“How’s Jen?” he asked.
She should have known he was remembering the other member of her own generation. Her sister. Before she could prevent it, there was a dull pain right near her heart. “Jensen is fine. She works in Dallas,” she added.
Best let him know up-front that he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of her. At least not in Destiny. In case that was why he’d come back.
“A lawyer?” he asked.
“She specializes in family law.”
She tried like crazy not to let it bother her that he remembered Jensen had always talked about becoming a lawyer. No doubt they’d told each other all their hopes and dreams. He’d barely recognized her, but remembered that Jensen had always wanted to be an attorney. Even though she’d broken his heart by eloping with someone else. Did he still not want to see or talk to anyone named Stevens?
“So what have you been up to for the last ten or eleven years?” she asked to fill the silence.
His gaze settled on her. “Rodeo. At first.”
“I heard you gave up your scholarship.”
“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” He frowned and the thundercloud expression on his face took her back to that night by the pool.
She wanted to bite her tongue. In all these years, she hadn’t managed to activate the mechanism in her brain that would refine or remove anything stupid on the way to her mouth. Or maybe it was Mitch Rafferty who deactivated it. She never could think straight around him.
Nervously she tucked a bothersome strand of hair behind her ear. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen? Can I get you a glass of iced tea?”
“I’d like that.”
She held out her hand for him to go first and he found his way as surely as if he’d been there only yesterday. She hated herself for noticing that the back of him was almost as impressive as the front. Broad shoulders tapered to his trim waist. His backside, hugged by impossibly soft and worn denim, was practically a work of art. And that was strictly objective female appreciation for an above average looking man. Because she had no feelings for him whatsoever.
But when her hormones subsided, she noticed that he limped slightly. She recalled reading a small blurb about an injury, but the celebrity magazine articles mostly proclaimed that his playboy points matched his impressive rodeo stats. Was there more to his story? Probably. The fact that he was acting commissioner of the high school rodeo association was a clue.
The fact that she wanted to hear every last detail just made her a candidate for crazy. She needed him to look at the ranch and tell her it would work just fine for his purposes. Then she prayed that he would go away and never come back. But she’d opened her mouth and offered him iced tea. Taking back the offer probably wasn’t the best strategy to win friends and influence people.
The kitchen was arranged in a large U, part of which formed a bar with stools. Instead of sitting on one of them the way he’d always done, he invaded her work space inside the U, parking himself with his back propped against the beige ceramic-tile counter. She felt his gaze on her as she pulled the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator beside the stove and opened the cupboard above to retrieve a glass.
More memories came flooding back as she poured the amber-colored liquid and handed it to him, not easy to do with trembling hands. She’d poured him iced-tea all those times she’d kept him company while he’d waited for Jen to come downstairs. She tried to clamp the lid tight on the details but failed miserably at forgetting how she’d pined for him, hoping and fantasizing that a miracle would happen and he would notice her. That someday he would wait downstairs for her to get ready to go out with him.
“How did you wind up in charge of the high school rodeo association?” she asked. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you were once the state bull-riding champion, would it?”
“You remember that?”
“Yeah, I do.”
A muscle in his jaw contracted for a moment before he continued. “As you pointed out, I gave up my scholarship to join the pro rodeo circuit. I did okay that first year, although I wasn’t the overall point winner. But I took nationals in Wyoming. I was nineteen. It was a sign to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak.”
“Then what?”
“I rode the crest for two or three years until—”
“Until what?” she encouraged.
“I had a couple of injuries,” he said as if it was no big deal.
She decided to mimic his tone and keep it light. “Really? Imagine that. Riding a ton or two of ticked-off bull is hardly more challenging than a merry-go-round at the Texas state fair,” she teased.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah” was all he said. “All the hits were to my right leg. The third injury was bad. The doc said one more and I might never walk again—at least not on my own two feet.”
The words tugged at her heart in spite of all her warnings to harden it. She knew how much rodeo had meant to him. It was all he’d talked about. “Oh, Mitch, I had no idea. I didn’t mean to—”
He held up his hand. “It’s okay. I managed to take it in stride,” he said with a grin. “Pardon the pun.”
His smile kicked the butterflies in her stomach into fluttering again. She thought she’d reined them in. Apparently that was something else she’d been wrong about.
“That still leaves out a couple steps—pardon the pun,” she said.
His grin widened. “I went back to school.”
“But your scholarship?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t need it then. Not like—”
He stopped, but she knew what he’d almost said. In high school he’d been a poor kid in a foster home until the state turned him loose at eighteen. Then he’d been on his own and needed that scholarship if he wanted a chance at a higher education. That’s why she’d been so stunned when he gave it up.
“So you went to college?” She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. A large space separated them, but it wasn’t enough to blunt the force of his appeal. Or the way he could stir up her emotions without even trying.
