Cowboy 12 Pack
Page 109
Jamie jumped and looked around.
But the women surged on, not a one of them giving him a second glance. He turned around. Rob was at the far side of the corral, leading his horse through the gate. Who the heck had pinched him? He didn’t have a clue.
What if whoever it was did it again when Claire was watching?
He could lose her for good.
CLAIRE SAT AT the small, square table in the corner of Morgan’s motel room, gazing out the window at the cars and trucks in the parking lot below.
Morgan finally sat down across from her. Her face was red and mottled, her hair damp around the edges from the water she’d splashed on it to wash away her tears. “I knew something was wrong. Really wrong. But my dad said to leave her be. He said she’d come back around when she was ready. I can’t believe she’s gone.” Her voice was ragged and strained.
Telling Morgan about their mother’s death was one of the hardest, ugliest things Claire had ever had to do. The other woman’s obvious heartbreak made it impossible to hold onto her own rage and now all she felt was tired and empty.
“She never told you anything about me, did she?” Morgan went on.
“Nope. Nothing.” But if she’d had any reservations about whether Morgan was really Aria’s daughter, they went out the window the moment she saw her. Morgan looked like Aria. They both did. No one would be surprised to find out they were sisters.
“I knew all about you.”
Claire looked up in surprise.
Morgan went on. “They had to tell me—the situation was too complicated.”
“In what way?”
“My father has a wife, Amy. They were already married when he had the affair with Mom and he didn’t want to leave her when Aria got pregnant with me. He has other children, you know—two of them. They’re both in Vancouver now. Mom decided she still loved your dad and wanted to go back to him—back to Montana—but she was afraid he would ditch her if she came home with a child. So my dad’s parents raised me. He saw me on weekends once or twice a month and Mom would come for several months at a time when she could. Gramma and Gramps were my mainstays.”
“I can’t believe she lied to us all those years.” Claire couldn’t believe any of this. She wanted to stare at Morgan—to force herself to see that she was real—that this was the daughter her Mom really wanted to be with, the one she left her for so many times.
“She made a mistake, and then she did the best she could, I guess.” Morgan swiped at another tear that leaked from her eye.
“This is the best she could? Sneaking around, lying, cheating on my Dad?”
“She was young, Claire. Haven’t you ever made a mistake? I know I have.”
Sure, she’d made plenty of mistakes. Trusting Daniel. Sleeping with Jamie. But nothing compared to the colossal mess her mother had made of all their lives.
“She let you grow up alone and she nearly bankrupted my family.”
Morgan looked up. “Bankrupted you? How?”
“The trips. All that money she spent on you!”
Morgan shook her head. “I’m sure the plane tickets cost a bit and she bought me things now and then, but her visits shouldn’t have been that expensive. She lived with my grandparents and me when she came. Once I was grown up and on my own, she stayed at my apartment.”
“I’ll bet she paid for that apartment.”
“No, she didn’t,” Morgan said firmly. “And she didn’t pay for my grandparents’ expenses either. I talked about it all with them. They disapproved of Mom and wouldn’t take her money. They did their duty as they saw it—allowed her to visit and gave her a room when she was there—but they weren’t chummy with her. I think they felt that if she paid for everything she could take me away whenever she wanted to.” She sighed. “They meant well. They just thought she wasn’t a very good mother.”
“She must have bought you things, though—meals, clothes, bicycles, cars?” Claire challenged.
“Meals and clothes, sure, sometimes. She never bought me a car. Maybe if you guys didn’t have much money to begin with I could see it putting a strain on your budget, but she always talked about the ranch like it was doing quite well.”
“However she spent it, she spent it,” Claire said. “Believe me, we’re still recovering from it.” Or, at least, Ethan and Autumn were. She was just fine, although her recent expenditures had nibbled away at her six hundred thousand dollars.
“Mom was pretty frugal,” Morgan persisted. “I mean, she worked when she was in Victoria.”
