by Cat Schield
“It isn’t that easy for me.”
“What do you want to do instead of playing football?” Shane asked, even though he already knew the answer.”
“Play guitar and write music.”
“Sounds pretty cool. How long have you been into that?”
“My dad gave me the guitar for my birthday a couple years ago.”
“If your dad didn’t want you to play the guitar, why did he buy you one?”
“He’d rather I play football,” Justin said, his tone defensive and stubborn.
“Do you know why?”
“Because he did in high school and he got a scholarship to go to college.” Justin gave a big sigh. “But I’m not that good. No college is going to want to put me on their team.”
“Maybe your dad is worried about paying for your college?”
“I guess.” Justin shrugged. “But I’m not really sure I want to go to college. I want to write songs and have a music career.”
“You’re way ahead of where I was at your age in terms of knowing what you want. That’s pretty great.” Shane had used money he’d inherited from his grandmother to start his real-estate development company shortly after graduating from college. When his dad found out what he’d done, he hadn’t talked to him for a month. “I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated high school, so I got a degree in business.”
“College is expensive and I don’t know if it would help me get what I want.”
Shane wanted to argue that Justin would have something to fall back on if the music didn’t work out, but he could see from the determined set of the boy’s features that he would have a career in music or nothing else. Shane hoped the kid had some talent to back up his ambition.
“I’m sure this thing with your dad and football is because he’s worried about your future. Maybe you could agree to try football in exchange for him agreeing to helping you with your music.”
“Is that what you did with your dad?”
Not even close. “Absolutely. We came to an understanding and I figured out a way to keep ranching and at the same time pursue my interest in real estate.”
“Was he proud of you?”
The question tore into Shane’s gut like a chain saw. “My dad died before my business really got going, but I think he saw the potential in what I was doing and was impressed.”
Shane didn’t feel one bit bad about lying to the boy. Just because Shane hadn’t been able to communicate with his father didn’t mean Justin would have the same problem. And maybe if someone had offered him the advice he’d just given to the teenager, things with his dad might’ve gone better.
“I’ll give it a try,” Justin said.
“And if you want to talk or if you want me to have a heart-to-heart with your dad, here’s my card. Call me anytime.”
“Thanks.” Justin slid the business card into his back pocket and seemed a little less glum. Or at least he showed more interest in the dog training.
Shane stuck around to watch him for a little while longer and then excused himself to go help a girl who seemed to be struggling with a brown-and-white mop of a dog.
Over the next thirty minutes, he worked his way around the room chatting with each kid in turn. By the time Megan called for everyone to take the dogs outside to the obstacle course, Shane had gotten everyone’s story.
“How do you do that?” Brandee joined him near the back of the crowd. “Everyone you talk to was smiling by the time you walked away. Even Justin.”
“How do you not realize what a great guy I am?” He grinned broadly and bumped his shoulder into hers. “I would think after living with me this past week you’d have caught the fever.”
“The fever?” she repeated in a dubious tone.
“The Shane fever.” He snared her gaze and gave her his best smoldering look. “Guaranteed to make your heart race, give you sweaty palms and a craving for hot, passionate kisses.”
Her lips twitched. “I’m pretty sure I’m immune.” But she didn’t sound as confident as she once had.
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It’s a statement of fact.”
“It’s your opinion. And if I’m good at anything, I’m good at getting people to see my point of view. And from my point of view, you’re already symptomatic.”
“How do you figure?”
With everyone’s attention fixed on Megan, Shane was able to lean down and graze his lips across Brandee’s ear. He’d noticed she was particularly sensitive there. At the same time, he’d cupped his hand over her hip and pulled her up against his side. The two-pronged attack wrenched a soft exclamation from her lips.
A second later he let her go and greeted her glare with a smirk. “Tell me your heart isn’t racing.”
“You aren’t as charming as you think you are,” she said, turning her attention to what was going on among the poles, small jumps and traffic cones set up near the meeting hall.
He let her get the last word in because he’d already annoyed her once that day and that wasn’t the way to this woman’s heart.
“Do you think there’s something going on between Gabe and Chelsea?” Brandee asked after a couple more kids had taken their dogs through the obstacle course.
Shane followed the direction of her gaze and noticed the couple standing together on the outskirts of the crowd. “Going on how?”
“Like maybe they could be interested in each other?”
“Maybe.” Shane paid better attention to the body language between the two and decided there might be an attraction, but he was pretty sure neither one had noticed it yet.
For a second Shane envied the easy camaraderie between Gabe and Chelsea. With the bet hanging over their heads, he and Brandee couldn’t afford to let down their guards. And maybe that was okay. Sparring with Brandee was exciting. So was making love to her. He liked the way she challenged him, and figuring out how to best her kept him on his toes.
