by R. C. Ryan
She started down the hallway, with Jake trailing behind. Her voice betrayed nerves that were close to the surface. “I think we’re much better off in the kitchen, where we can keep the width of the table between us.”
“Spoilsport.”
Jake was still laughing as Meg switched on the light and began measuring coffee into the pot.
He tucked his hands in his pockets. Hands, he noted, that weren’t quite steady.
He’d kissed dozens of women. Hundreds, if truth be told. But at the moment he couldn’t recall a single one of them.
There was danger here, he cautioned himself. Meg Stanford was turning out to be a whole lot more fascinating than he’d first thought. Not just a tasty treat, but the whole candy store. And darned if he wasn’t feeling like a kid with a fistful of dollars and eager to taste to his heart’s content.
Chapter Eight
As she measured water and poured it into the machine, Meg was grateful to have something to do. Her hands were still trembling. Her entire body felt lighter than air. She was floating, and yet grounded.
She could feel Jake’s cool gaze boring into her back. It was a most unsettling feeling. Not that it wasn’t pleasant having him here. She was grateful for his company. And the security of his rifle, if truth be told.
But that kiss…
Well, that was another matter entirely. She’d certainly resolved her curiosity about how it would feel to kiss this cowboy. It had been amazing. In all honesty, she’d felt the earth move. A once-in-a-lifetime event. The only trouble was, now that she’d kissed him, she’d really like to do it again.
And again.
Not a very wise thing, under the circumstances.
As the coffee began perking, she had a sudden urge to laugh out loud. With her system already so jittery, she wondered what another jolt of caffeine would do to her.
She needed to get out of the room and clear her head before she started acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush. “I think I’ll go up and check on Cory.”
Jake straddled a kitchen chair. “I just checked him out a while ago. Sound asleep.”
“You…checked on him?”
He nodded. “I just wanted to make sure he was able to get back to sleep after all the excitement.” He lowered his voice. “You ought to know that he’s keeping a baseball bat next to his bed.”
She looked crestfallen as she dropped down in a chair, tapping a finger on the tabletop. “A baseball bat? For protection?”
“Yeah.”
She brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh, that poor kid. He’s been so quiet. I assumed it meant he wasn’t feeling all that threatened by what’s happened. But now…” Her words trailed off.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “I’d love to get my hands on the creep who’s causing all this trouble.”
She looked up. “Did my father have any enemies? Did he owe somebody a big debt?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m not the one to ask. I barely knew Porter. He kept to himself. I’d say Kirby Bolton was probably the one closest to him. And only because he was your father’s lawyer. But if there are any unpaid debts, Kirby would know.”
She nodded. “I have an appointment to meet Judge Bolton Monday, after the funeral.” She sighed. “He apologized for asking me to wait so long, but he wasn’t able to clear his docket until then.”
Jake could hear the weariness in her tone. Everything, it would seem, was conspiring against her. She’d given herself a week to settle her father’s estate, and that amount of time would barely give her a chance to bury her father and meet with his lawyer, with only three days left to deal with everything else. Add that to all the surprises she’d faced since coming here, and it was no wonder she was feeling so stressed.
When the coffee was ready she started to stand.
He reached out a hand to stop her. “You’ve done enough. I’ll take care of it.” He filled two cups and set one in front of her before sitting down across from her.
“Careful.” She smiled her thanks. “I could get used to being taken care of.”
“I get the impression you’re good at taking care of yourself.”
She looked down at the tabletop. “I guess I am. I learned it the hard way.”
Jake stretched out his long legs. “If you feel like talking, I have all the time in the world to listen.”
She took a long sip of coffee and felt it warm her. “I told you about my fall into the barbed wire. It was, for my mother, the latest in a string of issues that she and my father couldn’t seem to resolve. They had a terrible fight, and afterward Dad stormed out of the house and up to the hills, where he bunked with the wranglers for a week or more.”
She looked over at Jake. “Did you ever hear your parents fight?”
He shook his head. “I barely remember my mother.”
Meg flushed. “Sorry. I keep forgetting.”
She drank her coffee in silence before saying, “By the time my father returned, I’d already forgotten what had sent him away. I was just so happy to see him back with us, I guess I stuck to him like Velcro, which only infuriated my mother more. My father remained unapologetic, and my mother called him a cruel and inhuman monster. I’ve often thought that the two of them had this terrible need to keep opening old wounds that simply couldn’t heal, until finally, at least in my mother’s mind, there was no solution except the obvious one.”
“Just like that? Couldn’t they have tried something less drastic than divorce?”
“You mean like counseling? That would have been too sensible and slow for two such volatile people.” Meg shook her head. “Looking back at all their ugly scenes, I can’t recall a single instance when the fight wasn’t about me. About something real or imagined that my dad and I had done together that had ended badly. Either I’d fallen, or I’d gotten sick eating something while I was up in the hills with the wranglers, or I got sunburned, or I didn’t get enough sleep. To my mother it was proof that I would have a better life in the city, far from my father’s interference.”
“And so you relocated as far away from here as possible.”
