by BETH KERY
“Nobody’ll miss me,” Donny finally answered flatly as he turned the ignition and the truck hummed to life.
They were both comfortable in the silence that followed as Donny drove down the rural roads to get to the farm. Vic was busy regretting his chance to finally get back in the swing of things in regard to sex. He figured that Donny was too appreciative of the fact that Vic wasn’t preaching at him for being in a bar at one A.M. when he was only fifteen years old to push his luck by trying to start a conversation.
Vic was so preoccupied in his dark thoughts and self-recriminations for not ordering every last thing that Missy Shane had been offering on the menu tonight that at first he didn’t comprehend what Donny meant when he pulled up in the gravel driveway next to Vic’s cottage.
“Who’s visiting Tim and Meg?”
“Huh?” Vic asked distractedly.
Donny nodded his head at the sedan in the headlights. “Shit, it’s a Benz. License plates are NFC 87987. Know who that is? Vic?” Donny added after several seconds when he realized Vic hadn’t answered.
Vic blinked several times as he stared at the relatively mundane image of the familiar car as if it were a spaceship that had just landed on the driveway in front of them.
“Yeah. I know whose it is,” Vic eventually said. “See you at breakfast, Donny.”
“Night,” Donny said, a look of confusion on his face as he watched the tall figure of his boss stalk up to the main house with a brisk, purposeful stride and tense posture that looked entirely out of place, considering Vic’s former mellow mood.
Whoever the driver of that car was, Donny decided he was glad it wasn’t him.
For the first few seconds after Niall awoke, she didn’t know where the hell she was. Then she saw the painting of the farm on the wall. Meg had uncharacteristically blushed when she’d told Niall that she’d painted it herself in a burst of creativity last summer.
“I know it’s not any good,” Meg had said, chuckling at Niall’s protests to the contrary. “Good enough for the guest bedroom, if not over the mantel, anyway. This time of year on the farm really gets the creative juices flowing, you’ll see,” Meg had assured her as she’d showed her around her airy, spacious bedroom suite.
Who had just turned on the light? Niall wondered presently. She groggily pushed her hair out of her eyes and sat up on her elbow. Her lips fell apart in shock when she realized that Vic stared at her from the opened doorway, his finger still hovering near the light switch.
For several tense moments neither of them spoke. Niall soaked up the image of him. As thirsty for it as she had been, she felt that she could have just sponged up his image for hours and still had room to absorb more.
Her gaze moved hungrily over his long, jean-clad legs. He’d always worn low-riding jeans that set off his taut abdomen and lean hips. Niall thought that now they hung a little loose on his tall frame, as though he’d lost some weight. A blue and white button-down shirt hung open to reveal a plain, white T-shirt that highlighted his deepened tan as well as the long, taut taper of his torso as it sloped from his waist to his broad shoulders. She’d never seen his hair so long or his jaw so much in need of a shave.
He looked a little wild standing there in the doorway. For those few tense seconds Niall wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do or say. When he did eventually speak, he cut to the chase with his typical terseness.
“What’re you doing in my house?”
Niall scraped her hair back from her face and sat up in bed. She instinctively pulled the covers up around her breasts, feeling vulnerable with Vic’s eyes boring into her like fiery nails. His gaze flickered over her body at her abrupt movement, causing her skin to prickle in heightened awareness.
“I thought it was Meg’s house,” she mumbled lamely.
“You’re visiting Meg?” Vic more stated than asked. His hand lowered from the light switch and he took an aggressive step into the room.
Niall took a deep, fortifying breath. She’d expected a hostile reaction from Vic, but she hadn’t pictured it taking place while she was half-asleep and wearing nothing but a thin nightgown while he towered over her in barely restrained fury. She began to seriously doubt her wisdom in concocting this plan with Meg. Encountering Vic in that moment brought to mind unexpectedly awakening to find oneself in the eye of a powerful storm. She perfectly imagined him scooping her up out of her cozy bed and tossing her out on the gravel driveway along with her car keys and suitcase.
