Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, Josh awoke before dawn to do some chores before heading over to The Adelaide. Whitney hadn’t answered his call last night, and hadn’t returned it either. It just felt… wrong. Hell, spending nights without her now felt wrong, too, but still…
When he arrived at the B&B, the aroma of bacon and eggs through the open windows reached him the moment he stepped out of his truck, and he inhaled with appreciation. Debbie Fernandez always took the “and Breakfast” portion of her business just as seriously as the rest.
He rapped on the front door and stepped inside, following the scent through the foyer as he removed his hat. He paused in the doorway of the dining room and saw six people seated at the long table, a buffet alongside with china platters overflowing with pastries and croissants, and covered dishes on warmers.
All eyes turned toward him, but none were Whitney’s gray.
“Josh Thalberg!” squealed a high-pitched voice.
Two young women shook each other’s arms, as if making sure they’d each seen him. The one flushed red, even as she lifted her chin in defiance. And then he recognized her as the expensively dressed girl who’d hidden in his barn to take photos.
The other four people looked him over, as if they, too, had seen some of the publicity. One couple was young and mostly had eyes for each other, hands so entwined it must be hard to eat. Newlyweds. Valentine Valley attracted a lot of them. The other couple was older, maybe retired, both gray-haired but looking fit, as if all their vacations involved hiking and skiing.
“Hi, Josh,” Debbie called as she came in from the kitchen bearing more food. “Whitney hasn’t come down to breakfast yet.”
“Then I’ll head on up.” He started to back up and almost ran Whitney down.
She smiled at him but not from the eyes. He’d been right—something had happened. He gave her hand a squeeze, then she looked past him.
“May I invite a guest for breakfast?” she asked.
More than one woman agreed right along with Debbie, and Josh felt himself redden as the older man looked him over with a hint of disapproval. He ended up seated at one end of the table, with Whitney to his left, and his lawbreaking, unapologetic groupie on his right.
“I’m Andrea,” she boldly said.
“Nice to meet you, Andrea. I’m Josh.”
She smirked and eyed him with unabashed invitation. “I know.” Then she looked across the table at Whitney, and the air seemed to chill, as she said sarcastically, “Nice picture of you two in the paper.”
He saw Whitney’s face pale, and he wished he could ask her what was going on. Passing by, Debbie lifted a newspaper off a low table and handed it to Josh with a wink.
It was the Denver Post again, and the picture of the two of them outside the Hotel Colorado was in blazing color, Whitney’s red dress making her stand out like a movie star. Now she looked over his shoulder, her lips pressed together in a thin line. The headline read WHITNEY WILD LANDS COWBOY ARTIST, and he scanned the article, which highlighted some of her scandalous boyfriends, all-night parties, and of course, the underwear shot heard round the world.
Very carefully, Whitney folded her napkin and sent Debbie a faint smile. “I’m sorry, I’m not hungry.”
Josh met Debbie’s worried look with one of his own, and he followed Whitney up the stairs to her room. When she was about to close her door, he caught it from behind, and she actually looked startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there.
She gave a tired smile and released the knob. “Sorry. Come on in.”
He braced a hand on the doorjamb. “Are you sure? I thought you might need someone to talk to, but I’d understand if—”
“Stop being so noble and just come in,” she said, with a wan attempt at her usual enthusiasm.
He shut the door behind him and, without saying anything, drew her into his arms. She didn’t resist at all, instead melted right against him and released a heavy sigh.
“What is it?” he whispered against her hair. “You were upset before you even saw the newspaper.”
“That article was the icing on the cake, just what my family needs.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you said they didn’t care all that much about your wild ways, even back then.”
She leaned back so she could look up into his face. “Everything’s changed. My brother has stupidly had an affair with a business rival—and apparently she got some secrets out of him.”
He frowned. “He knew she was a business rival?”
“I don’t know,” she said ruefully. “His wife has left him regardless. Apparently the press are getting wind of this, and my father—through my mother, may I point out—has told me to keep quiet. So I don’t imagine being reminded that I had my own rebellions—and am apparently back to my old self—will sit well with them just now.”
