Play Me (Barnes Brothers Book 2)

by Alison Kent

  “I thought chores were a normal part of ranch life,” she said, checking the heat of the milk with a fingertip.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want anything to do with the ranch.” He watched Sophie lick the milk from her finger and tried to remember what he’d started to say. “I was ten when my folks died. Gardner was twenty-two. He was too busy trying to save Camelot to spend a lot of time coddling a pesky kid brother. The dog may have been a gift from his guilty conscience but she was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Is she the reason you decided to become a vet?”

  Tyler glanced over Sophie’s shoulder at Cowboy to avoid the probing question but more so to avoid Sophie’s probing gaze. “She was a big part of it, yeah. She got me through a really hard time.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  He looked back at her. “Nothing to be sorry for. It happened a long time ago and I got over it not long after.”

  “You still think about Guinevere?”

  “I haven’t for a long time.”

  “Even with all the animals you see?”

  “Most of them are working animals, as much ranch hands as the men who run the spreads.”

  “No family pets?”

  “Not in the sense that I needed Guin.” Time to get down to business. “Or the way that you need Cowboy.”

  “I don’t need him. He’s just…” Her voice trailed; her gaze drifted down to her dog. Her expression settled into one of sweet contentment.

  “Tell me about him.”

  Her head came up and Tyler watched her struggle to find the words before she gave an exasperated shake of her head and poured the milk into the mugs. But he wasn’t about to drop the subject now that her lips were moving.

  Circling around behind her, he hunkered down and appraised Cowboy with a look he hoped Sophie would consider a professional assessment. “I’ll say one thing. He’s too well-tended to have been picked up as a stray.”

  “Actually he was.”

  “Well, you couldn’t prove it by me,” he said, glad they were finally getting somewhere.

  “Thank you,” she said and carried their mugs to the table.

  She settled cross-legged into her chair. He took the one directly opposite and sipped the milk he didn’t really want, watching while she ran one finger around the rim of her mug, dipping into the froth of bubbles at the edge.

  The conversation seemed to have fizzled. But instead of tossing out another prompt, he waited, sitting across from her, sipping his milk. His black jeans hung over the chair to his right, his shirt over the one to his left.

  Sophie finally stirred, drawing her knees to her chest and the flannel down to her toes. She cradled her mug between her palms, balanced it on her knees and lifted a stark gaze.

  “I was cleaning my mother’s apartment, going through her things after she died. I found the litter of retrievers in a Dumpster.” She glanced over to where Cowboy lay on the braided rag rug in the center of the kitchen. “He was the only one alive and so small I didn’t think he’d make it. Especially since I didn’t have a clue about the care he’d need. Or how to give it.”

  She brought the mug to her lips, blew across the trembling surface, then gently sipped. Staring into the liquid, she continued. “I thought a lot about his mother. What she went through once she found out her pups were gone. And if whoever left the litter in the Dumpster finally got tired of her, too.”

  “I’m sorry. About your mother.”

  Sophie shook her head. “It had been a long time coming.”

  “It’s still never easy.”

  “Nothing about my mother was easy.” Her sharp laugh reflected the bitterness in her tone. “She’d been sick for a while and worsened progressively over those last couple of years. I went by as often as I could but I was living away on campus and… well, she wasn’t about to move from her home or accept outside help. As long as she was capable of seeing to her own needs, there wasn’t much I could do.”

  “And you’re still beating yourself up over it, aren’t you?”

  She shrugged. “I was going to school full-time but I still managed to get in a few hours of temp work now and then. As long as I didn’t mention the groceries I’d bought, she didn’t mention the extra food in her pantry.”

  “Sounds like you did all you could.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe what I did was all I wanted to do,” she admitted, then downed the rest of her milk. Wiping her lips, she returned her feet to the floor and the mug to the table.

  Elbows propped on either side, she leaned her forehead against the heels of her palms. “At the end, a hospice volunteer came every day. But up until that point, my mother refused help. She was never a happy woman.”

  “Even when you were a child?” Tyler asked, intrigued as much by her willingness to talk as by her tale.

  “Especially when I was a child.” She looked at him from beneath the tent of her arms. “Life was easier for both of us when I was finally old enough to take care of myself. My father left when I was five and I never could figure why she didn’t send me with him.”

  Tyler leaned back, stretched his legs out under the table, crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you see him often?”

  “I haven’t seen him since. I used to wait for him to swoop in like a caped crusader and rescue me. When I finally realized he wasn’t going to, I wanted to know why, to know what kept him away. After my mother died, I found letters he’d written. Six of them. One on my birthday each year until I turned eleven. He’d asked her to let him make a home for me.”

  Her sigh was heavy with resignation and a touch of sadness. “I don’t know why she didn’t let me go. Or if he stopped writing because she never answered.”

  “Have you tried to find him?”

  Nodding, she straightened, braced a forearm on the table, and twirled her empty mug with her other hand. “I knew he’d worked construction and I had vague memories of where. I did what I could with that information but it never seemed to be enough. And entry-level engineering jobs won’t pay for a private detective.”

  “You’re an engineer?”

