Stone Cold Charade (A Stone Family Novel) (11 page)

His sister tried to make him feel at
home when he would visit her and her husband, and their kids, even so, he
always felt like an outsider. Sitting here with Alex made it feel different
somehow.

She had barely touched the steak and
potato Martha had made, and was now staring through her plate, pushing the food
around. She was still miffed that he hadn’t taken the bait from her earlier
cutting remark.

“Not finding anything to tempt your
appetite, Tidbit? Maybe I could find something around here that would.” He
lifted his eyebrows suggestively.

Dropping her fork, her face flamed at
the implication of his words. She grimaced and fumbled to pick it up, shooting
a probing look at Ty, who stared back at her steadily, showing no emotion.

Clearing her throat, Sam struggled to
blend into the furniture. Not wanting to give in to the hilarity of the
situation, she concentrated on the tablecloth noticing a nasty grease stain
Martha missed, all the while thinking to herself
smile and wave boys,
nothing to see here. Go ahead, talk amongst yourselves. I’m not here...

Alex could tell she was finding it hard
not to laugh at her expense.

While Sam shoveled food into her mouth
to keep from saying anything, Alex was mystified. She knew Ty would never
really flirt with her, he was just playing games. He wanted to drive home his
point. He was not interested in her and was intentionally giving Sam the wrong
impression by flirting with her, not once but twice, at the dinner table.

Standing up from the table so fast that
her chair made a horrendous noise as it slid over the flooring, Alex slapped
her hands on the linen clad surface of the table as she leaned forward into
Ty’s space, her earlier unease vanishing in the wake of her growing anger. He
was back to belittling her, but this time there was a witness!

“I don’t know what game you think you’re
playing, but I am not interested. Got it?” Swinging towards Sam, she said
bluntly, “And you can just stuff it.”

“I didn’t say…” she started to break in,
but was cut off abruptly.

“Believe me, the last person he would
ever be interested in, is me. He’s just playing around, trust me on this. The
jerk is trying to embarrass me, and I won’t let him. He can go flirt with the
heifers in the barn, if he’s so bored he feels the need to practice. I’m sure
they’ll bat their eyelashes at him and enjoy the company!”

Shooting daggers at Ty, she resumed her
seat, waiting for him to confess to Sam that everything she’d claimed was true.

Finishing eating his meal with a smirk,
he took his sweet time figuring out how he could fire her up some more, and
decided to make her squirm. Seeming to have all the time in the world to answer
her, he patiently folded his napkin and gently placed his silverware on his
plate. He slid it slowly away from him, stretched his hands over his head, and
leaned back. God he had missed her. When she lost her temper, her whole face
lit up. The longer he took to answer her, the sourer her face became. She all
but rolled her eyes at his foolishness.

Alex was not going to allow him to get
away with it this time. If Ty presumed to think they could take up where they
had left off six years ago, like nothing had ever happened, he could think
again. She was not the same trusting, lovesick fool she’d been. She was not
going to let him play with her emotions. He had already deceived her once before
by letting her believe he cared for her when he hadn’t. She didn’t need her
heart thrown back in her face ever again!

“She’s right Sam, I’m just joking.”

Alex let out a long breath and turned to
Sam to say I told you so, but his next statement caused the words to freeze on
her tongue, and the color to leave her face.

 “Now that she’s all grown up, I’m
looking for more of a permanent relationship from her, not just a physical one.
I am not just going to hand my body over to her without the benefit of a commitment,”
he shrugged his large shoulders, “people would talk, and there would go my
reputation. No one would marry me after that.”

Alex froze, dumbfounded. She slowly
turned her face toward Ty to see if he was really speaking or if she in fact
had finally cracked and was hearing “the voices”.

“If all else fails, I’ll just seduce
her. Then call in the cavalry. Max would ensure that Alex made an honest man
out of me. I can’t have a woman playing with my affections now can I?” he
continued casually.

