Chapter Thirteen
“Did she answer her phone?”
“No.”
Cade put his face in his hands, then started pacing the kitchen. As fast as his leg would let him. He felt particularly horrible tonight, in every way.
His stupid body was failing him, at thirty-one, and he’d gone and failed his sister. He was one giant fail today.
“I don’t even know when she left,” Cole said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I looked out the window last night and her car was gone. And it’s still gone. I called down at every hotel.”
“Did you call Longhorn Ranch?”
“They aren’t listed in the damned phone book,” Cole said.
“Did you Google it?”
“Yes. I did. That number doesn’t get you the ranch in Silver Creek; it gets you some corporate office.”
“She always has her phone,” Cade said.
“Yeah, and I think she has it now. I just think she’s opting not to speak to us.”
“That’s not like her either. She usually lingers and growls.”
“I think this isn’t like anything else, Cade. I think we screwed up. And I think she’s really angry, not just regular angry.”
“You know who screwed up,” Cade said, pacing and trying not to wince when his foot made contact with the slate floor, “is dad. He’s the one who messed everything up. He’s the one who did this. He’s the one who put us in this position. First by cheating, second by dying. This is his fault.”
“It’s not his fault he died.”
“The affair. The . . . kid, is still his fault.”
“She’s not a kid. She’s twenty-five.”
“Yeah, older than Lark. And how is she going to feel when she finds that out? All she has of mom are vague memories. She had the most of dad. And now what she believed is gone. It’s ruined.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Cole said slowly.
“It didn’t for you?”
“I’ve let it. I don’t know if that’s fair. I’ve made some pretty big mistakes. I married the wrong woman the first time around. I know you’ve made mistakes. Does that make everything we’ve ever done a mistake?”
“Getting philosophical? Let’s make one thing clear: If you ever cheated on Kelsey, I would disown you so fast your head would spin,” Cade said. “I don’t care if you cured world hunger while your dick was in that other woman, and it was the magical power of her brilliant vagina that led you to the discovery. You would be dead to me.”
“Good to know. I’d never cheat on her though.”
“I know. But I’m just saying. I’m saying that it does matter that much. It does to me. And I knew it would for Lark. And that’s why . . . that’s why I didn’t want her to know.”
“Yeah, and now she’s Lord knows where doing Lord knows what, so there was clearly a flaw in the plan.”
“As long as she’s safe. Maybe she’s at a friend’s,” Cade said, sure, even as he said it, that she wasn’t.
“Does she have friends? Not being condescending, but does she? Away from the computer, I mean.”
“I don’t know. And if she does, I have no idea where to look.” That was surely a big brother fail. But then, this entire thing was a big brother fail, so where was the surprise in that?
“Well, damn. You mean we have to trust her to get her ass home all by herself?”
Cade ground his teeth together, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “I guess so.”
“Trust and respect, I guess?”
“Yeah. Trust and respect,” Cade said. “Forced on me by my lack of foresight. I would have put a tracking device on her car if I would have been thinking ahead.”
“I think you missed the entire point of why she’s pissed at us.”
“No, I didn’t. I’d make sure I didn’t get caught. She wouldn’t know.”
“You’re a dumbass.”
***
Jill took a long, slow breath of the air, of the hay and warmth, dust and pine, and smiled. Things were starting to feel . . . different. Not fixed, maybe, but like she and Sam were building something new. Learning about each other again. Or maybe about who they’d become, for the first time.
Sam came out from the cabin, came to stand behind her. She was so aware of him, in a way she hadn’t been for years. She could feel the heat from his body, could feel his presence.
He walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her, resting his hands on her stomach, his chin on her head. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said.
“I hope you slept well.”
“Better than I have in a long time. You?”
“You wore me out.”
She blushed. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Sam wasn’t shy about saying things to her that were definitely not for anyone else’s ears. He hadn’t always been like this. Her sweet, ma’amming, hat-tipping, cowboy husband would have never dreamed of saying the F-word in her presence before. Oh, maybe if he smashed his thumb with a hammer while he was out in the garage. But not during sex. Not purposefully.
He did now though. Often. Just thinking about it made her warm.
“I deleted the emails,” she said.
“What?” he asked, his voice rumbling against her back.
“I deleted those emails. I don’t need to keep them. I’m sorry that I did.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, really?”
