River's End (River's End Series, #1) (19 page)

He glanced at her. “I find it curious you came, but no; why would I be mad?”

“I wish I could visit my mother today.”

“Where is she?”

“Cremated. I spread her ashes at one of her favorite beaches along Puget Sound in Seattle.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. No one lasted very long in my mother’s life. She drove everyone away. Even Chance.”

“Except for you.”

She smiled. “Yes, well I had to have her in order to navigate my life. So I never had any choice.”

“You miss her?”

She glanced off towards the meadow to her right, which disappeared into brown, rolling mountains that rose into the pixie blue sky. “I wish it were that simple. Or that I merely loved her and missed her. I’m angry. She’s not supposed to be dead. She chose to be. How do you grieve for someone who deliberately causes you so much pain?”

“I don’t know. How do you leave your only son because you don’t like where you live?”

She jerked her head towards Jack. “What do you mean?”

He nodded towards his parents’ grave. “That isn’t my mother. My mother isn’t dead. She left me and my father when I was two years old. My dad remarried Donna when I was four. She was my mother in every sense of the word.”

Erin’s mouth opened. “I had no idea. So your brothers…”

“Are my half-brothers.”

“Holy shit,” she said before blushing at her own language. “Where is she now?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. She hated the ranch. She met my father one summer when she was staying in Pattinson. She went to the rodeo there and met my dad. They were married too quickly. It was one big adventure to her at first. She grew up in Spokane, and her family had money; and she wasn’t used to this kind of life. Eventually, reality set in and she hated it here. It was too quiet, too rural, too backwoodsy. My dad worked long hours…”

“Like you do?”

He paused and then nodded. “Yeah, like I do. Anyway, she left.”

“You never heard from her again?”

“No. In some ways, I don’t blame her. This place, and this lifestyle, isn’t something most people can marry into. You gotta be born into it, and raised in it. If not, most people can’t handle it, and eventually leave.”

“My mother was mentally ill, depressed, and half the time, stoned out on drugs or scripts. She wasn’t exactly the ideal example of motherly love and affection. But she was all I had. And now that Chance has completely deserted me, I’m really alone. All alone and it scares the shit out of me. If I died, who would even care?”

Shaking her head, she sat down. Why did she say that to Jack? He didn’t want to hear her problems or phobias. He couldn’t understand what it was like to have no home or enduring ties, since for his entire life, he’d had far too many.

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. There’s not one family member. My mom never stayed in one place long enough for there to be family friends. I know you wouldn’t be glad if I died, but really, Jack, you’d only feel sorry because you’re a decent person, and wouldn’t want anyone to die. But as for me, and who I am, there isn’t a soul alive who would miss me, grieve for me, or mourn me.”

Jack sat down next to her and she looked up at him in surprise before scooting to the left as far as she could. His knees rose up, as the bench was too low for him. Leaning an arm on one knee, he stared out over the river.

“Feeling particularly sorry for yourself today, Erin?”

Her mouth opened, ready to respond in offended protest, until she realized he was right. She was having a pity party. Just because all of it was true, and she felt bitter, right down to her baby toes, it didn’t give her the license to burden Jack Rydell with the nitty-gritty of her pathetic life and inner conflicts.

She shook her head finally. “Yes. You’re right. It’s not like you don’t know grief, huh?”

Jack nodded, without looking at her, but didn’t elaborate.

Finally, she asked, “How did she die?”

Jack’s lips were pursed, and he was quiet. The bugs suddenly seemed much louder, and the sun felt hotter on her arms. “She had a rare, genetic heart condition. Before we learned about it, it was too late. She pretty much died out of nowhere. There was little warning, or way of knowing.”

“That’s terrible. I’m sorry, Jack. Were you and she the same age?”

“Yeah.”

“Kara mentioned that. She said you’d been together since you were fifteen.”

“Kara Fisher? When did you meet her?”

“At Charlie’s classroom Tea. She didn’t like hearing that I stay here, at the ranch.”

He didn’t comment for a long moment; then to her surprise, he laughed. “Is that what had you so wigged out after the Tea?”

