“So, do you want to visit all those places? Rome. Argentina. Pennsylvania’s Amish country?” He said the last with a smile, a nod to how different it was from the other two.
“Sure, someday maybe.”
“After the Finals, you should travel some.”
“I’ll be busy.” She took a bite of her cake and savored the taste.
“Are you ever not busy?”
She thought about it. If she wasn’t training, she was working on the Web site or blog. If she wasn’t doing that, she was conducting tours or working on other PR projects for the ranch. And if she didn’t make the Finals this year, she knew she’d craft a more ambitious training schedule for next year.
“That’s what I thought,” Will said, then took a bite of his own slice of cake.
“I’ll travel someday. It’s just more of a fantasy than reality now.”
“You like the photography too, right?”
The change in conversation direction caused her to pause raising another bite of cake to her mouth. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s relaxing, creative.”
He nodded toward the shelf of guidebooks. “Think of all the photos you could take around the world.”
It stunned her that she hadn’t thought of that. But her photography had always been tied to the ranch—just like everything else in her life. And she’d never minded. She loved it here. Still, the idea of photographing the rest of the world held definite allure.
“Just because something is fantasy doesn’t mean it can’t become reality,” he said.
When she met his gaze, she thought he was talking about a lot more than world travels.
Jesse walked in the front door, intruding on the moment. “Will.” He obviously still didn’t approve of the personal nature of her relationship with Will, but to his credit he didn’t verbalize it. Still, Will had to know because he shifted in his seat in a way that signaled he was going to leave. At that moment, she wished she didn’t share a home with her brother.
Jesse went into his office but didn’t close the door.
“I better go,” Will said.
“I’ll walk you out.”
After they both retrieved their coats, Will clasped her hand right as they passed Jesse’s office. She smiled at the deliberate gesture, and Will Jackson claimed a little more real estate in her heart.
They walked hand in hand until they reached his SUV. When she stepped into the circle of his arms, it felt as if she’d been performing the same motions for years.
“I’m sorry tonight got spoiled,” he said as he ran his thumb along her cheek.
“It would have been worse if you hadn’t been there.” She hesitated, staring up at him for a couple of seconds before continuing. “You somehow made me feel better when I didn’t think I could.”
“Do my talents know no bounds?”
She laughed. “Oh, hush and kiss me already.”
“Gladly.”
Could there possibly be a better sensation in the universe than the tingling, warm, sweet taste of Will’s lips on hers? She sank into him and let the enjoyment pour over her. When he ended the kiss, she smiled up at him and was rewarded with one of his own.
“Remember what I said.” Will pushed a wisp of hair away from her cheek. “If you want something, don’t let anything get in your way.”
His words reverberated in her mind long after the sound of his vehicle’s engine was lost in the night.
EVEN THOUGH SHE’D BEEN working toward the National Finals Rodeo for as long as she could remember, something about hearing Will say, “If you want something, don’t let anything get in your way,” gave her extra drive. Despite the terrible practice the day before, she approached the barn the next morning with a new outlook.
The drive and desire were still there, but she let herself remember the joy in her racing, as well. Just before mounting Pepper, she closed her eyes and thought back to when she’d just started barrel racing. She’d knocked over every barrel, but the feel of her horse’s power beneath her and the wind whipping past her face had been magic.
With that thought in mind, she hopped into the saddle and shoved everything but racing her absolute best race from her mind.
When her third trip through produced her best time ever, her first thought was to call Will and tell him all about it. Not Janie. Not a member of her family. Will. She was falling for him—the most unexpected guy.
As she went through the rest of her morning, she allowed herself to think about what things she wanted beyond the Finals. If she managed to win in Vegas, would her drive to go for it again be there? She guessed she wouldn’t know until, or if, it happened. But what else did she want?
She admitted she did want to travel. The desire had been there for a long time, but she’d relegated it to simmering on the back burner.
Definitely wanted to continue to spend time with Will, see where this attraction between them led.
Elly thought back to dinner the night before and realized there was one other thing she wanted—to heal her relationship with Janie. She couldn’t imagine not having Janie in her life. It hurt just to think about that possibility.
Before she talked herself out of it, she picked up the phone and dialed.
“Feed and Grain,” Janie answered.
“Hey.”
Pause. “Hey.”
“I was thinking, we haven’t been on an overnight trip in a while. Can you get away Friday night?”
“Elly.” The word sounded sad, resigned.
“If another day is better, I can work around your schedule.”
“I don’t think—”
“I miss you, Janie.”
For several ticks of the clock, Janie didn’t respond. Elly blinked against the tears that welled in her eyes.
“I miss you, too,” Janie finally said.
“I really want to get together and talk. Please say you’ll go with me.”
Janie hesitated again. “Okay.”
After they made plans to meet at a bed-and-breakfast near Powell, Elly immediately called Will. After Delia forwarded the call and Will answered, Elly said, “Imagine I’m kissing you right now.”
“I charge extra for imaginary stuff.”