  She nodded, added a tiny laugh. “Electrical. With absolutely no practical experience.”

  “Bet you make a damn good electrician.”

  “Not that the degree has much to do with the hands-on but I do. So did my father. From the inquiries I made, I found out he’d been doing the same type of traveling construction work that I’m doing now,” she said and shrugged. “It may seem like I’m wasting a good education but I love the travel and the uncomplicated lifestyle. The pay is great and I’ve socked away enough money that once I find my father I’ll be able to go back for my master’s.”

  Tyler latched on to that telling bit of information. “Why haven’t you used some of that money to hire an investigator to find your father?”

  “Because I can’t afford to do both.”

  “So the degree is more important.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Okay, then, how long do you plan to put off your degree and continue the search on your own?” She flattened her lips in answer, so Tyler went ahead and intentionally put his big foot in his big mouth. “Sounds a lot like you’re avoiding the future, not planning for it.”

  “Finding my father is very important to me.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “You said yourself you haven’t seen him since you were five. Haven’t had any contact in fact. He did the leaving, he hasn’t tried to contact you in fifteen years—”

  “That I know of,” she interrupted, obviously needing to give her father the benefit of the doubt.

  “Okay. That you know of. Your mother clearly wanted him out of your life. But you’re not a child any longer. You’re an adult with a driver’s license, a social security number, a voter’s registration. He shouldn’t have had any trouble finding you. So, why are you the one looking?”

 
“Because he’s family.” She ran an agitated hand through her hair. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Oh, I understand. It’s been just my brother and uncle and me since I was ten. Now there’s Harley and the boys but to tell you the truth, even before my folks died, Gardner and Jud were the only real family I had. But life goes on, you know,” Tyler continued. “I did. I didn’t wait to clear up the past before moving forward.”

  “And you think that’s what I’m doing?”

  He rolled one shoulder as noncommittally as possible. This was her confession; for whatever reason, his role was that of confessor.

  Sophie came up out of her chair. “Well, I think you need to stick to analyzing animals because you don’t have a clue about people.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yes, I think so. The only reason I told you this was so that you’d understand that I’ll be leaving soon and why what happened earlier won’t happen again. Why nothing will come of it.” She settled her hands at her hips. “Why it didn’t mean anything.”

  Silence settled around them, the sound louder than the rain furiously pounding the cabin roof. Tyler dragged air into his lungs; the same air that, minutes ago, had been comfortable to breathe was now resonant with the weight of the stories they’d shared. The source of the tense hum wasn’t hard to figure.

  Scraping back his chair, Tyler got to his feet, grabbed Sophie’s mug, and his nearly full one and carried both to the sink. He rinsed the mugs as well as the pan, taking his time, using the sound of Sophie’s breathing to measure the urgency in the room.

  Finally, he turned off the water, grabbed up a towel and walked toward her while drying his hands. “You can say whatever you want, and say it often enough to convince yourself it’s the truth, but you’ll still be wrong. The real truth is that tonight meant everything and we both know it.”

  He tossed the towel onto the table. “Now, I’m tired. It’s been a long and lousy day. Let’s go to bed.”

  FIVE

  Going to bed with Sophie didn’t turn out exactly how Tyler had hoped.

  If Cowboy hadn’t been so well-trained, the dog would have been on the mattress where Sophie obviously wanted him instead of camped out on the floor—and there wouldn’t have been room for Tyler at all.

  He had trouble getting comfortable as it was, what with Sophie curled in a ball at the uppermost edge of the bed, and the intimacy they’d shared on this very floor stabbing at him like porcupine quills.

  And if Scrabble hadn’t turned into sex earlier tonight, he might not have backed away from her spiny rejection. Instead, he might have enjoyed talking his way out of his T-shirt and sweats and into her warm red flannel.

  But they had made love and when Sophie said he was better at analyzing animals than people, she’d been wrong.

  He knew she’d been hurt.

  He knew he’d played a part.

  And he’d bet money her distress came from the same place as his confusion. Figuring out how to deal with both was going to take some time.

  So instead of wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, he spent the night thinking of ways to pierce her prickly exterior, to reach the softness he’d glimpsed when she’d talked of rescuing Cowboy, to find the same openness he’d seen when she’d told of a little girl’s dream to be rescued by her father.

  Arms crossed beneath his head, he lay on his back and sorted through the evening’s discussions, searching the dovetailed ceiling beams for clues while listening to the dog’s soft wuffles, the soothing spit and spark of fire, the relentless rush of rain on the roof.

  Listening until he heard the sudden catch of Sophie’s indrawn breath.

  He turned his head to the side, saw her pull her blanket tighter, witnessed the way she reached for her dog, the way she tucked her knees close to her chest and did her best to disappear.

  Aw, hell, he thought as tears tracked down her cheeks. He counted them—one, two—as they clung to the curve of her nose—three—and fell—four. Those four tiny tears delivered a sucker punch where buckets of boo-hooing had failed in the past

  This was real and she was hurt. He wanted to hold her and comfort her and tell her he’d been as caught off guard as she. But it was too late.

