Halfway through dinner, Cricket shocked me walking into the hall. Her hair was back in one of her hair scarves and her eyes were red from crying, although I could tell she tried to cover them up.
My hands stilled on the table as she made herself a plate. I wanted to jump to my feet, run to her and pick her up. If I could have, if she would have let me, I would have carried her away. I wanted to kiss every inch of her swollen eyes and promise her that everything was going to be all right. Oh God, she makes my chest ache.
It took everything in me not to jump up when she approached the table. She made a move to sit next to Ellie, who happened to be sitting next to me, but changed her mind and sat at the complete opposite end of the table.
Damn it!
I watched her every single move, not caring at all if people thought I was psychotic. It wouldn’t have bothered me if they did, not when she was so obviously hurting.
When dinner was over, everyone sat and chatted for a while when the phone rang. Emmett got up to answer and Cricket used the opportunity to try and sneak off, but I followed her and caught her in the main living area.
“Cricket,” I said tenderly.
Instead of brushing me off, as I anticipated, Cricket faced me. “Yes?”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t expected her to be receptive at all, so I just went with the first thing I could think of. “I’m sorry about this morning.”
She smiled delicately. “It’s not a big deal, Spencer,” she said politely, making me feel uneasy.
“No, it was. I’m not exactly sure what I said, but I realize now that I pushed you too far and I’m sorry for that.”
“You just helped me understand what I was too blind to see, and I fixed it. So, I should be thanking you, really.” She smiled affably and turned toward the staircase.
She was acting so strangely, too politely, not at all the easygoing Cricket I was accustomed to. “Okay,” I said, following her. “Can we talk some more?”
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, putting me in my place, “I have a few things to do, but I’ll see you around.” She ascended the remaining staircase and hooked a right down the long hall to her bedroom.
I followed her anyway, not satisfied with the cold, apathetic conversation she’d just given me.
“Cricket, why are you acting like this?” I asked. My hand settled on her forearm as she reached for her doorknob.
She looked down at my hand and I removed it. “I’m not acting like anything. I’m with Ethan. I’m not using him or afraid to leave him anymore, and I think our friendship is improper. I think you and I should be fellow ranch hands and nothing more.”
I felt like she’d punched me in the gut. “Anymore? You’re not broken up? What was earlier all about?”
She sighed. “Of course not,” she explained. “And earlier was just my fixing something that needed fixing. I’m setting boundaries between us, Spencer. You’ll be gone in a few months, and it’s not worth wrecking fifteen years of my life all because I’m starting to feel things for you.”
“But if I was sticking around? What then? Would you be with Ethan then? It feels like you’re settling.”
She shook her head. “It’s not settling. I’ve just made a decision. I made a promise and I cannot go back on it.”
And with that, she left me in the hall, stunned.
I staggered back a little and headed back toward the stairs. “Still with Ethan?”
I felt more shocked than I thought I would.
“Yes, does that bother you, Blackwell?” I heard from the end of the hall.
Ethan stood, leaning against the wall, his eyes boring through me. He wanted a fight, I could feel it, but I’d already decided not in the Hunt house, not when they’d been so kind to us.
“Yes, it does,” I told him.
“Finally, some honesty for a change,” he said, standing to his full height but leaving his arms crossed. He walked closer to me and I found my fists naturally tightening. “You better watch yourself,” he continued.
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“Because I’ll catch you when you least expect it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked him.
“It means I see right through your shit and you don’t want to provoke me.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Damn straight,” he said, lingering a moment before rounding me.
He knocked on Cricket’s door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“It’s Ethan,” he said, eyeing me.
“Come in,” she invited.
He opened the door but before he went inside, gave me a triumphant smile.
“Asshole,” I muttered and headed back downstairs to get my jacket and head back to the trailer, but the dining hall was unusually full.
I found Bridge sitting next to Jonah talking so I joined them.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Emmett’s on the phone with the McAllen family a town over,” Jonah explained.
“Friends of the family or something?”
“Not really, but apparently something major happened. Pop Pop’s asked us to stick around for a minute.”
“Okay,” I said just as Emmett walked in.
He sat at the front of the table. “Well, that was Amos McAllen’s son. He’s flown into Yellow Creek. Amos was in an accident last week and they’ve had to amputate his leg.”
“Poor man,” Jonah said, shaking his head.
“He’s in pretty serious condition and his wife is suffering without him. As you know, calving season is in full swing and their ranch is small.” Lots of hands started nodding. “She relied on Amos for a lot.”
“I can go over and help them,” Jonah offered quickly, shocking me.
“I was hoping you would say as much,” Emmett said.
“Can we afford to lose Jonah?” I asked Bridge under my breath.
She shrugged. We were strapped for hands as it was. Jonah nudged my shoulder and I looked at him like he was crazy. The death look he gave me confirmed it.
I raised my hand like a fifth grader. “Uh, I can go too,” I volunteered.