“What?” It was Claire’s turn to look up in shock. Aria Cruz hadn’t worked a day in her life, if you didn’t count weeding the kitchen garden.
“At the University. She was a research assistant in the Anthropology Department. Dad was such a big shot, he made it happen for her. Otherwise there’s no way they’d put up with her erratic comings and goings.”
Claire folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window again.
She didn’t know her mother at all.
BY THE TIME Jamie and the women arrived at the watering hole, Rob was there and he’d brought his brothers along. Jamie breathed a sigh of relief. Four extra cowboys ought to dilute the attention from him a bit. He’d been on edge since the butt pinch, constantly looking over his shoulder to catch one of the ladies sneaking up on him again.
It wasn’t right, women coming on to men so boldly. He was as big a flirt as they came, ordinarily, but he liked to get the ball rolling, not be bulldozed by a woman’s advances. He still didn’t know who the culprit was, either. Liz, most likely. Maybe Adrienne, although she seemed to be making a play for Rob. Plucky Maddy was a possibility, but not Christine—she was married. And certainly not Angel who even now was floating lazily in the water like some kind of nymph.
Rob and his oldest brother, Jake, stood waist deep in the water tossing a foam football around with Maddy and Liz. Adrienne sat on the bank of the creek with her legs in the current, deep in discussion with Ned—Rob’s second oldest brother. Christine, still on dry ground, was slathering sunscreen on every inch of exposed skin. Luke, the last of the Mathesons, had a bucket full of water and was creeping up behind Rob. Jamie waited for the inevitable result and wasn’t disappointed. As soon as the cold water splashed down over Rob’s head, he spun around and tackled Luke. Both went underwater and came back up shouting and sputtering.
Happy that the women’s attention was directed away from him, Jamie took his time stripping down to his swim trunks and moved a few yards away before slipping into the cool water. He forgot to worry about who had pinched his butt earlier and instead focused on Claire. How was her interview with Morgan going? How had the woman reacted? What did this long-lost daughter of Aria Cruz look like?
Claire and Ethan had a sister. How weird was that?
“Jamie! Jamie, come on!”
He opened his eyes to find that all-out war had broken out in Chance Creek. The three older Mathesons had ganged up on Rob. The ladies were rallying around him, splashing his brothers with everything they had. The whole creek roiled with their thrashing arms and kicking feet.
Which side should he join? A grin split his face.
A few quick strokes brought him in line with Jake, Ned and Luke.
“Traitor!” Rob gasped as a well-time splash from Ned filled his mouth with water. The women squealed and shrieked and for just a minute he forgot all of his troubles as he sent wave after wave cascading toward them.
“Take that!” Maddy called, slapping her hands on the surface of the creek. He retaliated with a wall of water that broke over the crown of her head. Laughing, she surged forward, drumming her arms into the water and slamming into him. He caught her around the waist, but lost his footing and they both submerged. Underwater, bubbles streamed from her mouth as she continued to laugh. When they managed to stand up, she leaned against his chest, breathing hard. “I guess you win,” she said, her sunny smile undeterred.
“Now you have to join our side,” h
e said, all too aware of Maddy’s shapely, bikini-clad breasts pressed against his skin. Shit, he was touching her. Good thing Claire wasn’t here to see. He carefully detached himself and sighed in relief when she didn’t cling to him. Instead, she pushed off and went after Christine.
Jake stumbled over to him, under assault by Adrienne. “This is what you do for a living, Jamie? Hell, I wouldn’t mind your job.”
“You couldn’t handle my job,” Jamie said.
Adrienne sent a sheet of water his way. “Get back on our side where you belong. You’re supposed to be taking care of us.”
He shouldered Jake aside and went after Adrienne himself. For a skinny woman she sure kicked up a heck of a lot of water. When another of her assaults caught him square in the face, he dove forward and dunked her, hard.
