The Last Single Maverick

by Christine Rimmer

  She shrugged. “Be patient. I’ll get over it.” She wouldn’t. But she would get used to it—at least she hoped she would. She’d learn to live with being alone in love.

  His gaze burned darker, more intense. “Listen, do you need me to say it? I can just say it if it’s what you need.”

  She took his meaning and whispered low, “You would say that you love me, even though you don’t?”

  “It’s only words.”

  “To you maybe.”

  He still held her wrist. And didn’t let go. Instead, he guided it back behind her and brought her up close against his broad, rocklike chest. “Whatever you want. Just say it. I’ll do it.”

  Her breasts felt oversensitive, pressing as they did into the hardness and heat of him. Her body burned. And her heart…

  It ached. A deep, thick kind of ache. An ache that was almost pleasurable. She didn’t have his love. But he did want her. A lot. It was something. Not enough, but still. Better than nothing.

  “Okay, Jace. You go ahead. You say it. You lie to me.”

  His arm banded tighter and he pulled her even closer. What breath she had left came out in a gasp.

  And then he said it, roughly, angrily, his breath warm and sweet across her cheek. “I love you, Joss.”

  She tipped her head to the side, opened her mouth slightly and ran her tongue over her upper lip, openly taunting him. His eyes burned brighter and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “Hmm,” she said with a smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. “Somehow it doesn’t have the ring of truth, you know? And what good is a lie to me? Not a whole lot.”

  “Joss…” He said her name very low that time. It was a warning. And also, somehow, a plea. “I just don’t want to lose you over this, okay? Over three little words. How stupid would that be? No, I don’t get the whole love thing. I think it’s a crock. You want to be with someone, build a life with someone, or you don’t. And the point is, I want a life with you. And you want the same thing with me.”

  She hitched her chin higher. “I’m not arguing. We’re on the same page with this.”

  “Are we?” He didn’t look convinced.

  And she was softening. How could she help it, with his fine, big body pressed against hers, tempting her? And his heated words in her ears, reminding her that he did care, that he wanted her, that he had promised to be a true husband to her. And that she believed him on all those points, believed in him.

  The L-word shouldn’t matter so much. It was what a person did that mattered.

  “Yes.” She let her tone go soft as her heart. “Yes, we’re on the same page.” She reached up with the hand he hadn’t trapped behind her back and caressed the slightly stubbled line of his so-manly jaw. “We just bought our business. We’re going to find the right house. We’re getting married and we’re going to have as many kids as the good Lord will grant us.”

  “It’s gonna be great,” he said fervently, the contract in his free hand crackling a little as he tightened his fist on it. “You’ll see.”

  “I know.” She gave him a real smile that time, even if it was a little wobbly. “Yes, it will be. Great.”

  “Joss…” He whispered her name as his fine mouth swooped down to cover hers.

  Her knees went loose and she sagged back heavily against the door. Oh, that mouth of his—it played over hers, hitting every sweet, hot, perfect note. It was a symphony he created, every time he kissed her. Slow and tempting, fast and hot. He varied the notes and the rhythms. He swept her away on a warm tide of pleasure. She sighed and surrendered to the spell that he wove.

  And then, just she was sliding her free hand up to clasp his neck and pull him even closer, the door behind her gave way.

  With a sharp little cry, she stumbled backward.

  “What the…” Jace growled.

  Somehow, she managed to stay on her feet. She whirled to find her mother standing there, hazel eyes wide with pretended surprise.

  “Oh!” RaeEllen exclaimed. “Well, I’m sorry. I thought I heard a knock….”

  “Not a problem,” Joss lied, as she straightened her light summer shirt and recovered her dignity.

  Jace actually chuckled. “Caught us in the act, RaeEllen.”

  RaeEllen only pinched up her mouth and smoothed her hair. “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve made a list of the staples we absolutely must have to function around here. And Jason, I was thinking that maybe you could make a quick run to the local supermarket while Jocelyn and I finish putting our things away.”

  Joss saw right through her mother. It was divide and conquer time. She was sending Jace away so she could go to work on Joss. Not happening. “We can deal with that later, Mom. We’re invited to dinner at Jace’s cousin Dax’s house tonight.”

  “But we’ll at least need eggs and coffee for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Actually, we won’t. We can just walk downstairs to the bakery. The breakfast croissants have eggs, ham, sausage—whatever you want in them. And they are to die for.”

  “That could get expensive.”

  “Mom, it’s one day. We’ll shop for food tomorrow, after breakfast, when it’s not pouring down rain.”

  Jace spoke up. “Give me the list, RaeEllen. I’ll be happy to pick up what we need right now.”

  Joss whirled on him. “We should talk.” She grabbed his hand. “Come in the bedroom.” She sent her mother a withering glance. “Mom, we’ll be right back.”

  RaeEllen knew when to keep her mouth shut. She gave a tight little smile and let them go.

  Jace went willingly enough. Joss towed him to the larger bedroom at the back of the apartment, dragged him inside and shut the door.

  He went over and dropped to the edge of the old-fashioned double bed with its dark headboard and bright log cabin quilt.

