The Last Lone Wolf

by Maureen Child

  “We’re not here to look at horses—we’re here to fish and drink beer,” Jesse told them both, tossing a tackle box into the back of Jericho’s truck. “Bella and Maggie are having a girls' night in at the ranch—said they’re planning a big family get-together, all of the cousins, God help us—for Christmas and Justice’s housekeeper, Mrs. Carey, is in hog heaven with both of the kids to look after. Justice and I barely escaped with our lives.”

  Jericho just shook his head at his youngest brother. A former professional surfer, Jesse now owned and operated King Beach, a sportswear and sports equipment company. He was also crazy in love with his wife and Joshua, their son. “Sounds dangerous.”

  “That’s no joke,” Justice said. “Yeah, Jesse’s a little dramatic as always, but I can tell you, Maggie and Bella together…” He shuddered. “No man can stand against ’em. By the time we got out of there, the two of them were buried in discussions over menus and decorations and there was talk of having us stick around so we could help ’em decide things like…redecorating.” He shook his head again at their narrow escape. “For some damn reason, Maggie figures we need to repaint the whole inside of the ranch for this shindig they’re planning and Bella’s right there with her.”

  “Too true,” Jesse said. “She was showing me paint samples on the ride to the ranch and couldn’t understand why I didn’t give a damn about pomegranate or hydrangea for the breakfast room.”

  “It’s white now. What’s wrong with white, I ask you?” Justice demanded of no one. “Those women are on a roll and nothing’s going to stop ’em. We’re just lucky that Maura and Jefferson are safely in Ireland.”

  “Can’t believe my brothers are such wimps. Letting their wives run the show.”

  “So says the single man,” Jesse pointed out and reached down for the cooler. “Wait until it’s your turn and then we’ll talk.”

  “It’s never going to be my turn, Jesse,” Jericho told him firmly. “Not a chance in hell I’ll tangle myself up in marriage with anyone. Saw too much misery in the Corps. Even good marriages can end in pain, and I’m not interested in that, thanks.”

  “Just what I said,” Jesse told him. “That changed when I met Bella.”

  “It was Maggie for me,” Justice said, then added, “Your time will come, Jericho.”

  “Don’t count on it,” he answered. “I like my life just the way it is. I’m not looking for anything permanent and I’m not husband and father material.”

  “Didn’t think I was either,” Jesse said. “But now I’m married, with a son who makes me happy and Bella’s pregnant again.”

  “And you’re just now telling us?” Justice accused. “Congratulations, man. That’s great news.”

  “Yeah.” Jesse shook his head and gave them a bemused smile. “Who would have guessed a few years ago that I’d be so damn happy changing diapers?”

  Even Jericho had to admit silently that he never would have pegged his surfing brother as the family type. But clearly, he was.

  “Know just what you mean,” Justice said with a grin. “Now that Maggie’s pregnant again, looks like the Kings are having another population explosion.”

  “All right!” Jesse slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Now all we need is for Maura and Jefferson to make another one and for Jericho to get with the program.”

  Jericho shook his head. “For me, not a chance. For Jefferson and Maura, you might want to cut them some slack. Hell, Jensen’s not even a year old, is he?”

  “Neither’s Joshua,” Jesse pointed out. Then he asked, “So, how about it, Jericho? You really want to be the only King not working on the next dynasty?”

  “One of us has got to stay sane, don’t you think?”

  “You always were a tough son of a bitch,” Jesse said with a wide grin. “Not to mention too stubborn to know what’s good for you.” He hefted the cooler. “Damn, this thing weighs a ton. What’s in it?”

  “The bare essentials,” Daisy announced from the back door. “There’s beer, beer and, oh, just in case you get thirsty, some beer.”

  “My kind of picnic,” Jesse said on a laugh.

  She grinned back at him and for a second, Jericho felt like an outsider. He envied his brothers’ easy way with Daisy. There were no undercurrents between them.

  No lingering sexual tension that ratcheted up every conversation they had. His guts were twisting and his mouth was dry just watching her.

