She had fled, afraid of the powerful feelings evoked by that brief meeting of lips. It wasn’t like her to run away, but nothing about the past ten days had been the least bit normal. It was time to face facts. Time to stop pretending her life had even the remotest chance of turning out happily ever after.
She couldn’t marry Colt. It wouldn’t be fair. Not unless she told him the truth about herself. And she knew what would happen if she did that. She had to call the whole thing off. Now. Before it was too late.
Jenny yanked on a pair of jeans and slipped into a chambray shirt. She ran a brush through her hair but didn’t even take time to put it up in a ponytail. The noise was coming from the back of the house, and as she hurried through the kitchen she saw the remnants of two blueberry pancake breakfasts in the sink. She stopped at the screen door and stared.
Colt and Randy were working side by side, both stripped to the waist. Colt’s shoulder muscles flexed as he supported a portion of the back porch roof while Randy slipped a new post in place under it. Colt’s bronzed skin glistened with sweat and beads of perspiration pearled in the dark hair on his chest. His jeans had slid down so she could see his navel and the line of black down leading into his jeans.
Her body tightened viscerally.
Jenny was shocked at how quickly she’d responded to the sight of Colt’s half-naked body and clutched at the doorjamb to keep herself from bolting again. She would surely get over this aberrant attraction once Colt was gone. She started to push the screen door open but hesitated when he spoke.
“That’s it, boy. Easy does it.” Colt let go of the rotting post he’d been holding, and the weight of the roof settled onto the new post.
“Holy cow! We did it!” Randy exclaimed.
“We make a good team,” Colt said, laying a hand across Randy’s youthful shoulders. Her brother beamed with pride.
Jenny felt her throat swell closed. This was what her brothers had missed. A father to teach them to be men. She’d done her best, but there were some things a mother couldn’t provide.
She swallowed down the ache in her throat that arose whenever she acknowledged what had been stolen from her…from all of them…when their father had run away rather than face their mother’s illness. She’d been the eldest, the one who remembered him best, so his abandonment had hit her the hardest. She wasn’t about to set herself up for that kind of heartache again.
“How long are you going to hang around?” Randy asked.
Jenny saw the startled look on Colt’s face. She didn’t usually eavesdrop, but she was curious to hear his answer.
Colt picked up a hammer to knock the post farther into place and said, “Long enough to help your sister put this place back together.”
“How long is that?” Randy persisted.
“What does it matter to you?” Colt asked. “If I understood your sister right, you’re headed off to college in the fall. Bring me one of those rails, will you?”
Randy brought him a porch rail and squatted beside him as he measured and began to saw. “I’m asking because I am going off to college. I hate the thought of leaving Jenny here all alone.”
“Yeah,” Colt agreed. “That’s tough. You want to try nailing this in place?”
“Sure,” Randy said.
Jenny watched as Colt showed Randy how to run a plumb line so the porch rail would be straight. She wondered for a moment how he could know so much about carpentry, until she remembered Colt had been trained his whole life to take over Hawk’s Pride. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about running a ranch, and that included the kind of repairs he’d been doing for the past ten days.
Jenny had discovered it was easier to do the repairs herself than take the time to train her brothers. She realized now that she had cheated them of the pride in a job well-done and herself of the pleasure of teaching them that she saw on Colt’s face.
“I’m real worried about Jenny living here all alone,” Randy admitted as he began nailing the rail in place. “I mean, when you go back to flying jets.”
“Maybe I can talk Jenny into selling this place and coming with me.”
Randy turned to gape at Colt, and the hammer came down on his thumb. “Yow!” He leaped up and flung his hand around, trying to ease the pain. Eventually the thumb ended up in his mouth.
By then Jenny was out the door and standing on the porch beside her brother, reaching for his hand. “Are you all right?”
Randy yanked his hand away and said angrily, “Why are we bothering to fix this place up, if you’re just going to sell it?”