She felt his nod. “It made me wake up. It made me realize that if I didn’t make you feel the way a man should make you feel . . . someone else would. And it would be my own damn fault if you had to look somewhere else.”
“It would never have gone that far.”
“But you deserve more than what I was giving you. And I . . . I know things aren’t fixed yet. I know we have to put all this, the talking and the sex, into practice in the real world. I know we have to keep doing it. Right now it feels easy. It’s like falling in love again, except . . . I was already in love. It’s better, actually, than the falling. It’s going deeper. Discovering something new about the most important thing in your life. I know later . . . it might not always feel this easy. But we still have to. I still have to.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and leaned her head back, resting it on his chest. “I was so afraid that if we talked, we would find out how much we’d changed. And I was afraid if we did that . . . we might have to wake up and realize that we weren’t the ones for each other anymore. That we would see that we were hopelessly mismatched. I was right, Sam, we’ve changed. Because twenty years makes you change. And it should. But if I met you now, not knowing you at all, I would still fall in love with you.”
“I don’t know if you’d fall in love with me . . . into bed, maybe.”
She laughed. “Definitely that. It would have been a lot like when we actually met. I think we fell into bed pretty quickly then too.”
“That’s true.”
She turned to face him, his arms still around her. “We’ve changed, but you’re still the only man I want to be with. I’m choosing you. I think I was afraid that if we ever got to this moment, this one where we talked, where we were honest, where we admitted we were less than happy, that . . . that I might not. And that you might not choose me.”
“I do,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Now and always.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She bit her lip. “Do you think Quinn is going to leave Lark alone?”
“Knowing him? No. I knew the minute I found out he’d hired her he didn’t have any kind of good intentions. And it’s not because I don’t like him . . .”
“I don’t.”
“I know. But I do. He’s had it rough. It doesn’t give him license to use her, but it’s a fact. He goes about things in his own way. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Then what good are you?” she asked, only kind of teasing.
“I’ve kept him from getting killed. And he hasn’t been arrested since I’ve known him either, so maybe I’ve done some good.”
“Yeah, well, I just hope he doesn’t hurt her. She’s a sweet girl. A lot sweeter than he is.”
“Reminds me of a couple I know,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “A sweet girl and a cowboy who doesn’t deserve her.”
***
Lark stepped onto the first floor with one foot, the other lingering on the last stair, and froze. She didn’t want to run into any of the other ranch workers. She didn’t really want to sneak up on Quinn. And she didn’t want him to sneak up on her.
Last night had been . . . amazing. Incredible. So many adjectives.
It had also been transformative. Which she was aware was a virgin thing. This idea that she was different somehow because she’d slept with someone.
But as silly as it might seem, it was the truth. She felt like there’d been this whole section of herself that had been pushed down, shoved way deep inside of herself. She’d had tastes of it. Little bursts of it during her online liaisons. But now it was like the flood gates had opened and she was just so fully aware.
Of every temptation a man’s body presented, and why. Of just how intoxicating it was to have masculine hands on every inch of your skin. Of why she ached deep inside when she was turned on. Of all the places on her body that could be used to give her pleasure.
She shivered and put her other foot down on the hardwood floor, wrapping her arms around herself. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and yesterday’s makeup. And her hair had seen better days.
It had seen better days prior to the tumbling she’d received the night before. And prior to sleeping on it for five hours. At this moment in time it looked more than a little bit like a potential habitat for baby rodents.
“Good morning.”
She jumped and scrambled back to the step. “Hi.” She leaned against the wall and put one hand on her hip.
“You okay?” Quinn walked out of the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“I’m fine. You startled me is all.”
“You’re jumpy.”
“Yeah. And? You were sneaky. Do we need to go over sneaky again?”
He shook his head. “Not for my benefit. Though I fail to see how walking out of my kitchen and into the living room qualifies as being sneaky. And I brought you coffee.”
“Sweet nectar of life.” She stepped down from the stairs again and reached out for the mug. And he drew it back, just out of her reach, her hands following the trajectory. She froze when she nearly touched his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Not yet.”
“Coffee tease.”
“Kiss me.” He pulled it back further and she followed the motion, her lips a whisper from his. “Lark. If you want the coffee, you have to kiss me.”
Heat suffused her cheeks, then flooded through the rest of her body. He wanted a kiss. From her. “If you insist.”
She pecked him on the cheek.
