Chapter 12
Mac leaned back on the pillows and looked around the room. His jeans and boots had ended up in the corner. A handful of torn foil packets scattered like rose petals beside the bed. That floaty thing Poppy had been wearing lay in a pile of fire on the floor, right where he'd tossed it. All the aftermath of a spectacular evening that should have led to a great morning.
Hard to do alone.
What the hell? Anger burned beneath his bewilderment and he rubbed a hand across his jaw, the rasp of whiskers loud in the silence of the little cabin. Even as the anger grew, he couldn't help wondering if he'd marked Poppy's cream-soft skin last night, if she'd gone off to Tom with his brand on her skin. Thinking about her skin had him twitching, which would have been welcome if only she had been there to help him enjoy his recuperative powers, instead of being out with another man.
He headed for the shower, even though he knew it wouldn't do enough to clear his head. Ten minutes later, he pulled on his clothes, still confused, still seething.
Yesterday Poppy had sworn she had no interest in Tom.
Last night he'd tried to tell himself it didn't matter, he and Poppy weren't about anything but sex. But somewhere deep inside, he knew, and even deeper inside he feared, that what he felt for her might be something more. Better. Worse. Whatever.
This morning, he'd turned into a grade A-1 sucker.
He walked out onto the porch and stared down at the corral, at Tom ignoring Alice, at Poppy smiling that you're-so-wonderful smile of hers at Tom, and the golden morning turned to gray wasteland. All his certainty that she was nothing but an on-the-make bimbo—or worse—surged up to clot in his throat. He slapped at one of the posts that held up the porch roof, with just enough self-control to keep from punching it and breaking his hand. Damn. And ouch.
She'd gone straight from his bed to Tom. She'd betrayed him, just as surely as his mother had when she'd abandoned her family, just as surely as his ex-wife had when— He shook the thought away, but Poppy stayed squarely in the front of his mind and his sight.
Betrayed.
Again.
A thin whisper of reason said Poppy wasn't his ex-wife, and Tom wasn't his father, and the two of them had ridden out to bring in the horses, not tangled together in his bed for him to find when he came home too early.
But she smirked that cat-got-the-cream smile at Alice, the same fuck-you little smile that Roxy had given him just before she packed her suitcase and went out the door. He leaned against the abused post and willed away the memory of his not-brief-enough marriage. Alice was his family now. Alice, and maybe Tom, although that looked less likely every minute.
Down at the corral, Alice leaned against the fence right where Poppy had stood that first morning, watching Tom show Poppy how to halter a horse, and Mac wanted to kill him for putting that expression of pain, regret, anger, and hopelessness on his wife's face.
Poppy got the halter buckled and half turned to laugh up at Tom. She acted as though Alice didn't exist. And as though she'd never shared Mac's bed.
He strode toward the corral, great angry strides eating up the distance. Punching the living daylights out of his worthless skunk of a brother-in-law should improve his day.
Tom had the grace to look embarrassed, but he played innocent. "Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed," he said with false heartiness. "What's got you all fired up?"
"Don't try to bluff me, you stupid S.O.B." Before he could punch the cheating bastard right in the smile, Alice grabbed his arm.
"Don't, Mac," she whispered. "Don't make a scene now."
Alice the peacemaker. He put his hand over hers and looked down at her. "As opposed to later?"
"Some of the guests are bound to be up. Just let it go." She must have seen the "no" in his expression, because she added, "Please?"
Her pleading look diluted his desire for violence. "Have I ever been able to say no to you?"
"When I wanted to stay out past curfew?" Alice reminded him with a feeble little smile. "Only about a thousand times."
"For your own good. But this—"
"Is between Tom and me. I was wrong to ask you for help."
It took Mac a minute to identify the shock that jolted through him as a complicated mix of fear and loss and jealousy. He'd always taken care of Alice's problems. If she didn't want his help...if she didn't need him... Everything went cold inside at the idea. If she didn't need him. He looked from Alice across the lush pastures to the hills that defined home, and everything looked alien. Without family, none of it meant anything.