  She stayed near the door. “You know what she’s doing, don’t you?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “She wants to get you alone and tell you all the reasons you shouldn’t marry me.”

  “So why are you letting her get away with it?”

  “Because you can’t avoid her forever. She’s staying right here in the apartment with us. You might as well face her down at the gate, let her know you’re not running scared and she’d better straighten up and fly right or she can get back in that big old Buick of hers and head home to Sacramento.”

  He was right, of course.

  But still. “I have let her know. It doesn’t do any good.”

  “So tell her to go home.”

  “I’m…not at that point yet. Close. But not yet.”

  He got up then. He came to her, clasping her shoulders between his strong hands. “You need to show her she doesn’t get to you.”

  “But that’s just it. She does get to me—and don’t tell me you don’t know exactly what I’m going through here. Remember that first day we met? When you practically begged me to go to the Rib Shack with you, to pretend to be your date so your family would stop trying to set you up?”

  He grunted. “You would have to remind me. They were driving me nuts.”

  “So all right, then. You understand. And I mean it. Don’t leave me alone with her.”

  “Joss, you’re only putting off the inevitable.”

  “That’s right. I keep hoping I’ll get lucky and she’ll decide to back off and be reasonable.”

  He shook his head. “She seems pretty determined.”

  She made a face at him. “She’s determined, all right. Determined to put a stop to our wedding. Think about that. Out on the landing a few minutes ago, you were all about how you really, really do want to marry me.”

  “It’s true,” he said simply. “I do want to marry you.” His words touched her. He was such a big, handsome bundle of contradictions. He couldn’t say the L-word without scowling. Yet he sincerely wanted to make a life with her.

  “My mother is up to no good,” she said.

  “Joss, she came all the way here to Montana to try and make it up with
you.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “That is so not what she’s here for.”

  He caught a lock of her hair, rubbed it between his fingers. “Talk to her.”

  She could become seriously annoyed with him. “When it’s your mother, you can’t run away fast enough. But when it’s my mom, I’m supposed to hold my ground and talk it out.”

  “You’re a woman. Women are better at all that crap.”

  “Crap,” she muttered. “A truer word was never spoken.”

  He slid his hand up under her hair and clasped her nape. Lovely sensations cascaded through her. And then he pressed his lips so tenderly to hers. “Talk to her.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, he was out the door.

  And she was alone with her scheming mother, who took her hands and dragged her into the long, narrow kitchen and down to the little round table at the far end.

  “Sit down,” RaeEllen said in her warmest, most conciliatory tones. “Let’s catch up a little….”

  Reluctantly, Joss sat.

  “Jason is very handsome,” her mother said carefully, a brave soldier in a dangerous field of hair-trigger land mines. “Very charming and very…compelling.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And I gather he’s got money.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “I can understand how he might have swept you off your feet.” RaeEllen paused. Presumably so that Joss could agree with her.

  Joss said nothing.

  Her mother forged on. “But really, how can he possibly be in love with you, or you with him?”

  Love. Joss felt the muscles between her shoulder blades snap tight. The last thing she wanted to discuss with her mother was love. It was way too sensitive a subject right then.

  And she didn’t want her mother to know that. RaeEllen was trolling for weaknesses. Joss refused to show her any. She ordered those tense muscles to relax and she kept her face composed.

  RaeEllen kept going, rattling off her list of reasons that Joss and Jace were doomed to failure as a couple. “You met so recently. It’s just…well, Jocelyn, it’s a fling. On the rebound. And the last thing a woman should ever do is marry a man with whom she is having an affair on the rebound.”

  Joss couldn’t resist. She got in a jab of her own. “Is that what happened with you and my father?”

  RaeEllen stiffened. “I beg your pardon. We are not discussing your father.”

  “I’m just trying to determine how you’re such an expert on affairs and flings and getting something going on the rebound. The way I remember it, there was just my father. And when he left, that was pretty much it for you.”

  “Jocelyn, this is not about me.”

  Joss let out a slow breath and shook her head. “Mom, you’re wrong. I think this is very much about you. About you and your fears and your inability to move on, to try again with a man after Dad walked out.”

  “No. No, it’s not.” RaeEllen put a hand to her chest. Two bright spots of color had bloomed on her cheeks. “It most certainly is not. This is about you. About the wonderful man who loves you and forgives you for making a fool of him in front of three hundred people on your wedding day.”

  “I did not make a fool of Kenny. He did that to himself by rolling around half-naked with my own cousin in the coat room of the church.”

  “That never happened.”

  “Mom, it happened. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “What happened is that you got cold feet. I remember that you were having second thoughts. You confided in me, don’t you recall?”

  “Yes, I do recall. Quite clearly. You convinced me that all brides have second thoughts and I should go through with the wedding. You blew me off.”

  “No, I did not. I helped you to see that you shouldn’t let your unfounded fears get in the way of your happiness.”

  Joss braced an elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. “This is going nowhere.”

  “We need to talk about this.”

  “We have talked about this. I have no idea why you’re so obsessed with convincing me to get back together with a self-absorbed jerk who cheated on me on our wedding day. But I can’t argue with you about this any longer. I am finished. I am marrying Jace and I’m never going near Kenny Donovan again and that’s the end of it.”

