“I’m still working through that, Trav. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d threatened to beat the crap out of my commanding officer sooner—”
“What? You never told us—”
The General cleared his throat.
Until that moment, his sons had pretty much forgotten he was there. Now, he, too, rose from his seat.
“That was wrong, Jacob. Very wrong. It deserved court-martial.”
“Yes, sir, it did.”
“A soldier obeys orders.”
“Yes, sir. I know that.”
“There was no excuse for your behavior.”
“No, sir. No excuse.” Jake’s jaw tightened. “But there sure as hell was a damn good reason.”
A tight, barely discernible smile came and went on the General’s lips. He put his untouched longneck aside, reached out and squeezed Jake’s arm.
“Some might agree with that assessment,” he said softly. “You’ve made progress, son.”
“Thank you, sir. But I haven’t done it alone. I’ve been attending a veteran’s support group.”
“Excellent. Excellent. For a while there, I was, well, I was concerned you’d lost your way.”
“I had. For a while.” Jake swallowed hard. “But someone came along and—and pointed me in the right direction.”
“Addison,” Travis said softly.
The General nodded. “Addison McDowell.”
“How did you—”
“You’re my son, Jacob. Did you think I wouldn’t be interested in what was happening to you?” He paused. “She sounds like quite a young woman.”
“Yes. She is.”
“You opened up to her?”
Jake nodded.
“I’m glad. That you could do that. With her, if not with …” The General cleared his throat. “Well,” he said briskly, “I have to get back to D.C. I’m having dinner with the vice president.”
Jake and his brothers stood up, too. Caleb clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “So, things are good?”
“Yeah. They are.”
Caleb and Travis exchanged glances.
“What?” Jake said.
Travis looked uncomfortable. “Ah, she called. Addison. She, ah, she fired us both.”
Jake gave a rueful laugh. “Sorry about that.”
“No, it was okay. She just said she, ah, she wouldn’t need our services any—”
“The thing is,” Caleb interrupted, “she asked about you. Wanted to know if you were okay.”
Everything seemed to go very still. Jake stared at his brothers.
“Did she—did she—”
Travis squeezed Jake’s shoulder.
Travis shook his head. “Sorry, man.”
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Caleb gestured around them. “You bought this place because of her.”
“She’d come to love it. That was what she said, anyway.” Jake cleared his throat. “Besides, how could I let that miserable old man’s land be bought by somebody who might have been even more miserable?”
They all managed to smile.
“Right,” the General said. “I only wish you wanted to—”
“But I do,” Jake said. He looked at father. “I was wrong about El Sueño. And I’d be honored if you offered it to me again.”
His brothers grinned. The General smiled. And saluted his son.
“The honor would be mine,” he said quietly.
Jake returned his father’s salute. The men’s gazes met and then the General’s mouth twisted. He closed the distance between them and put his arms around his son.
Jake stood, unmoving. His vision blurred. Pollen. It had to be pollen….
He gave a soft, choked sound.
“Dad,” he whispered, and he returned the embrace.
In late afternoon, Jake sat in one of the old chairs on his porch, feet up on the railing, a cold bottle of beer in his hand.
A chipmunk came scurrying around the corner.
Jake raised his beer in greeting.
“Welcome,” he said amiably.
The chipmunk looked at him.
“Want a beer?”
Evidently not. Potato-chip crumbs from Jake’s al fresco lunch hours before were its snack of choice, maybe a bit of the cheese sandwich that had accompanied the chips….
A cheese sandwich.
Jake got to his feet. The chipmunk squeaked in alarm and raced down the steps. Foolish, because it had nothing to fear.
He was the one who was afraid. What he was thinking was crazy.
Addison wouldn’t want to see him.
She had a tender heart. That was why she’d asked about him but why would she want to see him after the things he’d said?
Still, if there was a chance …
Even if there wasn’t, he needed to see her. To tell her that whatever was happening to him now, he owed to her.
It had taken him a long time to face reality. To admit he needed help. To phone the shrink back at Walter Reed and ask him for the name of a local veteran’s group.
But he’d done it.
He’d taken a seat in a circle made up of men just like him, warriors who had served their nation and come home to a world they didn’t understand.
If he could do that …
Surely, he could do this, too.
Jake took a deep breath.
Then he went into the house and packed a bag.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ADDISON was almost finished packing up her office.
Just a couple more drawers to empty and she’d be done.
Actually, there hadn’t been all that much to pack.
A couple of pens. A notebook she’d promised herself she’d use as a diary but never had. A photo of her father and her mother, she a smiling toddler in her father’s arms. A photo of Charlie, and one of herself at her law school graduation.
A photo of the Chambers ranch.
That was how she thought of it.
Charlie hadn’t owned the place long enough for her to be able to connect his name to those endless acres.
She hadn’t, either.
Only a crotchety old man had left his mark on the place. Pretty sad, when she thought about it.
Addison sighed, shut the middle drawer of her desk and opened the bottom one.