"Go on and talk to Poppy," Alice said. "I'm going up to the house. And leave Tom alone." She turned away, leaving him too stunned to reply.
As soon as Alice had gone, Poppy ran over to him. "Mac," she said, and if the sun hadn't been so bright, her smile would have lighted the corral. "I got to help bring the horses in this morning. You should have seen—"
All of his conflicting feelings boiled over, and he smacked a hand on the top of the fence by her head. "You sneaked out of my bed to be with another man, to play games with my brother-in-law, and you have the nerve to expect me to share your pleasure? On a cold day in hell, honey, that's when I'll go along with that little plan. On the day hell freezes absolutely solid."
That wiped the smile from her face. He turned on his heel and strode blindly toward the nearest pasture. His mares and foals calmed him better than all the meditation nonsense city people set such store by. But not today. The sun had barely made it up and the day had already gone to hell in a hand basket. And it was Poppy's fault. All Poppy's fault.
Fury still simmered his blood after he'd checked every mare and every foal. Time for plan B. He marched through the house, intending to grab something portable for breakfast and head up to work on his house. Pounding nails seemed like just the thing to do this morning. Alice caught him at the kitchen door and handed him a stack of papers. "Your office sent these—" He grabbed them without a word. Tom sat at the table in the kitchen, so Mac kept right on going out the back door. He wasn't in any mood to be polite to anyone, much less his expletive-deleted brother-in-law.
* * *
Poppy slipped into the kitchen through the back door. Eating was out of the question, but a little down-to-earth common sense talk from Chickie wouldn't hurt.
Or would it? Instead of the sympathy she'd expected, Chickie stopped kneading biscuit dough and gave her an exasperated look. "If what I think happened happened, he had every reason to expect you to stay with him. To be there when he woke up. Am I right?"
Poppy stared at the toes of her boots. Of course Chickie had it right. "What was I supposed to do, ask permission to get out of my own bed?" she asked.
"If your bed had that warm, willing man in it, I'd say yes, you should've."
Poppy dropped into a chair and put her head in her hands. "You know, Chickie, I'm really smart. How can I do such dumb things?"
"Honey, there's book smart and life smart. Looks like your shoppin' cart got all loaded up in the wrong aisle." Chickie pounded the defenseless dough. "I'd just be guessin', but it looks to me like you might be between a rock and a hard place here. I'd say you might want to get this straightened out right away. Mac's up at his house."
Poppy knew how to take a hint.
* * *
Mac picked up a hammer and realized he still held the sheaf of faxes his secretary had sent. He riffled through the stack. The words 'Background Check: Poppy Grayson' leaped out at him as though the words were printed in blood. He grabbed the pages and skimmed rapidly. Age: 32. Born and raised Boston, Beacon Hill. Both parents M.I.T. faculty. Attended Dana Hall Girls' School, Wellesley, M.I.T., Stanford. Ph. D. biology. Publication list attached. Associate Professor of Genetics at Boston University for three years. Offered early tenure, but left to do research at South Boston University Cabot. Quit abruptly 'for personal reasons', something flaky there, but no one will talk. No criminal record, no debts. Well liked. Dropped out of sight after leavi
ng university.
Well, hell. A snooty debutante type, a university professor, a scientist, a very successful one from the sounds of it, to boot. Why couldn't she have been what she looked like—a good time, sex on the hoof, a gorgeous bimbo? He scanned the publication list. He recognized about half the words. Fatal Mitochondrial—Genetic implications of—Genome of— Double hell. He hadn't expected anything like this.
He tapped the papers to even the edges and set them on a shelf, weighting them with a hammer. Once he'd finished the back stairs, he'd grill—no, talk to, he'd talk to Poppy.
Happier now that he had a plan, he grabbed some tools and headed for what would be the back porch. Unfortunately, he kept visualizing the completed house with a gorgeous redhead standing in the doorway welcoming him home. That felt permanent, and he didn't do permanent.