“Well, yeah. Sure. Part of it. Plus, the fact that I couldn’t read what a third grader wrote to me. It wasn’t exactly my proudest moment. Anyway, Kara mentioned she was Lily’s best friend and kept grilling me about why I was here.”

“Kara Fisher was never Lily’s best friend. She came onto me at Lily’s funeral for God’s sake.”

After the solemnity of their discussion, and the sadness of the day, Erin felt a smile finally starting in her lips. After all she got stressed over, it turned out that Kara was a worse person than she was.

“Oh. I just thought her bitchiness stemmed from her friendship with your wife, not jealousy.”

He turned and finally smiled at her fully. Her heart practically stopped. “You know what? She is a bitch. Lily never liked her.”

“She said Charlie and her son were best friends.”

Jack sighed. “They’re good friends, which is the only reason why I tolerate her. Don’t, however, let her get to you again.”

She allowed a quiet moment to pass before she finally asked, “Were you happy?”

“Happy? With what?”

“With Lily.”

His expression changed from affable to the familiar, usual sternness he often looked at her with. “Why would you ask that?”

She shrugged. “I just wondered.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as if letting the sun wash over him. Finally, he let out a long breath. “Yeah. I was happy.”

“How did you get through it? I mean, when it ended?”

“I had no choice. I had three kids to raise, a roof to provide over everyone’s head, and horses to feed.”

“Did you eventually get over it? Does the passage of time get you over it?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “No. Time doesn’t get you over it.”

“Then how do you stand it? When you see your sons at their mother’s grave, and Charlie doesn’t even remember her, while Ben’s heart breaks all over again, how do you stand it?”

“Again I have no choice. I have to stand it.”

She dropped her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut. “What if I can’t stand it?”

“What do you mean? What are you telling me, Erin? You thinking about leaving? And I don’t mean leaving just my ranch.”

She shook her head as the tears burned her eyeballs and she tried to hold them back. “No. I don’t mean that. I don’t mean like my mother. I just mean, hell… I don’t know. You’re just so strong, and I’m so useless. You lost so much more than I did, but went on to raise three kids, while I can’t even manage to feed, clothe or provide myself shelter. When I see what you’ve done, and handled, it makes me so ashamed of what I can’t do, and can’t handle.”

“I’ve had a few more years to get here.”

“Bullshit. You always dealt with life face on. And you dealt well.”

He shrugged. “I made a lot of mistakes raising my kids, especially after Lily died. You just gotta keep moving, keep trying.”

“You’ve seen how well I do. I was literally abandoned on your door step.”

“You were. Again, your brother is a blood-sucking lowlife, whom I wouldn’t trust to take care of one of my dogs. So, not totally your fault.”

“When Chance first saw me, he told me to use Joey to get what I wanted out of him. I was repelled initially by what my brother was suggesting, but then, isn’t that exactly who I am? I knew Joey four days before I slept with him. And only got to stay here because of that. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t still be here now. I am exactly what Chance said I was.”

“Yeah, then why did you tell me that? Why did you warn me Chance was likely to steal from me? I don’t know everything about you, Erin, but I do know whatever motivates you isn’t sleazy or evil like whatever is festering inside your brother. And if you really want to know the truth, what I saw your brother do to you with that snake was why you got to stay, not because of Joey.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged and stretched his legs before him. “I mean, I clearly saw that your brother meant you harm of some kind or another. I also knew you had no one else, and no place to go. It didn’t take me long to figure that out. So I decided you could stay. Even before Chance pulled that stunt. Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t fire him? I hated him. I detested the work he did and never trusted him getting near any of my horses. Why did you think I let him stay?”

“Because of Joey.”

“No. It was because I knew you had nowhere else to go.”

She snapped her mouth shut and felt the deep heat of a blush that started in her chest and swiftly rose up her neck and into her face.

“You risked letting me stay. I could have easily turned out to be like Chance.”

His gaze brushed over her face. “No. You couldn’t. I knew that much.”

“You always trust your judgment despite the obvious proof otherwise?”

“Yeah, I do, and I’ve never been wrong yet.”

She shook her head at his cockiness. And confidence in himself. She’d never felt sure of anything in her life, or any thought she’d ever had.

“Your brothers don’t like me.”

“My sons do.”