Besides, he wasn’t in this for the long haul. This was his chance to have some fun and try to win a bet. Eventually he would move out of Brandee’s house and life would return to normal. But what if it didn’t? What if he wanted to keep seeing Brandee? He snuck a peek at her profile. Would she be open to continuing to see where things went? Or was this just about the wager for her?
Shane didn’t like where his thoughts had taken him. He liked even less the ache in his chest. Gabe’s words from several days earlier came back to haunt him.
As long as you realize what you’re doing can have repercussions and you’re okay with whatever happens...
It was looking more and more like he had no idea what he was doing and the repercussions were going to be a lot more complicated than he’d counted on.
Nine
To thank Chelsea, Gabe and Shane for their help at Hope Springs Camp’s mini-event, Brandee treated them to dinner at the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Their efforts were the reason the day had gone so smoothly and Brandee was able to relax at the end of the successful event.
As soon as they finished dinner and returned to the ranch house, she and Shane headed out to the patio to sit by the fire.
Brandee tucked her bare feet beneath her and sipped at her mug of hot, honey-laced herbal tea. “Despite your very late start,” she said to Shane, keeping her tone light, “you were a huge help today. I think it was good to have both you and Gabe there. Usually we have trouble keeping the boys on task.”
“A couple of them were a little rowdy while they were waiting for their turn at the obstacle course, but once they got working with the dogs it was better.”
“The clicker training keeps both handler and dog engaged. Megan was very satisfied how the day went.”
“She said she might even get some adoptions out of it.”
&n
bsp; “I wish Seth Houser could be one of them. He’s been working with Sunny for almost three months. And making great strides.” The Wheaton terrier was a great dog, but way too hyper. He’d been adopted twice and returned both times. A talented escape artist with abandonment issues, he needed to go to someone as active as he was.
“I was really amazed by how well Seth handled him.” Shane puffed out a laugh. “I think Tinkerbell and Jenny were my favorite pair.”
The adorable shih tzu/poodle mix with the bad underbite had been recently turned in by a woman who had to go into a nursing home. Jenny was a goth girl of fifteen who’d shuffled through the day with stooped shoulders and downcast eyes. But she’d bonded with her short-legged black-and-white dog and together they’d won the obstacle course.
“Megan has a knack for matching the right dog to the perfect handler.”
They lapsed into silence for a time while the fire popped and crackled. The longer they went without speaking, the more Brandee could feel the tension building between them. The last time they’d sat together out here, she’d ended up dragging Shane into the shower.
The day after, she’d been busy with her cattle herd and hadn’t gotten home until late every night. Part of her wondered if she’d been avoiding Shane. The way she’d felt as he’d slid inside her for the first time had shocked her. She’d expected to enjoy making love with Shane, but couldn’t have predicted to what extent. It was like all the best sex she’d ever had rolled into one perfect act of passion.
And ever since, all she wanted to do was climb into the memory and relive it over and over. But not the aftermath when she’d bolted for the safety of her room before Shane could notice that her defenses were down. Standing naked in the bathroom, she’d been terrified that, with his appetite satisfied, he wouldn’t want her to stick around. So, she’d fled.
Now, however, after a couple days to regain her confidence, she was ready to try again. Anticipation formed a ball of need below her belly button. The slow burn made her smile. She was opening her mouth to suggest they retire to his bedroom when he spoke.
“I see why you find it so rewarding.”
Brandee sat in confused silence for several seconds. “What exactly?”
“Working with teenagers.”
With a resigned sigh, Brandee turned down the volume on her libido. “I wish I could say it was all success and no failure, but these kids don’t have nearly the sorts of issues of some I’ve worked with.”
“You do a good job relating to them.”
He hadn’t done so bad himself. Watching him with Justin, Brandee had been impressed with the way he’d gotten the kid to stop looking so morose.
“I remember all too well what it was like to have troubles at home,” she said.
“Your mom?” Shane asked gently.
For a second Brandee was tempted to give a short answer and turn the topic aside, but part of her wanted to share what her childhood had been like after losing her dad. “It wasn’t easy living with someone who only wants you around so she can steal your money.”
“I can’t imagine.” Shane shifted his upper body in her direction until his shoulder came into companionable contact with hers.
Brandee welcomed the connection that made her feel both safe and supported. “It didn’t make me the ideal daughter.”
“You fought?”
“Not exactly.” Brandee let her head fall back. Her eyes closed and images of the cramped, cluttered house filled her mind. A trace of anxiety welled as memories of those five suffocating years rushed at her. “She yelled at me, while I said nothing because I’d tried arguing with her and she’d just freak out. So I learned to keep quiet and let her have her say. And then I’d rebel.”
“By doing what?”
“The usual. Partying with my friends. Drinking. Drugs. For a while my grades slipped, then I realized she didn’t give a damn about any of it and I was only hurting myself.”
“So, what happened?”
“I cleaned up my act. Not that she noticed anything going on with me.” Or cared. “But I continued to avoid the house as much as possible.”
