Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I could see in the distance that there was a light still on in one of the rooms at the main house. Marie would probably give me a ride, and I could sweeten the deal by promising her a pan of brownies. I started walking up there but then heard someone say my name.

  I turned in the direction of the voice.

  It was Ollie, silhouetted by the pale moonlight. He sounded surprised to see me.

  “I didn’t know you were still here,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “I was just... I was going up to the main house to see if Marie was still awake. I forgot that I didn’t have my car here.”

  “You need a ride home?”

  “Errr, yeah, actually. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “’Course I wouldn’t. Come on, the truck’s over here.”

  We walked side-by-side across the soft grass. “Thanks for doing this,” I said. “I really appreciate it. I hope I’m not getting in the way of anything you had to do.”

  “Nah,” he said. “I was just going to take a little walk. Helps me sleep better at night if I take a walk first.”

  My fingertips brushed his as we walked along, and he yanked his hand back as though I’d just shocked him.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not trying to hold your hand or anything. I’m not drunk; I can walk perfectly fine.”

  He chuckled. “You’re funny, you know that?”

  “I’ve been told that before.”

  We walked along in amicable silence for a dozen or so strides.

  “You friends with Ryan?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah, kind of.” I paused. “So, what about you? Is Carolyn your girlfriend? She seemed nice.”

  “Carolyn?” He coughed. “We went out in high school for a while. But she’s not my girlfriend now.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “We never really ended things properly though,” he continued. “So, it’s kind of a gray area. It shouldn’t be, since so much time has passed, but . . . I don’t know. Relationships can be complicated.” He sounded increasingly uncomfortable, and I felt bad that I’d asked. “She was there mostly because Ryan had seen me talking with her, and he invited her to come.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s basically why I came too, because of Ryan. Though obviously things didn’t go quite according to plan. He was the one who gave me a ride here. I should have taken my own car, though.”

  “What—did he forget to bring you back home or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and heard the sound of something large moving.

  “What was that?”

  “Just a horse,” Ollie said. “Ditto, I think. In the corral over there. Garrett asked me to work with him, get him ride-ready. I guess he’s been giving people a lot of trouble.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Ollie shrugged. “Who knows? Was probably mistreated at some point, which is a shame because he’s got a lot of potential.”

  “I always wanted to know how to ride a horse,” I said.

  “Yeah? How come you didn’t?”

  “My parents wouldn’t let me take lessons. They thought it was too dangerous.”

  “Well, it’s never too late to learn. Come by the ranch some time. I can take you out. Garrett’s got all kinds of good horses to start a beginner on.”

  “Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Not at all. Here’s my truck.”

  He was mostly quiet during the ride back to my place, but I didn’t mind. I liked just being near him, and I sensed that he appreciated me not trying to fill the silence with chatter.

  “This is me right here,” I said as he approached my house, feeling a bit disappointed that we’d gotten back here so soon. “Well.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. I’d never had a problem before, being forward with a guy, so long as I felt like I was the one in control. That meant there’d been countless front seats I’d leaned across, initiating the kiss. And I wanted to kiss Ollie right now more than I’d ever wanted to kiss anyone, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it. Something kept me there on my side of the truck, and I heard myself saying good night and then fumbling with the door handle. I thanked him for the ride home, and he said no problem, it was his pleasure. It was probably just my imagination, but I thought that he looked disappointed I hadn’t tried to kiss him.

  It’s a warm, bright morning, and I’m out for a run. The sun is beaming down on me, and my legs feel strong, like they could carry me for another twenty miles without tiring. I’m breathing heavy, but it’s not painful. Everything about this feels good.

  Up ahead, I see a truck with a horse trailer pulled over on the side of the road, a guy has gotten out. He’s wearing jeans and a black and white button-down shirt, like the one Ryan was wearing, but I can’t see his face, it’s like it’s been blurred out the way they do sometimes in TV interviews where they want to keep the person anonymous. I know I shouldn’t stop, but I feel myself slowing, first to a jog, then to a walk, despite my mind screaming at my body to keep going. The blurred face says, “Get into the horse trailer.”

  Before I can say no, he lunges and grabs me. Those legs of mine that had felt so strong and capable just a few seconds ago now kick feebly, doing nothing at all as the guy drags me into the back of horse trailer. He throws me down onto the rubber surface, and I get shavings on my hands, in my hair.

  “I don’t want to! Stop it!” I screech. I’m on my hands and knees, trying to scramble away, even though there’s a solid metal wall in front of me. Nowhere to go.

  He grabs the waist of my pants and yanks back, causing me to tip forward and fall flat on my face, arms splayed. It feels like the wind was knocked out of me, and those lungs that were operating so efficiently before are now struggling to draw in a breath.

  “Please stop,” I gasp, knowing that anything I say is pointless.

