by Tina Leonard
“I do have a way of upsetting women.”
“That’s an understatement and a half.”
“That being the case—” he sauntered lazily toward the door “—maybe you should leave.”
Chapter Four
“Man, it smells good in here,” Stretch said.
“Anything we can do to help?” Curly asked with his lothario smile.
Jacey gave the gravy on the stove another stir, then checked the oven to see that the traditional corn-bread stuffing was almost done. The five hired hands had been hanging around the bunkhouse all morning, taking turns holding Caitlin, and sampling the various Thanksgiving dishes as she prepared them. “You-all can set the table.”
“For seven?” Red asked.
Jacey did a quick calculation. Five cowboys, Eli and Rafferty and herself. That made…“Eight.”
“You including Rafferty?”
“Yes. Why?” Just because Rafferty had been avoiding her entirely for the last four weeks—she had not seen him once—]did not mean he would not grace them with his presence for the ranch’s traditional turkey dinner.
“Um…” Hoss hemmed and hawed. “Rafferty doesn’t do holidays anymore.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t do holidays?” Jacey slid the yeast rolls in to bake, alongside the sweet-potato and green-bean casseroles.
Gabby spoke for the group reluctantly. “Well, not since…you know, the thing with Angelica.”
“What thing with Angelica?”
Stretch looked uncomfortable. “Fellas, I don’t think we should say any more.”
Gabby nodded. “It’s really none of our business.”
“I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss,” Curly said.
“Me, neither,” Red agreed.
“Sorry, Jacey,” Hoss said gently. He gave her a look that was equivalent to a pat on the shoulder. “We just didn’t want you to be disappointed when the boss didn’t show up.”
She had passed disappointment weeks ago, when he’d kissed her, and then made sure she didn’t so much as lay eyes on him again. Not easy to do, when they were both residing under the same roof, albeit in different wings. “Where is Rafferty?”
“Out working,” Curly said.
Red nodded. “He was going to burn the spires off the prickly pear on the south side of the mountain.”
“That had to be done today?”
The men shrugged, apparently seeing nothing wrong with it.
IT WAS NEARLY FOUR-THIRTY when the Lost Mountain Ranch pickup his father usually drove bumped along the gravel road that connected the pastures on the property. Wondering what was up, Rafferty put down his propane torch. He shoved the brim of his hat back, waiting. It wasn’t long before the driver came into view. Seeing who was behind the wheel, he released a string of swearwords not fit for mixed company. And he was still muttering when Jacey parked in the middle of the lane, left the cab and marched toward him.
She was dressed ridiculously, in a black knee-length skirt that revealed just how much of her baby weight she had already lost, some sort of thin, cream-colored sweater with a lacy collar and a row of fancy buttons up the front, just begging to be undone, and sexy black suede heels definitely not meant for traipsing through the brush.
Noting she didn’t look scared or worried, just mad, which meant there was no real emergency, he leaned against a recently sheared prickly pear, crossed one boot-clad foot across the other, folded his arms in front of his chest and simply waited.
When she got close enough for them to converse normally, she demanded, “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m supposed to be working in the pasture. You’re the one who’s lost.” He hooked his thumb in the direction she’d come. “The kitchen is thataway.”
Her soft lips formed an irritated line. “You’re a laugh a minute, Rafferty Evans.”
He settled in against the cactus. “I think so.”
Sparks radiated from her green eyes. “You’re also unbearably rude.”
Here it came. The lecture he’d heard at least half a dozen times before. Although never from her. He picked up his propane torch, turned around and headed through waist-high brush. “Go away. I’ve got work to do.”
As he half suspected, she stormed after him, giving a little cry when her skirt caught on the spires of a cactus he hadn’t yet had time to trim back.
Concerned, he turned around to see her delicately extricating the fabric from the pointed end of the spire. Luckily, she didn’t appear to be hurt. “Need some help?”
Another glare. “What I need is for you to talk to me. Why did you skip Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon?”
He let his gaze drift over her lazily. “Shouldn’t you be doing dishes or nursing the baby?”
She ignored his rudeness. “The men are doing the dishes for me—they insisted, since the dinner you missed was so fantastically delicious. And Caitlin just nursed and went down for a nap, so they’re watching over her, too. They’ll call me on the truck radio if I’m needed, which I don’t expect to be, since the baby was awake all morning while they fawned over her.”
Sounded cozy. “What does any of that have to do with me?” he snapped.
Her eyes moist, she stepped closer. “You hurt your father’s feelings.”
“I did not.”
“Yes,” she enunciated plainly. “You did.”
Rafferty tensed. “He said that?”
Ignoring the damage it was doing to her shoes and clothes, she waded through waist-high brush. “He didn’t have to. I saw his disappointment when you didn’t show up and your place at the table went empty.”
“First of all—” Rafferty set the torch down once again “—a place for me should never have been set. The men should have told you that.”
She tilted her face up. “They did.”
He scowled at her. “Then why did you set one?”
Color blushed her cheeks. “Because I figured you wouldn’t be that much of a jerk. But then…I didn’t know about Angelica.”