A flicker of motion caught his eye. He turned his head and saw Poppy trudging up the road. She looked tired. Faintly purple shadows marked the smooth skin under her eyes and he remembered why she'd gotten so little sleep the night before. He also remembered the aftermath. That was all it took to make him step around the corner and pretend she wasn't there.
* * *
The sun lay hot on her shoulders and her steps grew slower and slower as she approached the unfinished house. The sporadic bang of a hammer up ahead and a whinny somewhere behind her broke the silence. One small, puffy cloud flirted with a mountain top in the distance.
Funny, only a few days ago she'd been sure no one in her right mind would live here. Now... She must be going soft in the head if living this far from a city seemed appealing. She'd better get back to Boston before it was too late. If—when—she got her job back, it would never do to be mooning around over some silly mountains. Or a cowboy.
She hadn't been this nervous before her dissertation defense. But she had no real reason to be apprehensive about facing him. After all, her real life didn't include him. She steeled herself and walked around the corner of the house.
He stood with his back to her, in the middle of pulling his white t-shirt over his head. Muscles rippled across his back. She'd seen him naked, of course, but here, in the sunlight, he loomed large as a god. Gorgeous. Magnificent. She swallowed, her mouth dry as dust.
"Mac?" It came out as a croak.
He dropped the shirt and turned to face her, his expression far from welcoming.
She swallowed hard. "I came to apologize."
"Sure. Okay." His face stayed stony and unforgiving.
"I understand how you must feel. I just forgot to tell you I'd planned to ride out with Tom this morning." It took everything she had to sound contrite and innocent, which she was, instead of sneaky and guilty, which she also was, and she certainly hoped he hadn't heard Tom at the window this morning, pleading with her to help him.
"You didn't have to go."
"But I promised."
He started to say something but stopped himself.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "Couldn't you trust me a little?"
His expression shouted, 'No.' "Seems to me there's an almighty lot about you that needs trusting."
"Well, I—"
"I believed you that first night, that you came on to me because you liked me, and then I find out you were only after me because you thought Alice was." He went on, talking over her shocked denial. "I tried to believe there was really a mouse in your cabin. And I believed you hadn't invited Brad into your bed."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Well, after I thought about it, I did." He kicked at a pebble. "And I did my best to believe you when you swore you weren't interested in Tom even though you were chasing him all over God's little acre and back. But now—you jump out of bed with me and go off playing cowboy and God knows what else with him."
She flinched, but cut to the chase. "Whatever's wrong with Tom and Alice, it's not me."
After a moment of silence, he let his breath out in a whoosh. "You don't mess around, do you, honey?"
"No. Do you believe me?"
"Yeah. I guess I do," he said slowly. "Unless you've known Tom a lot longer than the time you've been here."
"I met him a month ago. He's a friend of my roommate's. We had dinner one night, all of us together. He told me about the ranch. We did not have an affair." She willed herself not to lower her gaze, or blush, or do anything else that would look guilty. She hadn't lied. She'd only omitted Tom's plea and her Other Woman idea, her tipsy assurance that she’d show them.
So here she stood, a month later, swinging a hammer and having some kind of personality change that left her thinking the wild west might be as good as Boston. Yeah, she'd shown them, all right.
* * *
Working with Poppy scored right up there with his horses on the scale of zero to perfection. He could tell she'd never pounded nails before, but the way she worked shoulder to shoulder with him all morning gave him another one of those queasy moments when forever sounded almost good.
Poppy dropped the hammer on her foot. "Ouch. You sure know how to show a girl a good time."
"We're a little short on romantic dinners at five-star restaurants here at the ranch." He wondered with disappointment if she expected city entertainment out here.
"Not a problem. Putting on uncomfortable clothes and listening to some twit with a phony accent patronize me while serving overpriced, unhealthy food isn't my idea of fun."
"I can't believe that someone who looks like you—"
"Haven't you ever heard that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Got a real hot button there, don't you? Sorry. Maybe you'd rather talk about your job. What kind of work do you do?"
