by Gigi Moore
“It wasn’t so bad. If you guys hadn’t come to the airport, then it really would have been a crappy sendoff.”
“You’re too kind.”
Evidently, she wasn’t kind enough, at least not where it concerned her father.
She really needed to find a way to come to terms with their past and repair their tattered relationship.
Lured by his hard strong muscles and clean fresh scent, she buried her face against Jax’s chest for a long moment, then lifted her face to stare him in the eyes and asked, “Where’s Jess?”
“Shucks, sweetheart, you really know how to boost a cowboy’s ego. What’s the matter? I’m not enough for you?”
Tamara instantly felt like crud and started to apologize until she saw the teasing gleam in his azure eyes. “I’m a whole lot of woman, and it takes two good men to tame me.” She saw his eyes light at the tame me, and her heart sped with the implications of her freaky Freudian slip. She wondered how much more or if his eyes would have lit up had she said what she really felt in her heart—that she needed them both and had never felt more cared about, safe and secure than when she lay in their arms.
As if sensing her sudden solemn mood, Jax silently moved his hands to loosen the lasso and slide it up her body and over her head.
Entranced, Tamara watched him wind the extra rope into a spool.
She had been so comfortable as his captive, that she had forgotten all about the binding, hadn’t felt restricted at all. Had, in fact, felt more free and open with him than she had felt in a long time, except when she and he and Jess had been out by the stream. She couldn’t help thinking that she must trust both of them on some intrinsic level, trusted them a lot.
“To answer your question, set your sights on the rider in the corral.”
Tamara’s heart fluttered as she realized the identity of the bronco buster—none other than Jax’s twin. With his hat low over his brow as it had been that first day she’d met him at the airport, she hadn’t been able to tell, really hadn’t been paying much attention to be truthful, since she’d had her hands full with Jess’s brother. But almost as soon as Jax drew her attention to the rider, his black Stetson flew off, and she recognized Jess’s unmistakable, chiseled features, chestnut hair gleaming beneath the rays of the mid-morning sun and blowing in the gentle spring breeze.
Her pussy clenched watching him, and she had to amend her earlier thoughts about the rodeo. She never had been inordinately drawn to the cowboy mystique before, but watching Jess atop the wild horse—muscles tensed and bulging beneath his western shirt as he tightly gripped the cinch around the horse’s belly—she thought she could definitely become a fan.
She didn’t know if the obvious danger in the act of trying to break such a wild horse convinced her. However, when she watched Jess’s skillful handling of the animal—one hand held high and thighs clamped against the horse’s middle—her panties became moist. “He’s a real arm jerker,” Tamara said.
“Yep, but Jess is doing a lot of floating up there. Showoff.”
Tamara chuckled, recognized Jax’s reference to a technique some saddle bronco riders used to make it appear the horse bucked them off at every jump.
“Uh- . I see daylight.”
Tamara did too, Jess coming so far off the horse when the animal sunfished, twisting his body into the shape of a crescent, that she worried he really would be bucked off. She turned to Jax for a brief moment, enough to notice the anxiety on his face.
“He’s going to get thrown.”
The certainty in Jax’s voice chilled Tamara as he rushed past her, scaling the corral fence at the same instant Jess went flying from the back of the bronco.
Tamara instantly followed as did several of the other cowboys who leaped down from the fence, some with lassos at the ready as they ran down the still bucking horse and the rest going to see how Jess fared.
By the time she reached the circle of men hovering over his unmoving form, all the saliva had vacated her mouth, leaving it dry and almost unworkable.
Jax knelt by his brother’s side, slapping his face a couple of times and calling his name before Jess finally blinked opened his eyes. “You okay, showoff?”
Jess winced as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “Fell the wrong way. But I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Gimme a break.” He glanced at the circle of men and Tamara gathered around him. “Just help me get up.”
Jax instantly reached out a hand to grab his brother’s, pulled and helped Jess to his feet.
Jess dusted off the seat and thighs of his jeans as one of the other cowboys handed him his hat. “Thanks,” he murmured, but when he reached for it, he missed and would have gone face-first into the dirt had Jax not caught him.
“Whoa, whoa pardner.” Jax held his brother firm until he seemed steady enough to stand on his own feet, then peered into Jess’s eyes. “Think maybe we need to mosey on over to the emergency room for a quick look-see.”
“I’m just a little lightheaded. I’m okay.”
“Don’t be such a tough stubborn cuss just because our girlfriend’s here,” Jax teased and Tamara’s face immediately heated as all eyes turned her way. At least the gazes seemed more curious than judgmental. She didn’t think she could deal with anyone else in addition to her father jumping to conclusions, not in one day.
“Jax is right, Jess. You should see a doctor, just to make sure everything is okay.”
He gritted his teeth so hard, Tamara knew he must have broken a couple of molars. “Oh, all right. I’ll go and let a doctor take a look at me.” He reached for his hat and this time succeeded in snatching it from the cowboy who held it out to him before he slammed it on his head.
“Good. We’ll take your truck to town. I’m driving,” Jax stated and headed toward the open corral gate.
