by Loree Lough
“Sorry, man. Already have things lined up to head out early tomorrow.”
“Cancel the flight. I’ll pick up the penalty fees.”
“No can do. I’ve left things at home unattended for too long.”
Phil looked concerned. “Your mom’s okay, I hope...”
“She’s doing great.” And thanks to the heart-to-heart he’d had with her a week or so ago, their relationship had taken a turn for the better. “I have checks to write and invoices to send. And if I don’t keep tabs on that new manufacturer she lined up, we won’t have enough inventory to fill orders the next time I’m in town.” Before any of that, a surprise visit with Lillie...
“Aw, man. You’re breakin’ my heart.”
“Sorry, Phil. If I’d had a little more notice...”
Not a bald-faced lie, but not exactly the truth either. The producer would have had to catch him yesterday. Early. Before he’d made up his mind to head north and deliver his apology face-to-face. If things worked out as he hoped, by this time next week...
Don’t put the cart before the horse, he told himself.
First, he needed to make sure Lillie understood that she was more important to him than anything. He’d do everything in his power to ensure she’d never get away from him again.
The plan was admittedly scary, because while Colette’s Crafts came with guarantees, life didn’t.
Lillie had said so herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he isn’t registered? Does that mean he’s checked out?”
“It’s against policy to divulge information about our guests,” the desk clerk said.
Lillie had done this kid’s job long enough to have memorized that line. She’d never been on the receiving end of it, though. Now that she knew how annoying it was, she’d work on finding more courteous ways to say the same thing.
“But if he checked out, he isn’t a guest.” Lillie pointed out. “Right? Can you at least tell me if he asked you to call a taxi to take him to the airport?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did.”
“How long ago?”
The clerk glanced at the computer screen. “About half an hour ago.”
Meaning, if she’d hailed a cab instead of riding the much-cheaper shuttle, she wouldn’t have missed him. Frustration flooded her being. She’d wasted most of the day—and hundreds of dollars—making her way here to surprise him. And he was gone.
Guess the surprise is on you!
“My cell battery is almost dead, so I wonder if you’d call a cab for me.”
“No problem.” He picked up the phone’s handset. “Where to? Airport or train station?”
“Airport.” The club had paid her and the band in cash. She considered it found money, and it didn’t bother her a bit, spending a little more to make the trip in half the time.
She had just enough battery power to leave a message on the ride to MIA.
“Hi, Jase. It’s me. Sorry it’s taken so long to respond to your message. I won’t recite a list of flimsy excuses. Instead, I wonder if you’d do me a favor. Meet me at Sur les Quais. Tonight. Eight o’clock. There’s something I need to discuss with you, and since it’s usually pretty quiet at Ian’s on weeknights...” Stop rambling, you ditz, and hang up!
The flight got into Baltimore a few minutes before four, leaving her plenty of time to shower and change into something flattering. Because in order for this plan of hers to work, she needed to look her best.
* * *
A MECHANICAL ISSUE delayed his flight, and as the jetliner sat on the tarmac, Jase closed his eyes. An hour’s delay wouldn’t matter at all...if he hadn’t planned to stop by the White Roof and whisk Lillie away for a private dinner.
The message light on his phone blinked. Funny, but he would have sworn he’d checked it while waiting to board the plane. Jase punched in his security code and put the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Jase,” Lillie said, “sorry it’s taken so long to respond to your message...”
She asked him to meet her at Ian’s at eight. She’d sounded edgy, like she had the night she’d returned his ring. Lillie hadn’t said, “Hope to see you there” or “It’s okay if you can’t make it.” Not even goodbye. In his head, that could mean only one thing: she’d signed with Rusty and wanted to deliver the news in person.
The flight delay would put him home with barely enough time to shower and shave, but if he had to skip that to meet her, so be it. Maybe seeing him looking scruffy and exhausted would make it harder for her to break his heart.
It was nearly eight when he reached the bistro. But he’d had to stop at home first. There was something he had to do there. He was out of breath as he jogged up to the reservation desk.
“Jase Yeager,” he said. The blonde’s name tag said Terri. “I’m meeting Lillie Rourke at eight?”
“Oh, yes. Right this way,” she said, and led him to a table in the far rear corner.
The same table they’d shared on the night Jase proposed.
Weird coincidence? Or had she planned it to hammer her point home: We’re through. For good.
Lillie lowered the menu as the hostess approached. And when their eyes met, her smile sent his heart into overdrive.
Terri pulled out a chair for him. “I’ll send your waiter right over.”
“Thanks, but no hurry.”
