River's End (River's End Series, #1) (25 page)

It was mid-afternoon by the time he reached the ranch. The day was very hot outside. He glanced at the dash of his truck, which said it was over a hundred degrees. The air conditioning was on high, but he fully expected the furnace-like air that would engulf him when he got out. He pulled a U-turn in the driveway and backed the trailer up until it was under the lean-to of the storage shop. Once in place, he unhooked the hitch before unloading his gear into the barn. Beads of sweat rolled off his face and arms. He finally got back into the truck, and pulled it forward before parking next to Ian’s truck. It was Saturday afternoon and seemed like everyone was home.

He got out, and started up the porch steps, eager to return and see his boys, and… well, maybe he was even glad to see Erin. So what? He’d gotten used to her presence over the last few weeks. He stopped dead when something blue caught his eye and curiously walked down the porch, turning the corner to the far side of the house.

There, smack dab in the middle of his alfalfa field, was a big, blue, above-ground, round pool. It was hideous. It stood off the ground about five feet, with a white ladder that hooked over the end nearest to him. And there, in the middle of the pool, was Erin, floating in an inner tube with her legs trailing along and the water up to her shins. Her butt hung down and her arms rested on the sides. Her head was back with a pair of sunglasses stuck on top of it. She wore a bikini. That same damned, flowered, yellow-and-pink bikini she wore to work. Now she was wearing it in the middle of his alfalfa field.

He stalked over, but she didn’t seem to know he was there. She floated along as if worry free and without a care in the world. Bees buzzed in the wildflowers, and the heat seemed to shimmer off the land, nearly blinding him.

She was sound asleep.

“What the hell is this piece of shit?”

Her eyes popped open and she almost fell right into the water. She looked at him, disoriented, for a moment and finally caught the edge of the pool with her hand before she could steady herself. With his eyes firmly on her face, he tried to ignore the visible strain and pull of her bare thighs as she tried to reposition the inner tube. She had gorgeous legs, small, slim and tan, with well-shaped knees and slender thighs that blossomed into a small, trim ass.

“Jack! You’re back.”

“Yeah, I’m back.” He mimicked her exclamation with a grumpy tone. He nodded at the monstrosity in his field. “Now what the hell is this? And why is it in the middle of my alfalfa field?”

“It’s a swimming pool.”

“I can damn well see that, Erin. What is it doing here? How did it get here, for that matter?”

“Oh… well, Ian and Ben helped me. Shane couldn’t because he took off a few days ago on his motorcycle. I’m sure Ian knows where he was going and why.”

“Who bought the pool?”

She squirmed around in the inner tube, her legs slipping and making squealing sounds on the plastic. A crease marred her forehead. “Uh, well, I guess you did.”

“I sure as shit didn’t buy a white trash pool and put it in the middle of my horses’ alfalfa fields.”

“Well, it was the only flat spot we could find,” she said, her voice sounding as if that was a perfectly reasonable excuse.

“You used
my money
to buy this? How?”

“No. Not your money per se. It was more like the ranch money. You know, for ranch improvements.”

He shut his eyes and counted backwards from ten. “You took petty cash for this?”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, I didn’t,” she said with a hearty shake of her head. “I would never do that… but, well, Ben did.”

“You convinced my son to take money from me?”

“It wasn’t like that. It was a hundred degrees or more each day you were gone.”

“And we have a nice, cold river located right down there.”

“Well, yeah, but we can’t spend all day there. This helps a lot and Charlie just loves it. It was his idea. I simply, you know, helped him pick out the best one.”

He sucked in a breath and slowly exhaled. “Let me get this straight: you drove my younger son into town, to buy this monstrosity of a pool with money you had my older son steal from the ranch funds, and then you had them set it up here?”

Her gaze seemed suddenly weary as she swallowed and nodded, “Well, yes. I suppose so. But it wasn’t like that. Certainly not as sinister as you’re making it sound.”

