Most of the adults at the ranch seemed perfectly happy to leave their kids to their own activities while they enjoyed the ranch’s spa and other amenities. Roxxy assumed this must be because they’d had an actual childhood, unlike her who had been lazily homeschooled by her mother so she could spend as much time as possible going from one singing audition to another.
Roxxy had been grateful when she got her first record contract at sixteen because the label had provided her with a real teacher who actually taught her things. But she’d never been able to do the really fun stuff like arts and crafts or play games with other children, and she found herself more than enjoying her time with the children’s program.
If the other staff members thought her continued presence strange, they didn’t acknowledge it, maybe because she was a “guest of Mr. Andrew” or maybe because she played so hard with the kids, it actually made their jobs easier. And the one nice thing about racial stereotyping was that most of the parents seemed way more comfortable with the strangely dressed black woman in a service position as opposed to as a fellow guest. A few of them even gave her friendly hellos at dinner that night.
Mrs. Garcia informed her during their lunch together that Andrew made it a point to eat with the staff in the main lodge on Wednesdays. “But I can stay and cook you dinner again if you want.”
“No, no,” she said. “I can eat at the main lodge, too.”
However, when she got to the staff table with her plate filled with all sorts of yummy-looking food from the country-style buffet, she began to see the holes in her plan. The rest of the staff greeted her warmly and assured her it was totally fine to sit with them. They even made room for her on the bench, so she could sit between Andrew and Elena, the woman who ran the children’s program.
However, for quite a few moments after she sat down, Andrew looked like he was fighting the impulse to take his plate and get up from the table. But then he blinked hard, apparently having made the calculated decision to act like he wasn’t repulsed by her presence. Instead, he proceeded to ignore her for the entire meal.
But strangely enough, Roxxy didn’t mind because that was how she finally came to meet the other Andrew, the one everyone at the ranch had been raving about. Over dinner he was charming and engaged, asking after many of the staff-members’ children and listening attentively to any problems they were having in their positions. By the time he had cleared his plate, he’d agreed to stop by the stables to make a hard decision about one of the older horses and also speak with a guest who kept insisting on pinching the butts of the female wait staff whenever they brought him drinks.
When he got up to leave, so did Roxxy, but he chose that moment to speak to her for the first time that day. “No, stay. Try the peach cobbler. It’s the best in Montana. Best in the nation I think, but officially it’s only been awarded the prize for best in state.”
The staff around the table laughed at his little joke, and they called out a chorus of hearty good nights as he left. But Roxxy knew better. The invitation to try dessert had been another slight on his part, even if no one else could see it.
Still, she rallied after he was gone and got to talking to Elena about the children’s program.
“I’d loved to have come out here when I was kid,” Roxxy told her.
“Me too,” Elena said. “I’m just sad more kids can’t afford the opportunity. But that’s why Andrew’s headed to Washington D.C. in a couple of weeks. He’s got a few grant meetings about turning the old Hagstead farm into a summer camp for underprivileged kids. But he’s have a heck of time getting ready for them. Last week he said just getting through the paperwork to get non-profit status for the farm has been a way bit more complicated than he expected.”
Roxxy’s eyes lit up. “Really? I was actually thinking about going to school for public administration, which involves a lot of non-profit course work.”
Jeb frowned. “I thought you were a physical therapist. That’s what all the newspapers said.”
Roxxy lifted her eyebrows. Oh, so that was what the mysterious Layla did for a living.
“Um, yeah, I am,” she said. “But lately I’ve been thinking about changing career paths.”
Jeb, accepting that answer. “Was a lawyer myself in Helena, before I accepted the call of the wild.”
Roxxy smiled. “Cool! Then you’ll have to tell me how you did it. I need all the advice I can get.”
As it turned out, a lot of the staff had done other things before coming to Sinclair Ranch. “The hotel industry can be like that, attracting people from all different walks of life,” Elena, who taught fourth grade in Buellton during the school year, told her. “But you know that already, since Andrew was still an executive at Sinclair Steel when everything went down between you and his wife.”
A hush came over the table and everyone seemed to shoot daggers at Elena. Apparently they’d all been talking about whatever happened between Layla and Andrew’s dead wife behind her back, but it wasn’t considered polite to actually bring it up to “Layla” herself.
“Yeah, he was,” Roxxy said, trying to lighten the mood. “But I don’t want to take that big of a leap. I was thinking about maybe finding some rich rock star to work for and doing some charitable foundation work.”
This was actually mostly true. They just didn’t realize she was the rich rock star and that the money for her foundation would be coming out of her own coffers.
That seemed to bring back the former mood and people started talking about what charitable things they would do if they had rock star money.
All in all, it turned out to be a nice dinner, and it was even nicer to have people to sit with at that night’s bonfire. But all too soon, it became time for her to walk home barefoot and alone.
She once again washed her outfit and hung it up on the line. When she came back to the house, she spotted Andrew’s cowboy hat hanging on it’s hook in the living room, which meant he’d once again arrived while she was outside. But this time, he hadn’t bothered to come to the window or even say good night.
