by Laura Drewry
“Shut up, Will. Just shut the hell up.” He drove the next stake in with two swings of the hammer, the sound of Will’s laughter echoing in his ears.
o0o
“The fundraiser ball is only a few weeks away, and there’s still so much to do.” Carrie groaned over the lists in front of her. “I could use your help, Joanna.”
Jo snorted. Would be a cold day in hell before she’d agree to help organize a party she wouldn’t attend.
Carrie ran her finger down the first list. “Was that a yes?”
“No.” Jo finished her pie, then swallowed the rest of her coffee.
Carrie, of course, continued as if she hadn’t even spoken. “I want to build a dance floor. We can’t have another episode like last year, for goodness sake. The way Milly Jean carried on, you’d have thought her leg had come clear off.”
“No.” As Jo carried her dishes to the sideboard, she pinned her sister with a glare before repeating, “No.”
Carrie tipped her perfectly coiffed head to the side and smiled sweetly. “Now, Joanna, you know this fundraiser brings in a great deal of money for the school and church, and it is named for Mama.”
“No.” With supper long over and the kitchen put to rights, Ginny and Mac had set out on a walk, leaving Jo alone with Carrie. There couldn’t be a worse fate.
All sweetness drained from Carrie’s voice. “Look, Joanna, by this time next year, I’ll be as far away from here as I can get.”
“So you’ve said. Over and over and over.”
“Well, since this is the last year I’m going to be organizing the ball, don’t you think it would be nice if we all pitched in and helped? It would be even better if we would all attend this year, too.”
“No.”
Carrie sighed, but not in her usual dramatic way, more to show her impatience. “But come next year, if you and Ginny aren’t willing to organize it, the town will probably change the name of it.”
“So what?”
“So,” she sighed. “It’s the last time all the McCaines will be together for a fundraiser named for a McCaine – doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Guilt began to wedge itself into Jo’s gut.
“Please?”
Jo almost had second thoughts – it wasn’t every day Carrie used that word. “I don’t have time to build a stupid dance floor, Carrie. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re a little short-handed right now.”
“But it wouldn’t take very long.” The old thrill was back in Carrie’s voice. “Anyone could do it. Perhaps one of the hired hands could help?”
“No.” Jo refused to give in to Carrie. The rest of the world might, but she wouldn’t.
“But I bet if you asked Levi or that new fellow - Mr. Brennan - they’d do it.” An odd little twinkle danced in Carrie’s eyes. A very odd little twinkle.
“Do what?” Levi asked as he and Will came through the door. They poured themselves what was left of the coffee, picked up the pie plate and some forks, and pulled up to the table as if they’d been doing it for twenty years instead of only a few weeks.
If Jo hadn’t hated Travers so much, she might have found it comforting that he was so at ease in the house – almost like he was family - God forbid.
With her best pout yet, Carrie sighed. “I asked Joanna to do one little thing for the annual fundraiser – an event that the town named after our own mother – and she won’t do it.”
Jo watched Levi’s Adam’s apple bob with each swallow of his coffee. Maybe if she was lucky, he’d choke on it. A single drop slid from his lips and hung on his stubbled chin. Why couldn’t she look away? She tried, she really did, but there was something about the way it clung to his sun-kissed skin, almost as though it didn’t want to fall.
She knew the feeling.
Then Travers had to go and wipe it away with the back of his hand. Jo looked away as fast as she could, but not before they gazes met and held over a heartbeat. There, in the depths of his eyes, she saw it again – regret.
“What did you want her to do?” Will asked. Neither he nor Travers bothered with plates, they simply used a fork to cut what was left of the pie in half and ate it directly from the pie pan. And even though Travers seemed intent on the pie itself, Will kept stabbing his fork on the empty part of the pan as his gaze never left Carrie’s face. “Could Travers and I help?”
“No.” Jo and Travers answered at the same time.
Carrie’s face lit up. “Why, yes, Mr. Brennan, I do believe you might be able to.” She flashed a ‘so there’ look at Jo, then pulled her chair closer to Will’s.
