Sam rolled over and braced his arms on both sides of her, and said, "I do." He covered her mouth with his, and in an instance, he was kissing her everywhere, and touching her, and tasting her, and arousing her to impassioned heights before covering her body with his and making love with an urgency she hadn't expected, almost as if this was their final act of lovemaking. And maybe it was. Once they'd return to the ranch, she'd have Becca with her, and Becca and Ricky and all the other eyes on the ranch would be watching everything they did. Even Grace and Maureen, who'd been empathetic before, would act differently now. How could they not? The new guest ranch manager, who they'd waited years to have, was not only sleeping with the boss, but she was a jailbird with a ten-year-old daughter, who she'd had out of wedlock with a man who'd robbed a store at gunpoint. Not something easily brushed under the table.
Sam said nothing, just stared at the ceiling, unfocused, and the arm around her was immobile. In the aftermath of their lovemaking she wanted him to stroke her side, or plant little kisses on her forehead, or draw her closer to him and hold her and have her snuggle against him.
"Sam?" she said, when he made no move to do those things.
"Yeah?" He rolled his head to the side and looked at her.
She ran her palm over his chest. "Was that it for us? I felt like you were making love to me for the last time."
"I don't know," Sam said. "Things are complicated now. Maybe after some time has gone by, when everything's settled down, it will be different."
"Settled down how?" Jayne asked.
"After the newness of everything has worn off," Sam replied. "Jack knows about your daughter and that you'd been in prison when Lauren was there, but not the details, and my mother knows nothing. I don't want her hearing it from Jack or Susan or anyone else. And Susan has a big club to hold over my head now if I give her any crap about her live-in boyfriend and voice my concern about how it's affecting Ricky. Yeah, it's complicated."
For a long time they just lay together, Sam staring at the ceiling, Jayne with her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. But after a while, when Sam made no attempt to pull her against him, Jayne said, "I'd better get back to my sister's place or they'll wonder what happened to me, and I want to see Becca."
She waited, hoping Sam might roll over and kiss her and assure her he still loved her. Instead, he said, "Yeah, I suppose."
Susan has a big club to hold over my head now...
Sam was right. Susan did have a big club, and it would be there as long as Sam was in a relationship with a woman who'd done prison time. Saying nothing more, Jayne went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, letting the water pound against her body, hoping Sam would join her, but he didn't, and when she finally left the bathroom, Sam was already dressed.
"How long do you think it will take for you to get another manager to replace me?" she asked, as they were driving back to Lydia and Denny's place.
"We don't need another manager. You're doing a good job," Sam replied. "The place is filling up and there's no reason for you to leave. I'll square things away with my family, and I'll jump through Susan's hoops and call her stud, Ross, and we can make sure no one, including Ricky, sees us together, so there should be no complaints."
Jayne stared at Sam. "You can't be serious," she said. "This is not just about you jumping through Susan's hoops and us maintaining a respectable distance. Your mother and Grace and Jack will be looking at me like I'm exactly what I am. It would be too humiliating to stay there now. Meanwhile, you'd better drop me off here and come back later," she said, as they pulled into the parking area of the apartment complex. "I don't want my parents seeing us driving up to the apartment together, and think we shared a room at the motel. They have the final say if I can have Becca, and right now they aren't inclined to let me have her unless I can convince them I'm a responsible woman, with a good job, and that I'm not sleeping with the boss."
"It bugs the crap out of me when you make it sound like what we have is nothing more than a casual affair," Sam snapped. "It's not about having hot sex and you getting it on with the boss."
"It was pretty hot sex this morning while it lasted," Jayne said, "but then all good things have to come to an end, which they did."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked.
"That when you were done, you were done." It occurred to her, right after she said the words, that he could construe them as accusing him of being the way Susan implied when she made her comment about Sam being a eunuch.
Which he did, when he replied, "Yeah, you wouldn't want to get stuck with a guy who can't get it up a second time, would you?"
