River's End (River's End Series, #1) (4 page)

Joey jumped up. “Erin. Hey.” He came around the table towards her. “I figured you left with Chance.”

She smiled. As if Chance would do anything with her. He left hours before without a single word. “No.”

Joey frowned and seemed puzzled by her brother’s treatment at her. Could Joey really not see what her brother was?

“Who’s this, Joe?”

The voice came from a man who was starting to rise from the table. He was a big man, almost as tall as Jack, but beefier, with thick arms, a big chest, and a shock of jet-black hair that was too long and straggly, which skimmed over his neck and shoulders. His short-sleeved shirt revealed tattoos on his magnificent biceps. He didn’t look anything like a man who worked on a ranch, but more like a biker.

“Erin Poletti. Chance’s little sister. She’s visiting him. Erin, this is my brother, Shane.”

Shane smiled. He had a smile like Joey that could reach inside a girl and steal her heart. White teeth flashed at her and his charm nearly knocked her for a loop.

“Hard to believe someone as pretty as you is related to that cowpoke.”

She smiled. Shane’s voice was amused, and his tone kidding. She didn’t take any malice from it, like she would have if Jack had said it.

Joey nodded towards the other man in the room. “That’s Ian.”

Ian stood up then and nodded solemnly at her, but his eyes lacked the heated resentment Jack’s gaze held. Ian had a hard time meeting her eyes. He was as shy as his brother, Shane, was a big, loud flirt, who didn’t mean anything he said. Ian was tall and skinny, with dark red hair and pale blue eyes.

Erin almost stepped back in dismay. They were all gorgeous. Every one of the Rydell brothers was like a different version of a catalogue model. There was the lanky, shy one; the muscle-bound, cocky one; the movie star-pretty Joey; and of course, the rugged, reserved Jack. It was disconcerting to her. They were not what she expected.

She turned then and looked at the pretty woman in the kitchen who shut the oven door and wiped her hands on a dishtowel. The woman averted her eyes, almost acting as if Erin wasn’t there.

Erin’s eyes lifted when she heard a sound beyond the group. Jack was standing there. He’d been watching, listening, and judging her. He came forward and handed her a vacuum. She was so surprised he got it for her, she forgot to reach out to take it.

“Your wife doesn’t mind?”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “My wife is dead.”

Her mouth opened and she looked towards the brothers and the kids. The tension in the room was thick and unpleasant. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Chance didn’t mention that.”

Jack turned from her. He ambled over to an oversized chair and sprawled out in it.

Joey put a hand on her arm. “These are Jack’s boys.”

At this, the boys jumped up. The older one came over with a silly grin on his face. Erin groaned inwardly. She’d recognize that look anywhere. The young teen couldn’t get past ogling her chest. Not that she regarded it as any kind of compliment. He probably thought any woman who had a pulse also had interesting breasts.

“This is Ben.”

Ben came forward and shook her hand with a polite “Hello.” She glanced at their father in shock. He sat in the chair, his legs sprawled before him, hands locked behind his head as he stared at her with smirk on his face. He could have learned something from his son’s polite behavior.

“And that’s Charlie.” Charlie looked about eight or nine. He was ducking his head and staring at the table. Erin sighed. He seemed like the spitting image of his father in both his demeanor and looks. She wouldn’t have pegged Jack as having kids. Or that his wife was dead. Erin turned to include the young woman behind her, and the obvious question: who was she?

“Oh Erin, this is Kailynn Hayes. She does everything around here. Lynnie, this is Chance’s sister, Erin.”

Kailynn glanced at Erin and said with a dismissive shrug, “Hi.”

“Hello.”

Joey glanced at the vacuum. “Cleaning up after Chance?”

She smiled back. “Yes.”

“Need anything else?”

She looked up with hopeful eyes. “Mousetraps? I think the trailer has some.”

Joey frowned. “I told Chance to set some. He doesn’t care?”

“No. But I do.”

“No kidding. I’ll come over in a few minutes and set them.”

