Return to the Black Hills (9 page)

“You travel a lot?” Cade asked.

She’d taken too big a spoonful and couldn’t answer right away, so Remy stepped in. “She’s always on the go. We never know where to find her. One day you call her cell phone, thinking she’s in her apartment in L.A., and she answers half-asleep because it’s 2:00 a.m. in Beijing.”

Jessie frowned. “It’s not quite that bad.”

Remy snorted. “Remember when I called you in freakin’ Iceland? Iceland,” she repeated, looking meaningfully at Shiloh. “She was filming a vodka commercial.”

“Men’s deodorant, not vodka.” She doubted anyone in the States had seen it. “I fell backward out of a window into the arms of some Nordic god. Literally. The guy had lightning bolts strapped to his chest. If I fell wrong, I could have been impaled.”

“What’s
impaled
mean?”

Remy pretended to stab herself in the chest.

Cade did not look amused.

“Can you teach me how to do those backflips and midair twists?” Shiloh asked. “Those look so cool. And, man, would the kids at school freak if I learned how to run up the side of a building. Whoa.”

Jessie looked at Cade. She wasn’t surprised to find him scowling. He’d rented his father’s house to her so she could watch out for his daughter’s health and safety, not teach her how to do stunts.

She pushed her bowl away. “This was really great, Cade. Thank you so much. Shiloh, your biscuits were delish. Extra crunchy—exactly the way I make them. But—” she drew the word out as she reached for her crutches “—I was supposed to start hot-and-cold therapy on my ankle as soon as I got settled. Would anyone mind if I checked out my new digs?”

“Of course not,” Cade answered. “I’ll show you the way. Shiloh, you’re in charge of cleanup. Remember?”

“I know.”

“I’ll help,” Remy said. “Unless you need my help, Jess.”

“No. No, problem. You put the prescription in my duffel, right?”

“Yep. I left both our bags sitting beside Yota.”

Cade detoured toward the side door. “I’ll collect them and meet you at Buck’s.” He stopped suddenly. “Oh, that reminds me. Grandpa called today, Shiloh. He said to tell you he misses you, but he’s doing well and has developed a fondness for fried tofu.”

Jessie snickered softly to herself as she headed across the simply landscaped yard. She breathed deeply, taking in the smells of moist grass and some unfamiliar scents. She felt strangely at peace. She had no idea how that was possible. Given the fact her life was in chaos and somebody screwed with her ropes today.

The meds, she thought.

“Hey, Cade,” she called. “Any chance you have the number for that cop…I mean…deputy from today? You know what they say about squeaky wheels.”

“They’re the first to fall off the car?” He grinned, obviously amused by his own joke.

He lugged the two suitcases to the door. “Speaking of car wrecks, the kids found the video of your famous rollover on YouTube today.”

Her chili made a wrong turn in her stomach. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Hmm.”

A sound that could mean just about anything.

He reached past her to set the bags inside the door. His shoulder brushed against her breast. An innocent accident that set off a not-so-innocent response in her body. Normally, if she felt her nipples pucker when they weren’t supposed to, she’d cross her arms. Impossible to do when they were straddling two bulky padded crutches.

He stepped back, his gaze dropping like radar to her chest. A second later, his chin popped up. His expression didn’t change, but something between them did. She would have sworn to the fact. Not that you could tell that by his friendly, perfectly innocent “Sleep well.”

She stepped into the room and closed the door firmly.

Well?
Probably more like
hell.

He shook his head. That wasn’t fair. He knew Jessie wasn’t Faith. Faith’s death had been an accident. It couldn’t be called a freak accident because saddles slipped more often than people wanted to admit or talk about. The horse breathes in, expanding its belly, the person tightening the cinch forgets to knee the horse or give the cinch an extra tug… Who knows what happened that night? The end result was still the same.

It was wrong of him to associate Jessie’s job with Faith’s. He didn’t know anything about her career—other than the fact she’d wound up falling into his arms this morning. And he knew she was damn lucky not to have been hurt worse.

What more did he need to know about her chosen profession? Nothing. She was not the sort of woman he was looking for. Not that he was actively looking, of course. His life was still in flux at the moment. His relationship with Shiloh was changing. He’d returned home to try to rebuild some kind of relationship with his father…who wasn’t here.

He pushed the thought away. The point was he had no intentions of getting involved with another dedicated athlete type. He wouldn’t. He refused.

Then why was he pacing on the porch instead of going inside and having a normal—
boring?
—night with his daughter?

He slammed the heel of his hand against the railing of the deck.
No. Where the hell had that thought come from?

“Oh, hi, Cade. Great place you have. Shiloh just showed me around.”

“Thanks. It’s—” He stopped himself from saying
my dad’s.
It wasn’t. Not anymore. “Shiloh and I still have a way to go before it feels like home.”

Remy cocked her head. “Wasn’t this always your home? I must have misunderstood.”

“No. You didn’t. This is where I grew up, but I haven’t spent much time around here for a lot of years. Buck remarried after my mom passed, and Helen, my stepmother, did a bunch of remodeling. Added the second floor, actually,” he said, looking up. “And Buck’s done a lot to the place over the years. Including the new
granny
house.” The word always made him smirk. Buck hadn’t been much of a father; Cade didn’t have high hopes that he’d make a better grandfather.

“Oh,” she said, smiling. “So, you have a little of the wanderlust, too. Like Jessie.”

He didn’t see the parallel. Texas was a long way from Iceland. But he didn’t say so. “I’d better get inside and make sure Shiloh isn’t online. Punishment for climbing that tower today.”