Meg nodded. “I had no idea what a big city really was. The closest thing to a city I had ever visited was Jackson Hole.”
At Jake’s snort of laughter she nodded. “It’s the truth. I’d visited Jackson Hole several times with my folks, and thought that’s what my mother meant. It had never occurred to me that we would relocate thousands of miles across the country, in a city so large and teeming with people, it seemed to be on another planet.”
“That had to be a tough adjustment.”
She gave a dry, mirthless laugh. “You have no idea. From a sprawling ranch to a town house in a city filled with cars and people and noise, and then I was sent to a private boarding school with girls whose only thoughts seemed to be fixated on the boys who attended the all-boys’ school nearby.”
His gaze swept her from head to toe. “I bet those boys took notice of the new redhead on campus.”
That had Meg chuckling, in spite of her anger. “I was the youngest, most naive ten-year-old ever. I only thought about the horse I’d left behind, and riding up to the high country with my dad and the wranglers. Two short years later, by the age of twelve, I was learning the ropes and getting my share of whistles from boys.”
“Uh-huh.” He winked. “Was your mother happier in D.C.?”
“Much happier. A year later she married Philip, one of the partners in the law firm that handled her divorce, and she finally got the life she wanted. Which meant that my world changed yet again. I was met at school on Friday afternoons by a uniformed chauffeur and whisked away to an exotic home in the rolling Virginia countryside. I met my stepfather’s wealthy, international guests at country-club dinner dances. After high school I attended an exclusive women’s college and then law school at Georgetown. When I graduated, I was invited to join my stepfather’s firm.”
Jake grinned. “I guess it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.”<
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She returned his smile. “I’m not complaining. It became a smooth ride once I decided to stop fighting my mother. But that only happened because I realized that without her, I’d have no one.”
“What about your father?”
Meg ran her finger around and around the lip of her cup. “When we first settled in D.C., I used to wait for his calls. They never came. I was too hurt and angry to talk about what I was feeling. But my mother knew. She said that in time I’d get over being mad at my father and just put that old part of my life away.”
“Why were you mad at Porter?”
She looked up, as though surprised by Jake’s question. “In my mind, he had always been my champion. Whenever my parents waged a tug-of-war over me, he always won because I absolutely adored him. He should have fought to keep me with him. Instead, he just let me go. I figured the reason he didn’t fight for me was because he blamed me for the divorce. After all, every fight was about me.” She shrugged. “After a while, when I accepted that he was never going to call or come for me, I realized I had no one to hate but myself.”
“Okay. I get that you were mad at Porter. But why were you mad at yourself?”
“If I hadn’t been so determined to spend all my time with my father, completely ignoring my mother, maybe my parents would have stayed together.”
“That’s a child speaking. I hope, now that you’re an adult, you’ve let go of all that foolish guilt and accepted the fact that some people just can’t live together.”
She sighed.
Jake tried another subject. “You said your mother passed away. What happened?”
“My mother and stepfather died together more than three years ago. Their boat was hit by a storm off the coast of Mexico. The craft flipped, and their bodies washed ashore a week or so later.”
“I’m sorry, Meg.”
She gave him a troubled smile. “Life happens. I’ve learned to deal with it. Of course, with Philip dead, I’ve had to push myself harder at the firm.”
“And why is that?”
Again that shrug. “I’ve always had the nagging feeling that I was only accepted into the firm because of Philip, and not because of my ability. I guess I need to prove to all of them that I’m worthy.”
“Do you need to prove that to them? Or to yourself?”
At Jake’s question she looked away before saying softly, “You’re quick, Conway. Yeah, I guess I have a lot to prove to myself.”
“Are you guys having breakfast without me?”
At Cory’s voice they both looked over at the boy standing in the doorway, looking sleepy-eyed and confused.
Meg turned toward the window, where the morning sunlight was already creeping into the room. “I can’t believe it’s morning already.”
Cory glanced at their cups. “You’re not having breakfast?”
“Not yet.” Jake shot the boy a wide grin. “But now that you’ve reminded me, I think I’m ready for some of Ela’s flapjacks. How about you?”
Cory’s eyes widened. “With warm maple syrup?”
“I see you didn’t forget. Yeah.” Jake got to his feet. “Why don’t the two of you shower and dress, and we’ll ask Chief Fletcher to join us for breakfast at my place.”
Cory was already turning away. “I can be ready in five minutes.”
“Hold on.” Jake waited until the boy turned back. “First you’d better ask your sister if it’s all right with her.”
Cory looked at Meg, his smile replaced by a frown.
His swift change of mood wasn’t lost on her. She sighed. “Okay. Ela’s flapjacks sound good to me, too.”
Cory turned away and raced up the stairs.
When he was gone, Meg picked up their empty cups and carried them to the sink. As she washed them her voice sounded weary. “Why do I get the feeling that Cory always expects me to poke a hole in his balloon?”
Jake picked up a dish towel and dried the cups and saucers before reaching over her head to set them in the cupboard. “Maybe that’s the way it’s always happened to him before.”
“Do you think he’s been conditioned to expect the worst from adults?”
