Return to the Black Hills (11 page)

“This is cute,” Jessie said, slowly making her way to an open table.

The place resembled a 1950s diner, with bright red vinyl stools at the polished chrome bar. White wrought iron tables and chairs were scattered across the black-and-white checkerboard floor.

“Let me grab an extra chair so you can elevate your leg,” Cade said, once she was seated.

A waitress in a Sandra Dee ponytail and popping a big wad of pink bubble gum came to take their order. Two floats with chocolate syrup. “Chocolate syrup?”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” he cautioned, holding out his hand for her crutches. “Let me store these over by the umbrella rack so nobody trips over them.”

Her gaze followed him to and from. She couldn’t help it. His body type was one of her favorites: lean and lanky with a hip-rocking gait that had her thinking of things she shouldn’t be thinking about. And his grin when he caught her staring was enough to make her heart do a few backflips of its own.

He reminded her of a slightly more mature Ashton Kutcher, she decided. She’d met Ashton on set once. He was a real person, despite all the hoopla surrounding his personal life. But he didn’t have Cade’s blue eyes. Bedroom eyes, her mother would have called them, because more often than not a sexy pair of eyes was enough to open that door where Mom was concerned.

“You asked about my family, can I ask about yours?”

“Sure. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say. Buck, you know about. And Kat, you’ve met. My mother died when I was eight. And my older brother, Charles, was killed in a training accident. He was a marine. My sister lives on the East Coast. For all practical purposes, she divorced herself from the family—Dad mostly, but me, too, I guess. I didn’t even hear from her after Faith died.”

“Wow. That’s harsh.”

He shrugged. “She hated living on the ranch. In fact, after Dad married Helen, Renata—that’s my sister’s name—ran away from home. She was fourteen. Just two years older than Shiloh,” he said, as if doing the math for the first time. “She moved in with a friend until the end of the school year, then she gave Buck an ultimatum. Let her go to boarding school on the East Coast or she’d accuse his new wife of abuse.”

Jessie winced. “She obviously knew what she wanted.”

“A few years ago, Buck decided to put his affairs in order. He had his attorney call Renata to discuss the matter. She told him she wanted nothing to do with Buck or the ranch. If Buck wanted to give her a share, he could donate the value to her alma mater.”

“What about you? You’re her brother. And Shiloh is her niece.”

He looked away. “Here come our floats.”

She figured that was his answer—he didn’t want to talk about it. But after the waitress had deposited two of the biggest, frothiest soda-fountain drinks she’d ever seen, he said, “My sister was a lot like Mom. Emotionally fragile but as stubborn as any person you’ve ever known. She made up her mind that Dad killed Mom.”

“Murder?”

“Neglect. Mom died of complications from an eating disorder. I was too young to understand, but I remember some of their fights. Frankly, I think Dad blamed himself, too. Renata used his guilt against him to get her way.”

He unwrapped his straw and used it to stir his drink. “I was kind of a quiet kid. She was a bit of a prima donna. We never really bonded. Then Kat was born. She was the sister I wished Renata could have been. That probably didn’t help.”

Jessie took a pull on her straw. Her mouth positively sparkled with flavor—sweet, cold, delicious. “Oh, yum,” she said, smacking her lips. “This is amazing. Definitely the best I’ve ever had.”

Cade smiled with obvious satisfaction.

They enjoyed their drinks in silence a few minutes, before Jessie’s curiosity got the better of her. “And your older brother died, too.”

A lock of wheat-colored hair fell across his brow when he nodded. She really liked his hair. She wished she was brave enough to reach out and brush it back. Not that she felt entitled to take such liberties, but it was tempting.

“Your poor dad. And you. That must have been pretty rough.”

He nodded. “Charles was a lot older than me. I’m sure we’d have been good friends if he’d lived, but, at the time, I can’t remember feeling anything but dread. Buck’s response to problems of any kind was to get blind drunk and smack around anybody who got in his way.”

