“Can’t he work with the runners at the college this summer?” Jill asked. “He did found the summer running program.”
“They hired extra help when he said he wanted to work only with you,” Bobbie explained with a pitiful look of appeal.
Jill pulsed around the small kitchen, from one end of the counter to the back door to the refrigerator, over and over again. “I thought I’d be training with him. I didn’t have any idea I’d need a break.”
“I know that, and underneath all that anger, he does too. He’ll find someone else to work with. He’s already put some feelers out.”
“Oh.” Jill stopped mid-stride and faced her mother. “He’s going to train someone else?”
“Well, that would be the most logical solution. Honey,” Bobbie stepped in front of her and rubbed Jill’s arms, “you didn’t think he’d stop training, did you?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” About anything, she admitted to herself as a seed of jealousy slid under her skin. She didn’t like the feeling, not one little bit.
“Why don’t you come back in? I’ve made an apple pie for dessert and you know that’s your favorite. Neither one of you can be mad over pie.”
“I can’t, Mom.” She truly couldn’t wait another second to get out of her family home and get back to her apartment. She’d lace up her shoes and run off the anxiety that was clogging her chest. “Next time. I promise.”
***
Ty’s easy smile turned hard and brittle. Lyle had to admire the guy’s control and the short leash he kept around the temper that flared in his eyes. “Did Jill say something to you about me?”
“No,” Lyle said. “Jill’s face said something to me about you. I know her face.”
“It’s a beautiful face,” Ty said. He wrapped his half eaten sandwich in the foil and set it on the log. He wiped his hands along the front of his pants as if flexing his fingers in preparation for a fight.
Lyle considered the warning and decided to tread carefully. “A very appealing face, and right now, very vulnerable.”
“You think I’m going to hurt her?” Ty angled his body toward Lyle.
Ty had him by a couple of inches in every direction and, despite his affable persona, Lyle didn’t think he’d be afraid to use whatever means necessary to his advantage. “No. You’ve been out here all morning patiently teaching me to fish. You love the land, you love the outdoors, you love your family. I don’t think you’re shallow enough to want to hurt Jill intentionally. But just because I don’t think you’d mean to hurt her, doesn’t mean you won’t.”
“You think I will? If I start something up with her, you think she’d end up getting hurt?”
“You’re only here for the summer. You’ve got a job and a family waiting for you back home.”
“I do.” Ty nodded. “I don’t intend to start something with Jill I’m not prepared to see through. All the way through.”
Lyle wanted to like Ty. He did like Ty. But he liked Jill more, and he felt the need to protect her from heartbreak, especially now, when she was so unsure of her path. “So where do you see this going?” he asked.
Ty lifted his brows and sucked in a breath. “Pardon me for sounding like an ungrateful jackass after fishing your land and eating your food, but what business is it of yours?”
“Jill’s my friend.”
“That’s it? All you want from her is friendship?”
Lyle raised his hands in the air. “I’m not interested in anything more than friendship with Jill. A few years ago,” he lifted one shoulder, “we gave it some thought. It felt wrong, so we brushed it aside and now we’re friends. Just friends. I care about her and I don’t want to see her hurt.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good. Then we’re both on the same side.”
“I’m not on any side.” Ty stood up.
Lyle decided to stay seated on the log. Body language, at a time when he’d insulted a man and laid claim on the woman he was interested in, would convey more than words.
“I like Jill,” Ty said. “I want to get to know her. There’s something about her.” He swung around and faced the river. “I wasn’t free to pursue anything last year, but now I am and I’m not going to let you or anyone else stop me.”
Lyle got to his feet. “What about Jill? Have you thought about what she’s going to do at the end of the summer when you’ve stirred her up and then leave? She holds herself back from most people. If she lets you in and you walk away, you’re going to hurt her no matter what your intentions.”
Ty let out an audible breath. “I’m not going to discuss this with you when I haven’t even discussed it with her, but suffice it to say I don’t have an end date in mind.”
“Whether or not you have an end date in your head is beside the point. You’re leaving at the end of August. She lives here.”
Ty turned around, a sneer on his face, his hands on his hips. “Thank you for stating the obvious.”
“Look, you can be mad at me all you want. And you can indulge yourself and take Jill for a spin while you’re here. Hell, I’ll be the first to admit she needs a little excitement in her life. But whatever you do, don’t let her fall in love with you. She doesn’t have much experience with men and she needs to feel in control. She’ll act in control, but underneath, if she falls, she’ll fall hard. And you and I both know you won’t be here to pick up the pieces when she does.”
The nerve pulsing at Ty’s jaw should have made Lyle uneasy, but the way his mouth twitched and when he drew breath in and out and back again without ever speaking told him he’d done the right thing by warning Ty off. Jill would be furious if she knew, but he’d rather her be mad than brokenhearted. “You want to fish or talk?” Ty asked.
“I’ve said what I came to say and I’ve got some work to do back at the house. Stay and fish as long as you want and drop the ATV at the garage when you’re done.”
