“Then stay,” she said simply.
He shoved both hands through his short hair, leaving it standing on end. “I’m considering that option.”
Her eyes went wide. “You are? What’s stopping you?”
He wanted to tell her the truth. That he didn’t think he could stand waking up every morning to a wife who was in love with another man. He’d grow to hate her and himself. It was easier to go away—to stay away.
He was afraid to read too much into the fact she’d taken off Huck’s ring. It might simply be that it evoked too many painful memories for her to wear it.
And that kiss last night?
Mere gratitude for the gift he’d given her. It was getting harder and harder to conceal his true feelings, but he wasn’t about to let Jenny know he loved her when he had no hope of having that love returned.
“I’d like to stay Jenny,” he said quietly. “But you’re Huck’s girl. You always have been, and you always will be.”
“Huck is dead,” she said, her voice cracking.
“I know,” he said sadly. “I can’t fight a ghost.”
Jenny’s brow creased. “Why would you need to?”
If she couldn’t figure it out, he wasn’t going to explain it to her. So he changed the subject. “I figured we’d start scraping down the barn today so we can give it a new coat of paint.”
“I’ve got a few personal errands to run in town,” she said, slipping off the bed and crossing to the dresser to run a brush through her hair. “I’ll be back by six to shower and change for dinner.”
“You’re going to be gone all day?” he asked, startled.
She gave him a smile in the mirror as phony as a three-dollar bill. “I’ve put off a lot of things that can’t wait any longer.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” he said, frowning. “Is there some complication at the bank? Some problem I don’t know about?”
She laughed, a brittle sound that sent a chill up his spine. “It’s nothing like that.” She set down the hairbrush and turned to face him. “If I’d known you were going to get so upset, I wouldn’t have told you about it.”
“And then what?” he said, crossing to her, putting his hands on her shoulders from behind and looking at their two faces in the mirror. “You just disappear for the day? You don’t think that might have given me a few gray hairs?”
“You’re making too much of this,” she said, shaking off his hands and sliding past him toward the bathroom, where she could shut herself in—and him out.
He caught her arm and whirled her around. “You don’t think I’m entitled to an explanation?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone else,” she said sharply.
“I’m your husband.”
“Not yet you aren’t!” She jerked her arm free. “And maybe not ever, if this is the kind of inquisition I can expect when I want to go somewhere without you tagging along.”
“Tagging along—” He was too furious to finish.
She poked a finger in his chest to back him off. “I’ve survived a very long time without you, Colt. Don’t you get it? I don’t need you. I don’t need any man. Especially one who only wants to marry me out of a sense of guilt.”
“A sense of—” he spluttered. “Where is this coming from?”
“You know very well you’re only marrying me because you feel obligated as Huck’s friend to make sure the widow’s taken care of.”
“That’s not true!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her. “I love you, damn it! I always have.”
Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. She was speechless, leaving a great deal of silence in which to absorb what he’d said.
Colt felt like he was going to throw up. He let her go, and she took a quick step back. “Jenny, I—”
“I don’t understand. You were Huck’s friend! Or you pretended to be.”
“That’s unfair, and you know it. Let’s sit down and discuss this. Please, Jenny.”
“I have an appointm—” She bit her lip. “I’ve got errands to run. This discussion will have to wait.”
She was backing away toward the bathroom, but he wasn’t going to let her escape so easily. “Wait until when?” he demanded.
“Until later.”
He reached out and caught her chin with his hand, forcing her to look at him. “When, Jenny?”
“Later. Tonight,” she added when his grip tightened. “Let me go, Colt.”
He let her go, and an instant later she was gone.
COLT WAS STILL SCRAPING DOWN the barn when Randy approached him after school. Colt was hot and tired and irritable, because he knew he had to decide whether to stay in the Air Force or stay here with Jenny, and an entire day of scraping paint hadn’t done much to resolve his dilemma.
It was hard to imagine his life without flying jets. It was impossible to imagine it without Jenny. He wanted both. But it was becoming very clear that he couldn’t have both.
“Where’s Jenny?” Randy asked.
“She’s still in town running errands.”
“Oh.”
Colt slapped at a fly that had landed on his nose, but it buzzed away unharmed. “What does that mean, ‘Oh’?”
“Nothing,” Randy said quickly. “You want some help?”
Colt had three-quarters of the barn scraped free of old paint. Maybe with Randy’s help he could finish today. “Sure. Why not? There’s another scraper on the tool rack in the barn.”
Randy slipped his book bag off his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
Colt swatted at the fly again, which was now buzzing his ear. He’d already done all the work that needed to be done on a ladder, so he and Randy worked side by side scraping the lower half of the barn.
“When did you know what you wanted to do with your life?” Randy asked.
Colt shot him a sideways look. “From the time I was a kid. Why?”
“I thought I knew what I wanted, but lately I’ve been less certain of what I should do.”
“I see,” Colt said, neither encouraging nor discouraging further discussion of the subject.