Once again, Rafferty was caught off guard. Once again, he put his emotions in a box. “No one told you about that. They wouldn’t dare.”
“Really. Then how do I know her name?”
Good question.
Jacey stepped closer yet. “I get that she broke your heart.”
Rafferty’s gut twisted. Once again, he found himself defending the indefensible. “My wife didn’t get thrown from a horse and lose our baby on purpose.”
“You were married?” Jacey interrupted, stunned.
“What’s so odd about that? Yes. I was married,” Rafferty growled. “And furthermore, I thought you knew all about Angelica.” Damn it. She’d been bluffing. And he’d fallen for it.
“I gathered she meant a lot to you, that she was your girlfriend. No one said anything about you actually being married.”
“Well. I was.” For better or worse, and mostly, worse.
Jacey made a face that indicated she was struggling to understand. “And she was horseback riding when she was pregnant?” Jacey spoke as if that was the dumbest thing on this earth.
And it had been.
As well as the saddest.
Figuring he might as well answer a few questions—otherwise he’d never hear the end of it—Rafferty said, “She wasn’t supposed to be. But Angelica was not the kind of woman who liked to be told no.”
“Even when she was carrying your baby?” Jacey said, aghast.
Rafferty shrugged, weary of trying to make sense of the insensible himself. “She thought it’d be okay. She was a natural athlete, an accomplished equestrian, and she’d done it before early in the pregnancy, snuck out to ride, and nothing had happened. So even though the doctor told her not to do it, and I forbid it, she kept saddling up every time no one else was around. And that happened from time to time.”
“How did she get thrown?”
“She must have started cramping and bleeding while she was out, and from what we could tell
, tried to ride home as quickly as possible to get help. Apparently, during the process, she either fell off or got thrown from her mount. Unfortunately, it was during the fall roundup. It was hours before anyone knew she was missing or figured out where she’d gone…and by the time we did find her, it was too late. Both she and our son were gone,” Rafferty recounted miserably. The kindness in Jacey’s eyes had him going on, “The only blessing in any of it was that she’d hit her head when she was thrown, and according to the doctors, never suffered in the hours she was unconscious and alone…before her death.”
Jacey caught her breath. “I’m sorry.”
Rafferty did not want Jacey’s sympathy or anyone else’s. He’d married for all the wrong reasons, gone ahead and gotten his wife pregnant—as per her wishes, despite his gut instincts to the contrary—and been punished for it.
“So you’ll forgive me,” he said gruffly, bending to pick up his torch again, “if I’m not in a Thanksgiving or any other holiday mood.”
Jacey stopped him, hand to his bicep. “Meaning what?” she asked gently.
Rafferty straightened slowly to his full height. “I. Don’t. Do. Holidays,” he told her. “Not now. Not ever again.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she chided softly.
Rafferty blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry for your loss. I’m really sorry for your loss. But that does not give you license to hurt everyone else around you for the rest of your life. That does not mean you get to hurt the family you have left.” Her voice rang with emotion. “Your father might have tried to play it cool on the surface but inwardly he was devastated that you didn’t show up for dinner this afternoon. And everyone there saw it, knew it. Except, apparently, you.”
Rafferty refused to let her diatribe make him feel guilty. “My dad knows how I feel.”
“I’m sure he does.” Jacey nodded. “But he has feelings, too. Ever think about that?” Jacey threw up her hands. “No, of course not. You’re too busy drowning in grief to notice anything else.”
“You’re not going to make me celebrate any holidays.”
Her brow lifted. “Not even Christmas?”
“Not even Christmas,” Rafferty assured bluntly.
“Want to bet?” she challenged.
“As a matter of fact, I do. If I win,” Rafferty wagered, “you leave this ranch and never come back.”
“Charming. And if I win, you never miss a holiday from this day forward for the rest of your life.”
“Deal.” They shook on it.
“Now, how about coming back to the house with me?” she asked.
He disengaged his rough palm from the softness of hers. “I’m trying to win my side of the bet, not yours, remember?”
“There’s turkey. And stuffing,” she taunted.
And a hopelessly optimistic woman serving it. “I’m not eating it,” he said flatly.
“Cranberry-strawberry-apple compote.”
He shook his head.
Instead of leaving, Jacey followed him around, like a puppy on his heels. A beautiful, sexy, eager-for-love puppy, and he really had to stop thinking like this every time he was around her. Hadn’t he gotten involved for lust once before? And been miserable?
“What are you doing anyway?” she asked over his shoulder.
He fired up the torch. “Burning the spires off the prickly pear.”
She watched from a distance, fascinated. “Why?”
“Because the cacti underneath is great winter forage for our cattle, but the spires will kill them. They can’t digest them, and the spires perforate the intestines.”
“Ugh.”
“So, once the roundup is complete—usually mid-December—we spend some time burning off the spires in all the pastures.”
“Makes sense.”
Silence. He went deeper into a strand of thigh-high brush, hoping she wouldn’t follow.
And once again was disappointed as she tagged along right behind him. He glanced at his watch. “Seriously. Shouldn’t you be tending to the baby or something?”