Unlike Maddy, Adrienne didn’t find this funny. She surged to her feet before he could even get his bearings and jumped on top of him, forcing him back under the water just as he came up for air. She caught at his hair, wrapped her fingers around it and pushed him down again.
Flailing around, Jamie managed to get an arm behind him and take hold of her waist. Using his superior weight as a lever, he pulled her down and pushed himself up at the same time, exchanging their positions. She let go of his hair and scrabbled at his chest. When he finally let her go and they both surfaced, she hit him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t drown me. What the hell are you doing?”
“Playing.” She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling—her breasts rising and falling. Heck, why couldn’t these women be ugly?
“If you’re going to play you better be sure you can take as well as you give,” he said. He had no patience with crybabies. Claire had always kept up with the boys. Heck, she’d often led them.
“Oh, I can take as well as I can give, cowboy. You can be sure of that,” she said, and brushed past him, her fingertips skimming down his arm. She squeezed his hand meaningfully, then let go, splashing her way back to the others.
Lord have mercy. Claire had better stay in town for the rest of the week or he was going to lose this bet before sundown.
He shouldn’t have participated in the waterfight at all, now that he thought about it. Claire was right—he was nothing but a flirt.
Time to mend his ways.
“SO YOU’LL BE going back to Victoria, now, right?” Claire asked. She stood by the door, itching to be on the other side of it, back in her car and on her way home. This visit had upset her even more than she’d imagined. All those years she’d longed to have her mother’s undivided attention, and now she knew what had kept her on her months’ long trips abroad. Somehow knowing she’d been spending time with another daughter was worse than thinking she was shacking up with another man. If she strayed from her marriage it was her husband’s fault. If she felt the need to spend time with another daughter, had it been from some failing of Claire’s?
No. Of course not. What a childish thought.
She felt like a child right now. She longed to see her mother again—to confront her. To have Aria tell her that she was the only daughter she really loved. To have her say that she loved her at all. Her mother had loved her, hadn’t she? A familiar ache filled her chest at the knowledge she’d never see her again to ask.
Morgan was blinking back tears, too. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s been dead for months and I didn’t even know. I always came second with her. She always put you and Ethan first. She loved you two so much.”
Claire stiffened, anger quickly replacing her sorrow. “Are you kidding? She took off to see you all the time. She was never here when I needed her! Don’t pretend you’re the injured party in this.”
Morgan’s eyes went wide. “You think you have it worse than me? You have your brother still. You have the ranch. You belong somewhere. I have nothing!”
“You have your father and your grandparents.”
Morgan shook her head. “My grandparents are dead and I share my dad with two other half-siblings who hate my guts. Do you know how hard that’s been?”
“Do you know how hard it’s been to have your mother leave for months at a time and not even know where she is?” Claire stood her ground. Morgan wasn’t going to steal her right to mourn all that she’d lost.
Morgan pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “This is insane. We’ve both lost our mother. We’re both heartbroken. We don’t have to be enemies, you know. We could help each other.”
“How?” Claire took a step closer to the door. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She just wanted to go home and forget all about her brand new half-sister.
“We could start by piecing the whole story together—filling each other in on the details. There are a lot of things I’d like to know—about Mom, and about you and Ethan.”
Claire stared at her. “You think we’re going to be one big happy family now, don’t you—now that my father’s dead? You think we’re going to hold our arms open and welcome you to the fold?”
Morgan looked stricken. “I just thought we could talk.”
“No.” Claire grabbed the door handle. “You thought a lot more than that. You thought you’d weasel your way in and become part of the family. One of us. A Cruz. Well, forget it. You might be Aria’s daughter, but you’ll never be my sister. Leave us alone.”
She whipped through the door and slammed it behind her, running down the exterior hallway and concrete stairs to the parking lot. Propelled by the fear that Morgan would come after her, she picked up speed as she hit the pavement. She had almost made it to her car when a man intercepted her, stepping out from behind a pickup truck.