She’d looked happy to see him, so Jase bent at the waist and pressed a kiss to Lillie’s temple. He wanted to do more. Lift her from that chair. Take her in his arms. Kiss her the way he had that night in the gazebo. Then launch into his apology. But there’d be time, later, to recite the speech he’d prepared.
“You look wonderful tonight.”
“Better be careful,” she said, “or Eric Clapton might sue you for using his song lyrics without permission.”
She waited until he’d situated himself to say, “You’re out of breath.”
“My flight got in late. By the time I made it home and...” He trailed off.
“Are you hungry?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m starving. Haven’t had a meal since this morning...if you want to call the hotel’s continental breakfast a meal.”
Eyes wide, her smile broadened. “I’m glad you showed up.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for all the world. Somebody leaves a mysterious ‘I need privacy to tell you something’ message, I make sure to show up.”
She closed the menu again, and the waiter appeared.
“Need a few minutes?” the younger man asked Jase.
“Yeah. But in the meantime, how about bringing us a bottle of Fillico.”
Brows raised, the waiter leaned close and whispered, “Are you aware, sir, that it’s $219 a bottle?”
“I’m aware.”
Lillie gasped and held a hand to her throat.
“Jase, all that money, for water, just because the bottles look like chess pieces, studded with Swarovski crystals? Did you win the megalottery or something?”
“No. I just feel like splurging.”
Lillie shrugged, then asked how his Florida meetings went, and he told her. He asked about the tour.
“It’s over. I decided not to sign Rusty’s contract.”
If he’d ever felt more relieved, Jase couldn’t say when. He wondered why, but only for a nanosecond. It didn’t matter why. All that mattered was that she wasn’t going away again. He hoped. “I’ll probably sound like a selfish jerk admitting it, but I’m glad.”
Her eyes were twinkling when she said, “You’re not a jerk.”
“Oh,” he teased back, “so I’m just selfish, huh?”
Lillie laughed, though she sounded nervous.
“How’s your car?” he asked.
“It’s great. I can’t believe I got along without
one for so long. It’s liberating, being able to slide behind the wheel and just...go.”
Suddenly, Lillie’s brow furrowed. She took a sip of her water. A long, slow sip.
“I’ll sound like an unsophisticated ninny admitting it, but this stuff tastes like...water.”
It was his turn to laugh, and when he quieted, she met his eyes.
“I can’t take it any longer, Jase. I need to say something, right now.”
She repeated some of what she’d said that afternoon in the turret...how she was a different, more trustworthy person, that life didn’t come with guarantees...
“Lillie...”
She stopped talking, clearly confused by his interruption. Idiot, he thought. Why are you in such a rush to hear her break things off again?
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry as I can be,” he said, grabbing her hand, “for leaving the way I did. You’d just been released from the hospital. In pain. Probably a little scared about whether or not the leg would heal. I should have been more understanding. Should’ve been more honest.” He grabbed her other hand and sandwiched them between his own. “I want to be with you, Lill, now and always.”
“Stop, Jase. Stop talking about things like that. What we need to talk about is my past. The lies. The stealing. Everything I did and said to get my hands on drugs, things that hurt you, that made you doubt and hate me.”
“No, you stop. I’ll admit, I was angry. Hurt. Scared. But never, not for a minute, did I hate you.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes when she whispered, “I accused you of being too stubborn to accept things as they are instead of...”
Jase could tell that she was searching for the right way to let him off the hook. He filled the instant of silence. “You’re right about a lot of things, including my stubbornness. But we don’t need to talk about that stuff. I’ve already cost us way too much time, wallowing in self-pity, rehashing what was, instead of focusing on what is, and what could be...
“Being away from you, not hearing from you these past few months made me realize what a selfish, self-indulgent man I am. Don’t look at me that way. It’s true. I want what I want. And I don’t want to be apart from you, ever again.”
Before he could talk himself out of it, he got down on one knee and fished around in his pocket and did his best to ignore her tiny gasp. The ring box squealed quietly when he pulled open the lid.
“You...you kept it? All this time?”
“You know how hard it is to sell a used ring?”
She met his eyes, read the true meaning behind his words and pressed a palm to his cheek.
Tears puddled in her eyes as he grasped her left hand and slid the ring onto her finger. “I hope you’re not one of those women who believes in long engagements.”
“I haven’t said yes. Yet.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
Gently, she finger-combed his hair, and Jase closed his eyes, memorizing every touch, every gesture, every sound.
“I hope you weren’t counting on a big fancy wedding. You know, for business purposes?”
“Say the word and we’ll leave right now, and drive to Elkton.”
“My mother will never forgive us if went to Maryland’s ‘quickie wedding’ city and deprived her of planning the event.”
Jase nodded. “You’re right, as usual.”