“You didn’t do anything illegal,” Josh reminded her, “then or now. We were going out on a date. Your parents will certainly understand that the press can say anything they’d like.”
“True. But I bet they’re not clearheaded just now.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, and he sat beside her, still holding her hand.
“Josh, my brother is a senior vice president of Winslow Enterprises. How will this look to the board and the rest of the shareholders?”
“I don’t know, Whitney. All I can suggest is that you not dwell on it until you know one way or the other.”
She gave a sideways glance and a faint smile. “Good advice, but oh so difficult to follow.”
“Then I think we need a distraction. What do you say we go out tonight?”
“The Cowboy Artist and Whitney Wild? They’ll say I’m corrupting you. Two dates in two days!”
He leaned in to nuzzle behind her ear, inhaling the exotic scent of her. “A man likes a little corruption from his woman.” Then he kissed her cheek and rose. “Wear a little skirt and those cowboy boots. We might need to do some dancin’.”
The next day, after nervously scanning the news online and seeing no mention of her brother, Whitney made herself relax, just like Josh advised her to do. She spent the morning at Leather and Lace, conducting several more interviews for the position of general manager. She had narrowed it down to three women, and had some references to begin calling. It was all a good distraction from the turmoil of her family situation.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, the door separating her from the sound of hammering and sawing. But just as she picked up her phone, it began to ring. The caller ID showed her father. Had he seen the Return of Whitney Wild?
She answered carefully. “Hi, Dad.”
“Good morning, Whitney. Your mother filled you in?”
She thought of Charles Winslow sitting behind his desk in his glass-walled Manhattan office, the Statue of Liberty presiding over the harbor below him like it was part of his landscaping.
“She did, Dad. This is terrible for everyone, especially Courtney. How’s Chasz? He never called me back.”
“I imagine he’s far too busy packing up his office. He’ll have to step down.”
She withheld a gasp only through great effort. Her dad wasn’t big on emotion. “Step down? It’s not like he’s committed a crime… has he?”
“Of course not. He didn’t know where that woman worked.”
Would others think that a lie? Whitney wasn’t about to ask.
“The scandal is about to break, and we can’t have him upsetting the board. We have to project confidence and stability. That’s why we need you.”
For a moment, she simply blinked at her phone, wondering if there’d been a disruption, if she’d actually heard those words. “I don’t understand, Dad.”
“I need you to come to New York and step into the company. Of course you can’t just become a vice president overnight, but your arrival will signal that the family is stable and responsive. You have the necessary degrees to appear competent.”
Appear competent? The degrees she’d tried desperately to prove herself with, she thought bitterly.
“Uh, Dad, it’s not so easy for me to abandon my work.”
“Work? You’re not even in San Francisco.”
“I’m opening a store near Aspen, remember?”
“That will wait. The fate of Winslow Enterprises lies in the balance right now.”
“I—Can I call you back, Dad? I have to give this some thought.”
“Thought?” he echoed coolly. “I didn’t think supporting your family required thought.”
She winced, then stiffened. “Uprooting my life requires thought. I’ll call you tomorrow, Dad.”
“Tomorrow?” he barked. “I need an answer today.”
“I can’t do that. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up, then stared at the phone, waiting to see if he’d call back. She was relieved and only a bit disappointed when he didn’t.
All around her, a new Leather and Lace was coming to life. Her third store, the next step in her plan to take over the lingerie world. It was so close to being finished, and now her father had called her to come back to the family business, as if she’d been the one to abandon it instead of the other way around.
In the beginning Leather and Lace had been a way to show her parents she could succeed on her wits and not their money. It had been a fallback because she couldn’t have what she really wanted. And now? Now the stores were her pride and joy, her success story. Though she’d waited several years in the beginning to hear her parents applaud her business acumen, their silence had long since stopped mattering.
And now they were asking her to give all that up and return to the “family fold” because her brother had disappointed them. It wasn’t about needing her—it was all about them. Once she would have gladly accepted their offer and flown away without looking back.
But now… now there was Josh. And this store she hadn’t yet opened though it needed to happen before the holiday shopping crush.