“In a manner of speaking,” she replied, glad to hear that her voice didn’t tremble. “I’m boarding here on the farm for the next several months.”
Vic’s jaw hung open. “You’re boarding here on the farm for the next several months,” he repeated with acid sarcasm.
“I believe that’s what I just said, yes. I’m the teacher the Institute hired to teach the art history class at the high school. Maybe Meg told you about it.”
“You’re the teacher they hired to teach—”
“Vic, you’re not going to repeat everything I say, are you?” Niall interrupted. His eyes flashed, and Niall knew she’d poured fuel on the fire.
“You don’t want me to repeat myself? Fine. Here’s something you haven’t heard, although if you had a few working brain cells, you certainly should have seen it coming. You’re not staying on this farm.”
“Why not?”
She saw him blink in surprise.
“Because I said so, that’s why!” he roared.
Niall took a deep breath in an attempt to quiet her racing heart. Her nervousness had nothing in common with the anxiety she associated with Stephen’s agitation and subsequent violence, but it felt extremely potent nonetheless. Vic never gave her the chance to respond, however. Instead he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that Meg’s painting rattled on the wall. Niall just sat there with her eyes closed tightly and listened to the charged, terse exchange between Vic and Meg in the hallway a few seconds later, followed by the sound of Vic stomping down the stairs, his fury apparent in every strike of his boots on the hard wood.
She looked up wearily a moment later when someone tapped softly at her bedroom door.
“Come in.” She blinked in surprise when she saw the amused expression on Meg’s face.
“I thought that went pretty well, don’t you?” Meg asked through a grin.
“Oh, yeah, just great,” Niall agreed dryly. “At least he didn’t pick me up and throw me out in the driveway.” Her eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement when she saw that Meg’s grin only grew wider. “Meg, it’s not funny! We shouldn’t have done this. We should have at least warned him first or something—”
Meg scoffed. “He can handle it. Trust me, my little brother needs some stirring up. His morose act was really starting to bug the shit out of me.”
“He doesn’t want me here.”
Meg shook her dark curls in admonishment. “Honey, you knew he wasn’t going to welcome you with open arms. You’re not giving up that easy, are you? It was a sure bet he was going to act like a bear when he found out what we planned.”
Niall sighed. “I just hadn’t imagined him being quite so—”
“Pissed off?” Meg asked cheerfully. “Yeah, Vic’s a real ass when he gets mad. Don’t worry, though, he never gets violent. At least not with women, children, or animals,” Meg added as if in afterthought. “If you’re an inanimate object or a bully with balls, better watch out though.”
“Right. With a woman he just goes ice cold and shuts her out,” Niall murmured.
Meg reached for the light switch. Niall strongly suspected she was getting a perverse satisfaction from stirring up her brother’s temper, much like a mischievous child poking a branch in a hornet’s nest just for the thrill of being ornery.
“That was hardly ice-cold, Niall. Which is all the more reason to say that Vic’s reaction to you being on the farm was a good thing. Go to sleep, honey. Breakfast is served bright and early on the farm.”
She flipped out the light, plunging the room into an absolute blackness that was completely foreign to Niall.
Vic tripped on something on the way to the bathroom just before dawn. After he’d picked up the offending boot and launched it against the wall in a fit of ineffective rage, he felt like a fool.
He hadn’t slept all night. His head throbbed either from a hangover or from grinding his teeth together for so many hours—or most likely both. The image of Niall staring at him with those huge hazel eyes and looking all mussed and soft from sleep seemed to have been permanently etched behind his eyelids. It had been an unexpected, infuriating sight.
He’d rather not think about the fact that it had been a thoroughly appealing one as well.
There was no way that woman was staying on this farm another night. He didn’t want to pull rank with Meg, but this was his property, God damn it. He had a right to say who stayed on it, didn’t he?