“Thank you, Spencer,” Emmett said. “That’s about all we can spare, I believe.”
A few days away from Cricket might help clear your head a little too, I thought.
That night, I practically toppled into bed, tired all the way down to my bones by so many different things.
“You look pathetic, you know that, right?”
“Shup up, Piper,” I said, locking the villa door and heading toward the elevators.
I pressed the button for the bottom floor. She followed me when the doors opened.
“You look desperate to her and she’s probably lost all respect for you.”
“Shut up, Piper!”
She sighed and leaned against the glass in her satin gown. “I tried to tell you, Spencer. She’s not good for you. She’s nothing but trouble.”
“Piper, shut up, or I’ll shut you up.”
“And she’s going to take all your money,” she sang.
My blood burned in my veins and my hand found her throat and squeezed. “Shut. Up.”
She smiled and I let her go. She gasped, then started laughing. “You hate to hear the truth,” she said, borrowing my own words. “And what about your deal?” she asked.
“What deal?”
“The deal your friend made you. The phone call you got on the way back from Vegas?”
“How do you even know about that?”
“You forget, Spencer, I told you I know everything. I know he offered you the chance of a lifetime on an inside trade involving an innovative technology. I know you have every intention of taking it because it would set you and your sister up extravagantly for life. I also know that you’re two million dollars short.”
“Yeah, no thanks to you.”
She pouted. “Trust me,” she said, “if I had known the offer was coming and that you’d
take it, I’d have kept your money safe.”
“And now I have no way of obtaining that two million! He’s going to need that soon! How am I supposed to get it now?”
“You’ll find a way. Borrow it.”
“From who?”
“One of your prep school boys should have that liquid easily.”
“Maybe.”
She paused and watched me. “You could blackmail someone,” she added slyly.
I narrowed my eyes at her. My stomach began to turn because I was considering it. “Who?”
“That married executive in Chicago. You could contact him and blackmail him.”
“My dad already did that!”
“Right. Your dad. Not you. You don’t think he would pay to keep you quiet as well?”
I considered it. “Maybe.”
“Good boy,” she said as the doors opened to the lobby.
I woke the next morning with no real idea why Jonah and I were driving an entire town away to help a guy the family barely knew when the ranch couldn’t afford to lose any more hands, but then again, they helped Bridge and me out so who was I to judge?
We pulled up to the ranch and noticed it was a little bit outdated and not as kept as the Hunt Ranch.
“Amos is almost seventy,” Jonah explained. “He used to keep a better ranch, but I suspect he’s gotten a little old and can’t keep up.”
“Where are his kids?”
“His kids went to college and never came back. They built lives in the city.”
Can’t blame them, I thought.
We pulled toward the main house and took in the sights. Parts of the barn roof were falling in. The fences need immediate restoring. I suspected a few cows had probably escaped through them. Amos McAllen was too old to keep up with his ranch.
“Why doesn’t he just retire?” I asked as we came to a stop.
Jonah gave me that look again. “Retire on what? Most ranches around here don’t necessarily take in a huge profit. We survive from year to year.”
I nodded but couldn’t fathom how people lived like that.
An older but fit woman emerged on her porch and met us by Jonah’s truck.
“You must be from the Hunt Ranch,” she said, extending her hand.
Her smile reached her eyes as she squinted in the sun.
“Mrs. McAllen?” Jonah said, taking her hand.
“Oh, please, call me Faye!”
“Faye, I’m Jonah Hunt and this is another of the ranch’s hands,” Jonah said discreetly.
“Spencer,” I said, offering my hand and she took it.
“So nice to meet you boys,” she said cordially. “Come on in for a moment.”
We followed her up the creaky steps of her porch and I briefly noted that needed repairing too. Her house was small but comfortable and clean.
“I’ve got something special planned for your lunch today,” she said, beaming.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Miss Faye, we’re here to help you, remember?” Jonah said.
She grabbed his hand in both of hers and patted them gently. “I know, son, and I cannot tell you how grateful we are,” she said, nearly shedding a tear and pulling on my wound tight heartstring.
“This is what we do for our neighbors,” Jonah said smiling.
She patted them once more then let them go.
“If you don’t mind,” Jonah began, “we’d like to get straight to work if that’s okay?”
“Oh, by all means, don’t let me keep you, love.”
He smiled once more and I followed him out and onto the porch.
“They’ve only got a hundred cows here,” Jonah said, scanning the field near the barn and applying his gloves. I pulled mine from my back pocket and followed suit.
“Oh, good, we should be done pretty quickly,” I said, feeling a little invigorated. Jonah looked at me. “What?” I asked.
“We’ve got a ton of work to do here. We’ll be here until late, I think.”
“What? Why?”
“Have you seen the state of this ranch?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So? We’ll have to make all these repairs for them.”
“What in the hell, Jonah? I thought we were just here to help with the herd.”