Alex stared at him as if he had lost his
cognitive brain functions. Her mouth hung open in surprise, and realizing she
probably looked like a goldfish, snapped it shut. As she turned to Sam, she saw
that she was trying desperately to smother her laughter, but failing. She lost
it with a snort and started busting up, doubling over when she saw Alex and her
astounded expression. She couldn’t even look her in the face through her tears.

She turned angrily to Ty and asked,
“Have you been in the liquor cabinet? Maybe you should consider checking into
the local hospital for observation because you’re obviously delirious!” she
accused with a straight face.

Sam’s sides hurt all the harder,
clutching her ribs, she gasped for breath as she shook her head at them.

“I’m glad you find this is so amusing,
because I sure don’t. Now see what you’ve done? She thinks you’re serious!” she
scolded as she leapt to her feet and gestured to Sam with her hands. “But I’m
not falling for it! Go find someone else to play with who is more to your taste.
I wouldn’t want you to feel like you need to babysit me. ”

Chuckling, Ty got up from the table and
grabbed his Stetson from the back of his chair. “I’ll go play nice with the
other boys, but when I get back we need to talk,” he said, looking poignantly
at Alex.

Seeing the way she avoided his eyes and
straightened in her chair, he knew she had heard him and was going to try to
avoid him now more than ever. She was running scared.

“If you need me, I’ll be out in the barn
office going over plans with the foreman.”

When he left, Sam was still laughing. He
could tell that Alex hadn’t believed a word he said. Moreover, he hadn’t really
meant it. He was not the marring kind, or so he assured himself. If he needed
any proof beyond his parents’ messed up nuptials, he didn’t have far to look.
Many of the men under his command struggled to save their marriages, only to
fail miserably. While serving their country, their wives couldn’t handle the
pressures of being tied to military men, and they found themselves in divorce
court. It was a waste. He wouldn’t pursue that senseless path.

Playing at seducing her was one thing,
marrying her was quite another. He knew they should spend some time together,
get to know each other again. Then, once he had her in his bed, he could purge
her from his system once and for all. He had no problem taking her as his
lover, but he could never tie himself to her. Nothing had changed. She still
came from a different world. She was still a Stone Girl.

After Ty left, Sam forced herself to stop
laughing. “I see you and Ty are getting along like oil and water, just like old
times. The two of you can’t be in the same room together without you wanting to
kill him,” she said as she dried her eyes with her napkin, pushed her plate
away, and folded her hands under her chin.

“Did you know it was Ty that Grandfather
was sending? You know he has been bugging me about taking over the production
company. God, he did this just to punish me for refusing! Or, did you purposely
unleash him on me?” She watched Sam's face, trying to judge her reaction. She
did not want to believe her sister had set her up by not giving her a heads up
about their new security expert.

“Yes, I knew. Max told me when he
informed me he was sending a security expert. It didn’t dawn on me that he
might be retaliating because you weren’t taking over. I’m sorry. If you’d known
it was Ty you would have high tailed it off the ranch faster than if I had
yelled fire, no pun intended, and I honestly need you!”

After a long pause, she stated reluctantly,
“Look Alex, I know you and Ty don’t exactly get along now, but I need your
help. Dealing with him makes me uncomfortable.”

Sam had started acting jumpy around Ty
after she and Maxine returned from Europe, a trip they’d gotten as a gift from
their grandparents before leaving for Harvard. Alex could not comprehend why
her sister suddenly felt this way.
Does she have feeling for Ty? They were
whispering before dinner… was it more intimate than I assumed?
She felt her
heart lurch at the thought.

Sam quickly saw the hurt expression on
her face and guessed where her thoughts had taken her. She swiftly grabbed
Alex’s hand and squeezed as she said, “Good Lord, Alex! No! Whatever feelings I
have for Ty are strictly brotherly,” she hastened to explain, and put her mind
at ease. “None of us, and I know this for a fact, have ever thought of Ty that
way.”

