Rugged (14 page)

She’d be alone. She’d need somewhere to stay, someone to provide for her.

A woman who’d been publicly shamed, who’d lost everything she valued, might be willing to settle on an isolated ranch, share the life of a scarred man who knew nothing about the world outside his small community.

If Rachel’s life fell apart, it might put her within his reach.

Like poison, the idea had coursed through his veins, creating temptation to alert someone to who she was, where Rachel James could be found. He had never considered acting on the impulse, but the guilt of the festering thoughts had driven a wedge between them.

Jed glanced back toward the cabin, saw the bright lights and heard the music.

He had fixed the power for her. She would need nothing else from him.

This is how it starts
, he thought as he rode on.
The first steps of saying goodbye.

* * * *

Jed strode over to the cabin. He hadn’t shaved, and why should he bother? He’d never be anything but a country hick to this sophisticated crowd. His dress—faded jeans, cowboy boots, and a plaid shirt beneath a sheepskin coat—would enforce their idea of him. Not that he owned many other clothes anyway. He certainly wasn’t going to wear the black suit he had for funerals.

This time, Rachel didn’t rush out to greet him.

Jed hesitated on the porch, considered knocking. The music, now changed to blues, and the chatter of loud voices would prevent anyone from hearing him. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Jed!” Rachel crossed the room toward him, as graceful as a gazelle.

He’d never seen her long legs, except when they were naked. The thought made him realize how little he knew of her, how briefly their lives had been intertwined. His hands fisted with the effort of mastering the tumult of feelings that churned inside him.

“This is my boss, Hank Goldman.” She led him to the giant with a string tie.

“So, Rachel can’t find anyone to date in Los Angeles, but she ropes herself a cowboy in Wyoming.” A shovel-sized hand thrust out at Jed. He took it, found the man’s grip firm but not crushing. The confident handshake of a man who shook a dozen hands every day.

“It’s all over.” Rachel beamed at Jed. “My name was never linked to the insider dealing investigation. The guy actually confessed, can you believe it? He paid a massive fine and got a suspended sentence.”

Hank guffawed, his big belly shaking. “You could have blown me over with a feather.” His voice boomed around the cabin. “It seems he developed a soft spot for the plain little secretary and wanted to protect her. Miracles will never cease.”

“I’m in the clear.” Rachel reached out to clasp Jed’s hand. “Hank will wire the money back from Switzerland and cancel the sale of the condo. My life can go back to normal.”

“Better than normal.” Hank’s eyes creased into slits as he smiled. “I’ve done some calculations about the annual bonus pool. You share will be around one-fifty. Congratulations. You’d have forfeited the money if you’d been found guilty of breaching professional standards. I would have had to fire you without compensation.”

“One-fifty. Wow.” Rachel turned to Jed. “We could use the money reduce the balance on your loan.”

“Rachel,” Hank said, and it sounded like a warning.

“It’s okay, Hank,” she replied, rising on tiptoe to kiss Jed on the cheek. “I know what I’m doing.”

Jed flinched at the soft pressure of her lips. He’d always shied away from public displays of affection, and his mind was busy shifting through the facts.
One-fifty
must mean one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Just her bonus was what he made in a year—a good year, when there was no disease, no severe weather conditions, and livestock prices held firm.

What kind of world did Rachel come from, what sort of a job did she have?

Tugging at his arm, she led him to another giant, a carbon copy of the first. This one had his arm around the shoulders of a slight male with a neatly trimmed black goatee.

“This is Melvin, and this is Philippe,” Rachel said.

“We’ve met,” the big man bellowed in an identical baritone to his brother.

Rachel smiled. “Melvin, that day at the lake last summer, it wasn’t what you thought.”

Jed cringed as he listened to her explaining how he’d mistaken the pose for fashion photographs for a real-life attack on the model.

“I’ll be damned,” Melvin said. “That’s exactly the impression I was trying to create. Danger. Menace. Helpless female. Two on one.” He gave an excited wave of his hand. The slim man beneath his other arm swayed with the force of the motion but didn’t seem to mind.

“Nilesh, Ambrose, come over here,” Melvin yelled. When a pale aristocratic man in his fifties ambled over, together with a lean Asian youth, Melvin continued his tirade. “Listen, this dude got my concept. I’m a genius. He knows nothing about advertising, and he got it in one. Danger. Menace. That was the mood I wanted to portray.”

“Calm down, Melvin.” Rachel patted the big man’s hand.

The elderly blond came to a sudden halt and gawked at Jed in silence.

“Oh my God,” the man said, staring at him as if mesmerized. “He is it, Nilesh. He
is
the
rugged man
. He is what I’ve been trying to find.”

The Asian youth performed a tour around Jed with slow steps, looking at him from every angle. Jed felt his blood rising at the intrusive stare.

“You’re right, Ambrose,” the younger man said after completing his scrutiny. “He is so
rugged
. Even the logo would fit, if we just tweak the pillars a little.”

“Would you like to be famous, young man?” asked the pale one.

“No,” Jed said, and felt like an idiot when others burst into laughter. Inside him, a hot temper was beginning to boil. No one had called him
young man
in a decade, and never in his life had anyone inspected him as if he were a piece of meat up for auction. Who did these people think they were? Staring at his scar, calling him
rugged
to his face, with that odd emphasis that implied they were poking fun at him.