He growled, the glint in his eye dangerous and sexy. “Not good enough.”
“You’re changing the rules,” she said.
“When did you start thinking I was the kind of man who played by the rules?”
“Good point.” And because rebellion would only hurt her, and because he smelled like soap and skin and Quinn, and that was a combination she couldn’t resist, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
“Mmmm,” she said, reaching out and snatching the cup from his hand. “Good morning, indeed.”
“I made breakfast.”
“Oooh.”
“Come with me.”
“I did that last night,” she said, feeling way too proud of her use of double entendre as she followed him into the kitchen and sat at a little square table that was positioned by the window.
“I see what you did there.” He picked up a plate of waffles from the counter and brought it, along with two other plates and a jug of syrup, to the table. He sat across from her, the expression on his face odd.
“What?” she asked, pulling three waffles off the stack and putting them on her plate, putting syrup between each one.
“I’ve never had breakfast with a woman before.”
“Really?” She picked up the fork that had already been sitting on the table, waiting for her, and cut a bite off of her waffle stack, shoving it into her mouth. “How is that possible? And wow, these are good.”
“Because breakfast comes after sex. And after sex, I leave.”
“And I didn’t let you last night.”
“No. You didn’t. You tempted me back into bed.”
“That makes me feel like a wicked siren. I kind of like it. Lark Mitchell, scarlet woman. Enticing men to make her waffles. Not quite enticing men to their doom on the rocks, but hey, it’s still pretty good.”
“I think this is why I don’t normally have breakfast with women,” he said, taking a bite of his own waffle.
“Oh, really, why specifically?”
“Because then I have to talk to them. Although, I actually like talking to you. I don’t think I could have talked to those other women. But then, maybe I could have. Maybe they weren’t all airheads. Maybe they were just playing a part.”
“We all kind of do that, right?”
Quinn shifted in his chair. Lord knew he did that. He’d played the rough, simple bad boy for all the women he’d slept with in the past. And they, for all he knew, had just been playing the part of dumb buckle bunny for the evening. A chance to be stupid and have fun.
Boy, didn’t he bring out the best in people? And himself. He was an ass.
Not that that was a huge surprise.
“I guess so. What’s your role?”
“Um . . . I don’t know that I have one anymore. I think I left it on your bedroom floor. With my panties.”
“Yeah, you never did tell me why.”
“I wanted you?” she said, her mouth full of waffle. She was so damn cute. And since when had he been interested in cute women?
Vampish. Sexy. Sexual. Yes, all those things—but cute?
Well, except all of those descriptive words could be used for her. It’s just that she was cute too.
“You’ve wanted me since you met me,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What I want to know is what brought you here, last night, clutching a tub of ice cream like it was a magical talisman.”
“I . . .” she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “It’s bad.”
“What happened?”
“I got into a fight with my brothers, who are massive idiots and deserved every bit of my rage. I basically told them to go to hell, and I came here to make sure I was headed in that direction too.”
“I see. And what was the fight about?”
She let out a long breath, her nostrils flaring a little bit and why the hell was he noticing that? More to the point, why did it fascinate him?
“I . . . The stupid thing is that I didn’t even get all the details. Cade, who is . . . just . . . such an a*shole, didn’t want me to find out because he didn’t think I could deal.”
“Well, he’s just crazy, because clearly, fleeing into the night with a gallon of ice cream and giving your virginity to your brother’s mortal enemy is dealing just fine.”
“Har. Har. You’re heavily concerned with this virginity thing, aren’t you?”
“Don’t change the subject on me, Mitchell.”
“We’re putting a bookmark in this portion of the conversation and we will return to it later.”
He shrugged. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
“What did you fight about?”
“Specifically about them not trusting me. About them choosing to lie to me to protect me, which I think is condescending as hell.”
“Okay, and what did they lie to you about?”
She blinked, furiously, and to his horror, a tear slid down her cheek. “They were . . . trying to hide the fact that my father . . . had another daughter.”
“Another daughter? One not with your mother, obviously.”
“Obviously,” she bit out. “And they wouldn’t give me any more details. I overheard them talking and . . . she wants to come and visit us, but Cade didn’t want her to. Because heaven forbid my life be spoiled by reality.”
“Reality is overrated,” he said. “But secrets . . . especially the kind that everyone knows but no one will talk about, those are worse. Because you feel them. I was the kid your half sister is. The one no one wanted to talk about. Of course, since it was my mother who had me, there was no hiding me.”