A telling revelation, she thought, giving her attention to her drink. Not surprising Cade moved away and started his life somewhere else, she thought. Bing’s first husband had been a violent alcoholic. Jessie understood all too well.

“Do you miss Texas?”

“Not yet. I’ve been too busy. Buck and I had a lot of paperwork to get through to make this official. Shiloh seems to swing from one extreme to the other. She either loves the Hills and plans to make this her home forever, or she misses Texas and her friends and her school so much she thinks she might die. Most days it pretty much sucks to be me,” he said, adding a little half laugh to make her think he was kidding.

But she knew the feeling. Lately, it hadn’t been too pleasant being Jessie Bouchard, either. His honesty made her decide to share a little bit of her own past. Quid pro quo, she thought. Plus, visiting this soda parlor had gotten her mind off J.T.’s distressing accusation. Stage her own accident. Ridiculous.

“My sisters and I used to call Mama the Queen Bee. Her beauty parlors—Marlene’s House of Beauty, One, Two and Three—were her hives. The operators who worked for Mama worshipped her. Some of her customers were so loyal to Mama they became like members of our extended family.”

“That’s impressive. She sounds like a good business-woman.”

Jessie used her spoon to scoop up the last remaining barge of ice cream. She closed her eyes to savor the flavor. When she opened them, she found herself staring into Cade’s baby blues. A shiver that had nothing to do with ice cream passed through her body. She licked her lips unconsciously. His gaze followed and lingered.

She inhaled deeply to refocus. What were they talking about? Oh, yes, her mother. Her mother? She never talked about her mother.

“One, Two and Three,” she said, mostly to herself. The beauty parlors. “Actually, Mom’s real gift was understanding people. She was terrible with numbers. If she hadn’t watched, her stylists would have robbed her blind.” She fiddled with her straw, her appetite strangely gone. “My sister claims that’s why Mama couldn’t spend more time with me when I was in the hospital. She had four other mouths to feed, and three hives to tend. So to speak.”

“Why were you in the hospital?”

She’d known the question was coming. She’d brought the subject up herself. She couldn’t back out of the discussion now. “There was a fire in our house when Remy and I were seven. Mama was out back with her new beau. She didn’t realize what was happening until she heard the sirens.”

“You were burned?”

She watched his gaze skim across her bare arms. He even looked at her legs. No scars. She was lucky that way.

“I pushed Remy out the window right before a hunk of curtain fell. The back of my nightgown caught on fire. Mama saved my life by tackling me when I started to run, but the material of the gown had already melted into my skin.”

He took in a sharp, harsh breath. “How long were you in the hospital?”

“The first stay was about five months, I think. I had to go back a couple of times for grafts and some corrective surgeries as I grew.”

He pushed his glass away and reached out to take her hand. “That explains a lot. Thank you for telling me.”

She looked at him, baffled. “Explains what?”

His fingers squeezed hers gently but firmly. “Now I know how you got to be so brave.”

“
Brave,
” she repeated under her breath. Most people called her foolish.

“How could you be so stupid to temp Fate again and again and again?” her eldest sister had screamed at her after Mom’s funeral. “You know Mama hated your job, and you even let that ridiculous job keep you from coming home when she needed you the most.”

“Are you ready? I didn’t bring any pain pills,” Jessie said now.

He jumped to his feet and quickly retrieved her crutches. He paid the bill in the time it took her to walk to the door. The high-gloss floor looked like a stunt waiting to happen and she wasn’t in the mood to show off.

They’d barely taken two steps toward Cade’s truck when a familiar voice said, “Jessie? Can I talk to you a minute?”

Jessie froze. “J.T. How did you find us?”

“I overheard your friend ask if you liked root-beer floats. I did an online search of places that serve them. This is my third stop. Looks like I got here just in time.”

