“Loud and clear.”
Abe tossed his phone and braced his hands on the counter, trying not to panic.
“What’s going on with Celia?” Janie said behind him.
He whirled around. “Ah. Nothin’. I’m handling it.”
“Not very well.” Janie shuffled closer. She’d wrapped herself in his old terrycloth bathrobe. Something loosened in his chest. He’d forgotten how she used to slip on his shirts and steal his socks and how much he’d loved it. “Talk to me, Abe.”
Janie had always complained that Celia was a drama queen, and Abe wouldn’t put his sister in a bad light when she was so obviously hurting. “I was talkin’ to Celia, we got cut off and I called Kyle, who’s on the CRA tour with her, to check on her. He was a little reluctant. I insisted.”
“I heard. Is Celia still following him around like a puppy?”
Abe frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh come on. You had to’ve noticed. The way Celia was always chasing after Kyle. She adored him.”
“I never noticed. All’s I remember is them fightin’ like crazy. Drove us all nuts.”
“It was one-sided. Kyle never gave Celia a second glance. To add insult to injury, he treated her like a pesky little sister just like you and Hank did.”
“Well, it’s a good damn thing he didn’t act on her signals or I’da strung Kyle up, family friend or not. He’s too goddamn old for Celia.”
Janie lifted a brow in that annoying, imperious way of hers. “Seven years is a gap when she was eleven and he was eighteen. But now that she’s twenty-four and he’s thirty-one? Not such a big age difference.” She stood on her tiptoes and tried to peer into the big soup pot. “Whatcha cooking?”
“Chicken noodle soup.”
“Homemade?”
“Yeah.” Abe dumped the noodles into a strainer in the sink. “Bet you thought I’d never learn to cook.”
“I figured you’d marry a proper ranch wife, who’d gladly whip up hearty meals for you three times a day and you’d never have to learn.”
“How long did you give me before I remarried?” he asked lightly.
“Six months.”
He shook the noodles with extra force. “I must’ve been a real asshole if you believed I’d need so little time to mourn our marriage, Janie.”
“At the time, I didn’t think either of us would mourn the end of it.”
You were wrong. I mourned that loss longer than I did the loss of my parents. Not that he’d admit such a thing to her or anyone else. He said, “Watch out,” and carried the noodles to the soup pot. “We’ll be ready to eat in about five.”
“I’ll set the table. Where are you keeping bowls these days?”
“Middle cupboard.”
“I knew you’d change things back to the way your mother had arranged them after I left,” she accused.
“Another thing you’re wrong about. Lainie made changes when she moved in. I’ve never cared where the dishes were just as long as I could find them.”
She set the bowls on the woven placemats. “Were these Lainie’s?”
“The placemats? No, those are mine. Couldn’t stand the frilly ones so I bought some that weren’t so damn girly.” He plopped the pot in the middle of the table next to a box of crackers. His cell vibrated on the counter and he snatched it, growling, “You’d better have good news for me, Gilchrist.”
“I found her.”
Abe sagged into the chair. “Thank you. How is she?”
“Besides drunk as a damn skunk? Now she’s mad as hell too. She took a swing at me.”
“I hope you ducked.”
“Her aim is a little off, but she wasn’t exactly aiming for my face.”
Considering the snarl in Kyle’s tone, Abe held back his chuckle. Then he heard Celia in the background. “Is that Abe?”
Kyle said, “Yeah. Didja wanna talk to him?”
“Abe, you fucking bastard,” Celia yelled loud enough that Abe had to hold the phone away from his ear. “You called Kyle? I trusted you and you turned me over to this smarmy douche bag who can’t keep his dick in his pants! Do you know what he said to me?” The line crackled and Celia’s voice sounded farther away. “Omigod, Kyle Gilchrist you fuckin’ pervert, put me down right fuckin’ now or I swear to God I will kick your balls into your throat as soon as I’ve sobered up!”
“Try it, baby cakes, and I’ll give you another spanking.”
Another spanking? What the fuck did that mean?
The phone clunked again and Kyle snarled, “You owe me, Abe. Big time. Celia is so shitfaced I can’t leave her alone so I’m takin’ her to my hotel. But since she ditched Mickey at the community barn after the event, now I gotta deal with that temperamental goddamn horse of hers too. Fuck.”
“Call me tomorrow and let me know how the night went.”
“I’ll tell you right now how it’s gonna go. She’s a pain in my ass and I’ll probably end up in jail for killin’ her. I don’t give a shit if she is your sister. You assholes better bail me outta jail if that happens.” Kyle hung up.
Janie stared at the phone. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Like I said, no love lost between Kyle and Celia. But at least I know she ain’t passed out somewhere alone.”
He filled the bowls and they tucked in.
“This is really good, Abe.”
“Thanks.”
“So Celia’s been barrel racing professionally for . . . ?”
“Three years. Not that me’n Hank had a freakin’ clue about that part of her life. She hid it from us.” His gaze zoomed to hers. “Did you know she’d kept up with her training?”
Janie shook her head. “But Celia didn’t confide in me much anyway. Is she any good?”
