“This snipin’ at each other won’t get us anywhere, honey.” Jessi could see and feel him working to turn on what he considered the full force of his cowboy charm. “Hell, woman, I didn’t travel all the way out east with Cat Holt just to do battle with you.”
“Cat Holt? You came to New Brunswick with Cat Holt?”
“Yeah, well, sort of. Damn it, must be the wine. That was a stupid slip.”
“How do you ‘sort of’ travel with a woman? Is she your latest…what I’m too much of a lady to say?”
“No, no, nothin’ like that.”
“Then what? You and that woman arriving here at the same time does seem a little too coincidental.”
“It’s like this. I was goin’ into Simon Shoeman’s office to check out some schedulin’ when I caught the tail end of his phone conversation with Ross. By the time he’d hung up, I had a plan. I’d offer to come down here to see how Ross was doin’.”
“And of course Simon would pay your way.”
“Not at first. He said he knew about you and me and how you were with Ross now. He didn’t seem to think I was a good candidate for the job. Then his eyes kind of lit up, and he said Cat Holt would do just fine. If anyone could get Ross back on the circuit, she could.”
“So how did you manage to come along with her?”
“I did a bit of fancy talkin’, convinced him that Ross would never come back if he was all snuggly with you here in New Brunswick, but once I arrived, you’d leave him in a cloud of dust.”
“Always so cocksure of yourself, aren’t you, Clint!” Flinging her napkin onto her plate, Jessi jumped to her feet. “Just watch me leave you in a cloud of dust.”
She snatched up her shawl and strode out of the restaurant. Clint started to follow, only to be stopped by the cashier.
“Your cheque, sir?” Jessi heard his pursuit halted.
****
“Where can I get a taxi?” Jessi stopped a couple about to enter the restaurant.
“One block over.” The man pointed. “But if you have a cell…” He gave her a number she punched into her phone as he reeled it off.
Once she’d placed her order, she decided it wouldn’t be safe to stay in front of the brightly lighted restaurant. Moving as quickly as she could on her ridiculously high-heeled shoes, she hurried into the shadow of the alley beside the building.
She leaned against the cold brick and held her breath.
“No use tryin’ to hide, baby.” Clint, his face flushed from wine and anger, appeared around the corner and grabbed her arm. “Walk out on me, will you?” The hard planes of his face had become a mask of fury. “Make me look like a fool back there, is that what you were tryin’ to do? Well, let me tell you, Miss High-and-Mighty Jessi Wallace, I’ve had women far better than you, women who know how to satisfy a man, women…”
“Women with no better taste than to get mixed up with a bastard like you!”
Jessi jerked around to see Ross, his expression every bit as bellicose as Clint’s, standing, legs planted shoulder-width apart, a dark silhouette at the alley’s entrance, hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Stalkin’ us, were you, Gimpy?” Clint glared at him, eyes glinting with liquor and anger in the shaft of street light penetrating the alley. “Well, I’ll show you what I think of that kind of slimy behavior!” .
He released Jessi. His right arm flew back. The next instant she flinched as she heard and saw it connect with Ross’s jaw. Ross staggered before retaliating.
“Ross, Clint, no!”
People seemingly out of nowhere appeared at the alley entrance. Someone pulled out a cell phone as blows continued to rain.
Shortly, sirens were wailing toward them.
Jessi leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. She knew better than to try to stop them before the police arrived.
What am I going to tell Laura Turner?
****
Jessi got out of the cab at the farm and paused at the driver’s window to pay.
“Thanks for taking me down the lane,” she said. “I know it’s not the best road in the country.”
“I couldn’t leave a lady to walk that mess in fancy shoes, especially this late in the evening.” The gray-haired driver grinned up at her. “And this old bus, she’s been over worse trails.”
“Nevertheless, I’m grateful.” She added a generous tip to his fare.
“Now, that’s not necessary, miss.” He looked down at the money. “I have a daughter about your age, and I sure wouldn’t want her walking alone down a dark country road.”
“Then use it to buy something for her.” Jessi turned away and headed for the house.
