by Jodi Thomas
As she pulled out of her lane and headed up the long incline to the main road, Jamie fought back tears. She’d known the game wouldn’t last long; after all, they were only playing house. Nothing was real about the time they’d pretended.
But she’d hoped for a few more days. You’d think she’d learn. Those days of packing her one suitcase and one box drifted in her mind. Don’t expect more. Never expect more. Be happy with what you have in life.
She blinked into the morning sun as a figure appeared directly in front of her. He was walking down the center of the road as if it were a mountain trail and not the only way out of the lake community. He was big with a pack on his back. A soldier. A warrior. Wyatt!
Jamie barely hit the brakes in time. He stood ten feet in front of her, just staring. He looked carved in stone. If she’d hit him with her van, the van probably would have taken all damage.
She held her breath. The man glared at her as if the road belonged to him and she was trespassing.
Like a tornado coming straight toward her, he marched to Jamie and jerked the door of her old van open so hard she feared the entire piece of metal and glass might give way.
“Get out of the van, Jamie.” An order, nothing more.
She remained frozen. If he was planning to steal her car, he’d have to take her with him. She clicked off the engine. Wyatt taking her van made no sense; he could have driven away with it any day or night for over a week.
He dropped his pack, reached across to unbuckle her seat belt, then grabbed her around the waist. In one jerk, he pulled her out of the van and stood her directly in front of him.
His wintergreen eyes, full of anger and doubt, stared down at her.
She realized she wasn’t afraid of him. Not one bit. Wyatt Johnson might be a soldier, but he would never hurt her. If he’d come back to tell her how she’d ruined his leave, then so be it. She’d face him. Running last night had not been not about him but her. She’d tried to outrun her hurt, not him.
He didn’t say a word. He just kept staring at her like she was the third little pig and he was still starving.
“Is there something you forgot to say?” She took a step toward him.
“No.”
“Then don’t you think you should step out of the center of the road so I can get to work?”
“No. I don’t want to move.” Confusion seemed to make him blink.
She had the feeling he was arguing with himself.
“Did you forget something, Wyatt?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, let’s go get it.” She started to move, but this boulder in a uniform stood in her way. “I have to be at school in fifteen minutes.” She took one step more and prepared to push him aside. Like that could happen.
“I don’t care if you’re late.”
Frustration made her jumpy. “Then do what you need to do or say what you plan to say because I’m not waiting all morning for you to make up your mind.”
To her shock, he leaned in and kissed her. A light brush of his lips against hers, as if he were testing to see if she’d bite.
When she didn’t react, he did it again. A slight kiss, nothing more.
The tenderness of this big, hard soldier surprised her. When she didn’t move, he kissed her again, harder. A real kiss.
Not bad, she thought, for a man who’d refused to even try last night.
With one tug at her waist, he pulled her against him. The next kiss was full out, nothing held back, and she couldn’t help but respond. This was the kind of kiss she’d dreamed of... The more-than-a-movie kiss. A kiss she felt all the way to her toes.
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back as he lifted her off the ground.
When he finally broke the kiss, he whispered against her ear, “That’s all I have to say.”
“Well, I have something to say!” a male voice shouted from ten feet away. “You two Johnsons need to take it back to the house. There are folks who want to use the road this morning.”
Wyatt didn’t let go of her, but he turned to face the sheriff. “You planning to arrest a man for kissing his wife?”
Sheriff Cline grinned. “Since I probably wouldn’t be able to pry you two apart, I’d have to put you in the same cell. Not worth my time to do the paperwork. So go back home. I’ll drop by the school and tell them to find a substitute for your wife. You’re both obviously sick. I can tell you’ve got a fever from a car length away. If they can’t find someone to take your classes, Mrs. Johnson, I’ll send Thatcher to teach those kids the law. He’s been studying it long enough to carry a lecture for an hour.”
“We’re going home?” Wyatt whispered against her ear. “You ready for that, Mrs. Johnson?”
She nodded.
Wyatt let go of her long enough to toss his pack in the back, then they climbed into the van like Bonnie and Clyde on the run. Neither said goodbye to the sheriff, but when Wyatt glanced back in the rearview mirror, Cline was laughing.
Three minutes later, they were stumbling into the lake house, trying to kiss each other and walk at the same time.
As soon as he closed the door, Wyatt swung her around. “I couldn’t leave you, not like that. You have to know how crazy I am about you.” He dug his hand into her hair and destroyed the bun she’d tied back. “There were a hundred things I needed to tell you. How pretty you are. How sexy. How I love everything you say and the way your mind works and how you hold on to things as if they’re treasures. But all I can think to do right now is kiss you senseless.”
Like wild kids, they began undressing each other, laughing, bumping heads, kissing whenever possible.
Finally, he picked her up and walked to the bedroom door. “Are you sure about this, Jamie? If I step into your bedroom, there will be no halfway, no pretend. I plan on making love to you for real.”
