposed the ring lying on his palm. “That’s cubic zirconium. It just looks really expensive,” she said in a rush.
Now she thought he might rob her. That was almost laughable. He’d never thought Seth would find anyone after a monumentally painful experience with romance over two years ago. But life obviously had changed while Jake had been out of contact. “I don’t care if it’s real or glass.” He looked down at the round-cut diamond in its overly ornate gold setting. He was quite sure it was very real. What he wondered was how such a tiny hand could support that oversize display of bling. “Here,” he said, and carefully tossed it to her.
It sailed through the air, and she caught it. Quickly, she put it back on her finger, then looked at him.
Seth wasn’t the kind to flaunt his wealth like that, but maybe love had made him stupid. “So, you’re Seth’s fiancée?”
She slowly put her right hand over the ring to hide it in her lap. “Seth is a dear friend, but that’s all.”
That took him aback. “Then you’re a dear friend who’s here to do what exactly?”
She worried her bottom lip, and she said, “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know you. For all I know, you broke in before I got here.”
“No need to break in. They never lock the front door,” he said. “I used to live here, a long time ago, and Seth is my very good friend.”
As he spoke, she frowned, then smiled suddenly. “Oh, my gosh,” he saw her say. “Are you Jake Bishop?”
That was not expected. “How do you know who I am?”
“We’ve never met, but Seth has a picture of you and Ben, although it’s maybe five or six years old. The beard and hair…” She shrugged. “I’m sorry it took so long for me recognize you.”
Jake knew he’d never seen her. She’d have been memorable. “Seth never showed me a picture of you,” he murmured.
“No reason he would.” She he
sitated. “Seth told me you’d contacted him and were heading to Casper to be with Sarge. He never mentioned you’d be here.”
“I decided to come here first, and I didn’t tell him.”
Her smile started to come back. “I’m so relieved you found me here and not some wacko.”
He couldn’t say he was relieved. She was messing up his plan to be here alone, and to be close enough to visit Sarge when he was moved to Cody for rehabilitation after being released from the hospital. “No, I don’t want…” he started to say with a shake of his head, but he never got to finish.
Dizziness overtook him as his world went out of control, then he was falling forward with no way to stop himself from landing facedown on the old braided rug. The smell of dust and age invaded every breath he took as his world kept spinning.
Gradually he realized that he was being tugged over onto his back, and he had no ability to resist. The woman was a blur over him, patting his cheek. He closed his eyes to block out everything. But that didn’t stop the motion. She was so close now that he felt her hair brushing his face. He wondered if she was screaming at him.
Slowly, the dizzy spell receded, and he eased his eyes open. As he began to focus, he saw her on her knees beside him, and he could read her lips. “Good, good, just stay still, and I’ll get help,” he could see her say. “I’ll call—no, shoot, I can’t. My cell has no signal.” She was scrambling to her feet now and extending her hand down to him. “I’ll get you up and drive you to an ER.”
“No,” he managed. “Don’t. I must…have stood too fast.”
She frowned down at him. “You weren’t standing up. You just sort of shook your head and fell onto the floor.”
He commandeered the excuse Farley had handed to him. “The altitude, I’m not…not used to it anymore and got dizzy.”
She drew her hand back and tucked her hair behind her ears. “You’re a test pilot, and you can’t take altitudes?”
She was right, and he was starting to get uneasy lying on his back with her standing over him. “Equipment. Oxygen. Pressurization. This is temporary…and… I’ll adjust.”
She didn’t push back at that but held out her hand to him again. “Let’s get you up off the floor and see how you are.”
There was no way he could leverage his weight against hers, and he ignored her offer as he slowly maneuvered into a sitting position without any dizziness attacking him. “I’m okay,” he said, and hoped he could get to his feet. He cautiously pushed and was finally standing without his stability being affected.
When he looked at her, she still seemed concerned. “I can take you to see a doctor or to a hospital. I don’t know what’s around here, though.”
“No,” he said more abruptly than he’d intended, and tried to soften it. “Thanks, but I’m okay. It’s over.”
With them both standing now, he was very aware that despite the fact that he had the upper hand in height and weight, the advantage was still hers. He needed to sit down. He tried to be casual about getting back onto the couch and was thankful when he made it without an incident.
She came closer, and he looked up at her as she spoke. “You drove that huge truck here?”
“I didn’t walk.”
“How could you drive if you’re having dizzy spells?”
He had a gut feeling that she wasn’t going to be easy about anything. The sooner she left, the better. “That’s my first spell.” A total lie. It was more like his first spell in a month.
She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it onto the chair she’d sat in earlier. When she turned back to him, she was speaking, and he caught her words partway into a statement. “…being pushy, but before you drive out of here, whenever that is, you need to see a doctor.”