  He’s still behind me, and I feel rough nylon rope wrap around my neck, feel him pull it tight, first slowly then with a jerk that makes my eyes bulge and my mouth hang open, even though no sound is coming out. Black spots swarm in my field of vision, and my hands instinctively go to my neck, but the rope is so tight it feels like it’s cutting into my skin. Noises sound distant, far away, but I can hear him laughing. The pressure inside my head is so much it feels like it’s about to explode. My tongue’s lolling out of my mouth, and my limbs are twitching, and he’s right there behind me, breath hot in my ear.

  “How’s all that Krav Maga training working out for you now?” he asks, and that’s the last thing I hear as everything else falls away.

  “It scared the shit out of me,” I said to Dr. Mike. I shuddered; just having to talk about it brought back that feeling of being strangled, of not having any control whatsoever. “I’ve had some pretty bad nightmares, but never one where the person actually killed me.”

  “It can be very unsettling,” Dr. Mike said. “But it’s understandable why you had such a dream.”

  “It is?”

  “Well, you just got finished telling me about that experience with Ryan.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t like I was actually in danger then.”

  “Who’s to say you weren’t? Based on what you’ve said, you told him ‘no,’ and he didn’t want to take that as an answer.”

  “Right, but I put an end to that pretty quickly.”

  “And that’s good. Your self-defense training paid off. Your dream, though, reflects an underlying fear of what might have happened if that training hadn’t worked. There’s no foolproof method for anything, so it’s natural there’s going to be some doubt and fear.”

  “So, that’s what you think it means?”

  “No one can say for sure, but yes, I think it’s a fair assumption.”

  “The thing is—aside from that, the night went really well. I had a lot of fun. I talked to some new people. I also talked with Ollie, and then he gave me a ride home. And I wanted to kiss him so
badly, but I didn’t. I exercised restraint!” Dr. Mike and I had spent many sessions discussing the merits of “exercising restraint.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I might be giving myself too much credit. I really did want to kiss him, but it was like there was some other force that was keeping me from doing it. So, I don’t know if it was really me exercising restraint, or that other force.”

  “What other force might that be?”

  “I have no idea! I just know that I’ve never felt that before, so it seems kind of unlikely that it’s something coming from me.”

  “Perhaps you were merely picking up on the signal that he didn’t want to kiss you.”

  “Huh?”

  I pushed myself up from my reclining position and looked at Dr. Mike, who was sitting there, one leg crossed over the other, yellow legal pad in his lap. “Why did you say that?”

  “I brought that up as a reason for this ‘other force,’ as you so put it. The other force you were feeling—which you just said you didn’t think was coming from you—could perhaps be the fact that he didn’t want to kiss you.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” I said. “Fact? How do you know that’s a fact? You weren’t there. Now it’s a fact all of a sudden? That he didn’t want to kiss me?”

  “I find your defensive reaction to all this quite interesting,” Dr. Mike said mildly. “And no, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if he wanted to kiss you or not—”

  “So, maybe don’t refer to it as fact…”

  “—But sometimes when we pick up on signals from other people, we are able to correctly interpret them and modify our own behaviors as a result. This could have been one such scenario.”

  “But that would mean he didn’t want to kiss me.”

  “Correct. Which you seem to be having a hard time accepting.”

  “I just… I mean… I think I’m a pretty good judge of those things, and I have a very strong feeling that had I leaned over and kissed him, he most definitely would have kissed me back. I’m almost one hundred percent sure of it, in fact.”

  Dr. Mike nodded and scribbled something on his notepad. “Perhaps,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  Ollie

  The thing about most horses was that you didn’t know their history unless, of course, you raised them yourself. No one had a clue about what had or hadn’t happened in Ditto’s life so far, but it had obviously been something not that great because he clearly trusted no one.

  I’d gone down to the corral every day since Garrett had told me about him, sometimes multiple times a day. At first, he’d just pin his ears back and go to the other end of the corral, where he’d stand and we’d sort of have a stare down. But he’d started to get used to me a little, or at least being a bit more accepting of my presence, because now when I went down there, he completely ignored me. Today, there was a wind kicking up, and all the horses were in high spirits, Ditto included. A gust whipped through, and he took off at a gallop, letting a few bucks out as he careened around his confines. As I watched him, I thought of what a good roping horse he’d make.

  I stayed there a while longer while he kicked up his heels, and then I went and got into my truck and drove into town. I didn’t have anywhere particular I needed to be, but I told myself I should get a coffee. Really though, I was hoping to see Wren.

  I hadn’t seen her since Saturday night at the barbecue, but I’d certainly been thinking about her plenty. It’d been nice talking, that night I’d given her a ride home. I tried not to think about it, but it was hard because I’d felt comfortable around her, like she was easy to talk to, and she wasn’t judging me. Of course, she didn’t know what I’d done, so maybe that was why she wasn’t judging me, but it was still nice either way.

  I didn’t see her when I walked in, but right as I was taking my seat at the counter, she pushed the two swinging doors open and appeared, carrying two plates.