Erin relaxed her shoulders. Help. Kindness. How long since anyone had offered her that? She smiled with genuine warmth at Joey. He was so nice. So refreshingly trusting and nice. “Thanks. I would really appreciate that,” she said as she looked back towards the Rydell men who were now all watching her. She felt like a cat caught in a pack of coyotes. It was so odd. Kailynn, who seemed reluctant to talk, was what? The housekeeper? Wasn’t there a mother? Another wife? A girlfriend?

“Nice to meet you all.”

They all responded with smiles and waves. Except Jack. He didn’t respond to her at all, but his eyes tracked her as she walked out the front door.

There was a stupid amount of pride invested in what she’d done to the trailer. It was kind of pretty underneath her brother’s neglect and scum. By morning, she had it clean, sanitized, and sprayed to get rid of the fouler scents. With a half dozen mousetraps set up, she was able to sleep without thinking an errant critter might scurry over her.

Chance returned late and was stinking like sex and beer. He slept in his clothes. He only left in the morning to go to work because someone banged hard on the trailer door. She sat up, confused and terrified by the sound, only to realize that someone was waking her brother. Jack, most likely.

She scrounged around the trailer, but found nothing to eat. Her stomach rumbled in protest. She hadn’t eaten more than a couple of candy bars from a gas station. She was starving. And her brother didn’t have any food. Neither did she. She leaned her head into the cabinet. Someday… Someday, she would have all she wanted to eat. Healthy things, like expensive fruits and fattening pastries. She’d wake up each morning and never think about how to fill the kitchen with groceries. She straightened up. In the meantime, she had to survive. As she always did. As she intended to do today.

She dressed in another t-shirt and her lightweight sweater. She put on another skirt and wore the same sandals. She had two thousand dollars stuffed into her duffel bag, but it was all she had left in the world. It was all she had to start over with. She could buy new clothes, but she didn’t dare spend too much from the last of her money.

Brian Peterson married her mother only four years ago. He was a miserable, flaky bastard who bled her mother and Erin completely dry of money, emotions and love. He was why her mother killed herself. Or at least, that’s what Erin tried to convince herself about why her mother was dead. Brian had fed her already weak, ill mother more pills and booze than she ever had before. The problem was, when her mom died, Brian got everything her mother left. Although she didn’t have much, she certainly had more than Erin did. Brian allowed her to stay for a little while, but it soon became a complicated dance of avoidance and never being there in order to not get cornered by him. He continually leered at her, enough that she worried he’d eventually make a move on her. Finally, he nearly succeeded in trapping her against their threadbare living room sofa and trying to have sex with her. When she managed to get away, he told her to never come back again. Instead of risking another attack or attempted rape, she abandoned her pathetic amount of belongings and hightailed it out of there. She left with only what was on her back and hidden inside her car trunk. Pathetically, not much more than a trifle.

Brian came into their life after she started working for the fast food joint he managed. She had inadvertently introduced him to her mother. When her mother died, and she refused his advances, it was well understood there went her menial, but desperately needed job. And now here she was. So broke, she had few clothes, little money, no food, no job and now, no home. She only had her car. She literally knelt in prayer that she had the car keys with her, so Brian couldn’t take those from her too.

Erin opened the door to her trailer and sighed at the sights around her. Sunlight was gliding over the land, making the air smell alive. New shades of green covered the mountains and fields in a soft, luxuriant blush. She breathed the cold crisp air and tried to ignore the chill that settled over her legs and toes.

Grazing horses could be viewed in all directions that she looked, separated from her only by the labyrinth of fences. How could one figure out how to navigate that setup without getting trapped in the series of gates and corrals? She never even touched a horse in her life. This was, in fact, the closest she’d ever been to them. She stared at the half dozen she spotted grazing beyond her trailer. A tawny-colored horse raised its head and looked at her. Its brown eyes shone like beautiful, round pennies. She felt like the horse was looking deeply into her soul. She shook it off. They were strictly animals. Farm animals, and not ghoulish mindreaders.