“That sounds a lot like how I spent my teen years. I made sure I was gone as much as possible. That way I wasn’t around when it came time to help out on the ranch. It drove my dad crazy.” Shane fixed his gaze on the hypnotic dance of the flames, but didn’t seem to be seeing the fire. “He was a firm believer in hard work, a lot like your dad. He was fond of telling me I wasn’t going to make anything of myself if I wasn’t willing to work for it. I didn’t believe him. I was pretty happy with what I had going. I had a lot of friends and decent grades. I was having a good time. And all he cared about was that I wasn’t in love with ranching like he was.”
Brandee didn’t know how to react to the bitter edge in Shane’s voice. She loved her ranch and couldn’t imagine giving it up. That ranching was something Shane only did out of obligation was a disconnect between them that reinforced why she shouldn’t let herself get too emotionally attached.
“What was it about the ranching you didn’t like?” she asked, shifting to face him and putting a little distance between them.
“I don’t honestly know. One thing for sure, I didn’t see the point in working as hard as my dad did when there were more efficient ways to do things. But he wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. He expected me to follow exactly in his footsteps. I wasn’t going to do that.”
“What did you want to do?”
“Justin asked me that today, too. I guess I just wanted to have fun.” He grinned, but the smile lacked his typical cocky self-assurance. “Still do.”
She let that go without comment even as she was mentally shaking her head at him. “So, how’d you get into real-estate developing?”
“A buddy of mine in college got me into flipping houses. I liked the challenge.” Satisfaction reverberated in Shane’s voice. He obviously took great pride in his past accomplishments. And present ones, too. From everything she’d heard, The Bellamy was going to be quite a resort.
“I got my first job when I turned sixteen,” Brandee said. “Stocking shelves at a grocery store after school and on weekends. It gave me enough money to buy a used junker with no AC and busted shocks. I didn’t care. It was freedom. I used to park it around the corner from the house because I didn’t want my mom knowing about it.”
“What would’ve happened if she’d known about it?”
“She would’ve given it to Turtlehead or Squash Brain.” Those days were blurry in her memory. “Mom always had some loser boyfriend hanging around.”
“She lived with them?”
Brandee heard the concern in his voice and appreciated it more than she should. “They lived with her. She rented a crummy two-bedroom house right on the edge of a decent neighborhood because she thought it was great to be so close to people with money. I don’t know what she was like when my dad met her, but by the time I went to live with her, she wasn’t what anyone would call a class act.”
“What did she do?”
“She actually had a halfway-decent job. She cut hair at one of those chain salons. I think if she had better taste in boyfriends she might have been more successful. But all she attracted were harmless jerks.” She thought back to one in particular. “And then Nazi boy showed up.”
“Nazi boy?”
“A skinhead with the Nazi tattoos on his arms and all over his chest. For a while I just hung in there figuring he’d soon be gone like all the rest.”
“But he wasn’t?”
“No. This one had money. Not because he worked. I think he and his white-supremacist buddies jacked cars or ran drugs or something. He always had money for blow and booze.” She grimaced. “My mom took a bad path with that one.”
“How old were you?”
“I’d just
turned seventeen.”
“Did he bother you?”
“Not at first. He was more into my mom than a dopey-looking kid with bad hair and ill-fitting clothes. But his friends were something else. I think initially they started to bug me out of sheer boredom. I was used to having my ass grabbed or being shoved around by some of the other guys my mom hooked up with. Nazi boy’s friends were different, though.”
As she described her encounters, Shane’s muscles tensed. “Did they hurt you?”
She knew what he was asking. “If you’re trying to be delicate and ask if I got raped, the answer is no.”
Shane relaxed a little. “So what happened?”
“For a while it was okay. I was hiding behind bad hygiene and a dim-witted personality. Then one day I was taking a shower and thought I was alone in the house.”
“You weren’t?”
“Nazi boy had taken off with his buddies to go do something and I wasn’t expecting them back. I never showered when he was home. Most days I either took clothes to school and cleaned up there or did the same thing at a friend’s house.”
“That’s pretty extreme.”
The unfinished mug of tea had gone cold in Brandee’s hands, so she set it on the coffee table. “I’d seen how he could be around my mom and it made me feel way too vulnerable to be naked in the house.”
“So he came home unexpectedly and caught you in the shower?”
Those days with her mom weren’t something she liked talking about and part of her couldn’t believe she was sharing this story with Shane. The only other person she’d told was Chelsea.
“I was coming out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. The second I saw him, I jumped back into the bathroom and locked the door. He banged on the door, badgering me to open it for twenty minutes until my mom came home.”
“Did you tell her what happened?”
“No. Why bother? She’d just accuse me of enticing him. Either she was scared of him or she liked the partying too much. This one wasn’t going away anytime soon.”
“Did he come after you again?”
