Rugged (10 page)

“Stanley—” She bit her lip and started again, making it sound less personal. “
My ex-fiancé
paid no attention when I tried to tell him how I liked to be touched. He just went through the same motions every time. If he truly cared about me, surely he would not have ignored everything I said?”

“You think a man can learn how to be a good lover?”

She shrugged. “I can’t see why not, if he pays attention. It can’t be that hard. The activity is repetitive, after all, and the equipment is pretty standard.” Heat flared on her face at the candid talk.

Jed lowered his glass without drinking. “The food is almost ready.”

Rachel watched him lean down to blow out the candles. As he pursed his lips, his cheeks drew into gaunt hollows. The three scars made a vivid pattern in the flickering light. The memory of the kiss they had shared knotted in her gut. For an instant, she regretted that things hadn’t progressed on from there.

Jed straightened and stirred the air with one hand to dissipate the curl of smoke from the guttering candles. His movements lacked their usual grace, as though he battled to hold some inner tension at bay.

“Let’s eat in the kitchen,” he said. “It’s quicker, and we’re both tired.”

They moved into the brightly lit kitchen and sat down to a vegetable curry, the last of the frozen food that could be safely consumed. The atmosphere grew strained, charged with unspoken thoughts. They had left the wine in the living room, but neither of them suggested that they return to fetch the bottle and the glasses.

The conversation consisted of awkward snatches that didn’t join up.

Jed seemed distant, withdrawn.

Maybe all he wanted was a kiss
, Rachel told herself.

Or maybe he wanted you, but you did a good job of scaring him away.

* * * *

Rachel sat up in bed, reading. She glanced at her watch on the nightstand. It was nearly two in the morning. Around midnight, she’d tiptoed downstairs to pick up a book. The steamy romance she’d chosen made her burn inside at the thought of doing all those things with the lean, dark man asleep in the next room.

The soft tap on the door startled her.

“Rachel?” Jed’s voice came through. “Are you awake?”

“Yes.” She lowered the book.

The door slid open and Jed stepped through. He wore nothing but sweatpants riding low on his hips. On his bare chest, a dark triangle of hair tapered into a line that disappeared into his waistband.

“It’s a cold night,” he told her. “The chimney heats the bedrooms. I went downstairs to add more wood into the fireplace.’ He eased closer, crossing his arms over his chest and propping one shoulder against the wall. “I saw you had the light on.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been reading.” She indicated the book beside her.

“It’s not like you think,” he said abruptly.

Puzzled, Rachel leaned back against the headboard. “What’s not like I think?”

“That day at the lake,” Jed said. “When I came across those fashion people, I didn’t chase them off because they offended my moral standards. I didn’t see the camera crew. I came out of the forest, and the only thing I saw was a girl in a bathing suit grappling with two men. One was holding her around the waist from behind. The other was standing in front of her, his arms extended, as if he planned to strip her naked. I thought they were going to rape her. I yelled out a warning and lifted the gun. Before I had time to order those two men to take their hands off her, the photographer crashed out from the trees and started shouting that I was spoiling his scene.”

Speechless, she stared at him.

Jed uncrossed his arms and picked up a pine cone from a clay dish on top of the chest of drawers. “My heart was going like a sledgehammer, adrenalin pumping through my veins. I thought I’d been about to rescue a girl in trouble. Instead, I’d disrupted a photo shoot. I felt like an idiot.”

“Dear God.” Rachel blew out a sigh. “I’ve seen the pictures in La Diva. I can see how you got the impression she was about to be molested. Why didn’t you explain what you’d seen, why you reacted the way you did?”

“Yeah, well.” Jed shifted his shoulders. “I knew they’d laugh at me, and it seemed easier to let them think that I resented them being there.” He dropped the pine cone back in the dish and pushed away from the chest. The muscles on his chest flexed with the motion. “Then those fashion models started wondering up the hill, all flirty and seductive and predatory. I felt they were poking fun at me. I guess I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I don’t like being an object of ridicule, and I reacted by turning nasty.”

“Why did you think they were making fun of you?”

“Maybe they weren’t.” Jed turned to leave. “But they would have, had I taken them up on what they were offering. They would have laughed at my clumsiness and inexpert fumbling.” He paused at the doorway, not turning to look back at her. “The truth is, I’m thirty-four, and I’ve never made love to a woman.”

The door closed with a soft clunk, and he was gone.

* * * *

For the rest of the night, Rachel tossed and turned, thinking of Jed and the startling confession he’d made. Now she understood the mental battles she’d sensed inside him. Not a man struggling to keep the moral high ground, but a man torn between his desire for intimacy and the fear of being found lacking. She longed to find a way of encouraging him without appearing too forward, or hurting his prickly male pride.

In the morning, a cold draft blew in through the gap at the bottom of the door, making Rachel shiver as she hurried to dress in her borrowed clothes. When she drew the curtains, a pale winter sun sparkled over the forest landscape that had been covered in a fresh layer of snow.

Downstairs, she found the kitchen tidy, a set of breakfast dishes draining in the rack. She touched her hand to the coffee pot. Barely lukewarm. Jed must have gone out hours ago, at the first glimmer of dawn.

A note stood in the middle of the checked tablecloth, where she couldn’t miss it.

Take any food you need. Make sure the fire is banked before you leave.