She laughed. “How do you do that? Come up with those deliciously smart-aleck responses on the fly?”
“Another talent?”
Elly snorted.
“Okay, Delia’s rubbing off on me. I can’t help it. It’s like snark disease.”
“There are worse things.”
“So, why so chipper? Just the sound of my voice?”
“Although that’s nice, it’s actually something you did.”
Elly heard him shift in his chair and tried to imagine what his office looked like.
“And that was?”
“Told me to go after what I wanted. So I called Janie. We’re going away on Friday for a girls’ weekend.”
“Good.”
“So if you ever get tired of the lawyering gig, you totally have a future in counseling.”
“Good to know I’ve got options.”
Elly smiled even wider. The guy just filled her with sunshiney joy. “Well, I gotta go. Duty calls in the form of a bus of Korean tourists.”
“Hey, Elly?”
“Yeah?”
Will lowered his voice. “Now imagine me kissing you.”
“I heard that!” Delia said from the background.
“No, you didn’t,” Will responded.
“Yes, I did.”
“Then you’re fired.”
“No, I’m not.”
Elly laughed. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
“I’m glad you talked to Janie.”
“Me, too.”
After she hung up, Elly sat at the desk with a tremendous grin on her face. And fought the urge to drive to Cody and kiss Will for real.
Chapter Nine
When Elly walked up the stone pathway to the Tanner House B and B
on Friday afternoon, Janie was sitting on the front porch’s swing.
“That looks peaceful. Chilly, but peaceful.”
“Yeah.” Janie didn’t quite meet her eyes.
Elly tried to calm the nerves roiling inside her. This sensation of being nervous around Janie made her feel like she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in an alternate universe. But she did her best not to let it show. She was determined to recapture the type of relationship they’d had before either of them knew about the affair that had happened between their parents.
Instead of seating herself in the large wicker chair adjacent to the swing, Elly deliberately sank next to Janie like she’d been doing since they’d bonded over their mutual dislike of multiplication tables. Elly lifted the large brown bag in her hand.
“I brought five kinds of cookies and every Gerard Butler movie I could find.” Janie had developed her crush on Gerry with The Phantom of the Opera, and had been completely done in when she’d watched his washboard abs in 300.
“Bribery, huh?” The barest hint of the old Janie gave Elly hope.
“I tried looking up his phone number to see if he could join us for the weekend, but did you know they don’t actually publish the numbers of famous people? The nerve!”
Janie’s lips twitched.
Elly wrapped her arm around Janie’s and leaned on her shoulder. She hated to change the tone of their interchange, but they couldn’t keep avoiding the big issue if there was any hope for them to move beyond it.
“I felt horrible in the Sagebrush the other night.”
“I’m sorry.”
Elly lifted her head and turned to face Janie. “No, I don’t want you to apologize. If anyone should, it’s me. I’m sorry I got upset about you not telling me about…the situation. I know it must have been a hard thing to bear.”
Janie nodded. “I felt like it was going to eat me alive.” She paused, picked at her cuticles in a nervous habit she didn’t display very often. “I found out that Mark had a different father when Dad was sick. He refused to let either of us help him, not even to donate blood. I thought that was odd and asked Mom about it. She brushed it off, saying Dad was just stubborn. It kept bugging me though, and later I found a letter Mom had sent to your dad back when she was pregnant with Mark. It was returned unopened, but…I opened it.”
“What did it say?”
“Nothing specific, just that she wanted to meet to talk. But it made alarms go off in my head. I had no proof, but I just knew in my gut.”
“Mark’s known all this time?”
“No. I didn’t tell him.”
Elly looked at Janie, her confusion probably etched all over her face. “Why?”
“Dad was dying, Mom was beginning to slip more. I just couldn’t handle anything else, and I didn’t think Mark could either. I didn’t think it was going to do anybody any good to know.” Janie finally met Elly’s eyes. “I swear, I didn’t keep quiet to hurt anyone. Not Mark, not you.”
She looked so haunted by the secret she’d kept that Elly clasped one of Janie’s hands in hers. “I know.”
“Mark didn’t know until recently. He had a blood test done, but all it proved was that Dad was almost certainly not his biological father. He let your dad know what he suspected, but that’s as far as he took it.”
Elly slid back against the swing and used her foot to make it sway gently, trying to absorb the barrage of information. Several quiet moments passed in which the only sounds she heard were the squeak of the swing’s chains and the wind in the surrounding pine trees.
She bit her bottom lip before speaking again. “This has been so surreal. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I think for a moment that I just dreamed it all.”
“I wish we had.”
“I feel like everything I’ve ever thought was real was actually a lie, like my family is being torn apart.”
“That makes two of us.” Janie picked at a small hole in her jeans. “Only I feel like I’m losing the only sibling I have.” She didn’t have to say the rest—that Elly was gaining another brother when she already had four. Just as Will had said Janie was probably feeling.
“You know Mark will never leave you, no matter who his father is. He loves you.”