“Appreciate it,” Ty said and held out his hand.
His grip was firm and the look in his eye steady. Lyle knew Jill was a goner. Oh, well. He’d said his piece. The rest was up to them.
Chapter 21
Jill was too furious to do anything other than change her clothes, lace up her shoes, and hit the pavement. As she stretched in the parking lot, she knew the ball of anger in her gut wouldn’t ease by running her normal easy route along the street and through the neighborhood. She craved a challenge: steep hills, twisting turns, and savage drops.
Before she could question her motives, she sprinted back up the stairs, grabbed her keys, and headed for the mountains.
She parked at the base of her favorite trail in the gravel lot just off the main highway, locking her car and palming her key. Her chest filled, her stomach fluttered, and her limbs felt loose and tingly. She hadn’t run in the mountains since the day she went down and everything in her life took a turn for the worse.
Jill shoved her doubts aside and took a deep breath of mountain air. Only five miles from her apartment and the elevation soared to over ten thousand feet. She felt the rise in her shallow breaths as she began her warm-up run up the gently sloping trail.
It took longer for her to find her rhythm and for her lungs to handle the thinning air. She tried not to obsess over her father’s outrageous rudeness at dinner, her brother’s snotty attitude, and her mother’s appeals. She needed to watch the road for obstacles, carefully order her breathing, and maneuver the increasingly arduous ascent.
Her mind wouldn’t disengage. She’d expected the meal to be difficult, but never did she expect to be at the receiving end of her father’s biting tongue. She didn’t like the way it felt to be the bad kid at the dinner table and her brother relishing the moment felt like a slap to her already bruised ego.
The road began its winding swath through stands of aspens and pines. The sharp scent of the woods filled her head and took her out of her misery as she loped along and eyed the flaking bark of the pines infected by mountain pine beetles. As she ogled the dy
ing trees throughout the forest, she felt her worries begin to lift off her shoulders. Even the trees had problems.
A rustling around the next turn had Jill coming to a dead stop. Standing not twenty feet in front of her was an elk. His massive antlers were dusted with velvet and his nose snuffed at the air. She stood stock-still. In the distance, she heard the bugling sound of his pack over her huffs of breath. He took off just as a truck rounded the bend and screeched to a stop at her back.
Jill bolted around and pushed off the hood of Ty’s truck where it came to a stop just inches from where she stood. She recognized his furious face through the windshield a moment before he slammed the truck into park and opened the door. “What the hell are you doing standing in the middle of the road? I almost ran you over.”
“Did you see it?” she asked, still enthralled with her close up encounter with the giant creature.
“See what?”
She pointed into the downslope of the forest. “The elk. He was just standing there. Right there in the road.”
“The only thing I saw in the road was your gorgeous backside. You almost became my hood ornament.”
“I can’t believe how close I was to a wild animal.”
Ty glanced behind him before skirting the hood and taking her by the shoulders. “Do you run with mace?”
“What?”
“Mace, Jill. What would you have done if he’d charged you?”
She jerked her shoulders free. “He wasn’t going to charge me.”
“He could have. And what about mountain lion?”
“What about them?”
“You don’t think a mountain lion would charge? Actually, a lion would stalk you first and then pounce when he had an opportunity.”
The last thing she needed after her family lunch was another lecture on how irresponsible she was. “I used to run up here all the time. Before today, I’ve never seen anything other than a deer or two.”
“They’re here. Every species of wild animal. I can hear the coyotes howling at night and I’m pretty sure I saw a wolf early one morning.”
“Bully for you.”
“Your smart tongue and quick legs aren’t going to save you from everything in the world.”
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. What do you use to protect yourself? Your charm and good looks?”
He walked around to the passenger side door and opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a can of mace that fit snugly in his palm. He swung it in her face. “This, plus I’ve got a hunting rifle at the cabin.”
“Well aren’t you smart. I guess I should run with a gun and just hope it doesn’t go off while I’m running.”
He shoved the can of mace in her hand. “Here. This is yours now. I don’t want to see you running up here without it.”
Jill could feel the steam building in her veins, chugging up through her thudding heart, billowing along her neck, seeking escape. “How dare you! How dare you treat me like a child!”
“Do you really want to fight about this?”
“It’s a little too late for that question.”
“There’re dangers all around here, Jill. I don’t want you running up here without some form of protection.”
“I’ve never felt afraid or threatened.”
“Just because you don’t recognize the danger doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
She poked him in the chest with his can of mace. “You know what you can do with your protection?”
To her utter amazement and fury, he began to laugh. “God almighty, you’re a piece of work. I can’t figure out what it is about you that gets my blood boiling.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said through gritted teeth.
He unsettled her by running his fingers along her jaw. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at us. Get in the truck.”
“I’m running,” she managed to squeak out. The light touch of his fingers had left her racing pulse weak and thready.
“So run to my place. With the mace,” he added with an annoyingly sinful lift of his brows. “I want to see you.”
“You’re seeing me now.”
He ducked his head and brushed his lips along the side of her neck. “Don’t make me beg.”