“Call me Will.” A small smile lifted his mouth as color flooded up his neck.
“Thank you, Will.” Carrie smiled back at him in what could have been her best performance of all time.
“All I want,” she sniffed as she slid her sketch in front of him, “is a simple dance floor. But Joanna doesn’t want to help. Would you build it for me?” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “I’d be most grateful.”
Will’s brow shot up to his hairline. “Grateful enough that you’d --.”
Jo gasped at the same time as Travers yanked Will up by the collar.
“We’ve got a barn to clean out.”
“B-but. . .”
“Now.” He pushed his friend toward the door.
“What about the dance floor?” Carrie called sweetly.
“Yeah,” Will called back to her. “Anything you want. Just tell where and how big, and I”ll--”
With a final shove, Levi pushed him out the door and let it slam behind them.
“See?” Carrie sneered. “Mr. Brennan will help me. Just because you’re a big meanie, don’t think I can’t get it done one way or another.”
Jo studied her sister with a new eye. She’d known for a while that Carrie wasn’t a little girl anymore, but this was the first time she’d seen her for what she truly was; a conniving young woman who had only to crook her finger and any number of men would jump to her bidding.
The reality of it hadn’t really hit Jo until then; until she’d seen Carrie flutter her lashes at Will. Will Brennan – a man they knew nothing about, save that he was a friend of Travers’s and he seemed willing to lay at Carrie’s feet and do whatever she bid him.
“Carrie, listen.” She slumped into a chair, wondering how long until Ginny would be home to handle this. “You need to be a little more. . .prudent in how you do things. You’re a very pretty girl and --”
“Thank you.” Carrie smiled knowingly and fluffed her hair a little.
“And,” Jo continued, fighting not to roll her eyes. “If you’re going to string men along, they’re going to expect something from you that you aren’t ready to give them.”
“Good Lord, Joanna!” Carrie twirled one of her ringlets around her finger. “You make me sound like a common hussy.”
“That’s how you’re acting.”
“I most certainly am not.” The hurt look she shot Jo was nowhere near her usual performance. “I’m being charming, something you never did learn. Men like that. They like to think they’re big and strong and that we can’t live a moment without them. So what’s wrong with me letting them believe that?”
Jo groaned. “Because it’s a load of. . .”
With a wave of dismissal, Carrie collected her lists and headed for the stairs.
“I’m just making sure I get what I want. If Levi won’t take me to San Francisco with him, maybe Mr. Brennan will. They’re going together, you know.”
“You’re going to ruin your reputation, Carrie.” Or had that already happened? “Is that what you want? Do you think that’s what Mama wanted for you?”
Carrie whirled around with a grand flourish. “Mama? What do you care about what Mama wanted? Look at you for goodness sake! Do you really think she’d be proud if she saw you dressed like. . .that.” She gestured toward Jo’s clothes. “Never mind the way you act.”
Anger buried the ache in Jo’s heart. “Th
is isn’t about me, Carrie – I can look after myself. I’m not interested in having any man do my bidding.”
Carrie’s pert little nose lifted. “You could have fooled me.”
Leave it alone. Jo inhaled a long breath, clenched her teeth and began to count. She made it to two.
“Watch your tongue, Carrie.” She pushed away from the table and loomed closer to her sister.
“Don’t play coy with me, Joanna. We’ve all seen the way you and Levi look at each other when you think no one’s watching.” She rolled her eyes and sneered. “You can’t even seem to find your tongue when he’s around and we’ve all seen those cow eyes he makes at you.”
When Jo opened her mouth, Carrie cut her off.
“So don’t you start preaching to me about reputations, Joanna.” Anger reddened Carrie’s face. “I know mine’s intact. But it wouldn’t surprise any of us if you’d already tumbled with Levi out in the barn.”
Joanna’s hand struck with such force it knocked her sister back a step. Carrie steadied herself against the wall, her fingers resting over the growing red stain on her cheek. After a moment, she lifted her chin defiantly and glared back at Jo.