“Ambrose, we can discuss it later,” Rachel cut in. “This is a celebration. No more business talk is allowed tonight.”

“I want him,” Ambrose said. “I’m fed up with the search. It’s been almost as bad as the Scarlett O’Hara wars, although thank God we were looking for a man.”

“I’ve got to go,” Jed told Rachel in a low voice.

“What?” Her brows rose. “Is there a problem at the barn?”

“You stay and catch up with your friends.” He tugged his hand free from hers and gave her a little push to send her back into circulation. “I have to go.”

He did manage a curt nod on his way out past Philippe and Melvin. The hum of conversation had died down, making his retreat even more obvious. By coincidence, the music had paused. The silence highlighted his inability to come up with a few polite words farewell.

Jed’s mouth tightened as he made his way home between the snow-covered trees that hovered like sentries in the darkness. This was Rachel’s world, and he didn’t fit into it.

He’d known it from the start.

Now he’d have to find a clean way to end what had grown between them.

* * * *

Sprawling on the sofa, a half empty bottle of whiskey in front of him, Jed stared morosely into the unlit fireplace. He recalled the thoughts that had risen in his mind three weeks ago, when Rachel had first invaded his world.
I could get used to having her waiting for me at home, but it would be just as easy to get used to drinking too much
.

He’d tried the first. Now it was time to try the second.

Words rose and fell like ocean waves inside his head.

One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

We could use the money to reduce the balance on your loan.

Rachel,
in Hank’s deep voice that held a note of caution.

What did they think he was? A man who took money from a woman?

My life can go back to normal
, Rachel had said.

And so should his—back to normal, back to the loneliness, back to the empty bed at night, back to the ache of empty arms and an empty heart. He’d have his memories. Jed knew he would play those memories in his mind over and over again, until every second of their time together had burned a pattern onto his brain.

He heard the front door close, felt the cool draft as the inner door opened. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Rachel walking into the room. She’d changed out of her pretty suede boots and seductive wool dress, back into a pair of jeans and parka and fur lined boots.

It dawned on Jed that when she’d been with him, she’d been dressing down, temporarily roughing it.

Living rugged.

Yeah.
That was him. Rugged and uncouth. She’d been visiting his primitive world, in the same way that people visit foreign countries where they don’t belong.

“Time to go back home,” he told her, his words slurring a little.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Only to get warm.”

“Why don’t you have the fire going?” She walked over, knelt in front of the stone hearth and started building a pyramid with split logs and kindling.

“Leave it,” he ordered.

“I want to make the room warm.”

“Leave it,” he said. “You don’t live here. Don’t try to take over.”

Her shoulders stiffened inside the padded parka. She didn’t turn. Jed sensed that she knew what was coming, had even been expecting it. Maybe she’d been secretly hoping that he would end the affair, so she wouldn’t have to be the one to deliver the blow of death to what had been nothing more than a holiday romance for her.

“You don’t belong here,” he said.

“Isn’t that for me to decide?”

“My house. My rules. You’ve outstayed your welcome.”

“Jed.” She scrambled up from her knees and stood before him, lovely in her simple clothing. Even lovelier, if he imagined her without any clothes at all. Desire arrowed through him, but a flare of bitter anger accompanied it. Jed pushed away the heated images that rose in his mind. He wouldn’t let himself be vulnerable—not to her, not to any woman. He only hesitated a moment. Then he set out to destroy any tender feelings Rachel might have developed for him.

“Having you in my bed just isn’t worth the trouble,” he drawled. “Sure, the sex is great, but I like my life just the way it is. I don’t care to have it disrupted by you and your city friends. I want you to leave me alone.”

A stricken look crossed Rachel’s face but she showed no other reaction. “I see.” Her voice shook with the effort she made to control her hurt.

Even in his drunken belligerence, Jed felt a crushing blow of regret. And yet, he forced himself to follow the course he’d chosen. “Good,” he said. “I was worried we’d get into a fight before I could convince you to clear off.”

“I’ll leave. I’ll just go upstairs and get my things. I’ll only be a minute.”

“Sure.” He made an expansive gesture with his hand. “Take your time.”

Rachel whirled on her heels and went toward the stairs. Jed’s eyes followed her as she moved across the room, graceful, her head held high. Her light steps made hardly any sound on the open treads of the timber staircase. Jed waited. It seemed only seconds later when she emerged again, carrying her tote bag over her arm.

He couldn’t bear to watch her walk out. Turning away, Jed stared at the unlit logs in the fireplace. He couldn’t stop himself listening, though. He heard the soft tap of her footsteps come to a halt. For a moment, elation surged inside him. She’d fight back. Maybe she could persuade him that he was wrong, and even if she didn’t, an argument would keep her in his world a little longer, postpone the loneliness by a fleeting instant.

“I know that you felt out of place with my friends,” she said quietly. “Just like they would feel out of place if they had to manage any of the tasks you deal with every day. Some of the things they did and said may have appeared unkind, although they were not meant to. I could explain that
rugged
business. I was going to, and I was hoping that you would help me celebrate the good news that my troubles are over. But I won’t be able do any of that with you now. I’ll never do anything with you again. Because I’ll tell you this—you can’t turn around and tear your claws into me whenever you feel threatened. I know you’re hurting, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt
me
. If I say goodbye to you now, it will be goodbye forever. I don’t want you to ever try to contact me. Are you sure you really want me to go?”