“I planned to study business because I figured that’s where the money is,” Randy said, keeping his eyes focused on the work he was doing. “But earning money doesn’t appeal as much to me now as something else does.”
“What’s changed your mind?” Colt asked.
“I met someone.”
Colt smiled. “A woman has a way of making you think twice about a lot of things.”
Randy stopped scraping and stared at him. “How’d you know it was a girl?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Anyway,” Randy continued, “ever since I started seeing this girl, Faith Butler, I’ve been thinking maybe I’d like to study something else entirely.”
Colt resisted the urge to ask what and said, “Mmmhmm.”
“Funny thing is, I don’t even know what kind of courses I’d need to take to learn about it.”
Colt wanted to know what “it” was, but there was an unwritten code, going all the way back to the days when people came west to escape their checkered pasts, that said a man didn’t ask for information that wasn’t volunteered. Instead he said, “The university could probably tell you what you need to study.”
“I suppose. I guess I’d better find out whether Texas Tech teaches anything about orthotics. Maybe I’ll need to go somewhere else.”
“I give up,” Colt said. “What’s orthotics?”
Randy grinned. “Making mechanical limbs for people who need them. Faith says there’s a new silicone hand that looks a lot more real than a latex one, but nothing works as well as an old-fashioned hook. I want to invent a mechanical hand that works like a real one—you know, like in the Terminator movies.”
Colt eyed him speculatively. “What does Faith have to say about all this?”
“We haven’t discussed it.” Randy began to scrape vigorously on the barn wal
l. Colt figured that meant he didn’t want to discuss the subject with him, either, so he let it drop.
A moment later Randy’s hands dropped to his sides, his chin fell to his chest and he heaved a great sigh. “How do you know when you’re in love?”
Colt stopped scraping and turned to face the teenager. His first instinct was to tell Randy he was too young to fall in love, that he had a lot of living to do before he settled on one woman, and the best thing to do was ignore the feeling and it would go away. But Randy was four years older than he’d been when he’d fallen for Jenny. And that love had lasted a lifetime.
“Have you asked your sister that question?” he hedged.
Randy’s face was suddenly suffused with blood, which could have been the heat, but was more likely embarrassment. “I never needed to before now. And now…I couldn’t talk to her now about being in love. I mean, not with Huck dying like that, and you guys getting married in some kind of business arrangement.”
“Is that what Jenny told you?” Colt said, his stomach clenching. “That our marriage is a business arrangement?”
“Well, it is, isn’t it? I mean, you guys aren’t in love or anything. And you’re planning to leave and go back to flying jets, so what else could it be? Not that I blame Jenny for marrying you. I mean, how else can she get the money to keep the ranch?”
Colt spoke through his teeth because his jaw was clamped so tight. “Let’s get one thing straight, Randy. Our marriage may have some financial benefits for your sister, but it’s going to be real in every way.” Colt barely kept himself from shouting that he loved Jenny. That would require an explanation that he wanted to make to Jenny first.
Randy’s flush heightened. “I’m not criticizing you and Jenny. I just…I always thought people got married because they loved each other and wanted to spend their lives together. I know how hard it was for Jenny all those years with Huck gone. I hate to think of her alone when you’re gone, too.
“I’d offer to come back to the ranch after I finish college,” Randy said, “but I know that wouldn’t really solve the problem. I think I’ve found the woman I’m going to marry someday, and having me and my wife living here at the Double D would just point out to Jenny how alone she is. I mean, I think I love Faith.”
Which brought them back to Randy’s original question. “I don’t know how to tell you whether this girl is the right one for you,” Colt said. “I can only tell you my own experience. When you love someone, your every thought begins and ends with her. What is she feeling? Is she happy? What can you do to make her life easier? And you want her physically. Fiercely, completely. That’s part of it. Mostly, love is always considering her needs before your own. Is that how you feel?”
Colt could almost see the tension easing from Randy’s shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly how I feel.”
Colt gave him a cuff on the shoulder. “Sounds like you’re in love, pal.”
“Thanks for listening, Colt.”
Colt stood back and surveyed the work they’d done and realized the job was finished. “Why don’t you go on in and get cleaned up? There’s going to be a lot of demand for that shower if we’re all going to get gussied up in time for your graduation ceremony tonight. I’ll put away the tools.” He reached for Randy’s scraper, and the boy handed it to him, then picked up his book bag and trotted toward the house.
Colt stared after Randy, realizing that in talking to the boy he’d found his own answers. His days as a jet pilot were numbered. But to his surprise, he didn’t feel resigned or sad or desperate. Because when it came to a choice between having Jenny or living life without her—there really was no choice. If he truly loved Jenny, it meant putting her needs before his own. It meant staying here to be a husband to her instead of running off to fly jets.
And it meant finding a way to handle the pain, if she could never love him back.
CHAPTER NINE
“YOU LOOK SO GROWN-UP,” JENNY SAID as she straightened Randy’s tie. She reached up to brush back the lock of golden hair that always fell onto his forehead, and he ducked away.