There was a sudden ruckus behind him and Jack turned to find Charlie running across the porch before launching himself into Jack’s arms in a happy hug. Ben, too, came forward with a hug, and Ian stood at the edge, smiling, until he saw Jack’s face.

Jack glowered back at Erin. Charlie jumped around, appearing very excited. “Isn’t it great, Dad? We use it every single day.”

“It’s in the middle of my alfalfa field.”

“You surely won’t miss this little bit,” Erin muttered.

He glared at Erin. “And what do you know of how much feed I need for the horses? You know exactly shit about my business. And you had no right to put this… this piece of crap here or spend my money on it.”

Charlie’s face fell and Ben took a step back. Erin slid off the inner tube to stand up. The water came up to her collarbone. She walked towards the ladder.

“You’re overreacting, Jack.”

“How did you get it all set up?”

She looked towards Ian, who glanced at Jack before he smiled and shrugged. “You helped them?” Jack asked incredulously.

“Sure. They asked me. And it seemed harmless enough. It
has
been hot, Jack.”

He opened his mouth to speak and looked at Erin, and then at Ian. They shared a smile. Since when did these two get so chummy? As far as he knew, they never once talked to one another. Now they were… what? BFFs?

Suddenly walking over to the ladder, Jack climbed up on it, and leaned down to grab Erin by her waist. He pulled her up and threw her over his shoulder. Her wet body dripped, soaking his denim shirt as she twisted, squirmed and screamed. He put a hand on her ass to hold her there.

“Jack Rydell! Put me down this second. What is wrong with you? What the hell are you doing?”

“Doing? I’m just showing you where we swim on my ranch,” he said as he started walking across the field. He went down the driveway and towards the path to the beach. His kids stared, open-mouthed, as they trailed behind, but at a distance. No doubt, they were just as unsure of what the hell to do. Meanwhile, Erin screamed and kicked her legs the entire journey to the river’s edge. He had to loop an arm around her shins to hold her still. She weighed no more than a sack of feed, so it wasn’t hard for him to carry her, although she was slippery as an eel.

He quickly strode towards the river, now in full summer, which made it lower and warmer. It looked beautiful in the sunlight shimmering around it and the mountains, all hazy and purple, above it. He strode up towards Rydell Rock and she started shrieking louder.

“Ian! For God’s sake. Stop him,” she yelled loudly behind him. By then, he quickly picked his way up the rocky trail, right to the top of the large rock that jutted a good twenty feet above the river. He couldn’t chance looking back with Erin screaming and fighting him. He carefully climbed to the top without losing his balance or his hold of her. She twisted and fought as hard as a caterpillar caught in a spider web. He was surprised at her strength, once she figured out what he intended to do.

At the top, he stood on the edge of the rock. Below him was a deep, clear, slow-moving pool of water. It glowed with dappled sunlight on the sandy bottom. It was perfectly safe. She’d be fine.

“Don’t you dare, Jack!
Don’t you dare!
I swear to God, I’ll kill you. I will. If you do this, I’ll make you regret it every day for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah? How’s that?” he asked, suddenly visibly amused by her while his anger seemed to instantly diminish. Her ass was firm and tight under his hand as she struggled. Her breasts bumped against his back and she pounded her fists into his lower back, from where she hung with her hair dangling nearly to the ground.

She didn’t answer him, but yelled towards the beach again. He glanced back. Ian, Ben and Charlie just stood there, shading their eyes as they watched them.

“Do something. One of you. Please help me.”

He grinned as a fresh batch of anger seemed to consume her. The more she fought his unrelenting grip, the more she merely ground herself closer to him. He suddenly popped her up, so she was upright in his arms, and then smiled before letting his arms out and throwing her off the rock.