She went to her car and dug around in the back, looking for some instant coffee.

“Need any help?”

With a startled jump, she hit her head on the partially opened trunk when the voice came up behind her. Cursing, she rubbed at her head and smiled when she realized who was there.

“Oh. Hey, Ben. You startled me. Sure. If you want, you can grab that other duffel bag. I think I’ll take it in with me.”

Jack’s son was red-haired with blue eyes and a dusting of freckles. He smiled at her. He’d be a heartbreaker someday soon. He gallantly took her duffel bag and followed her into the trailer. She told him to put it on the couch.

He looked around, then at her, then away. She smiled at him. He was so sweet, shy and unsure of himself. She ached for the days when she was sweet and shy and unsure. In contrast to what she was now: calculating, cold, and willing to use her sexuality just as much as Chance said she should. It made her feel sick and hollow when she realized how much she changed from the teen she once was.

“Don’t you have school?”

“Not today. Teachers are working, but no classes.”

“What grade are you in?”

He puffed up his chest. “Freshman. I’m fifteen. I’ll be driving next fall.”

“That’s cool.”

“Dad and I are fixing up my truck. We got it out in the shop.”

She sighed. Jack fixed a truck with his son? It seemed so sweet for the stern, rude man she met. Ben, however, was everything but that. Did Jack get the credit? Or the mother who was now dead?

“That sounds nice.”

There was a loud yell from outside and she couldn’t make out what it was. Ben looked at his feet with a sigh. “Guess I can’t now. That’s my dad. I’m supposed to be working.”

“You help with the ranch?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, got chores. Dad’s a stickler for work first, play later.”

She almost advised Ben to adhere to that, and revel in it, enjoying that your father wants to teach you things like responsibility and cares that you learn it. Instead, she said, “Well, thank you for the help.”

He looked up with a smile as he hunched his shoulders over. He was tall and so thin, his jeans hung low on his hips. She followed him to the door and outside again. Jack stood on the porch of the house, and even from the distance, his frown was obvious.

Ben turned and waved at her and she smiled and waved back. Then she headed inside. It was too cold. She wanted to look around, but would have to wait until the afternoon when maybe she could stand the temperature. She’d have to stand the hunger until then, when she could run into town for a lunch/dinner combination.

****

Jack watched his son walking up to him. Ben was only inches below him in height nowadays, a fact that made Jack’s heart swell. Where had the time gone? When did his son get so old, he could look him in the eye? What happened to the scabby-kneed youth who followed him everywhere with wonder in his eyes and mischief in his smile? Now Ben merely scowled at him with his shoulders hunched, and his jeans hanging too low. He hated how sloppy Ben kept himself. But that wasn’t a battle worth waging. He was having enough trouble keeping Ben out of trouble.

“What were you doing?”

Ben shrugged. “Nothing.”

Jack waited. Ben didn’t say anything further.
Fine. Okay. Shrugs
. That was the extent of his son’s interactions with him. Damn adolescence. Jack put a hand to his neck and pressed.

“She’s too old for you,” he finally said.

Ben’s face came up, his eyes furious, as a blush crept over his skin. “God, Dad, I was only helping her in with her duffel bag.”

“Look, I don’t like Chance. I don’t know about his sister; other than she has nothing to do with us.”

He shrugged. “She’s a nice lady, Dad. I gotta work.”

Ben turned and headed out to the barn.

Jack watched him leave with apprehension in his gut. First Joey, then Shane, now Ben? He glanced at the trailer, infested with Polettis. She was trouble. Nothing, but unending trouble. He was sure of it, right down to the pointed toes on his cowboy boots. This was a house full of men. There was no place in it for a single, sexy woman. There could be nothing but trouble in store with Erin Poletti.

He saw her last night, when she stopped before the house, eyeing it up. Doing what? Deciding how much it would be worth to her? What did she want? To rob them? Marry into them? What the hell did she intend to do?