Tamara fell into step behind him and Jess. “I’ll go with you.”
Jess stopped in his tracks and turned to frown at her. “No sense in both of you being bored silly looking at four walls while the doctor tells me what I already know.”
Tamara prepared to argue before she saw Jess’s back go up as he prepared to argue too. Any other place and time, she might have pushed the point, the debater and lawyer in her scratching at her vocal chords, begging for a voice.
She’d spent years debating on her high school and college teams. In college, she had even been co-captain of the team, and she didn’t back down from a challenge easily. Except the look on Jess’s face, the macho-man-doesn’t-want-to-show-weakness-in-front-of-the-woman-he-cares-about look gave her pause.
“Jess is right. Why don’t you stay and play the tourist? Let one of the wranglers show you around the place to see all the improvements we’ve made and some of the stuff you’ve missed. I suggest checking out the western town and shooting range in particular. Although the star attraction,” Jax paused here and wiggled his eyebrows, “won’t be available, my fill-in and his partner put on a good show too.”
One of the cowboys broke rank from the circle of men, stepped forward and doffed his hat to reveal a head of longish, raven-black hair. “Carson Quarry at your service ma’am.” He motioned to the cowboy beside him, about the same height as Carson’s probable six foot three and just as stoic. “This here’s my younger brother, Sam. We can take you to the range now if you like.”
Younger? From the looks of it, and despite Carson’s serious expression, he didn’t appear much older than twenty-five himself. Not only did he appear as young as Sam, but he and his brother looked just as gorgeous as Jess and Jax.
They seemed nice enough, not exactly friendly, but not unfriendly either. And for all their sexiness, neither of them did a thing for her physically—nada, zip, zilch.
Tamara breathed a sigh of relief at this. Aside from the fact that she already had a full plate with her own two cowboys, she did not want to be the woman who fell for or tried to tame either Quarry brother. They seemed more rugged and feral than the rest of
the cowboys she’d met at the Double R—feral and dangerous.
Still, she felt the need to tease Jess and Jax, if only to get back at them for wanting to make her stay behind like a good little obedient woman.
Jax beat her to the punch, however, when he pointedly gave the two men a teasing if also warning glare and said, “Take good care of her.”
Both cowboys barely cracked smiles as they nodded.
Carson, the apparent spokesman for the pair said, “No harm will ever come to any woman under our watch.”
Tamara didn’t know whether to be reassured or worried about the truth of Carson’s statement.
Chapter 19
“So how long are you goin’ to keep up the silent treatment?” Jeremiah asked. He couldn’t take the quiet anymore, not now.
Bailey hadn’t said a word to him all the way to the hospital except for a grunted greeting when he first got into Jeremiah’s truck after breakfast. Bailey had spent the half-an-hour of his chemo treatment alternately flipping through an outdated magazine from one of the round coffee tables in the treatment room and silently glancing out a nearby window.
Presently, he turned to glare at Jeremiah. “You had to go and open up your pie hole.”
“What are you jawin’ about? Open up my pie hole about what?”
“Are you going to sit there and tell me you didn’t say anything to the boys or Tamara about my…condition?”
Jeremiah could understand his friend’s almost choking on the last word. He hesitated over the term every time he thought about his friend’s condition—inoperable cancer.
He still hadn’t reconciled himself to the fact that his friend of more than three decades would die soon, at least much sooner than either of them had prepared for. Jeremiah had been looking forward to at least another twenty years of hearing Bailey’s ranting and seeing his grouchy face across the breakfast table. Those twenty years had been knocked down to a mere month. “You think if I had said anything I’d be sitting here alone looking at your sour puss?”
Bailey grunted and turned to look out the window again.
Jeremiah put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t you think it’s about time you let them know? At least let Maria, the boys and Tamara know. They’re family.”
“No.”
“Bail—”
“I said no. Not yet.”
Jeremiah took a deep breath, knew he would have to make his friend see the error of his ways and that his next words would do the trick. “I’ve been speaking to Jasmine.”
Bailey’s head whipped around so fast, Jeremiah thought it would fly right off his shoulders. “What have you been speaking to her about? Or should I say what hole did you dig her out of?”
“The same hole she called from when she last spoke to you.”
“She called almost thirty years ago. And how the hell did you know about it?”
“Paula.”
The name elicited a grim smile. “Never could get anything by that woman.”
“She always thought you made a mistake not lettin’ Jasmine come to see the gal.”
“I did what was best for Tamara by keeping her away.”
“What was best for Tamara or what was best for you?”
“You know I’m not too old or sick to give you the ass-whipping that you deserve.”
“You can get as angry as you want, curly wolf. You know I’m right.”
Bailey gritted his teeth, hard from the way his jaw worked, but Jeremiah refused to back down this time.
“I told her about Tamara bein’ here and she wants to come for a visit, kill a couple of birds with one stone. I’m thinkin’ about lettin’ her.”
“I don’t care a continental what she wants, or what you think. But then since it’s not just my ranch, I suppose I don’t have a say now, do I?”
“You have a say, Bailey. But what about Tamara?”