The water surrounded her body, breaking her fall and leaving her buoyant. She had her nose plugged and kicked towards the surface, anger rushing through her bloodstream, and propelling her forward. How dare he? How dare Jack Rydell storm back home, then carry her down to the river just to throw her off a cliff? She could have hit her head on one of the rocks! She could have broken a bone by hitting the sandy bottom. Or drowned. She could have freaking died. She finally surfaced, coughing and sputtering.

Looking above, she saw where Jack stood, silhouetted against the eye-searing blue of the afternoon sky. His eyes were shaded as he stared down at her. He looked big and hulking against the sky, like the king of the river, watching over her. His hands were on his hips, with his elbows out, and he was laughing. At her. Again. She glowered at him, but doubted he could see her expression. She would never, ever forgive him. Never. Ever. He could crawl over broken glass and cut his hands and knees to shreds, and she wouldn’t feel any pity for him. She wouldn’t even offer him a Band-Aid.

Kicking her legs towards the base of the rock she’d just been thrown off, the river circled around her, creating a mini cove-like effect. Once she set her feet down, the surrounding rock blocked her off from the beach as well as Jack above her.

She was stuck. She couldn’t swim up the river because the current was too swift and deep. She had no shoes on, so she couldn’t climb up the steep ledge either. Jack yelled over towards the beach that she was fine.
Fine?
Fine to be stuck in a rushing river with no way out? Yeah, sure; she was peachy.

She glanced up when tiny pebbles slid past her hands where she clung to the edge of the rock. Jack’s silhouette came above her again. He was climbing down the deep V of the rocks that provided the only access to where she was stuck.

“What the hell is the matter with you? You could have killed me. I don’t know who you think you are, but you had no right to do that to me.”

She started yelling at him before he took another step. He paused on the rock, leaning back. “You keep yelling and I’m turning back, Ms. Poletti. And by no means did I almost kill you.”

“What if I couldn’t swim?”

“Seeing as how this started over a pool you put in my alfalfa field, I took a wild guess that wasn’t the case.”

“You’re a lowdown dick head. You had no right to manhandle me just because you happen to be bigger than me. I…”

She stopped mid-sentence with her mouth hanging open, when she saw him turn and start to climb back up. “Hey. Where are you going?” she called after him.

“Shut up, Erin, or I’ll leave you down there.”

She frowned. How dare he order her to
shut up
after what
he’d
just done to
her
. But she was bobbing in deep water, with no shoes, no floaties, no life jacket and therefore, no means of safely getting across the river and back home.

Snapping her mouth shut, she quit looking up and instead, glared down into the river, watching the sunlight sway as it outlined the sandy river bottom with golden spider webs. It was so clear and pretty, the sight almost made her ache.

Finally, Jack’s feet dropped down to the rocks next to her. His boots splashed at the water edges where he was forced to stand in three inches of water. She hoped his socks were wet and soggy. Besides it was a hundred and seven degrees today, who else but Jack would have on jeans and leather cowboys boots? Even Ian wore shorts and flip-flops as he spent most of the afternoon with her and the boys at the river.

“Out, Erin. I have work to get back to.”

She glared up at him as she treaded water. She didn’t want to pull herself out with Jack right there, which was ridiculous. He, along with everyone else within fifty miles, had, at some point, seen her working a coffee machine in her bikini. But now, here, in this small, tight spot, soaking wet, she didn’t want to be on display for him. He stood there, his hands on his hips, frowning, as he waited for her to exit the water.

“You’re still an asshole, Jack,” she said as she scrambled up the rocky incline and stood right next to him. They were on a three-foot wide flat rock, which was the only stable spot to stand. She was way too aware of her wet body next to Jack’s fully clothed, dry body. She refused to look up at him. The air was so hot, her skin could have had steam evaporating off it.

“And you shouldn’t spend my money on such crap.”

“It isn’t crap. Charlie loves it. He swims until nine o’clock at night in it.”

“He does that down here too.”

“It’s his summer too, Jack. He can’t always be getting back to work. He wanted it.”