She was closer to him. Physically, their bodies moved closer, as if drawn together. His face was turned towards hers, looking down. She froze. What did the look in his eyes mean? What were the strange emotions roiling in her gut? And why was her attention pinned on his mouth?

She swallowed and felt like her heart just climbed up her throat and lodged into her tonsils. “I should go.”

It was a stupid thing to say, yet again. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Jack knew that. Of all the people in the entire world, Jack most certainly knew that about her.

He finally stood up. “I was thinking you’re ready to try riding outside the arena. Want to take a walk down the road?”

She let air fill her lungs as the strange tension left. “You mean on horseback?”

He chuckled. “Of course, on horseback. What better way to hurry this day over? You up for it?”

She hesitated, then nodded. She might have been a loser in every other aspect of her life, but she could learn to ride a horse. And happily spend the worst day of her life with Jack, instead of all alone and feeling depressed.

Jack and his brothers were busy over the next few weeks. They planted all the fields and spent hours of their days moving sprinklers and keeping the alfalfa damp. It would feed most of the horses during the winter. As the days lingered longer, the work to do also increased. They started before sunrise, and worked long into the twilight. Jack was busy as always with his sons, his brothers, the ranch business, and horse training. Most nights, he fell into his bed, asleep before he managed to even cover himself.

Once in a while, he wished for a woman. For Lily. For sex. Luckily, however, he was too busy to spend a lot of time wanting what he couldn’t easily have. River’s End was a small place. He sure as hell wasn’t sleeping with someone’s sister or daughter from around there. And since he wasn’t interested in a relationship of any sort, he mostly took care of such urges when he was out of town. Plus, he didn’t want his sons to ever find out what he was up to or with whom. He frequently left the ranch overnight to take one of his horses to market, or return a trained horse to its home or a buyer. He met up with people from all around the west coast, seeking to buy one of his horses or asking him to train their horses.

It previously wasn’t as tough to deal with however. Frequently, he could go months without sex. But now, there was Erin. Right there on the ranch, not five hundred feet from the house, every single day. He saw her often enough, since he continued to teach her to ride, and other times when she wandered around the beach and barns. For a city girl, she spent hours on end out and about. Looking, walking, sitting, talking to the horses, and figuring out weekly chores she could do, as well as taking the initiative to do them.

He had to admit she surprised him. She was downright helpful and always tried extremely hard to do anything he said. She strove to remember all the instructions he gave her, with an earnestness and sincerity that made him turn away rather than let her see his amused smile. She was like Charlie in her eagerness to please.

Regularly seeing her out and about on the ranch, he now had an attractive, adult female in his constant sight. It wasn’t like he wanted to see Erin. It was just hard not to notice her subtle cleavage whenever she bent over to scoop hay into a stall, or her firm, little ass in jeans as she stretched to get her leg over a horse. It wasn’t like he wanted Erin Poletti; he was sure of that. He wanted a woman, but having Erin there always reminded him what he lacked, and soon became a bigger distraction than he counted on. Not since Lily first died did he miss having someone in his bed every night so much.

But she slept with his brother.
Not only that, but he saw her with his little brother, all dewy and fresh in the morning at the beach. He knew what her wild curls looked like after getting all messed up from sex. He knew then that he would never sleep with her.

Beyond her tryst with Joey, she was completely wrong for him. He had a fifteen, almost sixteen-year-old son who was as close to Erin’s age as he was. There was something very strange about that.

Besides, they were so different, it wasn’t even possible to imagine them together.

Joey didn’t like having her there, and was barely civil to her the few times he was forced into her proximity. She made a huge effort to stay away from the house, and out of their ways. He’d give her that. He didn’t see her like he formerly did, except after he volunteered and asked her to learn to ride. But that was part of who he was. He loved to teach people to ride. Erin wasn’t special just because he did so for her.

His brothers were often in the same position as he was. There weren’t a lot of women to have discreet sex with. Shane and Joey weren’t very discreet. But Jack had a teenage son to worry about, and Ian was as private as Jack. In fact, Jack rarely knew the girls his brothers were sleeping with. Other than, of course, Joey. He knew Joey had a girl from up the river coming over. Unlike Erin, this girl was very vocal, loud, and not the least bit shy of the other three men and two boys who lived there. He often wondered how Erin felt about it. She never said.