“Yeah.” He set his tea on the ceramic tile beside him. “I got my degree in business from UCLA. Then I started R&R Development.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she said. The only thing she hadn’t heard was that he owned it.
“You have?”
She nodded. “I read the business section of the paper every day. Your company has been mentioned a couple of times for projects pending here in Texas. By all accounts it’s a company to watch.”
“I’m working on it,” he said. “But I missed the rodeo.”
“Who wouldn’t? Everyone should be stomped into the dirt by an angry bull at least once a day.”
She couldn’t help laughing and he joined her. Rewind ten years—to before everything had gone wrong. That’s how she felt. Putty in his hands. For just an instant. Just until she shut it down cold. She didn’t ever want to go there again. She was through loving men who loved someone else.
“How did you get sucked into volunteering?” she asked.
“That’s an interesting choice of words.”
Not really, she wanted to say. He was young, a hunk and a half, so many buckle bunnies, so little time. She wanted to say she knew him, at least she had. Ten years ago he was a loner who didn’t play well with others. The high school coaches had courted him for team sports but he’d turned them down flat in favor of bull riding. But she didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.
“Okay.” He crossed one booted foot over the other as he continued to lean against the tiled countertop. “Dev Hart called me.”
“Really?”
Dev had a ranch in Destiny and had taken over the stock business from his father. He supplied animals to rodeos all over the country. He and Mitch had rodeoed together in high school. She and Dev were friends.
“Yeah. We’ve kept in touch. The association was in a real bind when the commissioner resig
ned. Work and family obligations he said. I don’t have those.” He let the sentence hang there. “Dev thought I might be interested in helping out. Since I have business dealings in the area.”
So he wasn’t married. All the willpower in the world couldn’t prevent her insides from doing the dance of joy. But she got the feeling there was more, a still deeper reason. “And?”
“He put the bite on me. It’s no big deal, just temporary. I wouldn’t have agreed to a permanent position.”
“Dev must have had some clue that you would even consider doing it.”
“I guess he did.”
“So what was it?”
“He knew rodeo saved my life.”
Mitch wasn’t sure what had made him say that, especially when he saw the surprised look on Taylor’s face. She tried to hide it, and he found it amazingly appealing that she couldn’t.
There was something about being back in Destiny. More specifically back in this room with Taylor Stevens. He’d been telling the truth when he’d said that he’d hardly known her at first. She had changed—in all the right places. Her light brown hair was shoulder-length and the layers were streaked with gold highlights. Brown eyes full of spirit and intelligence challenged him. She’d been just a kid the last time he’d seen her. That night—
The longer he stood in this kitchen, back on the Circle S, talking to Jen’s little sister, the more he remembered. Feelings washed over him—frustration, yearning, anger that burned into rage and a feeling of helplessness that he rode like a broken-in saddle.
“Saved your life?”
“You know as well as I do that I’m a kid no one wanted.” Not even your sister, he thought. “I could have gone either way.”
“I know your background.”
“That’s a polite way of saying my father walked out before I took my first breath on earth and my mother took off with a construction worker when I was ten.”
“I bet no one’s used that nickname in a long time.”
“Riffraff?”
Why was she bringing all this up? he thought angrily. Taylor already knew and he’d spent all his life trying to live that down. Didn’t make any damn sense.
“That’s the one. It’s ancient history,” she said, completely unimpressed.
He almost smiled. “Not to me. It’s who I am. But I’ve come to terms with it.” That was only half a lie. “But back then, bull riding was all I had. I was good at it.”
“You were the only person I knew who was meaner and madder than those bulls.”
He grinned. “Back then I had reason to be. But I learned some important lessons.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you learn?”
“Don’t nod your head unless you mean it.”
“A bull rider’s number one rule you used to say.”
“I’m surprised you remember that.”
She lifted one shoulder. “I have a good memory.”
Unlike him, he finished for her. There wasn’t much good to remember about that time. Which brought him to his other favorite rule. “I found out there’s something more important than that.”
“Which is?” she asked.
“Don’t count on anyone but yourself.”
He saw the shadow that crossed her pretty face and wondered about it. But not enough to ask. He wasn’t here to get reacquainted. Although he didn’t remember that intriguing indentation in her chin. And he couldn’t help thinking how much fun it would be to explore.
“I don’t think you learned the right lesson,” she said. “Who taught you that?”
“Your sister. Rodeo week. The night I found her having sex with Zach Adams, who just happened to be the overall point winner at the state championships.”
Chapter Two
“I didn’t know you’d found out about them like that,” she said, her already big eyes growing wider.