“We are,” he said, bounding off the front porch and heading toward the barn. “But we’re gonna leave this ranch better than how we found it.”
I shook my head. “That is ludicrous.”
Jonah stopped in his tracks. “Spencer, you afraid of a little work?”
“No,” I said, affronted.
“Then quit your bitching,” he replied, cursing for the first time I’d heard since I met him.
I laughed. “Fine.”
We tended the herd, just like we did at the Hunt Ranch, but in a fraction of the time. Then Jonah made me clean and organize the barn because it was a cluttered mess. We could tell Amos left the tools he needed at a level for easier access so we hung all the tools he didn’t frequently use on the barn wall and did the same for the tools he used often at a level he could reach them.
That took more than three hours alone. I thought we were done, but Jonah decided the floors needed cleaning so we grabbed a broom and a hose, much like we did in the horse stalls when we would clean out the pellets. We scrubbed and rinsed the concrete floor. When all was said and done, it looked like a brand-new barn, save for the holes in the roof where patches of snow were coming through.
“We’re gonna have to tackle that roof,” he said, eyeing the damage.
“How are we going to reach it?” I asked, looking around.
“There’s a ladder built on the outside. We’ll have to gather materials and climb up.”
We searched the barn and found what we needed, then rounded the building searching for the ladder.
“Dude, that looks sketchy,” I said, inspecting the rungs of the old attached ladder. I placed a foot on the first rung and tested my weight. It held. “How are we going to get the wood up there?”
“Tie it up, I guess, and heave it over.”
“Okay,” I said, heading for the barn in search of rope.
We tied the wood and tucked our hammers and nails in our back pockets and hauled the heavy load up and onto the roof.
We were both out of breath when we reached the top. “Damn,” I said, looking down. “That fall would hurt.”
Jonah peeked over the edge. “Can’t disagree.”
We trekked across the snow-covered roof and I almost slipped twice, my heart pounding in my chest. We sat at the first bit that need patching and started working. After five minutes, I broke the silence.
“It’s cold as shit up here.”
I rubbed my gloves back and forth and slapped them together a few times to bring the feeling back into my fingers.
“Duh,” he said.
“Smart ass,” I laughed.
“Jackass.”
“Bridge lover,” I tested.
He looked at me, shocked, his mouth and eyes wide open before busting out into the loudest guffaw.
“Cricket lover,” he bit back.
“What the hell!” I said.
“Oh what? You can dish it out but you can’t take it?”
“I don’t love your cousin, dude.”
“Sure,” he said, rolling his eyes and hammering another nail.
I cleared my throat. “So, do you?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you like my sister?” I asked.
His face flamed red. “I do,” he stated simply.
Hearing it from his own lips made it so much more real to me.
“How much?” I asked, finishing the patched sub-roof.
He looked at me as he dragged over the pile of wood shingles. “Honestly?”
“Yeah,” I said, reaching for a shingle.
He scratched the back of his neck, afraid to spill.
“It’s okay, dude,” I told him.
He sighed. “Too much. Way too
much.”
This confused me. “So, uh, do you wish you didn’t or something?”
“No way,” he claimed emphatically.
“What do you mean by ‘too much’ then?” I asked, my big brother side coming out full force.
“I just meant that I’m in love with your sister, and I don’t think she feels the same way and that...that eats at me.”
I let the news sink in, feeling a combination of impressed with Jonah, bewildered and confused.
“I think,” I began carefully, “that she may care for you more than you think.”
Jonah’s head shot up, his eyes wide. “Shut up,” he said seriously.
“I’m very serious, Jonah.”
“Oh my God,” he said, sitting up and back on his heels. His hand went to his chest and he turned to sit, as if he couldn’t believe what I’d told him. His head hung low as he studied the tops of his boots. He removed his wool cap, then put it right back on, as if he was unsure of what to do with his hands.
“You okay? I asked.
He smiled, but one corner turned up more than the other, like he was embarrassed. “I think so.”
I cleared my throat. “So, what are you going to do?” I asked, hammering another shingle in.
The noise brought him back to the present and he joined me once again.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m going to have to talk to Bridget.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said but hesitated.
“What?”
“You’re okay with her being pregnant?”
His face softened. “I’m definitely okay with it.”
“How can that be?” I asked, astounded but grateful nonetheless.
“You don’t choose who you fall for, Spencer. Either you do or you don’t,” he said, stunning me.
Bridge had said something strikingly similar to me the day we left.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I chimed in.
“See. I knew you liked my cousin.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Your previous statement, for one. Two, the fact that she comes in the room and not a single one of us can break your attention from her. And three,” he said, “Ethan can’t stand you and Ethan likes everyone.”
The mere mention of Ethan made my skin crawl.
“You know,” he continued, “we all love and respect Ethan like he was part of our family.”
GREED (The Seven Deadly Series) Page 19