“Yeah. I know. He’s asked for it the last three summers. The thing is: there’s a perfectly good river less than a five-minute walk away with our own beach and swimming hole. There is no reason to put some oversized wading pool in the middle of a working ranch. And if you knew anything at all about parenting, you’d understand that I can’t grant every single desire or wish my kids ask for. Charlie wanted to light his own fireworks on the Fourth of July; think I should have let him do that too?”

She glared at her pink-painted toe-nails as the sun-laced water lapped over them. “No,” she said with grudging annoyance. “You still didn’t have to throw me off a cliff. Why would you do that?”

“Because,” he grinned and shrugged, “I’ve wanted to do it too many times ever since you first drove up my driveway. You don’t even know how much, Erin.”

She took her foot back and kicked his shin. All she managed to do, however, was hurt her toes. His boots were that high. She swore as she hopped into the water and fell backwards; then screamed in pain as the rocks hit her butt.

Jack’s hands came under armpits and he lifted her effortlessly out of the water. “You are one giant pain in my ass.”

Then he shuffled her around, and told her to get on his back, climbing up the rock as easily as he walked up his driveway. She shut her eyes, afraid to fall back onto the sharp rocks. They would scrape her skin if she fell. Finally, she felt his body shifting and saw they were on level ground. She opened her eyes and looked around. They were on top of the rock. The river rushed towards them, clashing into the rock and then turning nearly horizontally to keep flowing downstream. Mountains lined the view and the sky glowed in a blinding, bright blue. It was breathtaking to see in the dazzling sun. Then she felt the hot rocks beneath her bare feet, which might have been a hundred and seventeen degrees. Jack glanced at her feet when she made a whimpering noise.

“Oh, for the love of God,” he said and once again, flipped her up and over his shoulder, starting down towards the beach where the others waited. This time, she was silent even though she wanted to pummel his back. Her ass was heads up for Ian and the rest of the world to see. The tips of her hair dragged over the rocks and sand. She looked like a cavewomen being hauled around by the Neanderthal asshole, Jack Rydell. He finally flipped her over and her bare feet hit the hot, dry sand.

She straightened her back with as much dignity as she could muster in the situation. She had been manhandled, humiliated, and now stood soaking wet with all four males looking at her.

She turned on Ian. “You are the biggest, wimpiest, asshole I’ve ever met besides Jack. You and Ben. You’re big enough. You could have taken him. That pool was partly your doing too. Both of you insisted. But when the lord of the ranch, over here, comes home, you two cower like little pansy-asses. I hope to God no one ever needs actual help when you two are the only ones around, because you’ll probably throw them under the bus like you did to me.”

“Now Erin, calm down. I didn’t know what Jack was doing.”

“He had me draped over his shoulder like a throw rug. You could have done something.”

Ben glanced at his dad. “I did get the compressor to blow the top ring on the pool up.”

“I helped fill it with water,” Charlie added.

“And all of you put your big fat butts in it too!” She was so mad, she felt like she could breathe fire on all of them. She didn’t deserve the blame, or to be manhandled simply because she was the only girl, and therefore, weaker than the rest of them. She reached down, and before Jack could figure out what she intended to do, picked up a fistful of dry, fine, white sand. She stood up and threw it directly into his face. Straight into his eyes and mouth.

He jerked back in surprise and put his fists in his eyes, rubbing them as he spit sand from his mouth. She grabbed more and threw it at him. She could only hit his neck and back as he was bent over, rubbing it off his face. She was about to do it a third time when he grabbed her wrists with both of his hands. He was breathing hard and glared at her with his eyes narrowing.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Oh yeah. Why not? You gonna drown me this time? The only reason you get to do anything to me is because you’re bigger than I am. Congratulations, Jack. You can pick on someone half your size. Why don’t you throw Charlie next? After all, he’s the one who put water in the pool.”

Jack nodded and glanced behind her. The boys looked weary and were unusually quiet. Even Ian was apprehensive. She put her shoulders back; in for a penny, in for the pound.