“So he says, but I don’t know. I already feel I’ve lost part of him to Nicki. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s great, and she’s really good for him. I’ve never seen him as happy as when he’s with her. It’s just…”
Elly squeezed Janie’s arm. “Things are changing, but you’ll always have Mark. And me.” She hugged Janie and watched as the sun’s bottom edge dipped below the horizon. As if on cue, the breeze turned colder. “Let’s go inside and start a fire.”
After a moment, Janie nodded.
They tossed their overnight bags in their respective rooms, then Elly started a fire while Janie put the cookies on two large plates and poured glasses of milk.
When Elly turned back toward Janie, she could tell something else was still troubling her friend. “What is it?”
“I bet Jesse hates Mark even more now, doesn’t he?”
“Hate is a strong word.”
“They’ve never been the best of the friends.”
“No,” Elly said as she moved toward the couch and sank onto one of its arms. “I can’t even remember why this dumb rivalry of theirs started.”
Janie looked like she wanted to say something, but she remained silent.
“You know why?”
Janie lifted her gaze to Elly’s. “Because Mark always felt like he had to work three times as hard to accomplish what Jesse did. It’s not Jesse’s fault. I think it’s more a sense of inferiority on Mark’s part. They were always competing, but Jesse had the better equipment, better horses.”
“Mark does really well. He’s just as likely to win the Finals as Jesse.”
“Yes, but…it was just harder.”
Elly did her best not to sound defensive when she responded. “Jesse works hard, too.”
“I know that. And I think Mark does, too, though he’s been loath to admit it at times, especially the way they try to mess with each other’s heads at rodeos.” Janie sighed and leaned against the kitchen table. “You know Mark isn’t a big talker.” She laughed a little. “I guess he’s a lot like Jesse that way.”
Elly nodded, unable to deny the similarity. She suspected that if she let herself, she’d find more.
“I’m not saying this to elicit pity. You know I hate that. But I think all Mark ever wanted was for things to not be so tough. He doesn’t mind hard work, but I know he worries about Mom and her care. About me, though he shouldn’t. I can take care of myself. Honestly, I’d be more worried about him if it wasn’t for Nicki. And goodness knows I wasn’t too easy on her when they first got involved. But even though she’s been good for him, I still feel like he’s walking around with a lot of self-induced pressure on his shoulders.”
Elly thought the same about Jesse—only he didn’t have a woman to love and be loved by. But he had lived an easier life than Mark. No one could argue that point.
Having access to the Cody coffers—through blood and not charity—could make all the difference in the world to Mark and his family. Elly couldn’t begrudge him that.
She stared at the top of the coffee table for a few seconds before lifting her gaze back to Janie. “As difficult as it is, I think we have to sit back and let them work it out for themselves.”
Janie nodded, then brought the cookies and milk to the coffee table. “I don’t know about you, but I’m up for a little escapism at the moment.”
“Your wish is my command.”
They sank onto the couch, and Elly held up two DVD cases. “So, The Ugly Truth or Gamer?”
“I’m more in need of some half-naked men.”
Elly lowered the DVDs and cocked her head to the side. “How many times have you seen 300?”
“Not enough.”
Elly tossed the cases on the coffee tabl
e and grabbed another. “Scantily clad Spartans, it is.”
Despite Janie’s request for the movie, however, Elly sensed she wasn’t as into it as normal, that she couldn’t escape her thoughts. But she waited until Janie initiated more conversation.
“I’ve heard people talking in town. They’re saying Jesse hired Will so Mark doesn’t get his hands on Cody money.”
Elly lowered her half-eaten snickerdoodle. “It’s not that ugly. Jesse just takes his responsibility for our family very seriously.” She paused, tried to view the situation from her brother’s perspective. “And he’s hurt, just like the rest of us. All these years, he’s thought he was the eldest son, and now he finds out it’s all been a lie.”
“Mark wouldn’t do that, go after your money.”
“I know. But he might be entitled to it anyway.”
“What has Will said?”
“I don’t know. He only discusses the case with Jesse.”
They watched the scene where Gerry and Lena Headey got hot and heavy before he marched off to certain death.
“So, have you kissed him yet?” Janie asked.
The question caught Elly off guard. She didn’t know whether she should tell the truth, so she fell back on teasing. “Gerry? Nah, I’m more of an Eric Bana in Troy gal myself.”
Janie swatted Elly’s leg. “Will, you goofball.”
Elly sat for a moment, recalling the feel of Will’s lips on hers, the comforting strength of his arms wrapped around her, the subtle brush of his body against hers.
“You have, haven’t you?”
Elly nodded.
“Can I say I told you so now?”
“Are you okay with that?”
Janie thought for a moment then nodded. “Yeah. I always thought he was nice. And he certainly did grow up to be easy on the eyes.”
Elly bumped Janie’s shoulder with her own. “Hey, get your own guy.”
Elly: Cowgirl Bride Page 10