Whatever. Roxxy pushed the insult away and went into the kitchen to make some warm tea, which she’d learned the night before to drink alone. It had taken three cups just to calm down enough to attempt sleeping in her bedroom. And after hours of fitful dozing, she’d had a nightmare about Steve Kass. In it, he was lying on the floor with blood coming out his mouth and nose, just like Mabel. She’d come awake on the edge of a scream, and there had been no getting back to sleep after that.
And as jittery as she was feeling at the moment, she doubted that night would be any better as far as convincing herself to attempt sleep again was concerned.
Except that night, Andrew showed up at the living room entrance to the kitchen about two hours into her nighttime pacing session, while she was making her fourth cup of tea.
“What are you doing?” he asked from the doorway, sounding more like he was making an accusation than asking a question.
“I love Montana,” she answered. “But I’m having trouble sleeping here. I think it’s the crickets.”
“This house is old, leftover from before the renovations. When you move around down here I can hear you upstairs.”
“Sorry,” Roxxy said. “I’ll just take my tea up to my bedroom.”
“And what happens if you still can’t get to sleep?”
“Then I come back down here and make myself another cup of tea, I guess. Maybe try and read a book, since there’s no television or internet here. I’m not really used to not having something to do at night.”
His eyes clouded over at that. “You miss your old life.”
“No,” Roxxy said, though she was aware they were talking about two different things entirely. “I don’t miss my old life at all. It’s just that Montana is really dark and crickety. Not what I’m used to.”
He gave his head a tired shake. “I’ve got a conference call first thing tomorrow morning. I’m not going to let you keep me up all night, again.
I need to be on the ball.”
“I wasn’t trying to keep you up,” Roxxy said through gritted teeth. “Just let me get my cup of tea and I’ll—“
He turned off the stove and took her by the arm. “Come on,” he said.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, but their destination was soon revealed when he opened the door to the master bedroom. This bedroom was much larger than the one he’d given her, with furniture made out of the same material as the old-fashioned barn, which Jeb had told her was used to store hay for the horses and feed for the cows.
“I was like you when I first got here, after leaving my wife,” Andrew said, after indicating she should go into the room ahead of him. “I knew our marriage wasn’t working, but I couldn’t get to sleep at first because I was used to having somebody else in bed with me.”
“That is definitely not why I can’t get to sleep,” Roxxy assured him. If only he knew how long it had been since she’d had anyone in her bed overnight.
“Just lay down,” he said. “I’ll stay on my side, you can stay on yours. If you’re not asleep within an hour, then feel free to go downstairs, make more tea, and resume your pacing.”
Roxxy frowned. “Just an hour? Then no more complaining if I need a few more cups of teas to fall asleep?”
“If you’re not asleep within an hour, I’ll escort you to the liquor cabinet and pour you a glass of scotch myself. That’s how I eventually started getting to sleep on my own.”
“I don’t really drink. Two nights ago was fluke,” Roxxy said.
But she tentatively climbed into the left side of the bed, getting as close to the edge as she could before she let the sheet settle over her.
“But if this means I can go back to making my tea in peace…” she said. Then she closed her eyes so Andrew wouldn’t be able to accuse her of not at least giving it the old college try.
She never got her fourth cup of tea. And the next thing she knew, she was having some kind of weird sex dream. In it, she was lying on her side and grinding her naked hips against someone’s very large erection.
“Let me in, Layla.”
“Take off your pants,” she gasped out, barely able to contain herself.
But he didn’t, just kept grinding his hips against hers, until she thought she might go crazy with lust.
“Layla, wake up.”
“Please,” she cried. “I want you inside of me. I’m going to come if you don’t take off your pants.”
“Layla…stop.”
But she couldn’t stop her hips from seeking out what they so desperately wanted, and soon she felt herself shatter against his cloth-covered erection. She moaned as her dream orgasm rippled through her, riding her body in waves.
The sensations were so intense they jerked her awake with a loud gasp. And that was when she discovered it hadn’t been a dream. She was in Andrew’s arms, and his gray eyes were open, boring into hers with unbridled anger. And from what she could feel, she had just come all over the crotch of his pajama pants.
CHAPTER 9
ANDREW had never had a dream like this. In it, he and Layla were laying sideways in his bed, kissing, and everything else had fallen away: the ranch, Nathan, Amy—nothing else mattered but their joining together.
He ground his hips against hers, but though they were both completely naked, some invisible force was keeping him from what he wanted the most. To be balls deep inside of her, fucking her the way that sweet body of hers had been tempting him to ever since she showed up in Sinclair Township.
“Let me in, Layla,” he groaned.
“Take off your pants,” she answered back, even though he wasn’t wearing any.
Andrew came awake in a blaze of hot confusion, only to find an even hotter sight in front of him: Layla, her guest robe open to reveal her tight brown body, was grinding against him in the wild throes of a sex dream.