Maybe the new owner would hang on to the land long enough to make it truly his. Or hers. She had no idea who’d bought it; why would it matter? Just because she was foolish enough to have felt a whisper of sentiment when the Realtor phoned to say they had a buyer …
Sentiment over what? She’d only lived on the ranch for a few weeks, put her own imprint on one room….
Shared that room with Jacob, with Jacob, oh, God, would she ever stop remembering …?
“Ms. McDowell?”
Addison swung around. One of the clerks from HR stood in the open doorway, a professional smile on her face.
“Will you be done soon, Ms. McDowell? I’m sorry to bother you but we have some papers for you to sign.”
More papers. Addison tried not to roll her eyes. It seemed as if she’d been signing stuff for days, ever since she’d come awake one morning and realized she needed to change her life.
“Five more minutes,” she said brightly. “I’ll stop by at HR on my way out.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I have the papers with me. And I’ll escort you out.”
Addison raised an eyebrow. The clerk had the good grace to blush.
“Just to help you with your things,” she said.
A lie, and they both knew it. Addison had quit; she hadn’t been fired—”terminated,” would have been Human Resources’ way of putting it—but Kalich, Kalich and Kalich was still worried she might abscond with company information.
All she wanted to abscond with was herself.
A long time ago—at least, it seemed a long time ago—Charlie had surprised her by saying that someday, she’d realize she wasn’t cut out for corporate life.
; She’d laughed.
“You’re so wrong,” she’d replied. “I’ve always dreamed of this. A big Manhattan law firm. Important clients. Complex cases—”
“Endless work hours. Ruthless clients. Demanding partners. Lots and lots of money but no chance to spend it. Give it time, my dear, and you’ll see I’m right.”
“You were right, Charlie,” she said softly, as she put his framed photo into her briefcase.
“Sorry? Did you say something, Ms. McDowell?”
Addison looked at the HR person.
“I said,” Addison told her politely, “give me those papers so I can sign them and get the hell out of here.”
Once she was home, if you could say that of a one-bedroom condo with a nosebleed mortgage, high above a street jammed with more people than existed in all of Wilde’s Crossing, she dumped her briefcase on the floor in the foyer, kicked off her shoes and started peeling off her legal-eagle summer-weight wool suit even as she headed for the bedroom.
What was with her today? Thinking about the ranch. The house. The town she never wanted to so much as hear about again …
The man who’d broken her heart.
Addison took a quick shower, pulled her wet hair into a low ponytail, put on a ratty T-shirt she’d had since college and a pair of scruffy cotton sweatpants, and went into the kitchen.
Dinner?
She opened the fridge, peered inside. The usual suspects were there. Yogurt. Lettuce. Some fruit. Cottage cheese. Tofu.
No real food? whispered a teasing male voice inside her head. Not even the fixings for a fried cheese sandwich?
She slammed the door shut.
This was ridiculous.
She had not thought about Texas or Jacob Wilde in months.
Okay. In weeks.
She sighed, pulled one of the stools from the stone kitchen counter and sank into it.
“In at least three days,” she muttered.
Or maybe two.
The truth was, she couldn’t stop thinking about Texas. The foolish little town. The falling-down ranch house.
Jacob.
He was in her head, her dreams, he was with her all the time. And she didn’t want him there. She’d put all of that behind her.
They’d spent a few days together. It had been exciting.
But that was all.
She had not loved him.
She’d been drawn to his complexity. His pain. She’d once found a sad-looking goldfish in a bowl on the stoop outside her very first New York apartment.
She didn’t like fish, except broiled. As pets, they left a lot to be desired. Still, when the poor thing was still there an hour later, she’d taken it in.
Would she have turned her back on a man who’d been wounded?
“No,” she said aloud, as she stood and went searching for her stash of take-out menus, “I wouldn’t.”
She did hope he’d gotten help. Found peace of mind. She didn’t hate him for the things he’d said, that what they’d shared had been fun, that she’d known he was going to leave.
“Why would I hate him?” she said, as she thumbed through the menus.
He was right.
Fun was what they’d had. It was the only thing they’d had. And yes, she’d known he was moving on but she was, too—
Suddenly, unaccountably, her eyes filled with tears.
“Stupid idiot,” she said.
Her, not him.
She had never loved Jacob—and what was with all this talking-to-herself-out-loud foolishness?
She should be celebrating, not babbling. Heck, this was the first day of her new life.
The money from the sale of the ranch had made it possible for her to walk away from the corporate world, just as Charlie had predicted she would someday do.
She’d find a job at a small law firm in Queens. Or maybe in Brooklyn. Find a garden apartment nearby, with a tiny terrace and a patch of green out back.
Why she’d ever wanted to live in crowded Manhattan was beyond her.
It wouldn’t be a place where you felt you could reach up and touch the sky like the ranch or Wilde’s Crossing, but—
She gave herself a little shake.
Never mind all that. Who cared about ranches and Wilde’s Crossing and—and—
Addison said a truly bad word, plucked the top menu from the stack and called for a pizza.
Delivery would take forty-five minutes, the kid who took the order said.