“I don’t want secrets. It . . . it sucks, Quinn. I don’t want to think that my dad cheated on my mom. I don’t want to face the idea that he knew he had another child and somehow, even though he took care of us, and loved us, he was able to justify never seeing her. Who wants to deal with that? Who wants to know it? But if it’s true, then I don’t deserve to believe something different. To have memories that aren’t even real. That isn’t fair. It makes me feel like an idiot. They think they were protecting me. But how is letting someone believe a lie protecting them?”
“They thought they were doing the right thing.”
“Well, maybe. But now I just feel like . . . I was telling you about how great my parents were. How wonderful my father is. And I feel like the biggest fool on the planet because it was all such a lie. What I thought. Who he was. How could the man I remember ignore a child for . . . for . . . I don’t even know how old she is.”
“Maybe you should go and talk to them.”
“I tried, but Cade is digging in and insisting I don’t want to know, even while I’m standing there telling him I do.”
“Maybe he wishes he didn’t know.” Quinn wasn’t particularly in touch with emotions, but if there was one thing he did know about, it was being the subject of a secret. It was having everyone know your secret shame and whisper about it behind your back.
So he knew. He knew just how destructive secrets could be. How the wrong revelation at the wrong time could destroy a family. And why a man who had other children would sometimes close the door in the face of his son, a son who so desperately needed someone to accept him, to save the life he’d built on lies.
Quinn knew all of that.
“Maybe,” she said, tugging on a lock of dark hair.
“And maybe you should go home and talk to them.” Why the hell was he prescribing her a moment of “Kumbaya” and hand-holding? It didn’t make any sense. None at all. He should be enjoying the family discord, except one thing kept him from total enjoyment: Lark.
She was hurt. And he didn’t like it.
“I’m not going home,” she said. “I have work to do.”
“I’m the boss. I can send you home.”
“You agreed to give me a scorching affair.”
“Did I?”
“Getting into bed with me last night signified a nonverbal agreement to conduct a scorching affair with me, as I had suggested only a moment before.”
“Is this a . . . binding . . . nonverbal agreement?”
“Yes. Binding. I didn’t write contract law.”
He crossed his arms. “I didn’t sign anything.”
“You spooned me. All night. That’s as good as a signature. Any lawyer would take my case.”
“So, I’m now contractually obligated to engage in sex with you,” he said.
“Scorching sex. In various locations.”
“They can’t get too varied—I have fifteen teenage boys coming to stay at this facility at the end of the week.”
“Then we only have a few days to be varied.”
He stabbed his waffle with his fork. “How long do you see this affair lasting?”
“How long are you staying here?”
“A few weeks, I expect.” But she would be done with him before he left. About the time she realized what he was willing to do in order to get Cade to clear his name. She might be mad at her brother now, but Quinn doubted she would appreciate him putting her family into dire financial straits.
“Then . . . until then?”
“Now we come back to the bookmark,” he said.
“Do we?”
“Yes. This is sex for me. I already told you that, but at the time, I didn’t realize how little experience you had.”
“I have experience.”
“I have blood on my bedspread and a lingering trauma that beg to differ.”
“I mean, I’ve . . . okay, I was a virgin, obvs, but it’s not like I had no experience.”
“What are we talking here? Second . . . third base?”
“What are the bases anyway? I always wondered. Second is boob action and third is like . . . is it oral, or a hand job? Or anything south of the belt line, so to speak?”
“Tell me about your experience.” Weirdly, he wanted to knock the guy who had given her her “experience” in the teeth. He liked being the only guy. There, he’d admitted it. He was an a*shole, so it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.
“Well, there was this guy. Aaron. Underscore. 234.”
“Wait, what?”
“That was his name. Handle. Whatever.”
“His handle? What was he, a trucker?”
“A recruit. In our clan. For zombie killing.”
“Wait, what? You didn’t know him in real life?”
She looked down at her lap. “Not exactly.”
“And how did you . . . gain experience with him?”
She bit her lip, her brown eyes far too wide and far too innocent. “This is the, um . . . cybersex . . . I mentioned last night.”
“Oh, really?”
“Don’t sound all scandalized. You and I had phone sex.”
“True, we did. But he’s the only experience you’ve had?”