And Josh. They were dating, and she couldn’t kid herself that it was “just for fun.” She’d gotten to know him, to know his close-knit family, to even like this insular small-town life.
But she’d open the store in a couple weeks, and she was supposed to head back to San Francisco, right?
What was she contemplating? Did she like it so much she was considering moving here—seriously considering a life with Josh? Would things be different if she knew Josh might move wherever she needed to be?
Where was this coming from? They’d never even discussed such a thing. Josh would probably laugh at her musings, and he damn well would never leave the Silver Creek Ranch.
And they were musings, not based in reality at all.
She moved through the rest of the day in a state of numbness. Though she answered one of her mom’s calls, promising to give Dad’s request a lot of thought, she disconnected politely when the wheedling began. Her dad’s word was law, of course, always had been. She was certain her mother was shocked that Whitney wouldn’t jump at the chance to be a part of Winslow Enterprises, the company she’d embarrassed herself over by rushing sobbing from the dinner table as a teenager when Charles had first told her she couldn’t work there. The company she’d focused on throughout college and business school, so certain her father would change his mind when he saw how accomplished she was. It had been hard to ignore the fact that her brother had coasted through a lower-tier school, but she had never wanted negativity to affect her laserlike focus on her education. Chasz always did what was easiest and most convenient—including some woman who’d probably thrown herself at him. And now Whitney was making excuses for him, just like her mother. But he was her brother. Why didn’t he call her to explain?
That night, she didn’t tell Josh about her dad’s request, not wanting to embarrass herself with whatever emotion might leak out. She had to make a decision all on her own. And shouldn’t she be used to keeping secrets, now that she knew the truth about Josh’s fan club?
But first, she needed to escape. She insisted Josh take her to Wild Thing, even though it eerily echoed her nickname. She danced like she hadn’t danced in years, swaying her hips seductively in her short, short skirt, Whitney Wild to the tips of her red fingernails and the tight cropped shirt that showed off her abs. Every time Josh put his hand on her bare waist, she felt alive in a way that only pride in her body induced.
Afterward, in the dark cab of his pickup, she seduced him—without much protest on his part, of course. They steamed up the windows, and some of the wildness in her blood at last began to recede along with her orgasm. She let him take her home to his loft, and almost set fire to his bed with her eager domination.
At last they were sprawled naked, bodies perspiring, chests heaving. And if he looked a little puzzled and concerned, she ignored it, sinking blissfully into the exhausted sleep she craved.
Josh’s cell phone ringing in the darkness woke her up. She was disoriented, still sluggish, and as he reached for his phone, she glanced at the alarm clock. It was only 3:00 A.M., too early for anyone to be claiming he’d overslept.
“Josh? What’s wrong?” she asked.
She came up on her elbows at his tense silence, then reached over and turned on the bedside light.
He was already throwing back the covers. “I’ll be right down.” He tossed the phone on the bed and reached for his jeans on a nearby chair.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“A brush fire.”
His voice was more sober and tense than she’d ever heard from him, and it gave her a chill of foreboding.
“We’ve had a dry summer,” he continued. “If the fire gets too big…”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence. He’d already told her that they had hundreds and hundreds of acres of grass in their pastures, waiting for the herd to come down from summer pasture. And if all that went up—and the buildings along with it… she shuddered and got out of bed.
“Did someone call the fire department?”
“Nate did, but they protect the buildings more than anything else. We’ll handle the rest.”
Wide-eyed, she swallowed and tried to tell herself he’d done this before. He was dressed before she was, of course, and he hesitated as he glanced at her.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Can I go keep your mother company?”
His look of relief and gratitude was moving, and she felt tears actually sting her eyes.
“Sure, thanks,” he said, then cleared his throat.
“Josh?”
With his hand on the doorknob, he turned. She hugged him quickly and let him go.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
He nodded and left. She knew his mind had already been on the problems ahead, but that hug had probably helped her more than him.
Ranching could be a dangerous way of life—she only had to look at the curved scar on his chin to remember that.