"That was absolutely not what I meant," Jayne said, "but when I sat up in bed you never touched me again, and you didn't come to the shower with me either. I wanted you to."
"It's not because I don't want you," Sam said, "it's just that things are pretty mixed up right now. Let's get your daughter and go back to the ranch and lay it out on the table for my family, and try to pick up where we left off."
Jayne realized that, along with the I love yous, he'd dropped the honeys and the sweethearts. Things had definitely cooled. "Where we left off before my parents arrived was you and me planning on meeting at the cabin while your mother helped Ricky with his homework," she reminded him. "We can hardly pick up from there. If I stay on at the ranch, I'll confine my activities to the lodge and taking groups on hikes, and you should confine yours to the winery. As for our kids, we'll need to remember that you're my boss and I'm your employee, and bosses don't kiss employees. Ever."
"Like I said, maybe after some time has gone by things will be different," Sam replied. "Besides, your daughter will need a period of adjustment. The last thing she'll want is a man cutting into her time with her mother."
Jayne shrugged. "That's a subtle way of breaking things gently."
When Sam didn't respond, Jayne got out of the car, and said, "Come back in a couple of hours. By then I'll know if my parents will let me take Becca, and you can visit with them long enough to convince them that the only reason you showed up here was to make sure the ranch still had a manager." She turned and walked toward her sister's apartment, and Sam drove off.
***
Sam stared at the road ahead, vaguely aware of Jayne in the passenger seat and of her daughter in the seat behind him. Their session in bed that morning had been troubling in a way he hadn't expected. The sex was good, but afterwards, the reality of their situation hit him hard.
I'll always be known as the woman who drove a getaway car in an armed robbery, and if I happen to become Ricky's step-mother someday, he'll be known as the stepson of a jailbird.
It also bugged the hell out of him to admit when Jack was right, but maybe it was time to listen. Jack managed to pull his life together, and all it took was the right woman.
When you least expect it your Grace will come along.
"How are you doing back there, honey?" Jayne asked, as she glanced over her shoulder at Becca, who had a clipboard on her lap and was drawing pictures.
"Fine," Becca said. "How long till we see Mama?"
"A couple of hours," Jayne replied. "We first have to find the place where she lives."
"Can we stay a little while?" Becca asked.
"We can stay as long as you want, honey," Jayne replied. "I know your mother will be happy to see you, and I'm anxious to meet her. She sounds like a very special woman."
"She's in a wheelchair with a motor now since she can't work a regular wheelchair," Becca said.
Sam wondered about that complication too. Jayne and her daughter having to keep contact with a disabled woman who was failing. He knew only too well how it was to struggle with the needs of a person who lived daily in the shadow of death, and watch them slowing dying. He'd gone through that with Ricky before the cord blood transplant, and there had been times when the worry was almost unbearable. Oddly, Susan held up during those times, but after Ricky was on th
e mend, Susan focused on herself again, as she'd done before Ricky was born.
It's an obsession with beautiful women... they shut our minds to all logical reasoning...
He glanced at Jayne, and he couldn't deny he was blindsided by her looks. Every time he set eyes on her he reacted, not just the thing below his waist, but it was like his chest was in a vise, and his heart shifted into high gear, just as it was now.
She caught him looking, and said, "Thank you for coming to Seattle for us."
Her smile that followed heightened every reaction he'd already had from simply looking at her. "Well, the ranch needs its manager back," he replied.
Her smile withered and he knew why. Not, I need my manager back, but the ranch needs her. But right now he needed her, and not as guest ranch manager, and he also wanted her. Just by smiling at him, she'd shut his mind to all logical reasoning because the fact was, she and her daughter were a complication he and Ricky didn't need in their lives. But that was his logical mind working and it shut down every time she smiled at him, or touched him, or looked at him.
"I'll try to keep things running right," she said.