Her gaze shifted, making her look sneaky as a kid with her hand in a cookie jar. "I lost my job last month. I haven't really been doing anything."
"Taking time to find yourself?"
"No. I found myself years ago. It's other people who have trouble finding me." She sounded irritated. "Anyway, I'm going to get my job back. My lawyer says I have a very good case."
Ah yes. The mysterious 'personal reasons' and 'dropped out of sight'. His common sense said she hadn't told him everything. Everything south of his belt didn't care. He still wanted her more than any other woman he'd ever known.
Back at the lodge, after a lunch of fried chicken and potato salad, Poppy carried their dishes to the kitchen. He followed, enjoying the view. Jeans had been designed with Poppy in mind. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her tidy bottom until Alice put a hand on his arm. She looked tired and strained. "Your tongue is hanging out," she said in a seriously annoyed voice.
"Sorry."
"Come in the office. I want to talk to you before Tom comes in for lunch." She shut the door behind him and whirled to face him. "I thought you were taking care of her." Tears glittered in her eyes. "Tom and I had a fight last night. He didn't come to bed until two o'clock. He must have gone to her."
Her mouth twisted on the last word, and Mac had no trouble figuring out who she meant. Some things a man didn't want to know about his sister's private life. "He wasn't with Poppy."
"How can you be sure?"
Mac heard Poppy walk down the hall. He stared at the toes of his boots, trying to decide how much to tell Alice. 'Because I spent the night with her' was such an uncomfortable thing to say to his sister, but the look in her eye told him he she wouldn't let him skate out of this one. "Because I was."
He glanced up and saw Poppy and Tom on the veranda. She laughed up at him, and he looked down at her with a grave expression. They looked like a textbook definition of intimate conversation.
"Your routine may be great but I think your dismount needs work," Alice said.
Poppy said something he couldn't hear and reached up to pull loose the scarf that tied her hair back. She shook her head and ran her fingers through the blazing curls, so that the sun shot sparks of a hundred colors of fire from each strand. It was a gesture so innocent, and at the same time so carnal, that
he caught his breath.
"Well, he won't be with her long," Mac told Alice. "I'll take care of her. And you might try paying some attention to Tom. It might help if he ever saw a smile from you."
Alice looked so miserable and guilty, so much like the little sister he'd raised that his flash of temper died. He put an arm around her shoulders. "What's wrong, Alice?"
She turned away. "I can't keep asking you for help. My marriage, my responsibility."
Before he could protest, she slipped out the door. He sidled up to the window and listened. Shamelessly.
"No," Poppy said.
"But—"
She sat on one of the benches, and Tom sat beside her. "I know. I promised. But she's already jealous and it isn't helping. You're just going to have to trust me here. Think of me as the professional, and you as the client."
Professional? Client?
Tom said something that Mac didn't catch. He stopped grinding his teeth and tried to hear Poppy's response.
"Tom, be reasonable," she said. "Alice is completely miserable about something, and I'm not helping. You're just making things worse by insisting that we—"
A shout of laughter from the dining room blotted out the rest of Poppy's words. He inched closer.
"...obviously crazy about you," she said. "You must have done something to make her mad."
Tom propped his elbows on his knees and leaned his head in his hands. "I haven't done anything. Not a damned thing."
"Well, is that the problem?" She sounded impatient. "You forgot her birthday? An anniversary? Although...how long have you been having problems?"
"Months. Six months, maybe. Oh, hell, Poppy, I was so sure having you here would fix things."
"Well, it hasn't. We can't keep doing this. There's got to be another way." She rubbed her hands together. "We may be looking at this backwards. Has Alice done—well, anything?"
Tom's mouth dropped open. "Alice?"
"Yes, Alice." Poppy frowned. "Sometimes she looks so sad. Almost as if..." Her voice trailed off. She gazed across the fields into the distance and bit her lip.
Reckless Promise Page 15