“Give me a break, Jenny,” he said, thrusting his hand into his hair, leaving it mussed. “It’s just graduation.”
“Just graduation,” Jenny repeated past the painful lump in her throat. The tears came without warning.
“Aw, Jenny.” Randy’s arms closed awkwardly around her, and she laid her head against his shoulder.
“I can’t believe you’re all grown-up,” she said, her voice cracking. She made herself step back, quickly wiped away the tears and once against straightened his tie, while he shifted impatiently from foot to foot.
“Can I leave now? I need to pick up Faith.”
“We’ll meet you at Buck’s Steakhouse. Drive carefully.”
He rolled his eyes and said sarcastically, “Yes, Mother.” He stopped abruptly, the screen door half open, and turned to face her. “Jenny, I’m sorry. It just slipped out.”
“Never mind. Go. You’re going to be late.”
He disappeared, the screen door slamming behind him.
Jenny had been a mother to her brothers, but she’d warned them against labeling her that way. Because they knew it bothered her, they addressed her as “Mother” whenever they were angry or upset, knowing it would get a rise out of her.
Right now, she felt very much like a mother hen whose nest had just been emptied of its last chick. A huge hole gaped inside her that once had been filled up with the responsibility for her brothers. She didn’t feel free. She felt empty. This didn’t feel like the beginning of a new life. It felt like the end.
“Hey. Give me a break.”
Jenny turned to find Colt wearing a white button-down shirt, khaki slacks and a conservative regimental-striped tie. He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, a navy suit coat slung over his shoulder, his hip cocked.
“I suppose you witnessed that scene,” she said.
“I did.”
“I’m going to miss him.”
“I know.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she quickly rubbed it away. “I don’t understand where all these tears are coming from,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“Don’t you?” Colt asked, crossing toward her. He laid his suit coat across one of the ladder-back chairs at the kitchen table and opened his arms. “Come here, Jenny.”
She didn’t resist his offer of comfort. She took the few steps that put her within his embrace, and his arms closed around her. “I’ve been waiting and wishing for this day for so long, but now that it’s here, I just feel sad,” she admitted.
She felt his hand smooth across her hair. Felt his lips at her temple and on her closed eyes.
“I feel like my life is over,” she whispered.
“I promise you, Jenny, it’s just beginning. Have you been thinking about what I said to you this morning?”
Jenny had thought of little else during the day besides Colt’s confession. I love you. I always have. “I remember.”
“I’ve decided to resign from the Air Force, Jenny. I want to stay here and marry you and raise babies with you. If that’s want you want, too.”
Jenny felt her heart squeeze with joy and with pain. “Oh, Colt.”
Tell him now, Jenny. If he really loves you, it won’t matter.
She leaned back and looked up into his face, surprised at what she found. He was afraid, she realized. Of what? Suddenly Jenny knew. Afraid that she could never love him. That she would always—only—love Huck.
“I told you I’ve been thinking a lot today, and I have,” she said. “About me and Huck. About me and you.”
Colt cleared his throat, but he didn’t speak. Which was a good thing, because if he’d interrupted her, she might not have been able to say what she knew had to be said.
“There was a time when I loved Huck body and soul. I wanted to make a life with him. I wanted to have his babies. I wanted to grow old with him.” Jenny sighed and looked away. “
I’m not sure when the loving stopped.”
Colt inhaled a sharp breath of air.
She forced herself to look at him. “It wasn’t until you said you loved me this morning that I made myself take a brutally honest look at my relationship with Huck. I realized that all these years I haven’t been in love with Huck. I’ve been in love with a dream of what life could be like with him—if he ever settled down.”
She lowered her gaze to Colt’s throat and watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. Her voice was barely audible as she admitted, “The last couple of times Huck came home, we didn’t even make love.”
“Jenny, I—”
She put her fingertips over his lips. “I’m not finished.” She looked at him and said, “I never suspected how you felt. How you feel,” she corrected when she felt his mouth open to protest. “I do know I’ve always been grateful for your friendship. You were there so many times when Huck wasn’t.”
She felt his lips flatten under her hand and removed it. “I’ll admit I’m tempted by what you seem to be offering. But I’m afraid of making the same mistake twice. Maybe we can never be more than friends. You’ve caught me at a vulnerable time and—”
“Can I get a word in here?”
She gave a jerky nod.
“All I’m asking is that you give us a chance, Jenny. Can you do that?”
“Colt, there are things you don’t know. Things—”
He shook his head to cut her off. “The past is the past. We start fresh from here.”
Tell him, Jenny.
Jenny opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. It could wait. Maybe there would be no need to tell him anything. Maybe they would mutually decide they didn’t belong together any more than she and Huck had. If the buds of feeling she had for Colt began to blossom, that would be soon enough to confess her secret.
“What do you say, Jenny? Will you let me court you?”
“Court me?” she said, her lips curving. “Is that really necessary? I’ve already promised to marry you.”
He smiled for the first time since their discussion had begun. “It’s the time-honored way a cowboy wins his lady’s love. How about it?”
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