Seeing her concern, Jake touched a finger to the tip of her nose. “I think you’re reading entirely too much into his reaction. The kid’s scared. Give him a reason to trust you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Conway.” Despite the sarcasm, she didn’t move or pull back, and it occurred to Jake that it would be an easy matter to lower his face to hers and kiss her again.
He wanted to. Intended to. And yet, he didn’t. Instead, very deliberately he lowered his hand to his side and took a step back.
Meg took the towel from his hand and draped it over the edge of the sink. “Okay. Time to shower. I won’t be long.”
Alone in the kitchen, Jake stared into space. All he’d done was touch a finger to Meg’s nose, but the reaction had been the same as before. Heat had spread all the way up his arm, along with this incredible urge to ravish her.
If he’d hoped that kissing her would quench the fire, he’d been dead wrong. All that the kiss had done was whet his appetite for more. He could still taste her, all sweet and tart at the same time, and sexy as sin. And feel the way she’d melted into him, with that little purr of pleasure. That had been his undoing. Maybe if she’d resisted, even a bit, he could have at least tried to do the noble thing. But the way she’d returned his kiss, with such reckless, what-the-hell abandon, he couldn’t have held back if he’d wanted to.
Not that he was complaining. The trouble was, now that he knew just how willing she was, he couldn’t wait to get her alone and kiss her again. Not a hurried, quick-on-the-trigger kiss, but the slow, leisurely kind that could open up all sorts of possibilities.
After that, he’d just see where it led them.
He pulled out his cell phone and called the chief before alerting Ela and Phoebe that they would be welcoming three guests for breakfast. Then he turned to the window as morning light spilled across the Tetons. It was a sight that never failed to stir his senses.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. Not that his senses needed stirring at the moment. They’d already been heightened by what he’d shared with the intriguing Meg Stanford.
The taste of her was still on his lips. And the thought of her all warm and willing had his fingertips tingling and his blood surging.
Needing to be busy, he picked up his rifle and made a slow turn around the property, circling the barns and the corrals until he spied Meg and Cory on the porch. By the time he’d walked to his truck they were both settled inside.
He stashed his rifle before turning the key in the ignition. Taking note of the drops of water in Cory’s shaggy hair, as well as the clean shirt and jeans, he shot the boy a wide grin. “You clean up good.”
The boy flushed.
He looked beyond Cory to wink at Meg. “Same goes.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“No. Thank you. You smell good.”
Like Cory, she flushed. “Lavender body wash.”
Jake nudged the boy. “Your sister smells like a city girl, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” Cory ducked his head, giving Jake the perfect opportunity to stare at Meg over the boy’s head.
She was wearing another pair of new denims and a sheer blouse that had a row of buttons clear down the front. It would have looked all prim and proper except that it was tied at the midriff, exposing a tiny bit of pale, smooth flesh.
Jake had to swallow hard and struggle to keep his eyes on the road.
Maybe it was a good thing that Cory was sitting between them. If they’d been alone, there was no telling just what he might have done.
One thing was certain. Come hell or high water, he was going to taste Meg Stanford’s lips again. And next time, there would be a whole lot more than a stingy kiss.
Right now, with the windows down and the cool morning breeze filling the cab of his truck, he was so hot just thinking about her he could set off
fireworks without even lighting a fuse.
There hadn’t been a female to cause this sort of spontaneous combustion since Cammi Stillwater, and that didn’t count since they’d only been thirteen, and he’d cut his lip on her braces, and his brothers had teased him mercilessly for weeks afterward.
Cammi was just a distant memory, but the woman causing all the high drama this morning was right here in the flesh. He shot Meg a sideways glance. And so far, the flesh he’d seen was enough to sweep the memory of every other female from his mind forever.
Chapter Nine
Well, boyo.” Big Jim looked up from his coffee as Jake led Meg and Cory into the kitchen. “You’re up and out early this morning, aren’t you?”
The entire family had already gathered for breakfast after morning chores and were busy helping themselves to juice and coffee while Phoebe and Ela filled platters with eggs, sausage, and steaming stacks of flapjacks.
Jake kissed old Ela’s cheek before responding. “Actually, I spent the night at the Stanford ranch.”
That had everyone looking up in sudden silence.
It was Meg who added, “Cory called Jake when he heard someone trying to break in.”
“Again?” Cole Conway set aside his coffee to look from Meg to his son. “I hope you caught the son of a…gun,” he added lamely with a glance toward Cory.
“He got away in the woods.”
Big Jim frowned. “Did you get a good look at him?”
“Too dark.” Jake handed glasses of orange juice to Cory and Meg before snagging one for himself. “But he had to be young and healthy to run that fast.”
“Did he get anything?” Quinn asked.
“He didn’t have time. It looks like he tried to break into the barn first. There were pry marks around the door.”
Meg turned to Big Jim. “Thanks to your advice, I’d padlocked my car inside.”
“Good girl,” the old man muttered.
“By the time I got there, he was on the porch and trying to force the back door. I killed my headlights, but he heard me coming and stayed one step ahead of me. A few more minutes, though, he’d have been inside the house and free to do whatever he came there to do.”