“Yeah, wow. That was scary. Jessie makes it look so easy, but you wouldn’t catch me up on that thing. No way, no how.”

Although the two women were both fair and there
was
a strong family resemblance, he had a hard time reconciling the fact they were twins. Identical twins.

How identical? he wondered.

When she moved to walk past him, Cade turned, too. His shoulder bumped her shoulder, and he politely steadied her with a hand on her arm.

Nothing. Not a hint of tingle.

“Have a good night,” he said. “Dad has satellite in both the bedrooms, if you’re interested.”

“Cool,” she said, blithely traipsing down the steps—obviously also unaffected by their contact. “I wouldn’t even own a TV if it weren’t for
Sentinel Passtime.
I love watching Jessie.”

He blinked in surprise. “I thought the goal of a stunt person was to look so much like the star nobody could tell the difference?”

“It is and she does. She’s the best. But Jess and I have a special kind of bond. Twin sense. Believe me, I know her when I see her. G’night.” She wiggled her fingers and strolled across the lawn.

He thought a moment. He was pretty sure he had a couple of episodes of
Sentinel Passtime
on his digital recorder. Would he be able to spot Jessie if he saw her pretending to be someone else?

He opened the door and walked inside. He’d check it out after Shiloh was in bed. He was curious. That was all.

Stumbling along a pitch-black trail to reach the pinnacle of what passed for a mountain in these parts was not part of the brochure, he thought grumpily.

Faith Mountain, Matthew called this place. “That’s not its given name,” he’d said last night when he talked Buck into joining the small group planning the hike. “But those of us who come here often know it’s a very spiritual epicenter.”

Buck didn’t think that word meant what Matthew thought it meant.

“The moments just before dawn are especially porous,” he claimed.
Porous?
“If you truly want to reach someone who has passed over to the other side, this could be your best chance.”

Baloney. Complete and utter hoodoo nonsense, Buck thought. But he decided to make the climb anyway. He didn’t know why. To prove he could? Probably. Both of his wives had called him bullheaded. “You’d spend a hundred bucks to prove the dollar in your hands was worthless, wouldn’t you?” Helen once asked.

He would. He probably had. Numerous times.

Take this retreat, for example. He was paying ten times that to prove what? That he wasn’t a complete and utter screwup where relationships were concerned?

He didn’t know. Maybe he’d ask Helen when he
saw
her this morning.

His thick-sole hiking boot caught on the tip of a jagged rock and he stumbled, catching his balance using the brand-new high-tech walking sticks he’d purchased at the retreat store the day before.

“Careful,” Matthew said, suddenly materializing a step away from Buck.

The leader of the group—a silver-haired fellow in his sixties—motioned for everyone to fan out around him. “We’ve reached the pinnacle,” he said in a hushed whisper, his voice so achingly poignant you’d have thought they were looking at a double rainbow.

Buck covered his snicker with a fake cough.

“Are you, okay, Buck?”

“I’m fine, Matthew. Thank you.”

“Good. We use this time to meditate individually, and then rejoin everyone to chant
Ohm
before we head back down.” He directed his flashlight toward a generous-size flat rock a few feet away.

Buck followed the light and sat. The rock was cold but he ignored the distraction. He was here to focus. On the past, mostly. On memories he’d felt certain had been flushed away by a million or so bottles of Jack Daniel’s. The people he’d loved. The ones he’d lost. When he looked at Matthew, his tutor, he was reminded of Charles. His firstborn.

The two were nothing alike, but Charles would have been Matthew’s age now if he’d lived. Hard to believe he’d been gone thirty years or better. Funny the things that stuck out in his memory, Buck thought.

Like his firstborn’s first tooth, which the baby promptly buried in the fleshy part of his father’s thumb. Buck had carried the scar for years. He reached up and rubbed his thumb across his nose.

God, how he’d loved that boy.

Proud? His pals had claimed Buck had turned into the most obnoxious, boastful parent they knew. “My kid did this. My kid did that.”

A heaviness settled over him.

My kid thinks I killed his mother.

And maybe I did.

Not on purpose, of course. Neglect. Pure and simple. Too busy acquiring land, juggling government contracts, investing in his breeding program, drinking with his buddies. He’d missed what his kids saw every day. His wife was disappearing. Literally.

He’d never even heard of an eating disorder before his wife was diagnosed with bulimia. He took her to the University Of Minnesota Medical School for treatment. He got her the best care he could find. But they couldn’t undo the damage her self-starvation had inflicted on her body—especially her heart.

Passed away. Too young. In the prime of her life. Such a waste.

Platitudes became his new reality.

If he could overlook the fact that his wife was barfing up the elaborate meals she cooked for her family, how could he possibly be in charge of three kids all by himself? He was a failure. He only had to look in his eldest son’s eyes to see proof of that. He went searching for help.

“I married Helen for your sake, Charles,” he remembered telling his then seventeen-year-old son. “You and Renata and Cade. Cade, especially. You’re almost grown, but Cade needs a mother. He’s still a little kid.”

Buck looked into the murky near light of daybreak. He could almost see him. Handsome as sin. Filled with potential—and fury.

That’s a lie, Dad. For once in your life, admit the truth. You married Helen because you were a coward. A complete and utter coward.

“Dawn,” a voice said.

Buck turned to stare at the red ball inching above the indistinct curve of the earth. Blurry. Not from clouds, but from tears. The kind that came from shame.