“Claire. I thought that was you.”
She wanted to groan. Daniel. What was he doing here?
“Get out of my way,” she said and tried to push past him. He caught hold of her elbow.
“Not so fast. I heard you’re sniffing around my contract with Carl Whitfield. Do I really have to remind you what will happen if you poach any more of my clients?”
Had he followed her? “He isn’t your client yet. He has the right to choose anyone he pleases. I was already on my own when I approached him.” She tried to pull away from his grip, but he tightened it.
“Keep away from him.”
“Keep away from me!” She shoved him with both palms. He overbalanced and fell back against a Chevy Malibu, but was on his feet and in her face before she could move. He clutched the fabric of her shirt at her throat and pushed her backward until she was pressed against a panel van.
“You don’t scare me, Claire Cruz. You’re a bitch and a know-it-all and the biggest shrew in Billings, but you’re weak and pathetic and a washup as an interior designer. You have no style. How could you? You’ve never been anywhere except Montana. Your mother should have taken you with her on a few of those trips of hers. Oh, I forgot. She didn’t want your sorry ass along for the ride. Too busy screwing other guys, right? Wasn’t that your sob story? So freaking pathetic.” He loomed over her, forcing Claire to crane her neck just to look him in the eye. She wanted to say something back—something just as biting and cruel, but words failed her. She’d never seen Daniel like this. Sure, he could be mean; he yelled like a sonofabitch when he didn’t get his way. One time he’d even punched a hole in her kitchen wall. But he’d never pushed her around.
She tried to shove him away, and when that didn’t work she kicked him in the shin, but she barely grazed him, he was standing so close. Daniel just laughed. He bent down and whispered in her ear, “I always wondered what it would be like to get a little rough with you. You’re such a fighter. I bet you’d like it. What do you say? We could get a room.”
“Bastard!”
“Leave her alone. Get off of her!”
Morgan appeared around the side of the van brandishing a baseball bat. When Daniel didn’t move, she wound up and swung it at him, landing a solid thump on his back.
> “You bitch!” Daniel dropped Claire and spun on his heel, grabbing for the bat. Morgan pulled it out of his reach, wound up again and swung. “Damn it!”
“Go. Away.” Morgan hit him again. “I’ll pound you into the pavement, asshole!”
Daniel warded off her blows with raised arms. “Keep away from Carl, Claire,” he shouted as he darted toward his BMW. “You talk to him again and I’ll be back.” The sportscar’s engine roared to life and he peeled out of the parking lot. Claire watched him go, stunned.
“Are you okay?” Morgan asked, rushing up to her and putting a hand on her arm.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She shrugged her off. “I’m totally fine. I could have handled that myself.”
Morgan blinked. “You looked like you needed a little help.” She leaned on the bat.
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Look, Claire. I know you’re upset. I’m upset, too…”
“You don’t know anything,” Claire blazed, realizing as she said the words she was being entirely unfair. She didn’t care. When had life been fair to her? “Just leave me alone, would you?”
This time she made it to her car and when she left the parking lot, Morgan stood back and watched her go.
Chapter Fifteen
‡
“WE’D BETTER HEAD back to the Big House,” Jamie said to the women sunning themselves on the riverbank. “Autumn will have dinner ready for us soon. We wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”
Maddy sat up and began to gather her things, but the other women moved more slowly. He’d wager half of them had fallen asleep where they lay in the sunshine. The Mathesons were long gone back to their own ranch, after Jake and Ned made pointed comments about how hard he was working.
Let them envy his job. It wasn’t turning out to be nearly as easy as he thought it would be, and he missed Claire today. Not that she was a whole lot of fun lately. He wished they could go back to their teenage days, just for a little while. Back then, Claire knew how to enjoy life. She’d pursued everything with a fearlessness that left him speechless with admiration. Unfortunately she’d pursued Mack just as fearlessly and he’d been more than a match for her.