The cab driver kept his headlights focused on the back porch until she’d opened the back door and waved to indicate all was well. As he swung his vehicle away, she stepped into the lighted kitchen. Apparently Ross had left a light burning.
Fox greeted her effusively, capering around and around her.
“You’re not used to being alone, are you, girl.” Jessi pulled off her shoes and dropped down to hug the dog. “Oh, that feels good,” she continued as she wiggled her toes. “I don’t know how women wear heels to work every day.”
For a few moments, she sat on the floor enjoying the dog’s enthusiasm. This whole situation was getting too far out of hand. She’d done her best to fulfill her promise to Laura Turner. There was nothing more she could do. The situation was way too complicated for her. Cat and Ross getting back together. Clint showing up. Clint and Ross fighting, getting arrested. She had to go home, back to Alberta and her parents and her horses. Back to a place and time where she’d been happy, where she’d be happy again. She took her cell from her purse and punched in a number.
“Hello, Jake. Hope I didn’t wake you. No, no, we’re all safe and sound. But I do need to ask a favor. Can you take care of Fox for a while? I’m heading back to Alberta in the morning, and Ross is in jail. Yes, that’s right, I said in jail.”
After promising to give him details in the morning, Jessi ended the call and sat with her back against the door. There, it was done. She was leaving. Exhausted, she dragged herself to her feet and headed for the bathroom. She needed a hot shower, followed by a shot of Ross’s whisky and, hopefully, the oblivion of sleep.
****
“Hope you’re real proud of yourself, Turner.” Clint Harrison glared across the jail corridor from his cell into Ross’s. “Bad enough gettin’ arrested for fightin’, but spendin’ the entire night in this pigsty all because this excuse for a town has only one judge and he won’t be back from fishin’ until noon today… If there wasn’t a bunch of steel bars between us, I’d punch you out again.”
“Yeah, right.” Ross slumped down onto the bunk where he’d spent the night and glared at his bloody knuckles. Idiot. Fool. Getting yourself into a mess like this…and all for a woman who doesn’t give a damn about you.
“Clint Harrison.” A mountie came into the cell area and went to open the man’s cell. “Someone convinced the judge to come in early. Come along. He’s waiting in the courtroom.”
“Well, now, isn’t that too sweet.” Clint stepped out as the mountie opened the cell door. “I’ll bet there’s someone just waitin’ to bail me out, too? Pretty little lady with golden-blond hair, name of Wallace?” He raised his eyebrows in question to the officer as Ross rose to his feet, clenched jaw ticking.
“Come along, sir.” The corporal wasn’t about to indulge in conversation with a man in torn dress pants and dirty shirt, a day’s growth of stubble making him look all the more disreputable.
“See ya, Turner.” The bronc rider grinned at the man still in a cell. “By the time you get out, me and Jess will be Alberta bound.”
As the pair left the cell area with Clint Harrison whistling the tune that matched his words, Ross once more dropped down on his bunk. He slammed his fisted right hand into the palm of his left, then grimaced at the pain it caused.
Jess, leaving with that bum.
She deserves so much better.
****
Two hours later, the mountie who’d taken Clint from his cell returned.
“Someone is here to get me out?” Ross stood, hearing the words come out like he was an eager school kid.
Man, I feel dirty and sweaty. I need a shower and clean clothes.
“That’s right. A man named Jake Brooks.”
“Jake?” Glad as he was to be getting out of jail, he couldn’t stop the flicker of disappointment. He’d been hoping Jessi…but she’d already bailed out that bum Clint.
“Oh, and by the way.” The mountie’s words made Ross stop in the cell doorway. “Clint Harrison’s release wasn’t financed by any blond lady. The woman had long black hair.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.” Something in Ross’s gut revived. “Good to know.”
“It’s corporal…yet. No thanks necessary. This is a jail, not a torture chamber. I figured your thinking that man left with someone important to you might be causing you some unnecessary discomfort.”