  She wore a dark green sweater with the collar of a white shirt poking out at the neck. Her jeans were worn, but clung to her legs like a lover’s hands and she was wearing those boots she’d tried to wear on their survival trip. She looked damn good and had Jericho’s heartbeat pounding so loud it was a wonder no one else could hear it.

  He wondered, too, if she’d been there in time to hear him say he’d never marry anyone. Had she listened in to his brothers’ talk about family and babies, and had she heard Jericho’s refusal to be drawn into it all? He hadn’t heard her open the door, so it was possible.

  And though a part of him hoped she’d missed it, another part acknowledged that it might be easier all the way around, for both of them if she knew exactly where he stood on this.

  Nine

  “The other cooler has sandwiches.” Daisy was talking to all of them, but her gaze remained on Jericho as she added, “Along with potato salad, macaroni salad, fried chicken and chocolate-chip cookies.”

  “Ma’am,” Justice said and swept his Stetson off as he bowed, “you are a gift from above and we thank you.”

  “No pasties?” Jericho asked, voice soft enough he half didn’t expect her to hear him.

  He should have known better. Her whiskey-colored gaze landed on him, but her smile was less than brilliant. Had she heard him talking to his brothers? Or was this simply a sign that she was going to miss him while he was gone?

  “Pasties, too,” she said, “since I know how much you like them.”

  There was one long, simmering second that flashed between them and it was as if his brothers weren’t there. As if he and Daisy were alone on the mountain. And the depth of emotion rocking through him almost choked him. He hadn’t counted on this, Jericho realized grimly. Hadn’t counted on caring for her. The need for her had been so overpowering, he hadn’t noticed when it became leavened with affection. With… Deliberately, he shut down that train of thought before it could leave the station.

  He couldn’t acknowledge, even to himself, that what he was feeling for her was anything more than a softening of a heart he hadn’t realized was still there. What they shared wouldn’t last. Couldn’t.

  Not only because, as he’d told his brothers, he wasn’t looking for forever. But because there was still something she didn’t know. He hadn’t told her about Brant’s last mission. Not yet. But, he told himself, that was exactly what he was going to have to do. As soon as he got back from this trip with his brothers, he’d be up-front with her. Tell her everything. Then she’d leave and things would get back to normal around here.

  If he missed her the rest of his life, that was just something he’d have to deal with.

  She laughed at something Jesse said and Jericho’s gaze fixed on her. Everything inside him fisted up tight. The woman hit him on so many levels he couldn’t even identify them all. He wanted her and at the same time wanted her gone. Needed her and resented that need. Cared for her, but fought against it at every breath.

  How could one small, curvy woman instigate so many different emotions in a man? Especially one who’d made it his business to never feel deeply for anyone? Hell, until Daisy had stumbled into his life, the closest Jericho had come to commitment was the two weeks he’d spent at his cousin Rico King’s hotel in Cancún, with a brunette he barely remembered.

  For years, he’d carefully steered clear of entanglements, firmly believing that military life wasn’t suited to hearth and home and family. He’d thought then and still did that a man served his country best when there were no other distractions in h
is life.

  Jericho had seen too many families disintegrate under the strain of long deployments. Or worse yet, he’d seen the damage done to wives and kids when their Marine didn’t make it home. His friends had insisted that he was looking at it all wrong, of course. They claimed the strength they got from their families more than made up for the worry of leaving them. And true enough, there were plenty of military personnel who made it work, balancing career and family so well they made it look easy.

  But Jericho had drawn a firm line for himself. He’d chosen to live a solitary life while in service.

  What’s your excuse now? a sly voice whispered in the back of his mind. He wasn’t in the military anymore and still he kept people at a distance.

  It was cleaner, he told himself. Less cluttered. Though those excuses sounded pitiful even to himself.

  “So what’s the big weekend plan?” Daisy was asking and Jericho came up out of his thoughts. Before he could speak though, Jesse was talking.

  “To sit beside the lake and listen to my brothers’ lies,” he told her with a wink.