“Does she know you’ve been speaking to her mother?”
“Not yet.”
“And how do you think she’ll handle that?”
“How do you think she’ll handle your denyin’ her mother access to her when Jasmine wanted it?”
“I’m curious about the answer to that myself.”
Jeremiah’s heart fell at the sound of his youngest son’s voice, and he knew Bailey’s did just the same, especially when he saw the stricken look on his friend’s face.
They both slowly turned their gazes to the treatment room threshold where Jax stood with the same distraught look on his face that Bailey had on his.
“What’s going on?”
* * * *
Jax stood waiting for an answer, not sure if he wanted to hear what either man had to say and not sure if he could even handle it, especially now.
It wasn’t enough that his brother had taken a fall that scared the spit right out of Jax. Now he had walked into something that he suspected was going to rock his world worse than anything else ever had so far.
Jax kept his own extracurricular activities with the rodeo a secret because he didn’t want to scare his family every time he got banged up on the circuit. Didn’t want to make anyone as anxious as he felt now.
“What are you doin’ here?” Jeremiah asked.
“How much did you hear?” Bailey asked.
Jax looked from one man to the other, didn’t know whose question to answer first and suddenly felt put on the spot when he should have been asking the questions.
He stared at Bailey sitting in a large teal-blue recliner, really looked at him for the first time in a long time and noticed how tired and washed out the older man appeared. His gaze then traveled up the IV pole standing beside Bailey’s chair like a lifeless metal sentinel. A bag of fluid hung from the top of it and a tube led from the bag down to the inside of Bailey’s arm.
Jax darted his gaze from the IV in Bailey’s arm to Bailey’s eyes. He held the man’s look as long as he could without breaking, then looked to his father as if for confirmation of what he already knew. He’d known it the moment he’d heard the familiar voices coming from the chemotherapy therapy room before he drifted in to see what went on with the two men.
“How long have you been sick?” he whispered and watched as Bailey closed his eyes and shook his head.
Pop got up and came over to Jax. “What are you doin’ here, boy?”
“Jess got thrown off a bronc—”
“Is he all right?”
“He got knocked out for several seconds and had a little dizzy spell when he came to He didn’t want to come to the hospital until I made him though. There’s a doc looking at him now.”
“I’m glad he’s okay. But you still haven’t answered the question. What are you doin’ here?”
Jax shrugged, feeling like a little kid who’d just been caught after breaking a living room lamp with a basketball he wasn’t supposed to be playing within the house. “I just wandered around, killed some time while the doctor took care of Jess.”
As soon as his brother had gotten settled in a treatment room with a doctor checking him out, Jax had used the time to take a stroll around the hospital to find something to eat and to just stretch his legs. Had he known what he’d be stumbling on he would have kept his patooty firmly planted in a seat in the waiting room where he and Jess had spent the better part of an hour for a doctor to see to Jess’s injury.
“I don’t need to tell you not to say anything to anyone else, do I?”
Jax gaped at his father. “Why not?”
“Because Bailey doesn’t want anyone to know yet.”
“And I’m asking again—why not?”
“Please, Jackson. I need you to do this for me,” Bailey rasped.
Jax looked over at him, saw he had his eyes open and gave Jax an intense, pleading stare that made Jax’s heart trip in his chest.
“Tam needs to know you’re si—”
“She doesn’t need to know anything.”
“But, Bail—”
“I said no!”
Jax snapped his mouth shut and his father turned his head around to look at his friend.
Bailey swallowed, and Jax watched his Adam’s apple bounce up and down like a ping-pong ball in a lottery drum. “Well, uh,” Jax cleared his throat, “what about Jesse? I can’t hide this from him. He’s going to know something’s up. You know how he is.”
“Only if you think he won’t say anything to anyone else.”
Jax didn’t know if he could get Jess to make a promise like that, especially after all the trouble he had gotten into for lying to Tamara already, and this lie seemed a hundred times worse.
But he couldn’t keep this to himself. He had to tell someone, and if he couldn’t tell anyone else, he could tell Jess. Jess had always kept Jax’s confidences—they had kept each other’s confidences since they had been kids and always would.
When Jax had gotten picked up for DUI on they way home from a party several years ago, Jess had been the one he’d called, not Pop. Jess had come to bail him out and pay the fee to get Jax’s truck out of impound. Jax’d had to hear about his irresponsible, reckless behavior for days and weeks after, but he hadn’t drunk and drove again since and their father had never been the wiser to this day.
If anyone could keep a secret, Jess could.
He could keep one, but would he keep this one?
“Promise me, boy. You and Jess won’t tell Tamara. Promise me.”
Jax choked back a sob, tears that he failed not to shed running down his cheeks at Bailey’s plea.
“Don’t you start that bawling, boy. I ain’t dead yet, and I’ll get up from this chair and knock you on your ass just to prove it.”
Jax burst into laughter, hastily swiping at his tears and nodding. “I…I promise.”
Now he just needed to make Jess promise too.
* * * *
“No way. No frigging way.”
“Jesse, please, if you had only seen his face.”