  Time had run out. He needed to go. He couldn’t wait, holding out false hope that she’d open up to him—especially when, judging by the small lump of blankets she’d become, he’d soon be sleeping with a dog and pixie dust.

  When a rainy gray haze filtered through the window at dawn, Tyler rolled to his knees. He stirred the coals in the grate, made sure Sophie was covered, then grabbed up an extra blanket and draped it over his body.

  After fishing his key ring out of the boot where he’d dropped it, he eased the front door open. Cowboy lifted his head. The look in the dog’s eyes said, “Thanks, but I’ll wait for Sophie.” And Tyler answered, “Suit yourself.”

  The blowing rain soaked the blanket the minute he stepped off the porch. Icy water ran beneath the T-shirt’s ribbed neckband and sluiced down his torso, seeping into his drawstring waist. Thick mud oozed between his toes. The legs of the borrowed sweats grew waterlogged as he sloshed through ankle-deep puddles to reach his truck that had sunk to its rims in red clay.

  Once inside, he switched on the ignition and tuned in the radio to Camelot’s frequency. Shivering, he waited for Gardner to answer. And while he waited he thought of the kitchen at home and smiled at the mental picture of the morning chaos.

  He could see the eight ranch hands, who got a big kick out of rough-housing with Harley’s boys. The boys, who had the population of Camelot wrapped around their collective little fingers. Harley, who managed the commotion like a trail boss and still allowed Jud to think he was in charge. Gardner, who watched from the sidelines with the goofiest damn grin spread all over his face.

  Yeah. That’s what family was about. It wasn’t about a man who disappeared for twenty-one years without a word to his daughter. Or about a woman who stepped out of the picture and let her daughter raise herself.

  Tyler had the strangest feeling that Sophie’s search was for what he had at Camelot even more than for her father. And though she hadn’t asked him and he wasn’t even sure why the thought crossed his mind, he knew that kind of family was one thing he could give her.

  Sophie listened to the loud rush of wind and rain as Tyler pulled open the front door. She listened to the crackle and pop of burning wood fed by the whoosh of air up the chimney.

  She listened to the catch of the latch as the door closed then the muffled thud of footsteps across the porch. She didn’t wonder where he was going; she didn’t have time.

  She patted Cowboy’s raised head and got to her feet. The dog yawned, stretched, and lumbered after her. “I’ll take you out in a minute, bud. Let me get some clothes on first.”

  Leaving the blankets in a tangle on the mattress, she hurried into the bedroom, whipped off her nightshirt, and slipped into a pair of jeans, a plain white bra and T-shirt, white crew socks, and tan work boots.

  She added a hunter green and navy plaid flannel shirt and buttoned the placket to her breastbone, leaving the tails hanging past her hips but double-cuffing the sleeves.

  Shoving fingers through hair she was sure had dried to look like a feather duster, she removed her contacts from her burning eyes and slipped on a huge pair of round glasses.

  Now she was ready.

  Her plain sexless underwear, her big shirt and baggy jeans, her spiky mop of hair and the shield of the big black frames would never inspire interest from a man like Tyler Barnes. The fact that she needed that lack of interest for a safety net was hard to swallow; the intensity with which she needed it an even more bitter pill.

  But several times during the past few hours, she’d come dangerously close to falling. And she’d do what needed to be done to keep from tumbling into bed with a man she barely knew, a man she certainly didn’t love, just to relieve a physical ache of no consequence.

>   Heading for the back door, she stepped to the side as Cowboy shot past her and off the porch. While he took care of business, she filled his bowl then washed her hands and gathered up the makings of breakfast for two.

  Last night’s sex had been the best she’d ever had. If Tyler had made the slightest effort, he could’ve had her clothes off, had her spread on the warm bed beneath him, had her willing to do anything.

  Anything.

  That wasn’t like her. The two serious relationships she’d had in the past had been short, definitely more cerebral than sexual and, quite frankly, well within her comfort zone.

  Tyler Barnes was so far off the scale she didn’t know how to rate him. He was dangerously, wildly sensual, a man who knew a woman’s body and tempted her recklessly into betraying her beliefs.

  Five minutes under Tyler’s touch and she’d been willing, desperate, to receive him into her body. They hadn’t talked about their sexual pasts; she hadn’t cared.

  Never again.

  Tyler was a temporary distraction, and soon to be part of her past. Her life—her future—was work, the search for her father, her master’s degree. These were her objectives. Solid, attainable goals. Things she could count on to provide the security and stability she required.

  If she hadn’t figured in her physical needs… well… at least this way she wouldn’t have to worry about neglecting her responsibilities while soothing her lust. Last night Cowboy had been the victim when she’d completely forgotten to feed him. In the future, it might be a weightier obligation. Classes. Her job.

  A child.

  She stared at the knife gripped in one hand. No. It would never be a child. Never. If nothing else was certain in her life, that one issue was guaranteed.

  By the time Tyler’s return footsteps jarred the porch, Cowboy had been out and fed and had settled beneath the kitchen table. The oatmeal was cooking and two bowls sat warming on top of the stove.