He grinned. “Tell you what. You clean up the mess, and we’ll call it even.”
“Deal,” she said, crossing to stand beside him and pour herself a cup of coffee.
The heat of his body reminded her that she was no longer alone. And revived the unwanted attraction that lay between them. She hadn’t stopped loving Huck; she’d merely acknowledged this physical thing that existed between her and Huck’s best friend. She refused to feel guilty for taking the only road open to her.
Jenny took a sip of hot, black coffee, savoring the bitter taste of it, before she swallowed. According to Colt, there had been some delay in returning Huck’s body to the States, but the senator had promised to contact Colt regarding the funeral arrangements. “Do you know yet when and where Huck’s funeral is being held?” she asked. “I’ll need to make arrangements to be there.”
“Huck’s being buried on the family farm in Virginia, where the senator makes his home when he’s in Washington. Family and close friends only. I’m sorry, Jenny. I told the senator you should be there.”
“Oh.” Huck’s father had never accepted her, but it hurt to be excluded from the funeral more than she’d thought it would. Her hands began to tremble, and she carefully set down the coffee cup. Huck wouldn’t know she wasn’t there. But it was hard to let him go when she’d never gotten the chance to say good-bye. She blinked furiously to fight back the tears. She was done with crying for what couldn’t be changed.
Colt’s arms closed tightly around her. “Huck will know you wanted to be there. And why you weren’t.”
“It hurts. Oh, God, I hurt inside.”
“Me, too,” he admitted hoarsely.
They stood wrapped in a comforting embrace until the smell of burning bacon forced them apart. Colt let go of her, grabbed a fork and turned the blackened bacon. “I hope you like your bacon crisp,” he said.
“I like bacon any way I can get it.” Jenny flushed as she realized Colt must have made an early morning trip to the convenience store. She and Randy hadn’t eaten bacon at breakfast for quite a while, because it didn’t fit into their meager budget.
She met Colt’s eyes, which urged her not to make a big deal of it. It rankled to accept even this much charity. “Colt, I don’t think you should be buying food—”
Randy arrived in the kitchen with his hair askew, teenage whiskers mottling his face, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and scratching his bare stomach. “I smell bacon.”
“Go get dressed,” Jenny told him, wanting Randy out of the kitchen so she could finish making her point to Colt. “Breakfast will be ready by the time you are.”
“Will you make me a lunch?” Randy asked.
“Sure,” Jenny said. “Get moving.” Randy was supposed to make his own lunch, but she knew why he hadn’t. He hated the monotonous menu of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that was all they could afford. She opened the refrigerator to get out the jelly and gasped. “What did you do? Buy out the store?”
She shot a look at Colt, whose face had taken on a mulish cast. “If I’m going to be eating your food, I figured I ought to provide my share of it,” he said.
“Oh, Colt, you shouldn’t have done this.”
“Don’t push me,” he said, throwing down the fork he was using to turn the bacon and putting his fisted hands on his hips. “I’m mad as hell about what I’ve found here. It wouldn’t take much to send me over the edge.”
“Mad? About what?”
“That you never told me—or Huck, who would’ve told me—just how bad things are around here. Damn it all, Jenny! Macaroni and cheese? Peanut butter and jelly? Huck was rich, and I’ve got a trust fund of my own. Why didn’t you ask us for help?”
“I didn’t want your help.”
“Why the hell not?”
Jenny felt her stomach twist into a knot. Because if I’d asked for help, you’d have found out the secret I’ve been keeping from both of you. “Pride,” she said, her own fisted hands landing on her hips. “I didn’t want to admit how badly I’d failed. There. Are you satisfied?”
Colt huffed out a gust of air, then hooked his thumbs in his back pockets. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s easy to criticize when you’re not around to see how difficult it is to shoulder the load. But please let me help, now that I’m here.”
