by Joanne Rock
“All the more reason to be on my guard when the film starts shooting.” Taking the paper towel from her sister, Scarlett finished cleaning up her face. “I’m ready. I need to go tell them.”
* * *
Jillian’s head throbbed with worry as she sat next to Cody in the busy trauma center’s waiting room. Donovan McNeill paced near a window, pausing now and again to drum his fist gently on the glass or to slouch in a seat nearby. Cody and Carson sat on opposite sides of the room, their tense shoulders and jutting jaws like matching bookends of worry.
The hospital had to bring up tough feelings for them both. They’d lost their own mother to her injuries from the bull.
Jillian had never questioned whether she would make the trip with him or not. Although now, looking back at the last few frightening hours, she wondered if that had been the right decision. Maybe she didn’t belong here.
Yet even while things were falling apart between her and Cody, she couldn’t turn her back on the McNeills. Not when she carried Cody’s heir. Not after seeing the way they pulled together, even when it hurt. When Paige had been missing, Cody and Carson had even set aside their differences to search for her.
Donovan McNeill hadn’t thought twice about accepting his father’s plane when it meant getting to his wife’s bedside, and from what Jillian could gather, he hadn’t spoken to Malcolm in over twenty-five years. It was moments like this that brought people together and made crystal clear what was really important in life.
And for Jillian, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now. Everything she’d spouted to Cody about pursuing dreams paled in comparison to being beside him when he needed her. She wanted to be right here. With him. With her child’s family.
The institutional clock on the wall ticked audibly, even over the hum of activity all around them. The nurses’ station monitors beeped at regular intervals. The steady sound of machinery helping struggling human bodies to function was strangely reassuring.
Maisie and Scarlett were just returning from the bathroom. Had Scarlett been crying? Her face looked puffy and red.
“Family of Paige McNeill?” a gray-haired doctor in green scrubs called out as he exited one of the doors marked Do Not Enter.
As one, seven people tensed.
The siblings seemed to realize it was their father’s right to speak to the doctor, so they waited while Donovan strode over to him first. But Jillian and Cody were close enough to overhear the conversation. And the others crowded closer, behind their father.
“The surgery went well,” the doctor assured him. “I was worried about the hip, but I’m pleased with how well the fracture set. The tibia gave us no trouble. We might find more damage in her left arm that needs attention, but we’ve splinted it and want her to heal from the trauma of the fall before we work on anything else.”
A sigh of relief echoed around the group.
“Can we see her?” Donovan asked, raking a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.
“She won’t come out of the anesthesia for a while, but you’re welcome to sit with her in the recovery room. Only one at a time, though, I’m afraid.” His gray eyebrows swooped down. “Her condition is still critical.”
Donovan nodded. Cody rose and interjected, “Doctor, what about her head? Did she hit it in the fall?”
The surgeon nodded in turn, as if the question was expected. “There is very little external damage and her scans look clear, but she definitely hit her temple, so we’ll be monitoring her closely for problems. She’s on a ventilator and she’s been sedated because of the trauma. She might not be able to communicate much even after the anesthesia wears off.” Excusing himself, the doctor left, pointing them toward a small vestibule outside the recovery area.
Donovan turned to Madeline, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “We can trade off sitting with her once she wakes up, but I’d like to go in there first.”
No one argued with him as the rest of the family relocated to the quieter waiting area.
“It’s good news, though, right?” Madeline asked.
When no one else said anything, Jillian gave her shoulders a hug. “I think so.”
Jillian had barely settled in her seat next to Cody when Maisie leaned forward in her chair.
“I know we’re all worried about Mom. But now that Dad’s gone, Scarlett has something to share.” She leveled a stare at her sister.
Cody straightened in his seat. Jillian found herself reaching for him. Her fingers threading through his on instinct.
Scarlett’s cheeks went pink. “With all that was going on, I didn’t know when to bring this up.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a folded piece of paper. Her hands were unsteady as she smoothed the wrinkles and flattened it with her hand before continuing.
“When I was in Hollywood, some guy I never met before tried to hand me this note.” She kept her voice quiet even though there was no one else around in the waiting area.
She passed the note to Cody first.
As she read it over his shoulder, Jillian’s gut clenched. For Cody. For Paige. For all of them. And what did her film have to do with any of it?
Cody swore softly as he read and quickly passed the note to Carson. Madeline moved closer to read it with him. Maisie had obviously already seen it.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us about this last night when Paige went missing?” Cody demanded. Anger had crept into his voice, though he didn’t raise it.
Jillian wondered the same thing.
“Scarlett told me,” Maisie retorted, her posture defensive as she moved to shield her sister. “And we were about to bring it to Dad when Mom called home. We had hoped to ask her about it first.”
Cody took a deep breath and changed his approach. “I get it. You were worried your mother had good reason for hiding something about her past from Dad. But what if the person who gave you this note intends to hurt her? What if someone already did?”