An hour and a half later, Addison was still waiting.
And not calmly.
She should have stayed with yogurt. Or a poached egg.
Or a fried cheese sandwich, and did people really eat such things? Had Jake been serious? Fried cheese. Fried hot dogs. And, dammit, why was she wasting all this time, thinking about a man who, yes, had problems but, double dammit, couldn’t she admit the truth?
She had loved him. Problems and all.
And he had pretended to care for her. To be a good guy. To be the most wonderful guy she’d ever known, someone so rare, so sexy, so tender, so strong, so perfectly wonderful that—
That he had broken her silly, useless heart.
The doorbell rang.
Addison narrowed her eyes.
“About time,” she muttered.
She went to the door. Undid the bolt. The chain. The lock. And, in her rage at the pizza place—hell, at Jacob, at herself—in that rage, she did something incredibly dumb.
She flung the door open without looking through the peephole.
“You’re two hours late,” she snarled….
Except she wasn’t snarling at a pimply-faced kid holding a box of veggie supreme with feta cheese in his outstretched hands….
She was snarling at Jake.
Tall. Lean. Hard-bodied in a black T-shirt and faded denim jeans, five-o’clock stubble on his jaw, dusty boots on his feet …
“Jacob?” she said in a whisper.
“Addison,” he said, “oh, God, Adoré …”
He opened his arms.
She wanted to throw herself into them.
But he wasn’t going to break her heart again. She wouldn’t let it happen. She was not a fool, she wasn’t going to let him hurt her—
“Adoré. I know I don’t deserve a second chance. I know I’m not worthy of you, I know I’m the lowest kind of SOB in the world—”
“You are all that, and more.”
“I know. That’s what I just said. I’m everything you probably want to call me … but—but—”
“You absolutely are,” she said, and then a sob burst from her throat and she hurled herself into his arms.
“Of course you are,” she whispered, while the tears coursed down her face. “You’re awful and cruel and horrible and—and oh, God, oh, God, Jacob, I missed you!”
Jake’s arms tightened around her. Her face was buried in his shoulder; his hands were in her hair.
The woman he loved was in his arms.
Every polite apology he’d rehearsed during the eighteen-hundred-plus miles between the ranch and New York had blown straight out of his head.
The sight of her, his Adoré, that beautiful, unadorned face; the careless hair, the clothes that said, I am who I am and I don’t care what anybody thinks …
“Adoré,” he said, and he took her face in his hands, bent his head to hers and kissed her.
Had anything ever tasted as sweet as her mouth? Had anything ever filled him with the joy he felt as she rose to him and wound her arms around his neck?
He lifted her off her feet, stepped inside the apartment and kicked the door closed behind him.
“Please,” she said, “oh, Jacob, please …”
In a movie, this would have been a moment for a swell of romantic music, a slow, artful undressing of lovers who had been apart.
It was none of that. They had been too long without each other.
They had trouble getting the clothes off each other. His hands felt big and clumsy. Hers shook.
&
nbsp; His belt almost defeated her.
The drawstring of her sweatpants had the same effect on him.
And when, at last, nothing separated them but warm, supple skin, Jacob took his Adoré in his arms and carried her to the sofa, where they joined their bodies, their hearts, their souls.
Afterward, he held her tightly to him.
She kissed his throat.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I loved you from that very first night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered back. “Why did you leave me?”
The room was chilly with big-city air-conditioning. Jake drew a silk throw from the back of the sofa and wrapped her in it.
“I didn’t tell you,” he said quietly, “because I didn’t deserve you.”
Addison balled her fist and punched him not so lightly in the shoulder.
“Jacob Wilde, who are you to decide who deserves me and who doesn’t?”
He laughed. She smiled. His laughter faded.
“I was a mess, honey. I needed help. I knew it but I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge it.” He cupped her face, smoothed his thumbs over her lips. “Thank you for making me see the truth.”
“I didn’t do anything but love you, Jacob. I’ll always love you.”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “You’d better.”
Her chin lifted.
“Or?”
“Or I’ll just have to kidnap you, carry you off to the A and J ranch …”
“The what?”
He cleared his throat.
“The A and J ranch. The place that used to be the Chambers ranch. I bought it. It belongs to us now. You and me.”
“You bought …?”
“The deed’s in both our names—although we’ll have to change that, once you’re Mrs. Jacob Wilde.”
Addison raised her eyebrows.
“You’re awfully sure of yourself, Jacob Wilde.”
He gave her that cocky grin she adored.
“I am, indeed, Ms. McDowell. You’re going to marry me.”
She smiled. “First you have to ask me.”
“Addison McDowell.” Jake took her hand and kissed it. “Will you be my wife?”
Her expression grew serious. Serious enough to make him nervous.
“Adoré,” he said. “I’m not giving you a choice here. You have to marry me or—”
“Or?”
“Or my life will be empty.”
She sighed. “Mine would be empty, too,” she said softly, and Jake gave her a long, sweet kiss.
The Dangerous Jacob Wilde Page 14