“Besides, I’ve barely worked my way back into your mom’s good graces. She’ll have a whole new reason to hate me if we elope.”
“Don’t worry about her. Worry about me. I’m the one you have to live with.”
A dreamy expression crossed her face. “Yeah,” she sighed.
“Forever.”
Her gaze flicked from his eyes to his lips and back again. “You’re really not afraid?” she asked, her voice a mere whisper.
“Actually, I am, a little...”
She tensed.
“I’m afraid you’re never gonna stop talking long enough to say yes. My knee is killin’ me!”
Their noses were touching when she said, “Yes. Yes-yes-yes-yes, yes!”
When they kissed, nearby diners applauded and whistled.
He could feel the heat of a blush creep into her cheeks, and kissed them, first one, then the other.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“Oh, about as much as I love you, I suspect.” Lillie leaned back, just far enough to say, “I need to have a talk with Ian.”
“Ian?” he echoed. What a weird time to mention the bistro’s owner! “Why?”
“Because—” she bobbed her head, indicating the still-staring, curious onlookers “—he promised me a quiet, private corner.”
Grinning, Jase referenced a once-popular song. “Should we give ’em somethin’ to talk about?”
And this time when he kissed her, Jase barely heard the congratulatory clamor.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from BAD BOY RANCHER by Karen Rock.
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Bad Boy Rancher
by Karen Rock
CHAPTER ONE
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESSE.” Justin Cade raised a beer to his reflection then gulped half of the microbrew. He scrunched his face at the citrus tang, forcing down the rest.
“Bah!” He scraped his tongue with his teeth. “How’d you drink this fancy stuff? Fruit and beer? Might as well be a wine cooler.” He crumpled the can in his palm and chucked it at his bathroom’s wastebasket. “Here’s to us turning twenty-six. Or me, anyway.”
He frowned at his identical twin’s face, shrouded by Justin’s dark beard and mustache. A purple bruise from a barn brawl circled his left eye. Black stitches closed a jagged gash on his cheek caused by this week’s dirt-bike crash. Despite the camouflage, Jesse still peeped through. “You should be here, dude.”
Yellow-green eyes, surrounded by a ring of brown, blazed back at Justin. He bared his teeth, stomped from the cubicle-size space then flung himself into the single foldout chair in his cabin’s combination kitchen-living-dining area. It faced an antenna-topped TV perched on empty feed crates from his family’s cattle ranch. A crammed gun cabinet, a wobbly card table and a sagging couch comprised the rest of his furnishings.
Mismatched sheets obscured the front windows and the dark night behind them. An ancient coffeemaker moaned as it dribbled thick, black brew into a
glass pot. The bitter smell mixed with the woodstove’s aromatic hickory logs, a melancholy scent that reminded him of times spent chopping stacks with his brother, each refusing to quit until their pile topped the other’s in height.
A one-eyed kitten he’d fished from a storm ditch leaped onto his lap and purred louder than a combine engine. Since he planned on dropping her by the barn, he hadn’t named the scraggly black-and-white thing. No sense keeping her. He barely cared for himself, let alone a kitten that weighed less than a tissue.
His work-rough fingers stroked the quivering fur ball, rising as her back arched and her miniature tail flicked in contentment. “Don’t get used to this,” he grumbled, scratching behind her ears. She rubbed her whiskered face against his hand and purred louder.
He flicked on the TV, peeled off the chair then sauntered to the kitchen counter. Furball wove in and out of his legs. The peppy Monday-night football announcers grated on his ears. He grabbed his ringed mug from the sink and filled it with coffee. Time to clear his head. After herding cattle this morning, he’d dropped back into bed, fallen into an uneasy sleep, then woke even more exhausted. Too bad he hadn’t slept right through.
He eyed the loaded rifle over his front door.
Sometimes he wanted to stop the world and hop off it for a while. That idea was particularly appealing today.
Steam curled from the coffee’s dark surface as he raised it to his mouth. At the last minute, his stomach churned and he chucked it, mug and all, into the sink. A satisfying crash exploded. He grabbed a six-pack and a carton of milk from the fridge, freshened Furball’s bowl, then dropped onto the couch and popped the top off a Miller.
The hell with sober. He wasn’t going anywhere. Least of all to Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro or any of the seven summits he and his twin had vowed they’d scale before turning thirty. Before Jesse’s opiate addiction. Before he wound up murdered over it.
Justin took a long drink then flopped on his back. His boots dangled over the couch’s arm. A purring Furball sprang onto his stomach and needled her claws through his worn T-shirt, pricking the skin beneath. Drawing blood, he’d bet.
Not that he cared about injury.