Unable to step over the dense sage he had just easily stepped over, she went around a thicket of chaparral and guajillo, intending to end up at the same place as he. “Seriously. Shouldn’t you be watching at least a little football with the guys?” She looked around, perplexed. “What on earth is that smell?”
IT SMELLED, Jacey thought, like some sort of awful musk.
Animal musk.
And there was a reason, she swiftly discovered as a marauding band of the ugliest-looking wild-pig-like creatures came grunting and squealing out of the brush. She let out a high-pitched scream and stumbled backward. There was no doubt that she would certainly have fallen down, had Rafferty not leaped the distance between them like some superhero and taken her into his arms.
His gallantry was all the encouragement she needed.
She threw her arms around his neck, wrapped her legs around his waist and held on for dear life while he calmly strode away from the grunting pack of menacing animals and headed across the pasture to his truck. Once there, he opened up the passenger-side door and tried to set her down. However, try as she might, Jacey found she could not make herself let go. “Wh-wh-what the hell was that?” She shivered uncontrollably.
“Javelina. They like to travel in bands. Cheer up.” He tried, unsuccessfully, to pry her arms from around his neck, then abruptly gave up and let the weight of his chest press against hers, reassuring in a way words could not.
“There could have been as many as forty-five in that group.”
He looked behind him.
Jacey was relieved they were long gone.
“There were only about ten.”
“At thirty pounds each!” And horribly ugly, with grizzled brown-and-black fur, big fat bodies, sharp-looking hooves and skinny ratlike tails. Jacey shuddered just thinking about it. “I don’t get why you weren’t scared of them.” Even now, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking or unravel her legs from his waist and her arms from around his neck.
“’Cause they usually don’t bother humans, unless humans annoy them first. Then they might charge you and cut and slash you with their teeth. But if you leave ’em alone, then they’ll leave you alone.”
“So I was in no danger,” Jacey concluded in relief.
He cocked his head and gave her a thorough once-over. “Not unless you’d kept screaming.”
Abruptly, Jacey realized three things. There was really no reason for him to be holding her like this any longer, if there had ever been. Heat was definitely generating where their bodies connected. And she wanted to kiss him again, way too much for her own good.
“I think you can let me go now,” she said quietly, deciding she had made a fool of herself long enough.
His irises darkened seductively. “Or maybe not.”
“What?”
He tunneled his hands through her hair. Mischief colored his low tone. “I think I like you just the way you are.”
“Indebted to you once again?” She tried to joke her way out of this.
“Grateful,” he corrected, mouth lowering to hers, “would be nice…”
Jacey had time to draw one quick breath and then his lips were on hers. She’d thought the first embrace they had shared had been something. It was nothing compared to this. Her heart soared as he angled her head and deepened the kiss, tormenting her with lazy sweeps of his tongue. The next thing she knew, she was kissing him back with an answering passion. Driven by feelings she did not care to identify, she forgot all the reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this and allowed herself to sink headlong into the warm seductiveness of his embrace.
Rafferty knew he shouldn’t be kissing her like there was no tomorrow, but it had been a hell of a day. Not because he’d felt the grief and guilt he usually felt at holidays since his wife and unborn child had died, but because he didn’t feel it.
The loss was still there, but it was muted now. It wasn’t part of his everyday life,
not the way it had been before Jacey Lambert stumbled into his life.
He couldn’t say if it was the way she perpetually challenged and drew him out whenever they were together, or the fact he’d delivered her baby and shared a life-altering experience with her.
Or if it was how he felt when he kissed her. Part conquering hero, part completely besotted fool. All he knew for certain was that he had never tasted lips as sweet as hers, or been kissed back so tenderly. Or wanted a woman as much as he wanted her. To the point that if they didn’t end this soon, he would unbutton that sweater of hers, push up her skirt and touch her so intimately it would drive her out of her mind with desire. And if he did that, there would be no turning back. And turning back was what they needed to do.
Rafferty stopped, breathing hard. Calling on every ounce of self-restraint he possessed, he told her coarsely, “I’m not what you need, Jacey.”
Even if you are what I want….
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Hand to his chest, Jacey shoved him out of her way and hopped down from the cab of his pickup truck. She clamped her arms in front of her like a shield. “But you’re right,” she pronounced. “You do need to find another outlet for your frustration with the hand life dealt you. ’Cause it’s not going to be me. We are certainly not getting together this way.”
Chapter Five
Jacey had a call from her sister shortly before midnight on Thanksgiving Day. “How was your Thanksgiving?” Mindy asked.
“Good.” Jacey shifted Caitlin to her other breast to finish nursing. “Yours?”
“Busy. A lot of people get very depressed this time of year, so the E.R. was full of patients.”
“I’m sure you were able to help them.”
“I hope so.” Mindy sighed, sounding as tired as Jacey felt. “So how is your job search going? Made any progress finding a new position in property management?”
How, Jacey wondered, could she tell her sister that the ranch was really beginning to feel like home…and that she was having second thoughts about leaving?
“None so far,” Jacey said honestly. Of course, that was no surprise since she hadn’t applied anywhere, or even spent time looking at job postings. “But then, this isn’t a great time of year, anyway. Usually, there’s not a lot of hiring going on until after the first of the year.”