He didn't respond, but he heard the hurt in her tone, yet he couldn't give her the assurance that things would be fine between them, because he didn't have that assurance himself. His first obligation was to Ricky, and Jayne's first obligation was to her daughter, and any attempt to blend families now would be ludicrous.
Two hours later, they pulled up to a private home that housed four people with disabilities. The place was scrubbed clean and set up for wheel chairs, but when Sam saw the young woman being wheeled in by an attendant, then saw the expression on Jayne's daughter's face, it cut him to the core. Then the little girl's face changed almost immediately from a look of shocked disbelief, to a smile of pure love. "Hi Mama," Becca said, walking up to put her arms around a woman whose throat was struggling for breaths.
"How... are... you... honey?" the woman said, with great effort.
"I'm fine, and I'm going to be staying on a ranch where there'll be horses and barn cats and dogs and three house cats named Mei Ling, Tiki and Blue Boy. Jayne told me all about it."
The woman raised her eyes and looked at Jayne, and her lips twitched with a smile that Sam knew was genuine, but difficult.
Jayne pulled a chair up close to the woman, and said, "Thank you so much for taking care of Becca all these years. You've done a wonderful job with her. She's such a precious child."
Again that twitch of a smile. "Thank... you… for giving… her to me." The woman closed her eyes and rested her head against a pillow that curved around her neck, propping her head up.
Becca looked at Jayne, and said, in an erudite voice, "It makes Mama tired to talk, but she can listen to you. She likes to do that."
While the woman sat immobile, but with eyes that were sharp with awareness and interest, Jayne said, "Becca will love the ranch. It's located in the hills near a nice town, and Sam has a son, Ricky, who's nine, and Sam's brother has six kids, so Becca will have lots of playmates, and she'll go to school with Ricky. So you can rest easy knowing Becca will be well cared for, and she'll be very happy. And I'll bring her to visit you regularly."
The woman slowly shook her head. "No," she said. "Send... pictures... of... Becca."
Jayne covered the woman's hand with hers. "We'll send lots of pictures, and Becca will want you to see her school reports, and when she has a birthday we'll send pictures of that."
"Yes... that... will... be... enough..." The woman's voice faded off and she closed her eyes.
"Mama?" Becca called to her.
When she didn't respond, the attendant said, "She tires easily, so I think that's enough for today." But before the attendant wheeled her away, Becca went up to her mother and placed her hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead, and said, "I love you, Mama."
The woman opened her eyes momentarily, and said, "I... love... you... too... Bec."
Sam blinked back the sting of tears. Man, this was almost too much for him. This little kid, seeing her mother fading away, Jayne watching the two of them, knowing she'd always come second to the woman who'd raised her daughter. But, somehow he felt Jayne was up to the job and that she'd eventually get her daughter's love.
By the time they arrived at the ranch it was late, and most of the guests had gone to their rooms. Maureen was there to greet them, but the look on her face was not one of welcoming Jayne back, though she hid it well. It was only because Sam was familiar with the look over the years that he knew. He hoped Jayne hadn't picked up on it.
"Flo prepared the extra bedroom down the hallway from you for your daughter," Maureen said to Jayne. "She should be comfortable there."
"Thank you. I'm sure it will be fine," Jayne replied in a cordial tone that led Sam to believe she was, in fact, aware of his mother's reserve.
As Jayne ushered Becca down the hallway, Sam eyed the reproachful look on his mother's face and wondered if Jack had been the one to tell her that Jayne had been in prison, or if Susan managed to inject it into a conversation. It wasn't beyond Susan make a comparison between his living with a felon, and her living with the man she loved. Damn the woman for screwing up his life. She'd been the one to break all wedding vows and make his life a living hell.
"What's wrong," his mother asked, staring at him.
It wasn't until then he realized his fists were in tight knots at his sides, and his jaws were clenched, and his lips pressed tight, and the frown on his brow was so tense it made his forehead ache. "I was wondering if you'd talked to Susan while I was gone."