****
“Thanks, Jake.” A half hour later Ross paused beside his truck that had been left parked in the restaurant lot and turned to the other man. “The last time I got busted for fighting must have been ten or fifteen years ago…stupid kid stuff.”
“I think we all went through those events…part of growing up.” Jake grinned at him.
“Yeah, well, I’m a little old for it these days. Won’t happen again. Right now I’m heading for the nearest ATM. I owe you big time, and the least I can do is get your money back.”
“No need. I didn’t pay your bond.”
“Then who? Jess? Was it Jess?”
His words lilted. She had cared, only she’d been too stubborn or proud, or maybe a bit of both, to come to the jail and to court herself.
“Jessi is on her way back to Calgary.” Jake drew his lips into a grim line. “Sorry, buddy. “She left for Moncton with Grady early this morning. He had to pick up a horse down there. She’s flying out on a noon flight.”
Something dropped like a stone in his gut. Jess, gone. He didn’t have to be psychic to know what that meant. She’d had enough. Even her perceived debt to his mother wasn’t enough to keep her with him after all the stupid stunts he’d pulled. And what she must have thought about him and Cat…
“Alone, except for Grady?” It was all he could come up with.
“Alone except for Grady.”
“Well, that’s something.” He pulled open his truck door. “I’ll be getting back to the farm and a shower and clean clothes. But I haven’t forgotten what you did for me…you and some mysterious money person.”
“Hold on a minute, Ross. You don’t have to tell me, but I admit I’m curious. What caused all this trouble? You and Jessi seemed to be doing pretty good.”
Ross paused to look squarely at the man he considered his friend, a confidant. “Okay, here goes.” He told about their fight, about his leaving with Cat, about her throwing whisky over him when he told her he wasn’t going to spend the night, about the road closure, about going back to the farm to find her dressed for a date with Clint Harrison, about the fight.
“All pretty damned stupid stuff, right?” he finished and waited for Jake’s reaction.
“Not for a man in love.”
“Ah, come on, Jake. I’m not ready to go there…at least not yet. And I’d be real grateful if you kept all this to yourself. Now, thanks again. I have to get going.”
“Not a problem, my man. See you soon.” Jake started off, calling back, “You’ll have to come over to pick up your dog. Jessi left her with us.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ross plunked the pizza box onto the table in the farmhouse kitchen and sucked in a deep breath. Silence and the shadows of a late autumn afternoon surrounded him. Silence and aloneness. Funny, he hadn’t minded when he’d first come here. In fact, he’d welcomed it after all the doctors and all the questions of family and friends. But then Jessi had come, and everything had changed.
He looked at the pile of cleanly laundered towels stacked on the dryer, at the clean countertops and scrubbed sink. Even the worn board floors had been swept.
Hell. Does everything have to remind me of her?
He gave his head a shake and went to the refrigerator for a beer. It’ll be better once I get Fox back. I’ll eat, shower, and head over to the Ebony M. Hell, I should be relieved the woman’s gone. No more danger of getting trapped by my mother’s nefarious little scheme.
But later, as he moved around the house, showering and putting on clean clothes—clothes she’d laundered—relief wasn’t among the emotions he experienced. The tidy bathroom and, most disturbing of all, her bed stripped and with bedding neatly folded on its top, brought an unpleasant tightness across his chest.
Jesus, am I having a heart attack? Hell, no. It’s just indigestion from eating that pizza way too fast. A bit of that pink stuff I bought when I was living here alone and eating God only knows what junk will fix me right up.
A half hour later, he climbed into his truck and headed for the Ebony M to collect Fox.
****
“Uncle Ross!” Katie Rose and Fox burst out of the farmhouse and down the steps as he braked to a stop near the verandah.
“Hey, cowgirl!” He caught her up in his arms as he got out and she reached him. “How’s my favorite lady?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at him with a feigned innocence. “You’ll have to ask Aunt Jessi.”
“Monkey.” He tossed her, squealing, into the air before placing her firmly on the ground. He welcomed Fox’s cavorting greeting with a pat. “You’re looking fit, Miss Fox.”