And if he were distracted by the bra and legs, what was his poor, young, hormone-pumping son supposed to do? Or his trusting younger brother? Jack kneaded at the thick knot in his neck. Finishing his coffee, he set it on the porch and stepped off to head towards the pasture. He’d already been out there for three hours. Break time was over; he had to get back to working the young mare he was training for the local vet.

****

Erin carried the vacuum with her up the porch and knocked on the door. It wasn’t long before Kailynn opened it. She looked her up and down with a frown.

“I wanted to return the vacuum,” Erin said when Kailynn didn’t speak.

Kailynn opened the door wider, and Erin stepped through it. She had to nearly crane her neck back to meet Kailynn’s gaze. She was tall for a woman and slumped her shoulders too far forward, as if to lessen her height. If she stood straighter, with her shoulders back, she would have been a beautiful girl. She had long, brown hair, and a pretty, fresh, wholesome face, that was quite extraordinary with a wide mouth and spray of freckles over her nose and cheeks. They must have been about the same age. However, there seemed no hope of a friendly acquaintance if Kailynn’s frown of disapproval at her was any indication.

Erin stretched out her hand with the vacuum dangling off it and Kailynn took it.

Erin glanced about. They were alone in the house. The morning dishes sat around the table, along with a general air of chaos left in the wake of Rydell men.

“So do you live here?”

Kailynn looked hard at her. Would she refuse to answer on the general grounds that she found Erin so distasteful? Finally, she said, “I don’t live here. I work here. I’m a neighbor and I work here whenever I’m not working at the diner in River’s End. I do the housework, prepare the meals, and sometimes look after Charlie.”

“Oh. They didn’t mention that to me.”

“Why would they? You aren’t
their
guest, after all.”

“Right.” Erin nodded. Ouch. She had definitely pissed Kailynn off, but for no reason she knew. “Not a fan of my brother’s, huh?”

Kailynn’s eyes widened in surprise. She had an unusual grayish, almost violet-hued eye color. “Why would you say that?”

“Seemed the most likely reason for disliking me on sight. It seems to be Jack’s as well.”

Kailynn had the grace to hang her head. “I can’t speak for Jack. I don’t know you. I have no opinion.”

Erin grinned. “I’d respect you more if you were just honest about it. Like Jack. Then I at least know who to look out for. Is it Joey? Because I flirt with him?”

She stiffened. “Joey? No. I’m the housekeeper here, not a factor in any of the relationships.”

“So not Joey?”

Kailynn shook her head, her expression confused. Erin shrugged. “All right, Kailynn. I thought it might be nice to know another woman around here. Maybe not.”

She turned and walked out. She felt judged enough by Jack Rydell, and didn’t need it from the housekeeper too.

****

“He’s the horse whisperer.”

Erin turned when Joey came up beside her. It was three o’clock before she’d finally driven across the river and up the valley several miles. That was where she found a small, country store and spent fifty bucks on some boxed food and milk. She’d also eaten some mac‘n’cheese and felt like a new person. Happily fed, and finally not so bone-numbing cold, she stepped out of the trailer. She was leaning on a wood fence that separated her from the round pen where Jack was working with a small, white-speckled horse. She had no idea what Jack was doing, but observed that he’d been patiently at it for some time.

“What?”

“Jack. He’s like that movie Robert Redford made years back. It’s like he talks to them. I can train the horses, but not like him. He’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

She glanced up at Joey. He was staring out at his brother. The look in his eyes was almost sad or wistful. It contained both resentment and longing. Whatever their relationship, Joey and Jack had a complicated one.

“So how does this work then? What do you do?”

“The ranch has been in our family for a hundred and twenty years. It used to be just for cattle. But in the seventies, my dad turned to horses. And since then, Jack has turned it into a training facility. There didn’t used to be a lot of cash. Jack has turned this place upside-down.”

“Is that why the river is named after your family?”

Joey smiled and hung his head. “Yeah, my ancestors were the only ones here, so… they simply named the river after them and it stuck.”

“What happened to your dad?”

Joey shrugged. “He died when I was five. Jack and his wife, Lily, raised me.”