Bile filled Jo’s stomach. What had she just done?
“Carrie, I’m sorry, I --” she stepped closer, but Carrie moved away.
“I should have expected that from someone like you, Jo.” She smoothed back her hair, then ran her palms down her skirt. “You’re jealous because men like me and I’m not afraid to let them. But you haven’t got the first clue what to do with a man like Levi Travers. It’s as simple as that.” She glared hard before swooping out of the room and climbing the stairs as gracefully as ever.
“You’re wrong, Carrie.” Jo spoke to an empty room. “It’s not simple at all.”
Quiet consumed the room – and Jo. Mama certainly wouldn’t be proud of the way either of her daughters was turning out, and it was all Jo’s fault. She was supposed to be looking after Carrie, not fighting her at every turn.
There had to be something she could do; some way to keep Carrie’s reputation in tact. But how? She might be able to keep Travers and Will away from her while she was on the ranch, but if Carrie got her way and traveled west with them, there was nothing Jo could do for her.
And from the way Will had just looked at Carrie, he’d be more than happy to take her west. He’d be happy to take her a lot of places.
Jo grabbed her hat and raced out to the barn.
“Where’s Brennan?” she bellowed. Several cows turned to stare at her, straw hanging from their mouths, tails flicking in a steady rhythm. “Brennan!”
Travers stepped from a stall, hands out to block her path. “Calm down, Joanna.”
She kept walking. “Get out of my way, Travers.”
“Calm down,” he repeated, his voice soft.
“I’m going to kill him. Where is he?” Her head moved from side to side, trying to see around Travers.
“It’s not what you think.”
“The hell it isn’t! Where is he?” She tried to step around him, but he stopped her again. “Brennan!”
“He’s not --”
“I’m right here.” Will stepped through the door, pushing the wheelbarrow full of fresh straw. A huge grin covered his stupid face as though he had every right to be thinking what he was probably thinking.
Jo lunged at him, but Levi caught her around the middle and held her. Startled, Will jumped back, upsetting the wheelbarrow in the process. Straw scattered across the floor.
“What the hell? What’d I do?”
She tried to lunge again. “You sonuva --”
“Joanna!” Levi pulled her back. “He didn’t do anything.”
“How do you know? You saw the way they were carrying on in there – he would have done anything she asked.”
“So?”
Jo wrenched free, a bit of the bluster sucked away with Levi’s one word. “So. . .so then he’d want her to do whatever he asked, too. Unless they’ve already. . .”
Will’s wide eyes stared back at her in disbelief. “Are you crazy? I said I’d build a dance floor, that’s all. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Levi interjected, his voice still calm and even.
“What’s wrong,” Jo snapped. “Is what you were going to ask for in return – and the way you were ogling my sister!”
Will’s lips twitched, his eyes crinkled, but he didn’t smile. And he was damn lucky he didn’t, too.
“Ogling?”
“Yes, Will – that’s what it’s called when your eyes nearly fall out of their sockets.” She pushed ahead, but Levi blocked her again.
“Listen, Jo.” Will’s smile broke free, followed by a short chuckle. “I was only going to ask her if she’d. . .”
A low growl began in Jo’s throat.
“Uh, Will,” Levi said. “I think you’d better leave. Now.”
“But. . .”
“Go.”
Will shrugged, gathered the empty wheelbarrow, and left the way he came in, muttering under his breath the whole while.
Jo paced the barn, her hands on her hips, her fingers itching to claw Will’s ogling eyes right out of his face.
“Joanna.” Travers’s voice was gentle and soothing, but she didn’t want to be soothed, damn it. She wanted to yell; she wanted to hit something – and if it meant him, that was fine with her.
“Don’t ‘Joanna’ me, Travers.” Her anger burned right through her skin. “You told me you trusted him – trusted him with your life, that’s what you said. You told me he was the man for the job.”