“So what if he is?” she said, craning her neck and looking down her nose at him before taking another bite of waffle.
“I find that very interesting.”
“Well, cuz you’re a man. Men are predictable about things like this,” she said around a mouthful of waffle.
“So I’ve heard.”
“It’s boring,” she sniffed.
“I know, baby, I know I bore to you orgasm.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“So,” he said, setting his fork down, “what do you do with cybersex? I’m a Luddite, remember? Did you send pictures?”
“Oh. No, I would have died. We just . . . told each other what we looked like and . . . and went from there.”
“I need an example,” he said, shifting in his chair, embarrassed by the fact that he was actually getting hard anticipating her giving him some examples.
“You know . . . you don’t need an example.”
“I do, Lark. I find myself very jealous that this guy was on the receiving end of your dirty talk skills.”
“You do not,” she said.
“My masculine pride demands satisfaction.”
“Liar.”
“Tell me.”
Her cheeks turned read and she gnawed on a piece of waffle that was dangling from the end of her fork, then set it back onto her place. “I might have lied to him.”
“What about?”
“Well, I told him I’d done it before. Lots. Cuz I’m hot. And then I told him I had on a thong. Which I didn’t. I don’t own a thong.”
“You should get one.”
“Shush. I am telling a story. Anyway, then it was the usual, my cock is so hard for you, baby, et cetera.”
“Typical.”
“Right?” Her blush deepened, even while her tone stayed casual.
“And you got off with him?”
She looked down. “Yeah. It was easy. He said to imagine him doing certain things to me, and it was up to me how to . . . to . . .”
“Touch yourself.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at him now, her eyes a little defiant. “So, there. I have experience.”
“Sorry, that doesn’t count.”
“What? That’s not fair, you can’t say my experience doesn’t count. I have it. And what’s more, it was purely physical. Virtual. Whatever. It was only for sex. I used him. He was very sad when I was done with him, but when I was bored with him, I was bored with him. I feel no emotional attachment to him whatsoever.”
“You don’t ache for him when your fingers stroke your . . . keyboard?”
“No,” she bit out. “Not in the least. So go ahead and make your point, but recognize that I have a fork sitting near me and I will stab the fleshy part of your hand with it if you get too proprietary and . . . bleah, brotherly.”
“Fleshy?” he looked down at his hand and pinched the place between his thumb and forefinger. “That is not fleshy.”
“Missing the point.”
“Actually, you’re missing the point, and making mine really easily. You don’t know as much about sex as you think you do. You were a virgin last night. You’ve had sex once. Sex tends to make virgins a little bit crazy. Even I remember that.”
She rested her chin in her hands. “What was your first time like?”
“Off topic. But it made me a little emotional, and I never am. Which means I’m a bit concerned about you.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Dear Lord.” She straightened, looking appropriately horrified. “You’re a slut.”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Well, I’m twenty-two, so I think I’m a little more mature than a . . . ew, you were too young.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. I was seduced by an older woman. Who may not have known how old I was.”
“Quinn Parker, you are a bad boy.”
“I told you that. You seemed all right with ignoring it. Or maybe you like it.”
“I kinda like it, I won’t lie.”
“But you don’t see the reality of it. You see the fantasy. And for women I’ve taken to hotel rooms for one night? The fantasy is fine. I’ve done that—I need you to know that. I’ve spent a couple hours at a time with women I barely knew, screwed them, left, never thought of them again. I’m that kind of guy. I don’t do romance. I don’t do relationships.”
“What’s this?” she asked, looking around the kitchen.
“Waffles,” he said. “And that’s it. I’m not going to fall in love with you, and that has nothing to do with you. It’s me.”
“I appreciate your honesty.”
“I know it’s important to you.”
“It is.”
“I’m not going to protect you. I’m not going to lie to you. But I’m giving you a disclaimer. I need you to know that what I said to you, what I reminded you of last night, is still true.”
“Well, Quinn,” she said, leaning back in her chair, arms over the back of it, her breasts thrust forward into prominence, “I thank you for the warning. No love, no marriage. I get it. And you keep reminding me of what you told me. Well, has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t want love or marriage? I don’t, Quinn. Not now, not with you.”
“Then what do you want?”
She stood up and leaned over the table, her hair falling forward and shielding them from the outside world, her lips a whisper from his, dark eyes so deep he wanted to get lost in them. “I just want to f*ck you.”