He finished his business in the bathroom and scowled at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He looked like some kind of wild mountain man. A strong urge to shave and make himself presentable overwhelmed him.
“Fuck that,” he muttered before he dried his hands with one swipe and stalked out of the bathroom.
Why does Niall want to be here after half a year of giving me the silent treatment? he fumed as he plopped onto his bed with a loud protest from the springs. Was her husband sick again and she required a warm body in her bed? Or maybe her presence here didn’t have anything to do with him at all . . .
Why’d she want to fuck with his head this way?
She’d made it clear after her mother revealed the fact that she was married that she couldn’t offer Vic a viable explanation for her dishonesty. He’d tried to contact her afterward, positive there must be some logic behind Niall’s incomprehensible behavior even if he couldn’t conjure it up in his own stunned brain. But when she’d carefully avoided him, Vic had finally been forced to accept the fact that Niall felt too guilty to face him.
He couldn’t imagine any other reason for the shattered expression on Niall’s face that evening in her apartment when her mother had let the bomb drop that Niall had a sick husband. What other reason could there be besides guilt to explain how she’d avoided him after the fact as if he possessed a virulent form of the plague? Even with all that, he’d still been enough of a sucker to be shocked to see moving men in the hallway between his and Niall’s apartments back in February. He’d stood there like an idiot at Niall’s open door, thinking he’d finally have the opportunity to confront her about what had happened between them when a sandy-haired young man passed by carrying a box.
“Hi! Are you one of my new neighbors?” he’d called out cheerfully.
“Who’re you?”
He started at Vic’s terseness before he laughed good-naturedly. “I’m the guy who’s moving into this apartment. Pete Sheppard.” He shifted the box in his arms and stuck out his hand in greeting.
Vic just stared blankly at this stranger, this interloper that was moving into Niall’s apartment. He imagined that he smelled Niall’s fresh, feminine scent emanating from the open door. The sensation almost made him blind with fury. Even through his turmoil and anger in the previous month he’d never imagined her slinking away like a thief in the night, without saying a word to him.
It felt like he’d been kicked in the gut by a steel-toed boot all over again. But somehow this time seemed even worse than that evening in December.
That was when the truth hit home. There was a good chance he would never see Niall Chandler again. Niall really was too guilty to face him. And why shouldn’t she feel ashamed of herself, damn it? Hadn’t she been fucking his brains out while her husband lay sick in a hospital bed? Then her husband had miraculously improved and Niall proceeded to ignore Vic’s existence, as if he was a much regretted, drunken one-night stand.
Obviously what had occurred between them had been some kind of emotional backfire for her. It had certainly been an explosive affair from the first. Vic just hadn’t imagined where the impetus had come from on Niall’s part.
Now he knew. Niall must have been feeling lonely and bereft while her husband was so ill. That must have been the origin of her nightmares. She was beautiful, vibrant . . . passionate. Like Jenny, she just needed a man in her bed to affirm all of those things, and Vic had been a ready convenience.
Vic grimaced and flipped onto his other side. Well, he was certainly glad to have helped Niall out in a tight spot. Fucking her had been great.
So great, in fact, that she’d subsequently ruined his sex life.
“You’re as much to blame for that as her,” Vic accused himself bitterly. He expressly directed himself not to in his thoughts, but his gaze still traitorously shifted over to the shut door of his closet. The Christmas gifts that he’d never given to Niall were in there, tossed far back into the darkest reaches. Somehow, the thought of what lay wrapped up in that furiously crumpled sack and the image of Niall looking so soft and sexy in bed last night rose up in his mind like the first two integers in an equation.
His cock jerked and tightened as if it’d just been yanked by a string, like his abrupt hard-on was just as obvious a result of adding those two thoughts together as one plus one equals two.
Shit. Well at least there couldn’t be any doubt that his lack of a sex life had anything to do with equipment damage, he thought sourly. Not that he appreciated the fact that Niall was the one who almost instantly turned his cock into a steel pike.