He let her go and she was so surprised, she almost fell backwards again.

“You’re right. It wasn’t just you.”

Jack lifted his shirt over his head, suddenly shirtless and only two feet away from her. His jeans were secured by a brown belt and a shiny belt buckle, which he quickly undid and pulled loose from his pants. He began kicking off his boots and her mouth came open when she saw his bare chest in front of her. It was covered in fine, auburn-colored hair, with a spray of freckles that spattered over his chest and dipped into the wrinkled crunch of a nearly perfect six-pack of abs. He was ripped. She should have already known that from the endless physical work he did around the ranch. But Jack didn’t wear particularly tight shirts to advertise his muscle tone. His arms had muscles, but nothing like his chest. She was so stunned by his suddenly naked chest, she forgot to figure out what he was doing. Only when he picked her up, and again, walked into the water, throwing her over his head, did she remember; he was getting revenge on her.

She came up for air, just in time to see him throwing his older son in and chasing after his younger who was, by then, giggling and shrieking happily as he danced around the beach. Jack caught Charlie, who giggled and pleaded, while Jack, much gentler now, threw his son into the river. Then, just as quickly, Jack was in the water and swimming towards Charlie. He was there when Charlie came up, grabbing him and dragging him towards shallower water. All the while, Charlie laughed and screamed with delight.

Ben went after his dad, trying to push over his father, but he was no match for Jack. Erin was sure of it. Ben was only a few inches shorter than Jack, but his skinny frame was half the width and half the body weight. Still, Jack fell into the water, going under. He came back up, grinning, with water dripping from his hair, now turning nearly brown from being wet. He shook his head, running his hands through it. The sun glittered off the beads of water, spiking his hair; and all the while, he kept grinning, wet, and naked from the waist up as the water rushed over him. Jack looked ten years younger, and ten years hotter. She stared, stunned by how different he suddenly seemed. How much more fun he became as he splashed and frolicked with his two sons. She remembered thinking she couldn’t picture Jack ever swimming here at his own beach. Let alone, frolicking. Yet, here he was. His strong arms easily cut the water, as he time and again, threw Charlie in and retrieved him, all the while, laughing and grinning. Ben also tried to outdo Jack in swimming against the current. Ian wondered off after watching them for awhile.

Jack didn’t forget about Erin. He threw her in a few more times, despite her protests, her screams, and her pleading. He threw her in, held her down, and even tickled her underwater until she felt like she swallowed half the river.

Eventually, the boys started to tire and she did too. Her weary muscles shook from the strain of trying to fight Jack off. He simply held her out and let her struggle. She was no match for him. She finally followed Charlie out and they fell onto the sand, wet and worn out. The sand stuck to them instantly. It was hot on their wet skin and felt wonderful as it warmed her up. It wasn’t long before Jack and Ben came out and joined them.

Ben and Charlie were starting to play back and forth, and decided to run up and jump into the pool, leaving her alone with Jack. The once loud, playful noises of kids and fun suddenly stopped. Jack sat near her, leaning back on his elbows, his wet torso gleaming under the sun. She tried not to look. But he was right there. Right in front of her. He ran a hand through his hair, squeezing water off it, and his arm muscles bunched as he moved. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. Her hair was wet and heavy down her back.

It suddenly felt different. The air seemed strained and weird. She wasn’t sure why, or what might have caused the change, but it was like Jack could hear the sudden acceleration of her heart beating. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

Why did Jack seem so relaxed, lying in the sun, and drying in the warm air? Ian mentioned at one point that Jack needed the time away. It was the only time he didn’t have to worry so much about what he did or how it reflected on the boys. It took her a few days to figure out what Ian meant. Jack was off somewhere getting laid where his kids couldn’t find out about it. And ever since learning that, she obsessively imagined what kind of woman Jack would choose to have sex with. She’d be tall, no doubt. And well built. And probably smart. Someone who was equal to him.