“I never agreed—”
“This is our home,” Randy interrupted. “You can’t sell it!”
Jenny was furious with Colt for putting such an idea in Randy’s head, but equally annoyed with her brother. “You know I’d never sell the Double D if I had a choice.” She shot a quick glance at Colt, who looked chagrined. “It appears I may not have a choice.”
Randy turned to Colt. “Is that true, Colt? Are you going to force Jenny to sell the Double D?”
Colt’s lips pursed, and he shook his head. “I was only suggesting it might be better if she did.”
“How would you feel if your parents sold Hawk’s Pride?” Randy demanded. “What if it belonged to someone else and you could never go back? You’d hate it, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess I would,” Colt conceded. “But—”
“No buts,” Randy said. “Look, I’ve got to get out of here. I promised I’d ride over and visit a friend this morning.” He grabbed his shirt from the rail where he’d left it and turned to Jenny, his face anguished. “Just don’t do anything without thinking it through, all right?”
“Shouldn’t you wash up first?” Jenny suggested, knowing as soon as the words were out of her mouth how much Randy would resent them.
“I’ll rinse off at the sink in the barn.” He practically ran down the porch steps, headed for the barn.
Jenny whirled on Colt, determined to send him away. But the words caught in her throat. She met his gaze and remembered what had happened the previous night. She had to speak quickly, or she’d lose the will to speak at all.
“When did you intend to let me in on this little plan of yours to sell the Double D?” she asked pointedly.
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“Forget it! If you didn’t want to marry me, all you had to do was say so. I can manage on my own. I always have.”
“You shouldn’t have had to carry the burden by yourself for so long,” he retorted. “Huck should have been here.”
She looked into Colt’s eyes and drew a sharp breath. “Don’t you dare pity me! I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t need anyone. I can manage on my—”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Damn it, Jenny. Why won’t you let me help?”
“I don’t want you here. I don’t want you touching me or kissing me or…or touching me!”
She fought him, but his arms circled around her, pulling her close so she couldn’t strike out at him. He was saying something, but the sound was drowned out by the pulse pounding in her ears. She kicked his shin and heard him yelp, but he held on. One of his hands tangled in her hair, and he yanked her head back. “Look at me, Jenny. Look at me!”
She stared into eyes that were filled with compassion. And regret. And something else she was afraid to name.
“I’m glad you kissed me last night,” he said.
Jenny felt her heart begin to race. “It can’t happen again, Colt. Huck’s only been dead—”
“We’re alive. We’re going to be husband and wife. It’s not as if we’re strangers. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Friends. Nothing more.”
“Not yet,” he said softly. His lips had a certain fullness and rigidity she recognized, and which made her heart pound all the harder.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Jenny. Why are you so surprised that I find you desirable? Or that you might desire me? Why are you fighting s
o hard not to feel anything?”
She swallowed hard. Because it can’t last. Because it’s entirely likely I’m not going to be here on this earth much longer than Huck.
“You can grieve Huck and still go on living,” Colt said in a gentle voice.
She was frightened by how persuasive he sounded. She groped for an explanation that he would accept—besides the truth. “I can’t just forget Huck. He was—”
“Never here,” Colt said implacably. “How often did you see him over the past ten years?”
“I saw him lots!” Jenny retorted.
“Twelve times,” Colt said. “I know because I came with him every time except the last. I was here more than he was, because he spent most of his leave with his father.”
“He wrote me—”
“Cards—on birthdays and holidays. I know. I made sure of it.”
Jenny’s stomach churned. “He loved me, Colt.”
His thumb caressed her jaw, but his hold on her hair tightened, forcing her to look up at him. “I know. And you loved him. But be honest, Jenny. If you hadn’t been tied to this ranch, hadn’t been tied down raising four brothers, would you have kept on loving a man who was never there for you?”