“That damn sack is going into the lake later,” he vowed to himself.
When he realized that he was talking to himself, he sprang out of the bed. What he needed was a big breakfast, a long ride on his favorite horse, Traveler, a few good hours writing at the computer . . . and maybe a trip back to the El Paso later. Today was Saturday. Chances were that Missy would be working again tonight, he reminded himself as he turned the shower nozzle to a frigid setting.
Vic wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the biggest question mark that kept bobbing annoyingly around his brain.
Just what the hell did Niall hope to accomplish by showing up on his farm?
Was she still interested in him, or was he just an unfortunate detail that she had to endure because of another agenda? Was she here just to take up where they’d left off? Because if she thought he was going to be her stand-in for her husband again, she definitely had another think coming. Vic despised liars and he didn’t do married women.
And he damned Niall for making him break that code without his knowledge.
Why hadn’t he just let Niall walk out the fucking door on that first night?
SIXTEEN
Andy, one of their full-time farmhands, Meg, Tim, Donny, and Niall all froze when Vic swung open the back screen door that led directly to the kitchen. He glowered at each one of them in turn, although he made a point of not making eye contact with Niall. Tim paused with a butter knife poised over some toast, Meg scowled from where she stood with a spatula in her hand by the stove, and Donny gawked at him from where he sat at the big kitchen table next to Niall.
“Well, good morning, sunshine,” Meg deadpanned.
He threw her an “I’ll deal with you later” look before he let the door slam shut behind him. He’d forgotten the kid was here. It didn’t seem right to make a scene in front of him. Donny had enough of that crap at home.
“Morning, Vic,” Tim greeted his brother-in-law extra cheerfully, perhaps compensating for Vic’s surly mood. Donny and Andy added their greetings, but Niall was silent. He saw from the corner of his eye, as he poured himself a cup of coffee, that Donny sat next to her and one of his sketch pads lay on the table between them.
“Where’s Tony?” Vic asked Tim as he took a sip of hot coffee, referring to Tim’s other full-time employee. The property that he’d inherited included thirty-six hundred acres of workable farmland. Tim needed several full- and part-time employees to help him run it during the planting season.
“His four-year-old is sick,” Andy answered.
“And his wife is in Pennsylvania visiting her folks,” Tim added as he set a plate of buttered toast on the table.
“You’ll need some help getting those soybeans in the ground, then,” Vic said stonily as he sat down at the end of the table farthest from Niall. He often helped on the farm, enjoying the manual labor and the feeling of accomplishment that accompanied it, even if he didn’t want to make farming his official profession. In fact, he liked to find excuses to work on his farm. He felt a real connection with the rich, black soil, a feeling just as powerful as what he felt for the stark, barren landscape of Montana where he owned a ranch. Maybe his Uncle Manny really knew what he was doing by leaving Vic his land.
“I’ll do Tony’s share while he’s out,” Vic muttered.
“We’ll get them planted one way or another,” Tim assured him.
“I thought you were going to get some writing done today,” Meg added as she brought plates of scrambled eggs and bacon to Andy and Vic.
Vic just shrugged and picked up his fork. He could feel Niall’s gaze on him like a light current of electricity buzzing just beneath his skin. He looked up abruptly, meeting her stare. She glanced away immediately, likely put off by the message of blazing irritation in his eyes. She carefully drew back a page of the sketch pad and returned her attention to Donny’s drawings.
“These are really good,” Vic heard her say quietly to Donny. “You have considerable natural talent, Donny.”
Donny blushed beneath his tan. “It’s just comic book stuff. It’s not like they’re art or anything.”
Vic gritted his teeth in annoyance when he saw the kid’s expression when he looked at Niall’s face, like he’d entered the house half-asleep as usual, ready for a ho-hum day, and suddenly found himself sitting next to Cameron Diaz for breakfast.