“All right, Colt.” She reached up to get plates from the cupboard and noticed her hands were shaking. Another bullet dodged. She didn’t dare tell Colt the truth. No one knew the truth. Not even Randy, who lived with her.
“Where’s breakfast?” Randy asked, setting his book bag on the floor beside the empty table. “The bus’ll be here in a couple of minutes!”
Jenny set plates and silverware on the table, then made Randy’s lunch while Colt fried a couple of eggs for her brother “over easy,” as he’d requested. They were just sitting down with their own eggs, toast and bacon, when Randy stuffed down his third slice of toast and bolted for the door. “See you after school!” he said as the screen door slammed behind him.
“Whew!” Colt said with a grin. “I’d forgotten how hectic school mornings can be.”
Jenny managed a smile. “It’s hard to believe there’s less than a month left before he’s done.”
Jenny thought of all the years she’d made sure her brothers got off to school. She’d been looking forward to the day when Randy graduated, because it meant she could begin her life with Huck. That wasn’t going to happen now. She looked across the table and met Colt’s concerned gaze.
“I’m here, Jenny. It’s going to be all right.”
The comforting words did nothing to ease the tension in her shoulders. “I’m afraid you’ll regret this later, Colt.” When you find out the truth about me.
“Let’s take it one day at a time, shall we?”
Jenny released a shuddering breath. “All right. Where do you want to start today?”
“Suppose you tell me.”
“If I don’t get some fence repaired, what few cattle I have are going to be long gone.”
“Fence it is,” Colt said as he rose to take his plate to the sink.
The fence was barbed wire stretched between mesquite posts. Some of the posts had rotted, and some of them had been pushed down by cattle rubbing against them. It was hard work digging new postholes and restretching the barbed wire. Jenny told herself the lack of supplies had discouraged her from tackling the job. The truth was, it was grueling work that required more brute strength than she had.
As she watched the corded sinews flex in Colt’s arms, Jenny conceded there were simply some things a man could do better than a woman. “Thanks, Colt,” she said as she stapled the barbed wire into place. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
He grabbed the kerchief from his back pocket, lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. He retrieved his T-shirt from the post where he’d left it, hung his Stetson there while he slipped his shirt back on, then resettled the Stetson low enough to shade his eyes. “Digging postholes is a lot harder work than flying jets,” he said with a crooked smile.
She pointed at the white contrail left by a jet flying overhead. “So you’d rather be up there than down here?”
He tipped up his Stetson and squinted at the plane overhead. “Flying is all I ever wanted to do.” He looked back at her. “But right now, there’s no place I’d rather be than here with you.”
“Digging postholes?” she said with a teasing grin.
“Better me than you,” he said, his voice turning serious.
She turned and headed for the truck, tools in hand. “I don’t mind a little hard work.”
He caught her by the elbow and swung her around. He held on to her arm while he took the posthole digger and the staple gun out of her hands one at a time and threw them into the rusted-out bed of the pickup. Then he grasped both arms and turned her to face him.
“A little hard work is one thing, Jenny. Running yourself into the ground trying to do too much by yourself is another thing
entirely. I’ve been watching you this past week, and it’s plain to me that you’re worn-out.”
“I can’t sleep,” she retorted.
“This is more than lost sleep,” he said. “You’re wrung out. And so skinny a hard wind could blow you over.”
She pulled herself free and took a step back. Colt was so much more perceptive than Huck. Huck hadn’t noticed how thin she was—and how tired she was—four months ago, when he’d come for the Christmas holidays. Colt was so close to discovering the truth. She wanted to blurt it out to him. But that would send him running for sure.
“I’ll admit I’m overworked,” she said, feeling her way carefully. “It’s been tough doing everything myself. I guarantee you I’ll sleep better—and eat better, especially with the way you’re shopping—now that you’re here.”
“I wish you’d said something sooner.”
“Would you have stopped flying jets and come home to help me?” she asked in a quiet voice.
He looked stunned at the suggestion. “I…You know I would have…” He shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I like to think I’d have come if you’d said you needed me.”