After throwing on one of Josh’s flannel shirts over her nightclub clothes, she descended into the barn. She thought for sure they’d be saddling horses or something, but she was at least a half century behind. The taillights of several pickups dwindled down the road. Brooke and Josh were tossing shovels and other tools into the bed of his pickup. Brooke spared her a nod as Whitney stood there hugging herself, feeling useless. And then they were gone, the tires spewing rocks behind as they accelerated.
As Whitney reached the porch, more lights appeared from the direction of town, and pickups streamed past the ranch house as if they’d called in reinforcements. Neighbors risked their own lives to help each other. It wasn’t as if that didn’t go on in other cities, of course. She’d read incredible stories of what people sacrificed for each other during the last major San Francisco earthquake in 1989, when she was just a little girl. Neighbors had rescued people from the collapsed freeway. It never failed to amaze and humble her.
When she knocked on the front door, it opened almost immediately, as if Sandy Thalberg had been staring out the window. A shaft of light bathed Whitney, and she was embarrassed by her bare legs beneath her short skirt, but Sandy only gave her a relieved smile.
“Want some company?” Whitney asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
“Come in, come in, it’s too chilly to be outside.”
“Dressed in my dancing clothes,” Whitney said awkwardly, as if it wasn’t already apparent that she’d been with Josh in the middle of the night.
“Come on into the kitchen. There’s a lot of work to be done. They’ll all be starving when they get back.”
“Can I help?” Whitney asked, trailing behind.
“I’d love it, thanks.”
The big wall of windows looked black in the middle of the night, and there was a strange sound that Whitney soon realized was the crackle of a two-way radio. For a moment, she stood transfixed, listening to various voices discuss the direction of the wind and where to dig the fire line. Then she caught sight of the revolving lights of a fire truck headed their way. It went past the house, probably stationing itself between the buildings and the fire, the last line of defense.
“So many people have come to help,” Whitney heard herself say.
“That’s how it is around here,” Sandy said matter-of-factly. “Can you start breaking eggs into a bowl?”
Whitney jerked out of her strange reverie. “Oh, of course!”
Emily arrived soon after, her cheerfulness stretched tight as if it might soon break. Over the next hour, Whitney broke eggs, stirred together batch after batch of cornbread under Emily’s direction, and cut up all the fruit she could find in the refrigerator. Bacon and sausage sizzled, coffee percolated, and the aromas made her stomach growl.
Through it all, the radio crackled like the sound track to their lives. No one screamed for help or sounded out of control, and Whitney used that to keep herself calm.
She kept sneaking glances at Sandy, who worked methodically at her stove or made pitcher after pitcher of orange juice. Her expression was calm, and she’d probably experienced all this before. Like her son, would she hold off worrying because there was no reason to until you knew the worst? Well, of course, she’d probably taught her son those practical qualities, Whitney reminded herself.
But those were her children out there fighting a fire, and her sixty-year-old husband.
Whitney shuddered and accidentally sliced her thumb with the knife as she was cutting canteloupe. Hissing, she watched in disbelief as the blood welled.
“Come on over here and wash that out,” Sandy said. “I’ll get a bandage.”
“No, please, don’t worry about me. It’s just a small cut.” After she wrapped a paper towel around it hard to stop bleeding, blood began to seep through, so she used another. She washed it, trying not to wince as it stung, then applied more pressure. Surely it would stop bleeding. She couldn’t believe she was distracting Sandy at a time like this.
Suddenly, she heard an approaching roll of thunder, except… not. It made a whump-whump sound that crested, then faded. She turned to Sandy in surprise.
“The Sweets have a helicopter,” the woman explained. “For fires, they attach a giant bucket and pull up water from our ponds.”
“Impressive,” Whitney murmured, taking the first-aid kit from Sandy without showing her her thumb. She used several bandages, and tried to ignore the telltale seepage of blood slowly spreading beneath.
People were speaking on the radio again, and Sandy, closest to it, had her head bowed, listening. Then her shoulders seemed to lower, as if tension had been holding them stiff, and Whitney just hadn’t noticed.
Sandy beamed. “The fire’s out. They’re coming home, and no one’s injured.”