“She’s fine.” Katie Rose grasped Ross’s hand to lead him into the house, then stopped, gazing at his knuckles with wide-eyed astonishment.
“Uncle Ross, what happened?” She looked up at him.
“Uncle Ross fell down.” Jake appeared in the front door, Shelby by his side. “You know how rickety his front steps are.”
“They are pretty bad.” Ross was relieved to see she was accepting the explanation. “And falling off the porch can hurt. Does it hurt, Uncle Ross? Did Aunt Jessi wash your hands and put stuff on them?”
At a loss for an answer, Ross looked at the couple on the veranda for help.
“Katie Rose, Aunt Jessi was just visiting from Alberta.” Shelby came down the steps and walked over to the pair. “She has horses and a father and mother out there. She had to go home to be with them.”
“Oh.” Katie Rose continued to hold Ross’s hand as she looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ross. Please don’t be lonely. You can come over here anytime, can’t he, Mommy?”
“He certainly can.” Shelby’s gaze met Ross’s. The understanding and outright sympathy he saw reflected there went right to his heart. She, her husband, and this imp of a child would keep any feeling of loss he might experience at bay.
It would be enough. It had to be.
****
Jessi woke in her bed at her parents’ ranch and for a moment lay staring up at the pine beams overhead. Where was the cracked plaster? Then it all came back in a rush. She was home. This morning there would be no Ross moodily drinking his coffee, no little red dog’s exuberant greeting.
She pulled herself out of bed and sighed. She should be glad to be rid of the man and his grumbling, of his thwarting her attempts to bring him back to the land of the living. But she wasn’t.
Memories of him scooping Katie Rose from a frightened pony before the child landed in Chaleur Bay, of him kneeling beside an injured dog, of him struggling to swim ashore, of him sporting that silly milk moustache…of his spectacular kisses.
She gave herself a sharp mental shake as she headed into the bathroom and forced herself to remember the way he’d looked and smelled after his night with Cat Holt, of his attempts to rid himself of Jessi Wallace, the woman he saw as part of one of his mother’s schemes to get him settled down and off the rodeo circuit.
&nbs
p; But as she turned on the water and stepped into the warm spray, she felt her lips twitch upward as she recalled the one-way ticket he’d provided in an attempt to return her to Alberta. First class. Hardly cruel or nasty.
She forced her thoughts back to his night with Cat and later his bar-style fight with Clint Harrison. Oh, yeah, Ross Turner and Clint Harrison had a lot in common. She’d hold that thought…and banish the others…especially those about the earth-shaking kisses and blue eyes of a man who’d saved a stray dog and rescued a little girl…twice…and been nothing but a gentleman even though he was sharing a sort of bedroom with her.
She’d put him out of her mind and concentrate on her work. Her mother had said she’d had a barrage of calls from prospective clients while she was gone. Catching up should be enough to drive that man out of her mind…at least temporarily.
As she pulled on her jeans, her cell rang. Relief flooded over her as she saw Shelby’s ID. Good, not Clint.
“Hi, Shelby. What’s happening in New Brunswick?”
“Quite a bit, actually…where you and Ross are concerned. Jessi, Jake told me something last night I think you should know. Ross confessed to him that nothing happened between him and Cat Holt that night at the hotel.”
“What! Ross told Jake? When, why…?”
A sea of questions flooded from her.
“Just be quiet and listen, my friend. But you must never, never tell anyone I told you.”
“If it’s supposed to be a secret, how did you get it out of Jake? I’m assuming Ross asked him not to tell anyone.”
“Last night was Jake’s birthday.” Shelby’s sly chuckle came over the phone. “We were sharing a lovely bottle of wine after we got Katie Rose to bed, and somehow we got talking romance…ours first…then it segued into yours and Ross’s. And Jake made a slip…something about Ross being too proud and bullheaded to tell you he’d made a mistake in going off with Cat. So there.” Her voice registered vindication. “He wasn’t guilty of anything more than a foolish bit of reaction to a silly argument. So call him, Jessi…just to see how he’s doing.”
Cowboy Confessions Page 17