She kissed his cheek. “I’ve been waiting for you to do just that since I saw you step from the shower wearing only a towel.”
He shoved the door open, and they fell into bed.
As he held her against him, she didn’t have to close her eyes and dream of what might be. This time he was real and he was all hers, if only for a few days.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Midnight Crossing
THE COLD CAM in on a forty-mile-an-hour wind as the end of November neared. Jax O’Grady watched Mallory grow stronger each day. Her bruises were fading to browns and purples, and the swelling on her face was almost gone.
Some mornings he felt like he was watching her turn into a swan. The awkward moves she’d made the first few days were gone. There was a grace about her movements now. She’d started a habit of pushing her body almost as if she were a dancer warming up.
He liked watching. Appreciating how hard she tried.
She might be small in build, but when she smiled, he felt like she lit up the room. She’d gotten into the habit of setting the table and chairs out at each meal, and he’d folded them up thirty minutes later. He hadn’t complained; after all, it was good exercise.
During the second week, she’d managed to say thank-you in a low whisper. Slowly, a few more words a day, she begin to carry on a short conversation without having to touch her throat. Slowly, she was talking.
Not that she had much practice. When Tim came over, he did most of the talking and loved saying things that made her laugh. Sometimes he spent an hour telling her how hard it was to be a writer. Then he’d spend another hour helping her work on a puzzle as if the deadline he’d been complaining about was a million days away.
Jax wasn’t much help with conversation either. He talked to Charlie more than he did to Mallory. He’d lived alone too long; he’d forgotten how to just visit with people.
Tim brought her a new puzzle every time he came, and she spent one whole day working on one that pictured kittens under a Christmas tree
. Jax decided the puzzles must have been from the retirement home because most were pictures of animals or winter wonderland scenes. But they seemed to help her pass the afternoons in a kind of simple peace and he figured that was exactly what she needed.
“We should hang this as our only Christmas decoration,” she whispered as she put the last piece in.
Jax stood up from his desk and walked over to the card table he’d placed by the window. “You think so?”
“I think so.” She smiled at him as if she saw all his flaws and liked him anyway. “I know change isn’t easy for you, but what can I say? You’re the one who brought me home.”
“So I asked for it?”
“Yep. First me, then Christmas decorations.”
He nodded. “I’ll build a frame for our one decoration. Anything else you’d like?”
“Yes.” She patted the second folding chair. “Talk to me, Jax.”
“All right.”
At first their conversations were awkward. She was learning to trust again an ounce at a time and he was remembering how to open up to someone.
At dusk every night, he’d wrap her in a blanket and they’d sit on the porch for a while, then he’d cook supper. Most meal preparation consisted of opening a can. Each night, they’d linger a little longer at the small table talking.
She was taking long showers by herself now. He guessed the heat helped relax her muscles. And just before bedtime, he’d rub cream on her bruised legs and rewrap the one place just above her knee that hadn’t healed.
“I can do this myself, Jax,” she’d said one night. “I don’t mean to be such a bother.”
“I know. I don’t mind. I can see the healing every day but I want to make sure this one wound doesn’t get infected. You’re going to make it through this, Mallory, and I’d like to think that I helped.”
“You do, Jax. Maybe we help each other?” she whispered and they both knew what she was talking about. His wounds were deeper than hers. “When we’re both well, can we still be friends?”
He taped the bandage. “I think I’d like that.”
“You know, Curtis was a jerk. Probably a criminal. Sometimes, late at night I wake thinking I hear him coming to hurt me. Then I remember you’re just ten feet away and Charlie is on his rug by the fireplace. Part of me wants to hide out here forever. Would you mind, Jax?”
“No. But you’ve got a life to get back to, I’m guessing. I’m just a guy that was around when you needed somewhere to hide out.”
She looked up at him. “You’re much more than that, Jax, and someday when the time is right, I plan to talk about that.”
“With the number of hours we seem to spend talking, I’m sure we’ll get around to that. Once you’re on your feet, I’ll just be a memory. Soon we’ll start planning how you’re going to get back into your life that’s waiting for you.”
“Nothing is waiting. I have no job. No apartment. I’ve been thinking I should move somewhere else, maybe as far away from Curtis as I can. Make a fresh start. My folks lived in Georgia. I grew up there but nothing remains for me to return to but their graves. The town they loved seems too small for me to move home and find a job. I don’t think I could ever go back to Dallas either.”
“Because of Curtis?”
“He’ll probably move on to his next victim. I could try to press charges, but it’d be my word against his. He could claim all the damage to my body was because of the wreck. He could even claim I stole his car, which I did.”
“Give it time, Mallory. A few more days. A week. After all, once you leave, Tim will have to go back to writing.”
She smiled at Jax. “I love your humor. Hermit humor.”
“Where are your things, your clothes? You can’t go looking for a new job wearing those pajamas.”
“All my stuff, clothes and all, is probably in the trash. When I left, I didn’t think about packing a bag. I do have a storage spot Curtis doesn’t know about, mainly because he couldn’t be bothered to help me stash my furniture. When we moved in together, he said he didn’t want any of my things cluttering up his home.”