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did, when she brought Ricky home," his mother said, in a clipped dry tone. "She told me all about Jayne. Your running off to Seattle after her was a foolish and irresponsible thing to do. What were you thinking?"
Sam folded his arms and tried to check his temper, as he said. "I won't even ask what Susan told you, but I guarantee, you've only heard half the story, and the half Susan fed to you was undoubtedly a bunch of carefully crafted bullshit!"
"I won't listen to you when you're like this," Maureen said. "If you want to expand on what Susan told me you can come to my house in the morning after Ricky goes to school, but at some point, you need to step back and take a long look at what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Sam said, "and I'm getting a little pissed with everyone assuming I'm not capable of running my own life." Finding the family at odds with Jayne made him want to haul her off to bed. A patently stupid idea.
"I'm sorry son," his mother said, "but you haven't done a very good job of running your life so far. You might not be so quick to turn your back on good advice."
"I'll keep that in mind," Sam said, and stormed out of the lodge.
***
After registering Becca in school, Jayne gave her a hug and assured her she'd soon be making friends, and things would be fine. She left Becca with a school counselor, and hoped her first day would go well. She had no doubt that Becca could do the schoolwork without a problem, but because of caring for her mother, Becca was very mature for a ten-year-old, and she could have trouble relating to kids.
Once back at the ranch, and while the guests were with Jack on a trail ride, Jayne went over to see Maureen. She knew Maureen was at her house because a few minutes earlier she had seen her on her porch, watering the hanging flower baskets. She also saw Sam standing in the doorway of the winery when a stretched limousine was leaving after a wine tasting. With the completion of the new addition, Whispering Springs Winery was a regular stop on the wine-tasting tour route.
Jayne knocked, and when Maureen answered the door, she looked surprised, and definitely ill at ease. "Maureen, if I could, I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes," she said, and wondered for a moment if Maureen would even step aside for her to enter. Clearly, the woman was uncomfortable, and Jayne understood why. Maureen heard all about the guest ranch manager's getaway car caper and where it ended. "I'
m sorry. Maybe this isn't a good time," she said, when Maureen made no move to invite her in.
Her eyes blinking rapidly, as if collecting herself, Maureen said, "No, of course not. Please come in." Although she stepped back for Jayne to pass, her demeanor was reserved, not warm with understanding like it had been before. Now, Maureen was wary, and disturbed, and worried about her son, and rightly so.
"The reason I'm here is because I want to tell you exactly what happened in my past, and I also want to assure you that there's nothing between Sam and me anymore."
"Can I get you some coffee?" Maureen offered.
"No, thank you," Jayne replied. "I won't be here that long."
"Then come sit down," Maureen said.
When they were settled, Jayne started right in, describing as closely and as completely as she could, the events that led up to her arrest, sparing nothing, laying out for Maureen the defiant, rebellious teenager she'd been when she stole money from her mother, walked out of her parents’ house, bought a bus ticket, and left the family who loved her to track down the worthless man who'd fathered her child. "I just wanted you to know exactly what happened," she said, "but if you have any questions, just ask. I have nothing to hide. I don't want to hide anything anymore. I've been living with lies far too long."
Maureen looked at her as if at a loss for words, but after a stretch of silence, she said, "I'm glad you told me. Susan gave me some of the story, but I'm afraid it was skewed because she's angry with Sam's insistence that she either marry the man she's living with or move him out. It hasn't been good between her and Sam, and Ricky's behavior is the result."
"Well, Sam needs to focus on Ricky now or he'll end up with a rebellious son who'll either leave home to get away from everything, or impregnate a girl to give him what he thinks he's missing. I know firsthand. I let my sister down and I let my family down, but I won't let my daughter down, which is why I've broken things off with Sam. Now, his focus needs to be on Ricky, and mine needs to be on Becca."
Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) Page 54