She shook her head. “You’re only fooling yourself, Colt. You’re just like Huck. All you have to do is sniff jet fuel, and you’re off into the wild blue yonder.”
He laughed. “I’m not that bad.”
“You’ve asked me to marry you knowing full well you intend to return to Egypt to finish your tour there. What if I said I needed you here? That I wanted you to stay here with me? Would you resign from the Air Force?”
A shuddery breath escaped before Colt said, “Are you asking me to resign?”
Jenny made a face. “I don’t know. It hardly seems fair to ask you to stay here when we aren’t going to have a real marriage.”
“Whoa, there, woman. Who said it wasn’t going to be a real marriage?”
She flushed. “I suppose I meant a normal marriage. You know, where the two parties love each other and plan to spend their lives together.”
Colt’s brow furrowed, and his hands caressed her arms where he’d been tightly gripping her. “I wish I could give you that. I really do, but—”
“We don’t love each other, and you plan to spend your life flying jets,” she finished for him. She reached up to gently smooth the furrows from his brow with her thumb. “Don’t worry, Colt. I’ll be fine. I don’t blame you for what happened to Huck. Truly I don’t.”
“I just wish—”
She put her fingertips over his lips. “No regrets. I’m grateful for whatever help you’re able to give me during the next few weeks. I’m not going to ask for more.”
He pulled her hand down, grasping it in his own. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You never ask for anything. What is it you want out of life, Jenny? I mean, besides scraping a meager living out of this place?”
“I want—wanted—to wake with my husband beside me and lie in bed listening to the morning sounds. I wanted us to work side by side, making the Double D as wonderful a place to live as it once was. And I wanted children of my own.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s too late for a family now.”
“Why?” Colt asked.
She realized what she’d almost revealed and smiled to distract him. “I’m too old, for one thing. And the man I’m about to marry would rather fly jets.” She stepped back and pulled her hand free, breaking all contact between them.
Colt cleared his throat and stuck his thumbs in his back pockets to keep from reaching for her again. “So you’re going to spend your life on this godforsaken ranch all alone?”
“I’m sure my brothers will come around on holidays.”
“Don’t any of them want to live here with you? What’s Randy going to do when he finishes college?” Colt asked.
“He wants to go into business for himself and earn lots of money.”
“Fine. What about Sam and Tyler and James?”
“Sam’s foreman for a nearby ranch,” Jenny said. “Tyler’s headed to medical school in Houston. And James…”
“What about James?”
She gave him a wondering look. “James is studying to become a minister. So you see, I’m on my own.”
Colt saw a great deal. She’d given up her own hopes and dreams to make sure her brothers realized theirs. Every extra penny must have gone for tuition or books or clothes. That was why the ranch had suffered. She was obviously very proud of them, and their opposition to this marriage was proof of how much they cared for her.
He couldn’t just marry her and leave her here to manage on her own. On the other hand, he didn’t think he could give up flying, either.
“Have you ever thought about selling the Double D?” he asked.
“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted.
“And?”
Her eyes searched the horizon. He looked along with her and didn’t see much, just a few scrub mesquite, some cactus and buffalo grass and bluebonnets, and in the distance, a few craggy bluffs that marked deep canyons similar to those that graced Hawk’s Pride.
“I know it doesn’t seem like much,” she said. “But I love it. I feel connected to everyone who came before me.” She turned to look at him. “I want—wanted—my children to grow up here and to love their heritage as much as I do.”
Colt imagined Jenny playing with a bunch of kids, tickling them and laughing with them and having fun…without him. Because he’d be off flying jets.
It wouldn’t be fair to leave her alone and pregnant.
Is it any more fair to deprive her of the one thing she wants that you can give her?
Colt took two steps toward Jenny and brushed a stray wisp of hair from her brow. His hand lingered on her cheek. “It’s not too late for children, if you really want them.”