Relief swept over Whitney with a rush of gratitude that made her eyes swim with tears. She put her hand on the counter to steady herself, and watched with surprise as her fingers trembled. How did Sandy bear this worry over and over again? Then Emily gave a whoop of delight and hugged them both.
Within twenty minutes, a parade of pickups began to fill the yard, and men and women entered the kitchen by twos and threes. Though they all removed their boots, they smelled of smoke and were spattered with soot. No one would dirty a seat by sitting in it, so after washing and lining up for food, they milled around and ate standing up, talking about the fire. She recognized the younger generation of Sweet brothers, their fair hair filthy. They introduced her to their dad, Emily’s father, Joe Sweet. Whitney hadn’t even realized that Emily had to worry about more than her husband that night.
The Thalbergs were the last to arrive, as the sky was lightening with the approach of dawn. Although Whitney knew no one had been injured, she studied Josh’s tired face closely. Above the nose his skin was mottled black, but below he’d obviously been wearing his bandana to breathe through. It hung wet and limp around his neck. After giving her a tired but triumphant smile, he moved slowly to the sink to wash.
She started to follow him but couldn’t help pausing as she overheard raised voices in the mudroom. Brooke and Adam were standing close together, talking intently.
“Look, everything turned out okay, right?” Brooke said to Adam with exasperation. “You can’t do that to me again.”
“Worry about you? It was a fire, dammit!”
“And I work on this ranch. Get used to it, Adam, I won’t back down just because you think something’s dangerous. Please promise you won’t second-guess what I do. I’ve spent my whole life proving I’m as good as a man on this ranch, and I won’t let you interfere with that.”
Brooke turned her back, arms crossed over her chest, and Whitney caught a glimpse of Adam’s stony expression before it melted into tenderness. He hugged her from behind, whispered something into her ear, and she turned into his embrace. Whitney couldn’t help feeling for them both, working side by side in a job many might think too dangerous for a woman. It must be difficult for a trained Marine to turn off his protective instincts. But they loved each other, and obviously they would work it out.
Whitney went to Josh. “How’d it go?” She had to raise her voice amidst the chorus of excited conversation.
As he dried his hands, he leaned back against the wall. “The blaze was a hundred yards long, and we all fanned out, chopping at anything the fire could use for fuel.”
“He grunted and swore a lot,” Brooke said, approaching them. She glanced down at Whitney’s skimpy skirt. “Nice outfit.”
Whitney actually blushed, then said breezily, “Can’t dance in anything else.”
Adam followed behind Brooke, as if he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
Josh gave a tired smile. “Every time a new burn started, the helicopter was able to put it out. We did a lot of shoveling and resoaking some hot spots, but we got it all. We’ll take a ride back out there soon and make sure.”
“After you get some sleep,” Sandy called from her position near the stove.
Whitney listened as people recounted little incidents, and was amazed at how easily they could all laugh about it. She kept watching Josh, thinking about how he risked his life for his family. All hers asked was that she take a position they originally wouldn’t offer her but that she’d wanted her whole life. Was she being self-centered, that she wished they thought she deserved it on her own merit, and not grudgingly out of desperation? There was even an ugly part of her that was glad that they finally needed her though the situation was hurting so many people. She didn’t know what to do.
Then Josh lifted up her hand and studied the blood-soaked bandage on her thumb.
“Whoops,” she said, smiling.
“Let me shower, and we’ll take you to get this stitched up,” he said.
“Josh, no,” she said, feeling ridiculous. “It’s already stopped bleeding.”
But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He dragged her to his loft, where he made her wait while he showered. She tried to get in with him, but he refused, saying she’d start bleeding again. At the medical clinic off Main Street, they waited for Doc Ericson to arrive, alone in the waiting room because of the early hour. Josh’s head sank back against the wall behind his chair, and he fell asleep.
Whitney couldn’t stop watching him. She saw soot behind his ear that he’d missed because he’d been in a rush to take care of her. He took care of everybody. She brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead, feeling both strangely tender and strangely frightened at how he made her feel.