  “The day you close your mouth long enough to listen to anybody will be the day they open an ice rink in hell,” Justice told him, giving Jesse a friendly shove.

  “Well now, you and Jericho are so damned close-mouthed, it only looks like I’m doing all the talking.” He turned his smile on Daisy again. “You can testify to that, can’t you, Daisy? Jericho’s about as talkative as a rock, wouldn’t you say?”

  She turned her gaze on him and Jericho felt the solid punch of her stare. Humor shone in her eyes again as she said, “I don’t know about that. He doesn’t seem to have much trouble when he’s telling me how he wants things run around here.”

  He scowled at her, but it was more for form’s sake than anything else.

  “Giving orders doesn’t count,” Jesse told her, leaning one hip against the back of the truck. “Because I’m the youngest, I can tell you I’ve been taking orders from my brothers since I first opened my eyes.”

  “Not that you ever follow them,” Justice reminded him and lifted the heavy cooler filled with food so easily, it might have been empty. He set it in the back of the truck and glanced at Daisy. “His wife, Bella, came to my house just looking for a little peace and quiet.”

  “Ha!” Jesse laughed shortly, then got a bemused look on his face. “My Bella? Peaceful? That’ll be the day.”

  “Please,” Justice said. “Your wife’s a sweetheart. You want to see a woman with a temper, you take my Maggie on in an argument. You’ll be lucky to get out with your hide still attached.”

  “You’re pitching Maggie’s Irish temper against Bella’s Mexican temperament?” Jesse laughed again. “No contest, big brother. Bella’s small, but she’s tough.”

  Both men continued to compare their wives, each of them sounding so damn proud of the women in their lives that Jericho felt a moment’s envy. Which was new for him. He was even tempted to jump in and tell them both that Daisy was more woman than either of their wives.

  That thought startled him down to the bone. Usually, all he experienced when his brothers started talking was a pang of sympathy for the women who’d chosen to love his hardheaded brothers. Now though, since Daisy, Jericho could understand just what his brothers felt for their wives. Didn’t make him feel any better to realize it though. Instead, it seemed to solidify for him the fact that he’d let Daisy get too close.

  He’d allowed her to matter.

  Jericho stood to one side, his gaze still locked with Daisy’s as his brothers ragged on each other. The banter was familiar and comfortable. The only difference this time was that Daisy was here, so Jericho’s mind wasn’t really on keeping up with his brothers. Instead, all he could think was that he wished the weekend was over so that he could drag her upstairs, lock the two of them up in his room and forget about everything but her for the next twenty-four hours or so.

  Yes, he’d decided to tell her everything, his mind argued, but that wasn’t saying he couldn’t have one more night with her first. If that made him a selfish bastard, then he could live with that.

  “Yo, Jericho!” Jesse punched his arm. “You alive?”

  “Yeah, I am, little brother,” he said, tearing his gaze from Daisy long enough to give Jesse a hard stare that had once been known to freeze Marine recruits in their tracks. Naturally enough, Jesse didn’t even flinch. Disgusted, Jericho told him, “Load up the rest of the gear so we can get moving.”

  “See?” Jesse pointed out to no one, “Still giving orders.”

  “You guys have fun,” Daisy said with a laugh as she headed down the back porch steps and turned for the corner of the house. “Come on, Nikki,” she called to the little dog clearly torn between walking with her or staying to stare longingly at Jericho. “I’ve got some chrysanthemums to stake. Guess I’ll see you all tomorrow night?”

  “We’ll be back by supper time,” Justice assured her.

  She lifted one hand and kept walking, disappearing around the edge of the log house, with the dog pausing for one backward look before joining her.

  “Staking flowers?” Jesse muttered with a shake of his head as he looked after her. “Why?”

  “Do I look like a gardener to you?” Jericho asked with irritation. “How the hell would I know?” He scrubbed one hand across his chin. “I didn’t even know we had chrysanthemums.”