Mitch looked around the kitchen, anywhere but at the shocked expression on Taylor’s face. When he finally met her gaze, his irritation dissolved just enough to let a little guilt seep in. He’d wanted to shock her, he realized. Why? Because she reminded him of everything he’d worked so hard to forget? Including his shabby background? If that was the case, he’d sunk to a new low. Or was he just living up to Destiny’s low expectations? It really didn’t matter. The truth was out and he couldn’t say he was sorry—except about Taylor. There was something still innocent about her.
But he’d thought her sister was, too, and she’d thrown him over for another guy. Why would Taylor be any different? Not that it mattered. Because he wasn’t looking. But something about her appealed to him. For that reason alone he reminded himself to watch out for her.
Still, it was a stretch for him to believe Taylor hadn’t known about him finding the lovers in Zach’s car. The two sisters had always been thick as thieves. Although he didn’t remember much about Taylor, his gut told him she wasn’t that good an actress.
“Jen didn’t tell you how we broke up?” he asked.
“I didn’t know about her and Zach until after they’d eloped.” Her dark eyes were sad and angry at the same time.
He casually lifted one shoulder. “How did your father take it?”
“Better than I expected.”
“So I came in a distant second with father and daughter.”
Her gaze shot to his. “She didn’t plan it, Mitch. It just happened. She fell head over heels in love and—”
“And stepped on anyone who stood in her way,” he finished. He didn’t care about Jen anymore. Why was he rehashing this? To push Taylor away? There was no need to do that. She was a member of Destiny’s founding family and her father had made it clear that he hated Mitch’s guts. Or at least the fact that Jen liked him. Taylor probably shared her father’s conviction and had a low opinion of him.
“Jen would never have deliberately deceived you.” A shadow clouded her face. “I think it all happened fast and she couldn’t bring herself to hurt you. I know my sister. I know how badly she felt.”
“Then it’s real hard for me to believe you didn’t know about them.”
And didn’t tell me, he silently added.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Is your last name Stevens?”
“No one set out to make a fool of you, Mitch.”
Whether he believed her or not, the fact remained that it happened ten years ago. He hadn’t thought about Jen in a long time. What was it about coming back to Destiny that churned everything up again?
“You’re right. I apologize.” He rubbed a hand across his neck.
“That first year on the rodeo circuit must have been hard on you,” she said. “Seeing Jen and Zach all the time.”
The last thing he wanted was her pity. “Only because I came in second.” She opened her mouth to say something and he jumped in. “The competition was good for publicity. They milked it for all it was worth.”
“Until Zach was killed.” Her gaze searched his face. “Were you there?”
He shook his head. “I was sitting that one out. A pulled muscle.” But he’d heard. He’d tried to contact Jen. But he’d missed her or she hadn’t wanted to talk to him. Either way, it was a long time ago.
“She got her life together and moved forward.” Taylor released a huge sigh. “But they had so little time together. It’s so unfair.”
Unfair? No kidding. But he could give lessons in unfair. The woman he’d believed was his had tossed him aside for his rival. Ten years ago, Jen had done what she’d had to. That was that. He’d gotten over her. Only one other time had he taken a chance. Another big mistake. These days he made it a point not to let down his guard for any woman and there was no reason to relax it now.
He glanced around the kitchen, and noted the copper cow trivet just to Taylor’s left on the counter. The black-and-white bovine teakettle resting on the cook-top. Feminine touches were everywhere. Homey touches. Emptiness kicked up inside him like rheumatism
on a damp, cold day.
“I learned something else you might want to think about,” he said more sharply than he intended.
“What’s that?”
“Life isn’t fair. And folks don’t much care about fair. They make their minds up and nothing short of an act of God will change it. They pretty much assume the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. And my family tree didn’t have any fruit—except for me. Or roots, either, for that matter. Your dad reminded me of that on a pretty regular basis.”
“I know. But I can tell you’re not bitter,” she said, then bit her lip to stifle a smile.
“Of course not.”
The corners of his mouth turned up and the movement felt rusty. He’d forgotten how she could do that, even at fourteen. She was even better now. In just a few words she’d pointed out what an idiot he was making of himself and made him smile at the same time.
“You’re right about Dad,” she said. “But it probably wouldn’t do any good to say I’m sorry.”
“Nope. It was a long time ago.” He folded his arms over his chest. “It’s water under the bridge.”
“Is it?” she asked. “With Jen, too?” She looked like his answer meant a lot to her.
“Yeah. I’m not the same green kid. And you said Jen’s moved forward. Now that she’s married, probably with a couple kids—”
Taylor shook her head. “There hasn’t been anyone else—since Zach.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“As pretty as she is?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer she continued. “She was busy with college and law school, then her career. But I think it’s more than that. She’s a one-man woman.” There was an edge to her voice, as if she was trying to convince him of the fact.
“Are you a one-man woman, too?”
Crazy for Lovin’ You Page 2