She looked at Cade, then at J.T. “What do you want? Wasn’t it enough to try to throw off the sheriff by making him believe we Hollywood types are a bunch of publicity-starved freaks who would rather injure ourselves than miss out on a chance for a viral video clip?”

J.T. had the decency to look ashamed. “That was Mom’s idea. I’m sorry.”

“Dar told you to say that?”

“Payback. For what you put her through.”

Jessie wished she could cry. The hurt was intense, but she used anger to deflect it. “For what she put
herself
through.” Her fingers tightened around the rubber grips of her crutches. “I didn’t make her embezzle money.”

“You made it so she had to, Jessie. To pay the mortgage. To keep a roof over her and Dad’s heads. You know she took the bare minimum in salary and then you messed up in
Kamikaze,
plus took off time after your mom’s funeral. There weren’t enough donations to cover her wages. She sold off some of the equipment that wasn’t being used.”

“And used the money to gamble with.” She didn’t know to what extent, but the accountant she hired said Dar had several charges in the tens of thousands to an area casino.

“No. Mom said that was seed money for an exhibition you and Team Shockwave were supposed to put on, but you reneged on that, too.”

Oh, my God,
Jessie thought. Dar is doing exactly the same thing Mama used to do to get out of taking responsibility for something. She would spin the fact to make it someone else’s fault. Once again, it all came down to rest on Jessie’s shoulders.

“None of that has anything to do with why someone tampered with my ropes. And you know me well enough to know I wouldn’t have done that.”

He looked at Cade and nodded as if he’d asked, not her.

“So who did? Marsh? Eerik?”

He shook his head.

That left only one team member who was in Sentinel Pass that morning. “Zane.”

“I didn’t see him do anything, I swear. And I’m sure as hell not about to say anything to the cops.”

“Why?”

He took a step back. “Are you nuts? Don’t you know? Zane is a loose cannon.” He looked at Cade, pleadingly. “I once saw him crush some drunk’s nose—not break, crush—because the guy was wearing a political T-shirt that Zane disagreed with. He went over, picked a fight, then slammed the guy’s face into the wall before the man could throw his first punch.”

Jessie had heard that story many times but didn’t know if it was fact or hype. “He has a reputation for being volatile, but he’s my friend. We’re co-captains. Why would he do something to hurt me and jeopardize the team’s chances in Japan?”

“I don’t know. All I can say is the night before last I was in the hotel bar, nursing my broken heart.” He tossed a pointed look at her. “I was trying to work up the nerve to confront you. But when I saw you come in with your sister, I gave up and went to my room.”

“And spent the night plotting how to get your revenge on Jessie for dumping your sorry ass,” Cade theorized.

J.T. shook his head. “No. I went to sleep. I wasn’t even gonna go do the show until Zane started pounding on my door. He said you’d changed the script because you needed a solo for your audition tape. He told me he was taking off as soon as the tower was up and the ropes were in place. He said if I really wanted to impress you, I should take his place and prove to you that you weren’t invincible. Everybody needs somebody, he said.”

“Why did you run away?” Cade asked.

“I’m not stupid, man. I knew they’d be looking for a scapegoat. An accident is one thing, but when I heard somebody mention the word
booby-trapped,
I started thinking about your rollover. What if that wasn’t an accident? I was on that set, too. Sooner or later, somebody was bound to point a finger at me, given your problems with my mother.”

Jessie froze. She’d been saying for weeks that something wasn’t right about her accident, but nobody was listening. “You think my rollover happened that way on purpose?”

“I don’t know what to think. But if Zane’s behind either of them—” his voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked over his shoulder theatrically “—then I could be in big trouble for even talking to you. Mom wants me to come home, but the cops said I have to stick around.”

“What are you going to do?”

He looked down as if embarrassed. “I met a girl. Last night. In Custer. She told me if I needed a place to bunk, her roommate just moved out. You know how it is, Jess. Mention
Sentinel Passtime
and suddenly everybody wants to be your friend.”