Joey expressed on many occasions that he wanted Erin to leave. Jack finally told Joey to get over it, since there was nowhere for her to go. She was staying.

Jack was okay with his decision. He didn’t mind her staying there, or living there, and soon grew used to her presence in the barn, the corrals, or watching him train. She often sat up on one of the fences and just observed him. She only spoke to him if he came over to her. She never disturbed or interrupted him, so it was easy to let her stay.

Joey had many comments about Erin’s presence on the ranch. So did Ian and Shane. Most everyone thought she must’ve been sleeping with one of them. Jack ignored most of the comments from men his age and older, who made remarks like how great it must be to have a hot piece of ass like her living off him. He heard other similarly rude statements and found it surprising. Was it simply because she was an outsider that people felt they could so easily talk about her? And in such derogatory ways?

Whatever, Jack usually shut them down before they hurled any more barbs. He’d already heard enough about Erin’s story, and witnessed her lack of self-esteem to realize she didn’t deserve that. He tried to ignore thinking that he once so easily wrote her off too.

****

Erin’s feet hurt. Finishing the car’s order, she stretched her arm far out the window of her booth to take the five-dollar bill the man held purposely out of reach so she’d have to lean for it and grab it. Of course, that was part of earning his tip, giving him a closer look at her tits. She grabbed the money, and smiled, as if she enjoyed it, then slid back into the booth and shut the window. Turning towards the other window, where another truck waited, she put a smile on her face as she opened the sliding glass.

“Hi, what can I…”

She quit talking mid-sentence when she realized it was Jack, in his idling truck. He looked into her eyes as his gaze wandered down over her. She’d been getting ogled for months and barely registered it anymore. Now, suddenly, with Jack looking at her, she felt the twinge of a blush flooding her face. His gaze met hers and his jaw clenched. He suddenly reached over, putting his truck into gear, and squealed out of the drive-through without a word to her. She stared after his truck in shock.

Holy shit!
She never expected Jack to come to her stand. He seemed to pretend she was asexual and didn’t even notice she was a woman or want to look at her. Shane had come through often enough, and Ian once or twice. She had even served some of Ben’s friends. Ben had the good grace to not look at her, and stared at her face with a smile that seemed to apologize for coming there.

She never expected Jack to come through. She sighed as she shut the window and finished her shift. Finally, she was done. She redressed in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals. The weather had been above seventy all week.

Once back at the ranch, she pulled in towards her trailer. It was two-thirty. Charlie and Ben weren’t home from school yet, and everyone else’s truck was gone, except Jack’s.

She quickly ran inside to change her clothes. Putting her jeans and boots on, she hastily started towards the barn.

Jack hadn’t opened up the main doors. Usually he did whenever he worked in there. When they were shut, the barn was dark and gloomy. She walked inside, finding Jack in the back. He had saddles spread out before him and was rubbing one of them with a rag. Whatever he was putting on them had a strong odor that singed her nose as she got closer.

He didn’t look up as she approached from where he sat on a stool before one of workbenches. He had to know she was there. The place was silent, but for the horses’ occasional hoof “clomps” and the soft nickering amongst them.

“Jack?” she finally said to his back. He stiffened, but rubbed harder at the leather. He didn’t look at her. She waited, but he refused to acknowledge her.

“Look if this is about earlier…”

He slammed the saddle down. “You don’t even think it’s a big deal, do you?”

She frowned. “What? Working the coffee stand? It’s not my first choice, but it’s something I can do.”

“Quit. You’re not working there anymore, not like that.”

Her mouth opened. Was he out of his mind? The fumes from the oil must have been affecting his judgment. “What are you talking about? I can’t quit. It’s my job. And damn it, you have no say as to where I work. Besides, why now? Why is this such a big deal now?”

He stood up and whipped around on his heel. “Because I didn’t know you were working there half-naked. I thought you were merely serving coffee.”

He didn’t know? All this time and no one ever mentioned she worked at the
Bikini Babes Barista
? Everyone else knew she worked there. “Your brothers didn’t tell you?”

“No one told me.”

“Even Ben?”