  “But you—”

  “The end of it, Mom. It’s over. Stop.”

  “But I have to—”

  Joss dropped her hand flat, smacking the table. The sound was loud and sharp in the small space. “Enough. I’ve had it. I can’t take this any longer. I’m sorry I can’t get through to you. And it doesn’t matter what you do, you are not going to change my mind.”

  “Kenny loves you. He loves you so much. And you are cruel and cold to him. How can you be like that? Why can’t you see how horribly you’re behaving?”

  It was the final straw. “That’s it. The end. I want you to go back to Sacramento, Mom. I want you out of this apartment. I’ve got sixteen days until Jace and I get married. They are going to be busy days. I can’t have you at me every chance you get, battering away at me, so sure of your righteousness, so certain that eventually you will wear me down. You won’t wear me down. What you’ll do is ruin what should be a beautiful, busy, exciting two weeks.”

  “You just want me out of here so you can be alone with that man.”

  Joss let out a laugh that sounded more like a groan. “You know what? That’s right. I do want to be alone with Jace. Why wouldn’t I want to be alone with him? Jace is funny and tender and smart.” Even if he isn’t in love with me. “And all he wants is to give me the life I’ve always dreamed of. What’s not to like about that, Mom?”

  “What happens when he gets tired of you?”

  That hurt. That really hurt. She answered firmly. “He wants to be with me. He’s not going to get tired of me.”

  “You are blind. Foolish and blind.”

  Back at ya, Mom. “I mean it. I want you to go.”

  * * *

  Jace returned at twenty after five, his arms loaded with groceries. “There are more in the car. Where’s your mom?”

  “In her room. Sulking.” She took one of the bags from him and turned for the kitchen. “She’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.” He followed her in there and they set the bags on the counter.

  He asked, low-voiced so there was no chance her mother might hear, “You’re sending her away?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I’ll make it clear she’s still welcome to come for the wedding.”

  He took her hand, turned it over, wove his fingers with hers. “You okay?”

  What happens when you get tired of me? “I’ve been better.”

  He pulled her close, into the circle of those powerful arms. She let herself lean on him, breathed in the special scent that belonged only to him, told herself that she wasn’t going to let her mother’s cruel, misguided words get to her.

  But those words were in her head now. Stuck there. Along with the bald facts: She loved him and he didn’t love her.

  He’d told her right up front that he’d always been a player, that he’d never been one to settle down, not until his whirlwind affair with the rich oilman’s daughter. And now, he was doing it again, with her, with Joss.

  Could a man really change that much? Or was this just some phase he was going through? He thought he ought to settle down, so he’d swept her off her feet and then proposed, just like he’d done with Tricia Lavelle.

  He was the last single guy in his family. Maybe that was getting to him. Maybe he was trying to conform to his family’s idea of what a man was supposed to do with his life.

  Was it only a matter of time before he realized that marriage and a big house full of rowdy kids wasn’t for him after all?

  The questions spun round and round in her head. She told herself to ignore them. She wasn’t going to let them ruin her happiness.

 
; She held on to Jace tighter. It was going to be all right with them. He wouldn’t get tired of her. She believed in him, in what they had together.

  Everything would work out fine….

  Chapter Thirteen

  RaeEllen refused to go with them to Dax and Shandie’s that night. She said she was tired and needed her rest. “After all,” she added loftily, “I have another long drive facing me tomorrow.”

  Joss didn’t try to change her mind. If her mom didn’t want to go, fine. At this point, there was nothing Joss could think of to do to ease the bad feelings between them.

  Dax and Shandie’s big house was packed. All of Jace’s siblings and their spouses were there. And so were Laila’s sisters Annabel, Jasmine and Jordyn Leigh. Jace’s mom and Pete were still in town, so they showed up, too. And then there was DJ and his family as well.

  Joss visited with Claudia, who was all smiles over the coming wedding. Joss tried to take comfort in the way Jace’s mom treated her. Claudia welcomed her into the Traub family with open arms. If only her own mom could be so accepting.

  And if only the bleak doubts would quit dogging her.

  She did worry, the more she thought about it, that Jace wasn’t really ready for the life they planned together. If he was ready, how hard would it be for him to tell her he loved her and to actually mean it?

  With half an ear, she listened to Dax and DJ talk about a couple of local crooks, Arthur Swinton and Jasper Fowler. The two men were in prison. They’d committed a series of crimes, including kidnapping Jace’s sister, Rose Traub Anderson. The theory was that Swinton had nursed a grudge against the Traub family for decades because Dax and DJ’s mom had turned him down flat when Swinton tried to put a move on her. DJ and Dax still couldn’t quite believe that Swinton had gone off the deep end because their mom had turned him down. The more they discussed it, the more they agreed that Swinton’s reaction to rejection had been way over the top, that there really had to be more to it than that.

  Joss thought she could almost feel sorry for Arthur Swinton. It wasn’t an easy thing to love someone who didn’t love you back.

  It was after midnight when she and Jace returned to the darkened apartment. The door to her mother’s room was shut and no light bled out from beneath it.