Scarlett leaned forward in her chair. “It doesn’t read like a physical threat. And blackmail isn’t usually that kind of crime.”
“Do you think this is blackmail?” Jillian asked, trying to make sense of it.
At the same time, Carson said, “Would you recognize the guy who gave this to you if you saw him again?”
“I wouldn’t recognize him.” Scarlett shook her head, her long dark curls drooping. All the McNeills looked the worse for wear after the hours of uncertainty, but Scarlett seemed even more bedraggled. Maybe she hadn’t slept well with the weight of the letter on her mind.
“Your friend might,” Maisie said, turning to the rest of the family. “Scarlett was with Logan when it happened. He saw the guy, too.”
“Should we tell Dad?” Scarlett asked. “I just don’t want to pile too much on him now.”
Cody was the first to answer. “We tell him as soon as she wakes up.”
Beside him, Carson nodded, cementing the decision.
“If someone is trying to make trouble for us, we all need to be on guard,” Carson added. “I wouldn’t have agreed to the film if I’d known.”
Scarlett looked miserable. “I didn’t get this until afterward.”
Maisie jumped to her little sister’s defense again, and while she explained to Carson all the reasons this was a difficult position for Scarlett, Cody leaned over to speak in Jillian’s ear.
“Walk with me?”
It was a question, but he was already pulling her to her feet. Grateful for the suggestion, Jillian followed him.
“We’ll be back in ten,” Cody announced over his shoulder. He placed a hand on the small of her back, guiding her out the door of the private waiting room and back into the frenzy of the trauma floor.
But a few moments later, they were walking down a long corridor toward a door with a small green sign pointing the way to the meditation garden. It was s
ponsored by a local nursery.
“I needed some air.” His voice rasped with exhaustion even though it was only eight o’clock.
Neither of them had slept much the night before.
“Me, too.” She stepped out into a sweet-smelling garden half covered with a white pergola. Jasmine hung over the arches, the fragrance heavy in the fresh air.
Cody guided them toward a bench near a bubbling fountain with a statue of a little girl reaching into a stream of running water. The sun had just set, but landscape lights and the moon made it easy to see.
“How are you feeling?” He led her to the bench and they sat down side by side.
The sound of water rushing from the fountain into a small pond soothed her.
Or maybe it was the presence of the man beside her. A man who meant more to her with each passing hour. Their lives had become intertwined so fast, fueled by the adrenaline of their life circumstances—her illness, his family. And somehow, they’d found something special.
Something she wasn’t ready to turn her back on.
“Physically, I’m fine.” She turned and glanced up at him. “Emotionally drained, as I’m sure you are, too.” She put her hand on his knee. “I hope it wasn’t presumptuous of me to make the trip here with your family.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Jillian.” He slid his fingers around hers, his touch warming her as it had from that first night when they’d danced. “If it was up to me, you’d be staying in Cheyenne.” He looked up at the stars for a long moment before his eyes locked on hers. “Spending time with me and my family. Giving us a chance to grow on you.”
Her throat burned at the picture he painted. As if it was that simple. She picked at a tendril of jasmine that curled around the arm of the bench, traced the veins in one green leaf.
“Cody, I know how fast you’d all grow on me if I stay in Cheyenne.” But she’d given her love to someone before, only to discover at the cruelest possible moment how much it could hurt to find that love was one-sided.
Cody was too honorable a man to pretend a devotion he didn’t feel. But Jillian would never know if his tender concern was all for the sake of his child. His heir.
The tiny life that had only just begun to grow.
“Then why won’t you?” The hurt and confusion in his voice forced her to be honest.
To share her hurts, too.
She let go of the jasmine and looked him in the eye. “Because I can’t bear to fall in love with you and know you only wanted me here for the sake of this baby.”
His eyes closed as if she’d dealt him a blow. When he opened them, they were clearer. Determined.
“You faced cancer alone. You scrapped the whole direction of your life to start over again. You got a dream job by sheer force of will. And you waltzed into Cheyenne and took on the most formidable McNeill in town to get what you wanted.” He lifted her hands in both of his as he stared into her eyes. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re too scared to fall in love with me.”
A shocked laugh escaped her. Or maybe it was a little bit of hysteria edging through after the upheaval of the last few days.
“A woman has her limits.” She felt tears bubbling up, but didn’t want to shed them. “There’s so much out of my control—”
“But you can control this? Us?” He brought her hand to his face and laid it along his jaw, kissing the palm. “That’s the worst thing to try to dictate. You can’t tell your heart what to feel.”
The breeze stirred a flag over their heads, the fabric snapping in the wind. She struggled to keep her wits about her. To look at this relationship rationally and not through the eyes of a woman in love. She couldn’t afford that kind of weakness now.
“I can try to protect it,” she argued weakly, feeling her defenses slide away and helpless to resurrect them.
He shook his head, sadness and regret in his eyes. “Can I tell you a secret? It’s going to sound awful to say, but my father has been protecting his heart ever since my mother died.”