His jaw clenched. Okay, that wasn’t the thing to say. She didn’t get it. Why was he so angry? “What are you so pissed off about?”

“I’ve been wondering why I get so many salacious comments about you from other ranchers and friends in the area. I didn’t realize, of course, they’d all been ogling your half-naked ass while I kept cutting off their rude comments out of respect for you.”

“I thought you knew. I mean it wasn’t a secret I could ever expect to keep. And besides, I don’t get why you’re so upset about what I’m doing.”

“Why? Because you live on my ranch. Everyone already knows about you and Joey. But Joey’s moved on. And now they think it’s me, Erin. They think I let you stay here for me. So do you really think your working half-naked in a smutty coffee stand helps to squelch that rumor? What you do reflects on me, on my name, and on this ranch. And anything I do reflects on my two sons. That’s what this has to do with. And having to explain this to you finally does suggest perhaps you actually are stupid.”

Her mouth came open; first, from the shock of his crudeness, and second, that he’d go so far as to call her stupid. She stepped back as if he’d physically hit her.

“It’s just a swimsuit.”

“Yeah, right. Just a swimsuit.”

“If you’re so against it, why did you come there?”

He paused. She stumped him. He scowled harder at her.

“You were there to look at the girl in the bikini, weren’t you, Jack? Because I recall perfectly you telling me you never drink those drinks. So what? You can go there to look, but me working there makes me a whore? You’re acting like you caught me on the street corner, offering you a blow job for ten bucks.”

He didn’t answer her. Silence settled over the darkened barn as her angry words hung between them. She regretted them the minute they left her mouth. She closed her eyes and took a breath. “I have no skills, Jack. I can’t read. Where do you think I can find work? The local library? Maybe the law firm in town would employ me. When I told you I have nothing and no choices, this is just one of them.”

He shook his head in obvious disgust, then turned his back on her, leaning his arms on the workbench and staring at it.

She was ashamed. Never in her life had she felt so ashamed. She never meant to embarrass or disgust Jack. She would have done anything to take it back because of all she owed him. He showed her kindness and extended a hand to her when she had nothing and no one else.

She stepped closer to him. Guilt gnawed at her stomach. He hated her now. He thought she was cheap, slutty and easy. He’d seen her first with Joey, and now this. And he thought she was stupid. Which, of course she was, but to date, she somehow thought maybe he didn’t really think that of her.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t know you’d get this upset at me. I didn’t even know I was hiding it from you. I assumed Shane told you the first day he dropped me off there.”

Jack didn’t answer her and didn’t move. She felt tears burning her eyes. She couldn’t take Jack hating her. “I’ll quit. I will. I just need time to find something else, you know because…”

“Because you’re stupid?” he filled in for her. He turned his head to the side so he could see her and she nodded in the affirmative.

He let out a long sigh and she started to turn, stopping suddenly when his hand grabbed her wrist. Shocked, she looked down to where his long fingers encircled her wrist, then up into his eyes. He turned towards her. “You’re not stupid, Erin. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She shook her head. Who cares? She was and she knew it, just as long as Jack wasn’t mad at her. “It’s okay.”

“No. See, it’s not. It’s not okay you so blithely, or so easily think anyone can call you stupid. It’s not okay that job does nothing but reinforce that idea to you, and other people. It’s not okay no one ever taught you the basic skills to survive in life.”

She didn’t know what to say or what he wanted from her. He looked at her and there was heat in his eyes, his anger very obvious. She didn't know what he wanted her to do about the job.

He pulled her forward as his other hand came to her waist. She froze in his arms.
She was in Jack’s arms.
She didn’t get it. It couldn’t be real or happening. Jack couldn’t mean to do this. Then he shifted her closer to him, and the heat of his body burned through her clothes and seemed to radiate into her. Lowering his head, that quickly, his lips met hers.

He kissed her and she didn’t know what to do. Both of his hands moved to her waist. Then his tongue licked her lips. Her insides liquefied at his soft, gentle touch.
God! It was incredible
. She opened her mouth to him, as his tongue felt hot and wet. Her tongue met his, and their lips moved and danced, making her blood boil like it would explode from her. Jack was kissing her. The shock and thrill of it left her weak-kneed.