With the jacket gone, he could see she was wearing a pink sweater with slim jeans. Despite the old adage he’d heard about red hair and pink not mixing, it looked good on her. “I appreciate your advice, especially after I pulled a shotgun on you, but I know what I should or shouldn’t do. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. No offense meant.”
She didn’t take offense but agreed. “Okay, that’s fair.”
“Please, sit down. You’re making my neck hurt.”
She smiled easily at that. “Sure,” she said, but instead of retaking the chair, she sat down on the couch to his left, far away from where he’d put the rifle. That forced him to reposition himself so he could see her lips. “Now, what do you want to know about me?” she asked.
He rested his left arm on the back of the couch. “Who are you, and why are you here, other than to meet Seth sometime soon?”
“I’m Liberty Connor. I’m here to figure out how to make this place into a summer camp for middle school and high school boys in the foster care system.”
He didn’t mind keeping her talking so he could have some time to gather himself. “You work for Seth? I thought you said you’re friends?”
“Both. I’m from Seattle and do architecture and design for adaptive reuse of existing buildings.”
An architect from Seattle. He would have never guessed that in a thousand years, but then again, he’d never met one before. He felt like a fool pulling a weapon on her. “Sorry for the gun. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not loaded. It never has been as far as I know.”
She waved that away without the huge diamond leaving her finger this time. “Forget it. I kind of thought you were a drunk, or a burglar.”
“Okay, that’s a wash,” he said. “Now you’re an architect who does adaptive reuse or whatever you said?”
“I specialize in redoing older structures to update and repurpose them, sort of change them without leveling them first. That’s why Seth asked me to come here and stay, so I can see the place and start drawing up plans for the changes he wants.”
He vaguely remembered Cal telling him something about a camp, but he’d been too concerned about Sarge to really pay attention at the time. Now this woman who was small enough for him to restrain her with one arm was explaining it to him. He sat there feeling like a jerk for treating her the way he had at first. Then he realized what she was saying about her plans to stay at the ranch. That did not work for him. “How long does that take, to size up things and get a feel for the place?”
“I’ll be here until the first week in January.”
And he’d lost this place as a refuge to heal for the foreseeable future. “You’re here to do exactly what?”
“I’m supposed to start in the house, redoing part of the west wing as a suite for Sarge when he comes home. That’s my goal this time, to get things going on that and get it done as quickly as possible.”
“And that will take until next year?”
She smiled at that. “Oh, that makes it sound long, you know. I’ll be here for about a month, to get the plans finalized and approved. Codes and things. Seth knows a contractor he trusts around here who will take over when I leave.”
Jake would definitely have to make new plans, and he hated that. He wanted to be here, where he’d found healing as a teenager, but her being here wouldn’t work. “You’re forgoing the holidays to do this?”
“Oh, no, of course not. Christmas? Never. I’m big on Christmas and honestly, I’ve never had a real white Christmas, so if it snows here, I’m very happy.”
“Until you get snowed in,” he said.
She still smiled. “Oh, that would be absolutely perfect.”
There was obviously no way to dampen her enthusiasm, so he gave up on that. “I’m impressed by your dedication, coming up here for a Christmas by yourself to do this for Seth.”
A hint of color in her cheeks brought out her freckles again. “Well, the alone part was a last-minute change and it’s not permanent. I was going to come with my fiancé, but he can’t come right now. I talked to him just before I left Seattle, and he promised he’d
definitely be here before Christmas.”
He wanted to ask what was wrong with the guy that he’d let her come here alone, but he didn’t. “You’ve got your work to do, so I’ll take off as soon as I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t be smart to take to the road after you fainted.”
He corrected her. “I didn’t faint. I was dizzy.”
“I was almost hit by a truck like yours today and could have been really hurt.”
“You’re exaggerating,” he said without thinking first.
She looked offended. “For your information, I don’t usually exaggerate much of anything. Besides, how would you know if I’m exaggerating or not?”
He weighed his options, then decided truth was the best policy. It wasn’t worth lying to her, so he came clean. “I’m the one who almost backed my truck into your Jeep at Garret’s.”
Her green eyes widened. “That was you?”
“That was me,” he said, then thought better of leaving. He was rethinking that after her comments about him driving. “I really wanted to head out tomorrow to see Sarge, but you’re right that I can’t drive, at least for a few days.” He’d started to feel more whole after he’d left Malibu, but now he wasn’t certain of anything about himself. “But I will leave you to your work as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” She seemed fine with that, then skipped to another subject. “Now we need heat. It’s getting colder in here.”
“You can forget about that.”
“Please don’t tell me the furnace doesn’t work.”
“It probably does. But it’s part of a full system for here and the buildings near the house. The thing is, the controls to get it primed and going are in a side room in the hay barn.”
“Okay. How do I get to the hay barn?”
“You don’t. You don’t know the system, and I’m not going out tonight to do it.”
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 50