“He is the man for the job.” He grinned slightly and stepped closer. “And I do trust him with my life.” He stood right in front of her, his velvety brown eyes soothing her with each word. “I just wouldn’t trust him with your sister.” His cheeks dimpled with his smile and the rest of Jo’s anger melted away. “Hell, I wouldn’t trust any man with your sister.”
“Dammit, Travers.” She slammed her palm on the nearest rail.
“It’s Levi. And you need to calm down.”
“He’s ogling my sister; he’s probably been doing it since he got here but I’ve been too. . .distracted. . .to notice.”
He pushed her braid back over her shoulder. “Your sister wants to be ogled.”
How could she answer that? She couldn’t deny it, but she couldn’t very well agree that it made it okay for Will to do it.
She brushed away his hand and willed the shivers to stop tingling against her spine.
“You tell your friend to keep his eyes – and his hands – to himself. And you make damn sure he knows Carrie is not going to San Francisco with either one of you. Not now, not ever. I don’t care what she says.”
“Carrie’s a grown woman. If she decides to go. . .” he didn’t finish.
“Carrie doesn’t understand what the hell she’s doing. Will does. There’s the difference.”
“Maybe it’s time she figured it out.”
Jo heaved a huge sigh. “It’s complicated.” Why was she making excuses for Carrie?
“It always is, isn’t it?” When his hand reached up to cup her cheek, it took every ounce of strength she had left not to lean into it. But Lord, how she wanted to.
She pulled back slowly, each step more of an effort than the last. “Don’t.”
His hand dropped, but he didn’t move away from her. “Sorry. I can’t help it.” He paused, then almost whispered, “I like touching you.”
A knot twisted in Jo’s belly. She liked it, too, that was the problem.
“Look, Travers,” she began, leaning against a stall door for support.
“Levi.”
She ignored him. “You’re very good at all this,” she waved her hand between them, and held her voice even. “But I’m not. And no matter what you say or how much I want you to say it, I won’t be just another notch in your belt. And we both know that’s all you’re looking for.”
His mouth opened, but clo
sed again without uttering a word.
“We have to work together,” she continued, amazed at the steadiness in her voice. “So we need to be civil with each other. But that’s as far as it goes.”
“What if I want it to go farther?” Though barely a whisper, his words echoed through her head. Dammit, he was good. If she didn’t get away from him pretty soon, there’d be no hope for her or her heart.
She took a moment to stare at the tip of his boot, swallowed, then look back into his eyes. Those beautiful soft eyes.
“You don’t want to go farther with someone like me, Travers, and we both know it.” Her voice trembled, then cracked. “I’m just a distraction until you can skip town and head west. Or until some other girl comes along.”
Silence was his only answer, and Jo didn’t wait around for anything else. She brushed past him and ran back up to the house, leaving pieces of her heart scattered on the ground behind her.
His lack of response was exactly what she should have expected, but it didn’t make it any easier.
Damn him. And damn herself for feeling this way.
CHAPTER 7
Day after day of stringing fence left Levi as tightly wound as the barbs themselves. Every day, his mood darkened like the weather and the recent downpour had done little to cool his nerves. By the time the rain stopped yesterday, most of the smaller ponds had turned into thick mudbogs, much like Levi’s mind.
He’d seen little of Jo, who avoided him at every turn and appeared only at meal times and whenever Will was near the house. She’d even gone so far as to build the dance floor herself.
“You comin’ to town tonight?” Will tipped his hat back just enough to see out from under. It was the first time he’d spoken a complete sentence all day.
Something akin to guilt raced through Levi’s veins. In the weeks since Will arrived, they’d not once been to town.
“Come on, Travers,” Will continued, with a look of half-teasing, half-frustration. “It’s Saturday night, we don’t have to work tomorrow, though God knows you’ll make us work anyway, and if I don’t get some whiskey into my gut pretty soon, I’m gonna bust wide open.
“Besides,” he offered a short shrug. “She ain’t said more than two words to you since that day in the barn. And you’re not doing much talking to her either, so I reckon whatever you thought was gonna happen with her, probably won’t. So let’s go find a girl we can make things happen with.”