  “Hey there!” she said. “Let me drop this food off, and I’ll be right over.”

  “Just came in for a coffee,” I said when returned. “How’s it going?”

  “Going pretty good.” I watched as she poured the coffee and the way the corners of her mouth curved into a smile. “Nice to see you.”

  “And remember how we talked about riding horses? I was thinking maybe you could come by, and I’d give you a lesson. If you were still interested.”

  “Why, I’d love that!” she said. “Lena, I’m going to be a cowgirl after all!” she called across the room to one of the waitresses. “When should I come over?”

  “Does tomorrow work?”

  “Sure does! Oooh, I’m excited!” She grinned, and I found myself grinning back at her, her enthusiasm contagious. There was something alluring about her, not just the fact that she had a pretty face, but something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  After I had my coffee, I said good-bye to Wren. I had another matter to take care of, and I checked my pocket to make sure the little slip of paper was in there.

  Carolyn had left me her phone number, but when I went to use a pay phone, I couldn’t find one. The one phone booth I could remember, near the library, was still there, but the phone had been removed. Ripped out, maybe. It looked pretty rough, and it didn’t look like it was going to be fixed it any time soon.

  An older guy was coming out of the library and stopped when he saw me standing there, looking at the phone booth. “Gonna be standing there a while, sonny, if you’re waiting for that thing to ever work again,” he said. “You forget to charge your phone or something?”

  “No, I don’t—”

  “’Cause my wife, she’s always forgetting to charge the damn thing, until I did some research and got her one of these portable chargers; it’s good for up to three full phone charges. Except you have to remember to charge that. But it’s been a good investment. I recommend you get one.”

  “I don’t have a phone,” I said.

  “Why in hell not? Even I have one. Granted, it’s not one of those fancy pants ones, but it works.”

  “I used to have one. But there were still phone booths.”

  “What—you been living under a rock all these years? Get with the times,” he chided. “I’d let you use mine, but I can’t seem to find it. It can’t seem to stay in my pockets, I’m always misplacing it, and unfortunately, they don’t make something that can be any help with that.”

  “A fanny pack?” I said jokingly.

  He didn’t say anything right away, but then his eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “Now that’s a bright idea! My wife was trying to get me to carry some sort of satchel or something ridiculous like that.” He patted my upper arm. “You have a good one, now! Maybe go out and get yourself a phone.”

  I stood there for a minute after he’d walked off, and then decided to go back into Ollie’s. Wren was right there, leaning on the counter, chatting with one of the customers. “Back so soon?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I went to use the pay phone, but it’s not there anymore.”

  The customer she was talking to, a heavyset woman with short, curly hair, swiveled on the stool and looked at me. “That’s been out of service for years now!” she said. “There’s no point in them leaving that thing up there, but they do.”

  She squinted at me. “You trying to use it or something?”

  “I was.”

  “Your phone died?”

  “I don’t actually have one.” I looked at Wren. “Could I use the one here?”

  “Of course you can, but maybe we should go get you a phone. There’s a place a few blocks down. Come on, I’ll go with you.”

  She untied her apron and tossed it under the counter. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” she said to one of the waitresses. She smiled at the curly-haired woman. “See you later, Renee.”

  “Bye,” Renee said. “Have fun phone shopping,” she said to me.

  “You can just leave like that?” I asked Wren as we stepped outsid
e.

  “Sure, I can.” She shrugged. “I’m the boss, right?”

  “Good point.”

  “I wouldn’t leave like that if we were in the weeds or anything, but it’s slow. And you need to get a phone.”

  I smiled. “I thought you said you liked that I didn’t have one.”

  “I think I said it was refreshing—which it is—but it’d be nice to have a way to get in touch with you.”

  “You know, there is a phone in my cabin, but I don’t know the number. Actually, I’m not even sure that it works.”

  “You don’t strike me as the type who’s in his cabin too often. I’m not saying you should turn into one of those people that’s glued to their phone, but having a way to be in touch is good. And what if you’re out riding, and you get bucked off and need to call for help?”

  “Guess I better not get bucked off.”

  We came to an intersection and stopped on the curb, waiting for the light to change. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about this, but I felt a surge of happiness go through me. Here I was, on this nice day, standing next to an attractive woman under the clear blue sky, the sun shining down on it all. At that moment in time, I felt like I was about the luckiest man alive.

  I looked at Wren, who was watching the traffic light, and took in her profile—the way she had a handful of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, her long eyelashes. She must’ve felt me looking because she turned and smiled, and she had one of those smiles that went all the way up to her eyes.

  “Phone shopping can often be a painful experience,” she said, “but let’s see if we can make it as quick and painless as possible. Luckily, I know the manager here; he comes in most mornings for his muffin and coffee. He knows I’ll have no qualms withholding either—or both!—if he tries to give us the runaround.”

  The light changed, and we started to walk across the intersection. “You can do that?” I asked. “Refuse service like that?”

  “Of course I can. Here’s his place right here.”