Jenny’s eyes misted, and her nose stung with the threat of tears she refused to shed. “You can leave anytime, Colt. Go sniff some jet fuel. Get out!”
“I’m not going to leave you, Jenny. I’m not going to walk away, no matter how hard you push me. Between us, we’re going to figure out what to do. There’s got to be a solution that’ll work for both of us. All we have to do is find it.”
“I don’t need you! I—”
He kissed her hard, cutting off speech. Then his mouth softened, and his lips moved over hers, searching for some response.
Jenny’s heart skipped a beat before blood surged to her center. She clutched at Colt’s bare shoulders, unsure whether she wanted to pull him close or push him away. When she hesitated, his tongue slid into her mouth for a taste, and she was undone. All thought flew out of her head, replaced by sensation.
This is what was always missing with Huck. The need to merge body and soul with another human being. The need to make two halves into one whole. The need—
The kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun. Colt looked dazed. And as distraught as she felt herself. He let her go and took a quick step back. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and he finally stuck his thumbs in his back pockets. “I think maybe we’d better set some ground rules. I want—”
“Holy cow! Holy cow, Jenny! Look what I found!”
Jenny tore her troubled gaze from Colt’s face and looked toward the barn. Randy was mounted on his chestnut gelding, but he was pointing at a large animal that was partially hidden from view in the corral behind the barn. “What is it?” Jenny called back to him.
“My wedding gift to you,” Colt answered for Randy.
“You got me an animal for a wedding gift?” she said, her brows lowering in confusion as she headed for the corral.
Colt kept pace with her. “Not just any animal,” he said. “A Santa Gertrudis bull from the King Ranch.”
Jenny halted in her tracks and turned to stare. “Are you kidding? You’re not kidding,” she said as she got a good look at Colt’s face. She couldn’t catch her breath.
The Santa Gertrudis breed, three-eighths Indian Brahman and five-eighths British Shorthorn, had been developed in the early twentieth century on the King Ranch, which still produced some of the finest Santa Gertrudis cattle to be found anywhere in the world. A bull like the one he described would cost a fortune—and could save the Double D.
Jenny turned and raced for the corral. Randy was off his horse and leaning over the corral, ogling the deep, cherry-red-colored bull when she reached him. “Ohmigod!” she breathed. “It’s Rob Roy.”
“None other,” Colt confirmed with a grin as he put a booted foot up on the corral and leaned over to admire the bull. “Do you like him?”
Jenny couldn’t breathe.
Rob Roy had been named grand champion Santa Gertrudis bull at the most recent stock show in Fort Worth. All by himself, this bull could put the Double D in the black.
Randy whooped and said, “Holy cow!”
“Do you like him?” Colt asked softly. “I mean, I thought about getting you something a little more romantic, like a diamond—”
Jenny clutched Colt around the neck and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. Just as quickly, she let him go and stepped back. It was too tempting to cling to him. “It’s a perfect gift. No woman could ever have a more perfect gift.”
Then she remembered she was planning to call off the wedding.
“I guess there won’t be any more talk about selling the Double D,” Randy said as he mounted his gelding. “Wait’ll I tell everybody about this!”
He kicked his horse into a lope, shrieking like a Comanche on a raid and kicking up a cloud of dust that Jenny waved away.
Jenny turned back to Colt and said, “How could you have teased Randy like that, saying you thought I should sell the Double D, when you’d already bought Rob Roy?”
“I wasn’t teasing,” he said.
“But with Rob Roy—”
“One bull isn’t going to solve all your problems, Jenny. In fact, he’s only going to make more work for you. I suppose with the income he’ll bring in you could hire a man to help you out, but—”
“I’ll still be alone, because you’re not going to be around,” Jenny finished for him.
“I made my choice a long time ago, Jenny.”
Jenny couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “I know, Colt. You and Huck both. Like I said, I can take care of myself.” She opened her mouth to call off the wedding, but what came out was, “Thanks for the bull. It’s the nicest gift anybody’s ever given me.”