Even as his dick rejoiced and demanded he do exactly what she’d asked, his conscience let him know no matter how unbelievably sexy she was at the moment, he couldn’t plunge himself into somebody who wasn’t awake, somebody who wasn’t his girlfriend.
“Layla, wake up,” he said, hating the reluctance he heard in his own voice.
Please,” she cried, still writhing against him with her eyes closed. “I want you inside of me. I’m going to come if you don’t take off your pants.”
His dick was thrumming, he wanted her so bad. “Layla . . . stop,” he said, but he was barely able to get out the words, his voice was so clogged with lust.
Then she came, so hard her climax soaked through the crotch of his pants. And that was what finally woke her up in the end.
Her big eyes flew open, and she looked six different kinds of stricken as she realized what had happened.
Andrew’s heart iced over. “You thought I was Nathan, didn’t you?”
“No!” But still she scrambled away from him, sitting up in the bed and closing her robe as if something horrific had just happened. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life. I thought—I thought it was a dream, but I definitely thought it was you in the dream. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
“Stop fucking apologizing to me,” he said angrily, unable to bear the contrition in her voice, as if doing anything intimate with him was the worst thing on earth.
That’s when it occurred to him. “You didn’t come here because of me, did you? You came here because you knew this would be the last place on earth anyone, including Nathan, would look for you. That’s why you took the bus into town as opposed to a plane, because you could pay in cash. You’re hiding out here.”
Her eyes flashed with guilt before she looked away and that told him all he needed to know.
“Say something,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
“Like what?” she shouted back. She stood up and firmly tied the robe’s belt around her waist. “You told me to stop fucking apologizing to you.”
For a moment, Andrew was taken aback. He’d never heard Layla curse, even in the heat of anger. Then the moment passed and she was suddenly on the move.
“You don’t want me to say I’m sorry, but I am. I really am. I shouldn’t have done that, and I shouldn’t have come here. You don’t understand, I’m not who you think.”
“I know you’re not. The Layla I knew would never use one brother to hide from another. You know, I’ve always thought you were the innocent victim where Nathan and I were concerned. He came after you because you were dating me. I was to blame for letting him believe you didn’t want to be with him after your accident. And after what Diana tried to do to you, I was eaten alive with guilt. It would have killed me if something had happened to you because of what I’d done. But right now, the way you’re acting, like you’re as hot for me as you used to be for Nathan? I’m seriously wondering if you haven’t been playing us against each other from day one.”
Her eyes widened with the insult and she opened her mouth to say something back. But then at the last moment, she clapped her hand over her mouth and ran out the room.
Andrew cursed silently as he watched her go.
AFTER THE ARGUMENT WITH ANDREW, Roxxy ran straight out of the house. Didn’t even bother to get her shoes. Just grabbed the same clothes she had been wearing for three days straight off the line and walked down the ranch’s main dirt road until she came upon the old gray barn where they stored the hay and other feed. She pulled open one of its double doors, grateful for the refuge. She then put on her clothes before putting the robe back on and curling up in a fetal position on a hay bale.
She’d once had a nip slip on the red carpet that made the front covers of several European gossip mags. She’d flubbed the American national anthem in front of millions of World Series viewers. There was even a viral video going around of her falling on her butt at a concert, an animated gif of which had been turned into a popular meme people liked to leave in the comment sections of articles about people saying or doing
stupid things.
But she had never been as embarrassed as she was after sleep humping Andrew. How the hell did she let that happen? She’d been called frigid by more than one guy who hadn’t been able to bust through her reserve and get into her pants. How did she go from that to creaming all over some dude in her sleep? What was wrong with her?
She had to get out of here, she decided. She couldn’t take living in that house with Andrew Sinclair one more minute. She didn’t care what it took, she needed to get off this ranch. Like right now, before she went crazy with lust and confusion. She’d call the D.A.’s office first thing, as soon as she worked up the courage to go back to the house.
Eventually, the adrenaline from what happened that morning faded, and sleep overtook her. But the next thing she knew, someone was shaking her awake.
“Shirelle?” she said, blinking against the sunlight now flooding through the open barn door.
But no, it wasn’t her mother, it was Andrew, looking even grimmer than usual. He had the straps of her heels looped under the first two fingers of his left hand.
“Who’s Shirelle?” he asked.
“Nobody,” she answered, sitting up on the bale of hay. “What are you doing here?”
“One of the hands called the house, asking if there was a reason you were in the barn,” he answered. “C’mon.”
He tossed her shoes at her.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Into Buellton. Jeb’s already there, picking up feed for the horses, but one of our generators just went out, so I’m driving it in,” he answered. He gave her an up and down look. “Plus, I’m sick of watching you flounce around here in that mini skirt. It’s distracting the hands, and it’s not the kind the look the Sinclair Ranch is going for, especially if you’re going to be working with the children’s program. You need some decent shoes, too.”
Her cheeks burned, not only because he thought she had been purposely flaunting herself, but also because— “I don’t have any money on me. Not even a credit card.”
“Let me guess, you’re afraid to use your credit cards because you don’t want Nathan to track you down here?”
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