  Jesse turned to the task at hand, tossing in sleeping bags and a camp stove, then he carefully set their fishing poles into the back of the truck, too. While he worked, Jericho simply stared off into space, watching the spot where Daisy had vanished.

  “Something you want to tell me?” Justice asked quietly as he stepped up alongside him.

  “Huh?” Jericho started and looked at him as though he were crazy. But it wouldn’t fool Justice. He’d always been the one of them to see things no one wanted him to see. Well, except when it came to his own life. Their oldest brother Jefferson had explained to Jericho just how badly Justice had screwed up his marriage to Maggie. And how close the couple had come to losing everything that was between them.

  “I’m not blind, you know,” Justice told him. “I can see how she looks at you—and just how you’re looking back.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Damn it. He should have expected this, he told himself. Of course Justice would pick up on the tensions between him and Daisy. Of course he’d notice things Jericho would rather keep under the radar.

  “Yeah? Then why is it you look like a man on the ragged edge?” Justice asked. “Hell, Jericho. You finally fall for a woman and you’re not going to do anything about it?”

  “Nobody fell for anybody,” he argued, distinctly uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “What’s this?” Jesse sidled up alongside Justice and stuck his two cents in. “The Almighty Jericho King falling in love?” He laughed and reached out to shove Jericho’s shoulder. “This is big news, man!”

  “Will you shut the hell up?” Jericho snapped, shooting a glance at the spot where Daisy had last been seen just to make sure she wasn’t in earshot. Now that Jesse had caught wind of this, there would be no keeping him quiet. “Nobody said anything about love.”

  “Didn’t have to. Hell,” Justice mused, “you practically set her on fire just looking at her.”

  “Lust isn’t love, in case you didn’t know that already,” he told his brothers, sparing first one, then the other of them a hard glare meant to end the conversation once and for all. Of course, it didn’t.

  “It’s a good start though,” Jesse told him, his unabashed grin nearly splitting his features in two. “First time I saw Bella…” He paused for a heavily dramatic sigh, then said, “Well, not the first time. The first time, it was dark and I could hardly see her at all. The second time, she was wearing this ugly-ass tent dress, but the third time,” he mused with a grin, “that’s the one that got me.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Jericho told him. “And my symp
athies to your wife.”

  Jesse’s eyebrows lifted as he laughed, clearly unoffended. “She loves me.”

  “No accounting for taste,” Justice put in.

  “Hey,” Jesse shot back, “we were ragging on Jericho, remember?”

  “And now you’re done. You talk too much,” Jericho told him. “Always did. A bad habit you ought to try to break.”

  “Too late now,” Jesse said with a negligent shrug. He walked back to the truck and took a seat on the tailgate. “Besides, it’s part of my charm.”

  “Is that what that is?” Jericho lifted his gaze to the sky. They had a good four hours before sunset. Time enough to drive to the lake and set up camp. If he could get his brothers to back off and get moving. “So are we ready to go or what?”

  “Changing the subject doesn’t make anything go away, you know.”

  “I’m not changing the subject,” he said tightly, with a glare for each of his brothers. “There is no subject because I’m not talking about it at all. Not with you two. Not with anyone. Because there’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Are you crazy or just stupid?” Jesse asked from his perch on the tailgate. “A woman who not only looks like that and can cook and can stand being around your crab-ass attitude for longer than five minutes and you’re not falling on your knees in front of her?”

  Jericho sneered at him.

  “He’s over the top again,” Justice said, with a little more heat in his voice than usual, “but Jesse’s got a point. For God’s sake, Jericho, you really want to spend the rest of your life a hermit on this mountain?”

  “How am I a hermit? I’ve got people coming and going all the damn time.”

  “Key word there in that sentence,” Jesse tossed in, “going.”

  Jericho snapped at him. “Who asked you to talk?”

  Jesse pushed off the tailgate, stood up straight to face his older brother and said, “You ever notice that your attitude gets even crappier when you’re wrong?”

  “Just shut up, will you?” Jericho shook his head, looked at his more rational brother and asked, “Justice can I toss him in the lake?”