Jenny turned and headed toward the house. She tried to walk, but she was feeling too much, hurting too much, and she started to run. She waited for the sound of Colt’s footsteps coming after her.
But she never heard them.
RANDY’S HEART LURCHED WHEN he caught sight of Faith through the open kitchen window of her house. “Hi, Faith.”
“Hi, Randy. Let me finish here at the sink, and I’ll let you in.”
Randy shifted from foot to foot on the back porch. Faith’s dad was foreman for a neighboring ranch, and Randy noticed their single-story white clapboard house sported a fresh coat of white paint. Pink and purple petunias grew in profusion along the back porch. He had a moment to think how much Jenny would have appreciated the paint and the petunias before Faith unhooked the screen door and held it open for him.
He stared at her, stricken mute, unable to move.
Faith smiled shyly and said, “Won’t you come in?”
“Uh. Okay.”
The instant he stepped inside, he was assailed with a sense of order and the smell of Pine Sol. It was a far cry from his house, which suffered from too much work and too few people to do it.
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Faith said.
“I said I would.”
“I know but…I’m glad,” she repeated, lowering her lids and hiding her eyes from him.
He recognized it for the defensive gesture it was, and couldn’t help resenting it. He wasn’t going to hurt her. If she’d just give him half a chance, he’d prove it.
He looked around the kitchen, not surprised to see it was pristine. The Butler girls had always come to school in starched and ironed dresses and with their hair in arrow-straight pigtails. At least, they had until Hope took the bit in her teeth and began to defy her parents. After that, it was only Faith who came to school perfectly dressed.
He took advantage of the fact Faith’s eyes were averted to take a long look at her. Her left hand was hidden behind her back, so the image she presented was one of perfection. Her long-sleeved pink oxford-cloth shirt had a crisply starched collar and was belted into jeans that had a stiff crease. Her boots were s
o shiny he could have seen his reflection in them. Her straight black hair was tucked behind her ears.
He thought of the quick dousing he’d given himself in the barn. He’d rinsed off the worst of the sweat, but he wasn’t precisely clean. His shirt wasn’t ironed because Jenny had long ago given him the responsibility for doing it, and he’d decided he didn’t mind the wrinkles. His boots were too scuffed to hold a shine, if he’d been inclined to give them one, which he wasn’t.
Randy suddenly felt self-conscious. He should have taken a little more time to make himself presentable. He looked at the large kitchen table full of wedding paraphernalia and realized things were set up so they’d be sitting next to each other.
And me smelling like a workhorse.
“I…uh…I’m not sure how long I can stay,” he said, wondering how he could make a graceful exit before she got a good whiff of him.
“Great! You’re here!” Hope said, breezing into the kitchen. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come, and I’d get stuck with Faith wrapping all that birdseed in net and tying it with ribbons.”
Randy was relieved to see Hope wasn’t dressed any better than he was. Her skintight jeans were torn at the knees, and she wore a Western shirt with the sleeves ripped out, strings still dangling, the tails tied in a knot that revealed a great deal of her midriff. Her tangled hair hung over her shoulders in disarray.
He almost smiled at the contrast between the sisters. Looking at them, you might easily get the wrong idea about which was the imperfect twin.
“You’re not going to abandon us!” Faith said anxiously to her sister.
“I can help for a little while,” Hope said. “But I’ve got other plans for later on.” Hope plopped down into a chair on the opposite side of the rectangular oak table. “Let’s get going. The sooner we start, the sooner this’ll be done.”
“You can sit here, Randy,” Faith said, gesturing with her right hand to one of the two seats beside each other across from Hope.
He hesitated, then slid into the chair she’d indicated, because he wanted to sit next to her. After all, it was why he’d come. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“You can hold the pieces of net while I measure out the birdseed. Then I’ll hold the net while you tie the bow. How does that sound?” Faith asked.
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