“What about money?”
“I’ve got savings in an old account back in Georgia. I can pull from that to last me a few months. When I stop scaring people with my face, I could probably travel down to Galveston. An old roommate would put me up there until I find a new job.”
Jax turned away. “You’re already figuring it out.”
She touched his arm. “That’s just it. I don’t. I feel like I just made a mistake. A big mistake. I could have gotten myself killed. Right now I’m in a place where I not only lost my trust in people, I’ve lost trust in myself.”
He looked at her. “Then stay awhile. This cabin should be branded the figure-it-out hideout.”
“And you’re one of the inmates, I’m thinking.”
“Yep.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
She grinned at him. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
He groaned. “I was afraid of that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Misty Bend, Colorado
SUNLAN WOKE EARLY, as always, and was in the kitchen when Griffin joined her. He wore the same jeans and shirt he’d had on last night. She guessed they were the cleanest of his dirty clothes.
Yesterday they’d shipped the first fourteen horses, and today they’d ship another dozen. Ten would remain on her ranch because the journey would be too hard for them with their wounds or they were too close to foaling.
“Morning.” Griffin awkwardly kissed her head.
“Morning.” She handed him a cup of coffee. They’d worked together for two days, slept together on the couch wrapped up in the same blanket, and he still didn’t seem comfortable around her. He was a man who’d been raised around hard men. A woman in his life was obviously new.
But then, having him in her life was new for Sunlan, too.
Griffin would never be polished like her father, but he wasn’t demanding either. He took pride in being honest. He and his brothers had shown up to help when she needed them. They were hardworking ranchers who didn’t back down from a fight. They knew what to do and had the stamina to see the job through.
“We’ll load the horses in about an hour.” Griffin sat down across from her. “Then I’d like to walk through all the injured stock with the doc.”
“I agree. I don’t think I can leave if there’s more we could have done. Lloyd is good with the animals, but he’ll have his hands full with Andy and Dave at your place, at least until my mares settle down.”
“Elliot says he’d like to stay here and help out for a few days. Cooper, since he’s driving one of the trailers, will be back home tonight, so he can handle things at our place.” Griffin stood and refilled his cup. “Elliot says your computer is better than his, and if he can get a friend, Wyatt Johnson, to set up his home connections, he can handle our ranch accounts from here.”
Sunlan didn’t like the idea of a stranger being on her place, but Elliot was almost family at this point. “He can help the doc, I guess. Kendra cooks meals here for herself and Lloyd anyway, so I’m sure she could feed him, too. It would be no problem for him to stay.”
Griffin watched her. He always studied her as if testing the waters. “If it bothers you, he could ride back with Cooper in one of the trailers.”
“No. It doesn’t bother me,” she lied. In truth, she had far more to worry about. “By noon, the last two trailers should be gone, and we’ll be flying toward the Krown Ranch. My father’s big dinner is in a couple nights.”
“I forgot about that. I didn’t even bring clothes. In fact, every thing I brought is well-worn and smells of smoke. I could tell Cooper to grab my suit when he gets in tonight and drop it in the overnight mail. It might get there in time for t
he party.”
“You’re worrying about what you’re wearing, Griff? You surprise me.”
He laughed. “Clothes don’t make the man. I guess I could pick something up at the nearest store to your home. There is bound to be a Western store or a Walmart near.”
“Krown Ranch is not my home. It hasn’t been since I was twelve. And the nearest clothing store is over fifty miles away. I doubt they’d have anything that would be appropriate. Live chickens roam their aisles.”
He shrugged and dusted off his worn jacket. “Well, how do you like my evening duds?”
“Oh, no. You can’t go like that.” She shoved a paper napkin over. “Write down your sizes. I’ll take care of it.”
He didn’t look like he believed her. “We could go later in the week. You could tell him you had an emergency and we couldn’t leave. Then I could pick up my black suit. It’s almost new. I’ve only worn it to two funerals.”
“Write down your sizes. Everything. Every size, including shoes. I have a friend coming from Dallas tonight. I’ll call my order in and have her pick it up on her way out of town.” She gave in a bit. “If you don’t like the clothes, you don’t have to wear them. I’ll just tell everyone you’ve got the flu or something.”
“Fair enough.” He frowned. “Everyone will think you’re marrying a sickly man.”
Kendra and Lloyd came into the kitchen, and Griffin moved to the chair next to Sunlan. He looped his arm around her shoulder. They were back to pretending to be a loving couple.
While Kendra pulled a breakfast casserole from the oven, Elliot joined them. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. For the first time since the fire, Sunlan had the feeling that everything was going to be all right.
She’d tell her father she was marrying Griffin tomorrow during the party. He wouldn’t yell in front of all his friends. He’d probably pout the rest of the night because he hadn’t been consulted earlier, but they’d be gone before he sobered up the next morning.