“I can’t raise them alone, Colt. Or rather, I won’t do that to them. My dad left us and…I just wouldn’t do that to any child of mine. Not if I could help it.”
“I see.” Colt looked deep into Jenny’s eyes, wondering how it had come to this—a choice between the woman he had always loved, and the thing he loved doing most.
It didn’t make it any easier to know that she didn’t love him. That her heart belonged—would always belong—to his best friend.
CHAPTER SIX
COLT STUDIED JENNY IN THE SLEEVELESS black sheath she’d worn to the memorial service for Huck. She was surrounded by friends who’d come to the Double D to bring mountains of food and offer their condolences. Her hair was gathered in a shiny golden knot at her crown, leaving her neck and shoulders bare, so he could see her body curved in all the right places. But she left a frail shadow on the ground, and her face looked wan. It dawned on him suddenly that she might be sick.
Sick people sometimes die.
Colt forced back the feeling of panic. Jenny isn’t sick. She’s just tired. The fear that she might be ill was like a living thing inside him, clawing at him, tearing at his insides. He knew his feelings were irrational, but his dread was born of firsthand experience.
When he was too young to know better, he’d made friends of the kids who attended Camp LittleHawk, the camp for kids with cancer started by his mother at Hawk’s Pride. He was eight when he met Tom Hartwell. Like many of the kids at camp, Tom had leukemia, but it was in remission. He and Tom had become blood brothers. Tom wanted to fly jets someday. Colt said he’d never thought much about it, but it sounded like fun.
Colt felt his insides squeeze at the memory of the freckle-faced, blue-eyed boy. Tom had worn a baseball cap to cover his head, left bald by chemotherapy. “My hair’s really, really red,” Tom had said with a grin. “Wait till it grows back in. You won’t believe it!”
But the leukemia had come back, and neither Colt’s raging nor his prayers—nor the best doctors money could buy—had been able to save his blood brother. Tom had died before Colt ever got a chance to see his red hair.
Jenny’s not sick. She’s just tired, he repeated to himself.
N
evertheless, he moved hurriedly through the crowd of mourners, briefly greeting neighbors he hadn’t seen in years, catching brief snatches of conversation.
“…Remember when Huck and Jenny and Colt…”
“Then Huck and Jenny and Colt went galloping across…”
“—going to take Huck’s place at the altar. Can you believe…”
He stood at Jenny’s shoulder and knew she was aware of him when she leaned back against him and reached for his hand. He interrupted old Mrs. Carmichael to say, “Jenny and I are going out onto the porch for some air. Please excuse us,” and led her away without looking back.
It wasn’t easy getting through the kitchen, which was also full of people, including most of his own siblings. He didn’t allow anyone to stop them. “Jenny needs some air,” he said as he headed inexorably for the back porch.
Even there they found no respite. His mother and father stood on the porch, along with two of Jenny’s brothers.
“There they are now,” Sam said when he spied them. “I want to talk to you, Colt. I don’t think—”
“Not now,” Colt said without stopping. “Jenny and I are going for a walk.” He put himself between her and everyone else and headed off down the rutted dirt road that led away from the ranch.
Jenny stumbled once in her black pumps, and he put his arm around her waist and kept on walking.
“Where’s the fire?” Jenny asked.
Colt stopped abruptly and stared at her. “What?”
“Where are we going in such a hurry?”
Colt realized he’d been blindly running from his fear, which stabbed him anew when he looked down and saw the gauntness beneath her cheekbones and the shadows beneath her eyes. He had to work to keep his voice steady as he asked, “Are you all right?”
She gave him a quizzical look. “My fiancé is dead, and I’ve agreed to marry another man in a matter of weeks, but otherwise I suppose—”
He shook his head impatiently. “I mean, are you feeling all right? You look so thin, so exhausted. I thought you might be…sick.”
She stiffened and looked away. “If I were, I wouldn’t expect you to take care of me.”
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