Her heart swelled, and yet irritation mixed with the empathy that made her eyes mist with tears. Jed seemed to think she’d simply run off. Abandon him, just like his mother had abandoned him when he was a child.

She could not do it. Not for his sake, or her own.

Instead of walking out, she would try to ease Jed’s burden by doing his accounts. As Rachel settled in the den and sorted through the paperwork that littered the desk, her thoughts drifted back to the office and Hank. The life she’d longed to return to seemed distant now, the memories faded, almost like old photographs that had ceased to be important.

By the time the steady thud of a horse’s hooves on the snow alerted Rachel to Jed’s return, darkness had already fallen. She ran her eyes over the ledger again, shaking her head. Neatly sorted stacks of invoices and delivery notes and bills of sale covered the desk, all arranged in date order.

Fifteen minutes later, the front door slammed.

Jed had to be aware that she hadn’t left. The lights were on. A fire roared in the stone chimney. Her padded parka hung on a hook by the front door. She waited, until she heard the inner door open and close, and the sound of footsteps crossing the floor.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” she called out, not leaving the den.

“You’re still here.” Jed appeared in the doorway, hatless and coatless, the thick dark locks in disarray.

“Did you have a good day?” she asked in a casual tone.

“Why are you still here?”

“I’m doing your books. Remember? I have a bet to pay. The tale of your mother was worse than that of my father.”

He came into the room and sank in the chair opposite the desk. “There’s no need.”

Frustration flared inside Rachel. “There’s every need.” She pointed at the stacks of paper with the end of her pencil. “This is a mess.”

Jed’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “I told you. I’m not a businessman.”

“I can see that. I’ve sorted through the records of your sales, and expenses for feed, and vet bills and payments to Martha and her sons, and invoices for equipment repairs.” She looked up at him and frowned. “There are no records of personal drawings. If you don’t pay yourself a salary, how do you account for items for personal use?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t account for personal expenses? That’s impossible.” Rachel made a sweeping gesture across the table. “I’ve gone over everything and the balance matches the bank statement dated at the end of October.”

“I meant that I don’t buy things for personal use.”

The doubt that had risen in her mind during the day hardened into certainty. Pity welled inside her at the life Jed must lead, the long hard days, the lonely nights, the grief of sometimes losing an animal, and the constant worry over the precarious state of his financial affairs.

“This is everything?’ she asked, pointing at the receipts, just to make sure. ‘You don’t go out. You don’t buy new clothes. You don’t have vacations or spend money on leisure interests, apart from the subscriptions to the wildlife magazines?”

His only reply was a slow nod.

“It could be a profitable business.” She lowered her head to study the ledger. “But you owe far too much money. Eighty percent of your profits go to loan repayments. I thought the ranch was established generations ago. Why do you owe so much money?”

Jed’s mouth tightened. “We had a problem when I was in my last year at high school. Some idiot flew a helicopter low over the pasture and spooked the herd. There was a stampede, just where the river drops into the canyon. Half the animals died or had to be slaughtered.” A bitter look flickered across his face. “Martha’s husband got injured. He died before we got him to the hospital. Two weeks later, my father had a fatal heart attack. The loan was to rebuild the herd and to pay the lawyer’s fees. We tried to sue, but couldn’t get compensation. The helicopter had been stolen and the pilot had no insurance. He was a war veteran. He’d been drinking. I knew my father wouldn’t have wanted to land him in jail, so I dropped the case and borrowed even more money to set Martha up with a pension.”

“Oh, Jed,” Rachel said. “How old were you?”

“I was nineteen. I had planned to study veterinary science, but to keep the ranch going I had to bury those plans and stay.” He paused, shifted in the chair. “I had a girlfriend in those days. We’d been old fashioned, waiting to have sex until we were ready to make a commitment. She went off to college swearing fidelity. As the year wore on, her phone calls got less and less frequent. When she came back for the holidays, she told me it was over.”

Rachel’s fingers curled tight around the pencil. An image of Jed filled her mind, the way he’d been last night, his body rigid as he stood in the doorway, leaving her to stare at his naked back while he laid his vulnerabilities bare before her.

“And there hasn’t been anyone else since then?” she asked.

“That summer, when she came back and broke it off, I got this—” Jed touched the scars on his cheek. “I was busy with the ranch and felt self-conscious about my damaged face. Money was tight. I couldn’t afford to ask girls out on dates, but for a couple of seasons I worked part time doing maintenance in a hotel in Jackson. I met girls there who’d come out for the skiing. I almost married one of them.”

“Why didn’t you?” Rachel asked.

“Lucky escape, really.” His lips twisted with scorn. “I was standing on a ladder, repairing a leaking gutter. I heard her through an open window, talking to a friend. The other girl was asking why she wanted to marry me, considering I was morose and dull and lacked a sense of humor. The girl I thought I was in love with replied, ‘
He is too naive to realize that I’m knocked up, and too honorable to throw me out when he does. I’ll probably just have the kid and leave it with him. He’ll bring it up. It will be no different from those cows he rears. I might even be able to squeeze some money out of him
.” Jed paused, studied a heeling cut on the side of his thumb. “The next day, I ended it. I told her it was too much to ask her to adapt to life on a ranch. I haven’t had a date since.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said softly.

“I’m not.” Jed propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Marrying her would have ruined my life. Too many echoes of my parents—husband waiting at home for an unfaithful wife to return. Even the thought of it makes me shudder.”