Jillian blinked in surprise. An older couple strolled past them, arm in arm, and disappeared into the grounds beyond the garden.
“What about Paige?” She couldn’t imagine putting her heart in Cody’s hands if she wasn’t certain he would give her his in return. But maybe some women could love that way.
“A marriage of convenience. I always knew why my father chose her—she took care of his kids, no questions asked. But until I read that note Scarlett showed us, it never occurred to me Paige might have been running from demons of her own when she agreed to marry Dad.”
Jillian shivered. “I couldn’t bear a lifetime of loneliness like that.”
“There’s still time for them.” Cody glanced toward the hospital. “I sure as hell hope so, anyway.” He turned to her again. “But my point is this. Protecting your heart is what leads to the real hurt. To the emptiness of never really connecting with people.”
“So your advice to me is that I should open my heart to you.”
“Obviously.” He grinned, and for a moment it was that same easy grin as his brother’s, the smile that had captivated her that first night at the bar. Except it was all his. Uniquely Cody. “But what I’m really trying to say is that I would never trap either one of us in that kind of relationship. If it doesn’t work, we’ll find a way to love our child as equals and friends.”
Her heart hurt at the idea of walking away. Of trying at love and failing.
On the far side of the hospital, an ambulance siren blared, a surge of urgency sounding through the otherwise peaceful retreat.
“I want more than that for this baby.” Her hand crept to her flat belly, where she prayed their child would grow.
“So do I.” He tipped his forehead to hers. “Family means everything to me, Jillian.”
“I don’t want you to force yourself to love me.”
“You wouldn’t be forcing me.” He shook his head, certainty in his eyes. “My feelings for you are so real, I can’t imagine a life without you. And I don’t know how that happened so fast, but it did.”
She blinked, struggling to follow what he was saying. “Do you mean—”
“Wait.” He pressed a finger to her lips. Gently. “Let me get this out while I can. I don’t want to rush you, Jillian. But I love you, and I don’t want you to leave.”
Her heart melted. Or maybe it was all her doubts that slid away at his words—words he would never utter unless he meant them. Happiness unfurled like a spring bloom, but before she could answer, he rushed on, continuing, “And we can date first, you know, if you aren’t ready for more. Take it one day at a time. But we can only do that if we’re in the same state.”
“You don’t want me to go to Flagstaff.” She understood what he was asking. Recognized the practical limitations of being a rancher. He was tied to the land.
“I didn’t say that. If you go, I go with you.” He kissed her cheek.
Then the other.
Her pulse rate doubled as she thought through his words, felt the rasp of his unshaved face against her skin.
“You would do that for me?” That alone told her so much about his commitment to her. To this love.
“Without a moment’s hesitation.” He wasn’t a man to tease. And he sure wouldn’t lie about something like that.
But she had to think of his wants, as well. “I love you, Cody. And I love that you would do that for me. But you’re a rancher. How could you leave the ranch?”
She appreciated that earthiness about him. The way he embraced the land and wasn’t pretentious in spite of his vast fortune. She didn’t want to change him.
“I like to think of myself as a rancher, Jillian. But first and foremost, I am a McNeill.” He said it like that explained everything. But even though she’d researched his lands for the film, she’d never read much about his family’s assets or we
alth.
“I know your grandfather is rich,” she began, thinking through what he was saying. “He’s the head of McNeill Resorts.”
“Yes. And my father has spent his whole life trying to outshine his old man because of an old feud that stopped mattering a long time ago. While I prefer to live off what I earn on the ranch, I have enough other holdings that I could take some time away from Cheyenne while we see the world. Check off some of those adventures on your list.” He leaned in to kiss her lips with infinite tenderness. “Together.”
She couldn’t have been more stunned.
Biting her lip, she tasted his kiss on her mouth. She hardly dared to believe what he was offering her.
“That would be amazing.” She felt light. Free.
Loved.
Her heart soared high and she didn’t try to stop it. She simply let the joy fill her up.
“You have to let me take care of you, though. Good food. Enough rest.” He kissed her again, lingering this time until her body heated with awareness. “And if I opt to spend the day in bed with you, you have to tell me if I wear you out.”
She leaned back long enough to see the wicked gleam in his eyes. She nipped his ear in retaliation before she whispered, “I bet I’ll wear you out first.”
“Are we really going to do this, Jillian? Conquer the world and that list of adventures together?” His eyes were serious again. “Hearing about Paige today, knowing how fragile life can be—” He swallowed hard and kissed her again. “I don’t want to waste a day being away from you.”
With all her heart, Jillian hoped she could fulfill this man’s dreams. But if nothing else, she was going to try to make him happy for as much time as they had together. And yes, she was going to let herself fall head over heels for him.
She guessed the woozy feeling she had meant it was already happening.
“I won’t waste a minute,” she promised.
And kissed him with abandon, treasuring the promise of tomorrow with the worthiest man she’d ever met.
* * * * *
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