Sam let out a long shaky breath and
placed her folded hands in her lap. “It’s not Ty. Really. He just reminds me of
someone I knew once. Being around him makes it difficult for me. I didn’t treat
Ty the way I should have when I was in my last year of high school, but it’s
neither here nor there. Right now I need your understanding and help, and you
did say you would help if I asked,” she said expectantly.

Sam had Alex right where she wanted her.
If she refused to help, Sam would be disappointed. She did not want to be
within close proximity to Ty, much less in the same state, yet here she was,
stuck. Why had she volunteered? If she had just kept her big mouth shut earlier,
none of this would be happening.

Sam watched the emotions cross Alex’s
face as she waited for her to agree to help. She looked like Sam had just asked
her to sleep outside with the cattle.

“Besides, this gives you and Ty a chance
to get reacquainted since both of you will be here. When you were younger, the
two of you were inseparable, always hanging around each other. I used to be so
jealous about how much attention he would give you. He was like a big brother
to all of us, but with you it was different.” The sisters had always speculated
about what had caused the split between them. They had been closer than most
people could get and all of the sisters had been envious of that closeness.

“I don’t want to get to know him. I want
him off the ranch so I can get on with my vacation. If that means I have to
help him, then I will. But for the record, I don’t like the games he plays with
people and their emotions. He uses people for his own amusement. He doesn’t
care who he leaves destroyed in his wake, he is a self centered, opinionated
jerk!” she said bitterly.

Sam was bewildered and shocked by her long-winded
tirade. She could not fathom why Alex was so upset. There was obviously more
history here than anyone suspected.

Alex didn’t want to be just another page
in Ty’s history of women he’d slept with. If she worked with him, she would
make it perfectly clear that being in his bed was the last place she wanted to
find herself. This was about her getting back to her vacation, nothing more.

Trying to calm her sister, Sam chose a
safer topic. “When is the band arriving? Maybe you should call Steven and give
him the heads up regarding our new house guests?” she said, jerking her blond
head toward the right, indicating the general direction of the barn. “Oh, from
the conversation earlier, I gather Ty doesn’t know anything about Fire, which
is good, but why does he believe you flew in from L.A.?”

“Because of Max I suppose. He told him
that’s where I live,” Alex said, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe it’s because I
do spend about a month out of the year there when I'm cutting an album, and
five minutes everywhere else. I have no home except where my suitcase is. I own
houses, three to be exact, but I’m never in residence. I’m always on the road
somewhere or in some hotel suite,” she said flippantly.

“Maybe you should slow down. You do look
like you could use a break. You do have more awards then even the Smithsonian!
You could make a car out of them, if you ever got desperate. Just melt them
down. You even have an Academy Award for that song you did for that big
blockbuster last year,” she said, laughing.

Sam was joking, but she was also very
serious. Alex had been working sixteen-hour days, almost from the very
beginning of her lustrous career. She refused to slow down. It was as if she
was chasing some imaginary demon. The last time Alex slowed down was last year
when she came to the ranch for her yearly vacation, which consisted of writing
her last album. But, at least on the ranch Alex could be herself. She suspected
Alex had the same plan in mind for this vacation, work.

“I can’t slow down. If I did, Max would
have nothing to complain about. I have to deposit at least a couple million in
the bank every year or Max would be greatly disappointed. He’d miss his annual
ambulance ride to the hospital! The doctors and nurses just love it so when he
arrives complaining of chest pains. Besides, I think the heart doctor is trying
to paying off his brand new Jaguar with the extra money he makes from all of
Max’s supposed heart attacks! We wouldn’t want to let him get backed up on
payments!”

Sam tried not to laugh at her
grandfather’s expense, but oh, the man deserved it! Sam knew, like Alex, that
Max was the one in the family that should have considered becoming the performer.
Max had a way of over stating his point to the very extreme.