“Okay,” she said in a throaty whisper. “But only because I want to and not because you told me to.”
“Understood.” He shot her a cocky grin and went back around the truck to slide behind the wheel. “Be careful,” he called through the half open window.
“I always am.” Except now, she wanted to say as his truck moved slowly past her and disappeared around the next bend. Now she wanted to throw caution to the wind and explore just how wild she could get.
***
Ty picked up his clothes from around his room and tossed them in the laundry machine, setting the load to clean. He looked around the cabin trying to see what he could improve in the next few minutes before Jill stopped by. If she stopped by.
He started in the bathroom after taking a quick shower. He wasn’t a pig. Both his mother and father had never let him get away with leaving his towels on the floor or going for too long before cleaning the fixtures. A quick clean up wouldn’t hurt when trying to impress the girl who’d just ripped him a new one and then melted in front of his eyes.
How was he supposed to resist her intoxicating combination of fire and ice? He’d been in one hell of a bad mood before he almost ran her down, a bad mood that even an afternoon spent on a beautiful stretch of private river couldn’t cure. In his young life, he’d found a day spent fishing cured pretty much everything that ailed him. But not this time. Not when the outing had been a ruse for warning him away from the one thing he wanted most.
He’d let Lyle’s words sink in all afternoon. Jill was vulnerable. He knew that. Anyone with a set of eyes could tell she couldn’t see two steps in front of her now and that it made a driven woman like her uneasy. He didn’t want to complicate her life, but he’d be damned if he was going to walk away from her based on one person’s assessment that he’d only add to her troubles. It seemed to him that having a person genuinely care made everything better, not worse.
If Ty could make her feel just an inkling of what she made him feel, then he knew walking away wasn’t in anyone’s best interest.
He finished with the bathroom, washed his hands in the kitchen sink, and popped the top on a bottle of beer when he heard a knock on the door. He set his beer on the crate that served as a coffee table, rubbed his hands over his face, and opened the door. He eased his shoulder against the frame when she stood on the small stoop stretching her calves on the low stair.
“I’m only here to return your mace.” She held out the can.
He watched as that fascinating line of irritation formed between her brows. “It’s yours to keep.”
“I managed to run five miles and didn’t see anything larger than a squirrel.”
“This time,” he said, rubbing his stomach where it began to ache as it always did when he looked at her.
She reached out to grab his hand, probably intending to pass off the mace, but Ty managed to circle her wrist before she could make the exchange. “Do you want me to use this on you?” she asked.
“I’d hope you’d use it on anyone you found threatening. Am I threatening you, Jill?”
“You’re threatening my patience,” she admitted. “Does that count?”
“It might, if I thought you had any to begin with.”
She huffed out a breath and tried to pull her hand free. “Is this a seduction technique, Ty? Because, really, manhandling went out with the Dark Ages.”
He dropped her wrist and stood back, inviting her in with the wave of his hand. “I haven’t even begun to seduce you yet.”
She rolled her eyes, marched inside, and slammed the can of mace on the coffee table next to his forgotten beer. When he noticed the slight hesitation in her gait, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Your leg hurts?”
“It’s ju
st a little sore. I’ll ice it when I get home.”
He walked past her to the freezer and pulled out an ice bag. “Here,” he tossed the bag at her face, “ice it now. You don’t want to wait.”
She sighed and sat down on the couch and lifted her leg, gently placing the bag on her calf where a three-inch scar marred what was an otherwise flawless stretch of golden skin.
“Do you want a towel to go under that?”
“No, it’s fine.”
He joined her in the den, picking up his beer before taking a seat at the other end of the couch. “Beer?” he offered.
“No, thanks, but I’d love a water.”
“Coming right up.”
He filled a glass, delivered it to her, and watched her look around the cabin as he resumed his perch on the couch. “So what do you think?”
She pursed her lips. “Not bad. Relatively clean for a bachelor.”
He chuckled when she ran a finger along the end table to check for dust. Finding nothing to comment about, she leveled those caramel eyes on him. They stared at one another as dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight from the window.
“You really need to quit showering every time I take a run. It’s annoying when you smell better than I do.”
“Who said you smell bad?”
She shook her head and readjusted the bag on her leg.
He scooched closer, lifted her legs, and placed them on his thighs, holding the ice bag to her incision site. He nodded toward her calf. “Does it bother you often?”
“Not usually. I think the hills may have aggravated it a bit.”
“Too much too soon?” he asked.
That line between her brows was back, along with a scathing glance in his direction. “I can handle a mountain run.”
As if she were a wild animal that needed taming, he began to rub her knee with his free hand. “Never said otherwise.”
She sat staring at the glass in her hand. The way her shoulders slouched and the corners of her mouth tilted down in a sexy pout, she seemed as if she were carrying a heavy load. “Sometimes it feels like I’ll never compete again.”
“Yes, you will.” At her pointed stare, he said, “Maybe not professionally, but for pleasure.”
Mending the Line Page 12