He shrugged. “Some natural talent. She works hard and ended up with a great horse. She’s gone a lot, which took some getting used to. Now me’n Hank are her biggest supporters, but when we found out about her deception . . .” Something jogged his memory. When it solidified, a niggling feeling of guilt surfaced. “Wait a second. The last time you contacted me before you came back to Muddy Gap was three years ago.”
“So?”
“So . . . was that the same time the incidents with this Dave guy escalated? Was that why you called me and asked if we could meet?”
“I don’t remember.”
Liar. “Janie.”
“What?”
“Look at me and tell me the truth.”
Her purple-hued irises flashed frustration. “Yes, that’s partially why I called you, okay? I was scared to death and I thought seeing you, hearing you say ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Janie, and handle it like an adult’ would give me courage.”
“So you didn’t tell me what was really goin’ on that day we had lunch in Cheyenne. You acted like your life was perfect. In fact, you sort of rubbed it in my face. How happy and successful you were.” Without me went unsaid. It’d sliced him to the quick, hearing from her after years of no contact. Believing he’d heard longing in her voice over the phone had been the only reason he’d agreed to see her. He’d felt like a fool afterward, but seeing her had allowed him to make much needed changes in his own life.
“I lied about my life because I didn’t want you to think I needed saving again,” she said softly.
Instead of saying, I’ve always wanted to be there to save you, he snapped, “But it was perfectly okay for Renner to come to your rescue, like in the version you told me earlier?”
“Please. Can we just drop it?”
Back to the same old, same old within a couple of hours.
Only the clanking of spoons filled the silence.
She delicately broke a cracker and scattered the chunks in her bowl. “What are your after-dinner plans? Wanna veg out and watch a movie with me?”
“You’re more than welcome to watch whatever you’d like. There’s a ton of ranch bookwork to catch up on, so I’ll be workin’ in my office all night.”
??
?Oh. Okay.” She hid her disappointment and focused on stirring her soggy crackers. “I’m staying in Hank’s old room?”
“Unless you’d rather be downstairs in Celia’s room so you have your own bathroom.”
“I don’t mind sharing a bathroom with you.”
He checked the time. “Do you need anything else before I get to work?”
“I’m sure if my stalker tosses a Molotov cocktail through the living room window, you’ll hear it.”
“Funny. The doors are locked. I don’t have to warn you not to go outside, do I?”
She shook her head.
“See you in a couple hours.” He snagged a Coke and retreated to his office, locking the door behind him. While he waited for his computer to load, he unlocked the filing cabinet and took out his notebooks. He flipped through the loose papers until he found the assignment he’d finished after the last online class. Thank God he was only nine credits short of finishing his bachelor of science degree in agricultural business. Abe knew such stealth was ridiculous. But he’d been doing it for so long it’d become second nature. It was a miracle he’d kept his academic pursuits hidden from Celia, as well as Hank and Lainie while they’d lived here with him.
Abe had known at an early age his main responsibility would always be to the ranch, but he’d intended to go to college part time. Following his parents’ unexpected deaths, dreams of higher education became just that. He and Hank were left to raise Celia. To earn cash to keep them afloat, Hank had started bullfighting. Hank’s travel demands meant better money, but it also meant more work for Abe. With the weight of his ranch responsibilities, by the time he was twenty-three, he’d felt like an old man.
His friends always teased him about being so serious, working too hard. Heeding his brother’s advice to cut loose, he’d spent the weekend in Casper visiting his buddy Max. They’d gone to a fraternity dance, scoffing at the pirate theme, opting to wear normal clothes—jeans, boots and hats. The frat boys weren’t happy the ladies were clustered around the pair of cowboys, not the surplus of pirates, and tossed them out. Literally. Abe’s face had connected with several fists before his ass had met the pavement. A scrap of a woman, dressed as a serving wench, helped him to his feet, and fussed over him like she’d been personally responsible for his airborne ejection from the party.
It’d been years since he’d been the sole focus of a woman’s tender care and concern. He liked it more than he wanted to admit—and he milked it as much as he could. It wasn’t Janie’s unadorned physical appearance that’d immediately captivated him, although she masked her petite curvy body in formless clothes and hid her beautiful smile behind long straight black hair. Her thoughtful nature had drawn him in after she’d taken him to her efficiency apartment and patched him up. Those amazingly expressive purple-hued eyes and the hungry way she kissed him, and the no-holds-barred way she wanted him were just icing on the cake.
He’d hung out with the introverted, oddly compelling woman all weekend. And every weekend after that. He and Janie were inseparable, as inseparable as a couple could be, with him living in Muddy Gap and her living in Casper. The more he got to know her, the more he adored her. He wanted to spend his life taking care of her. He was so happy he’d found a woman who understood his ties to the ranch and his family. A woman who wanted the same things he did.
Or so he thought.
He proposed to her within two weeks of that first meeting. But Janie held him off for four months before agreeing to become his wife. She moved to the ranch, but continued to drive to the college campus to work on her degree. The first year they were happy. But as months went on, so did Abe’s frustration with Janie’s disillusionment about the life she’d signed on for with him. Why wasn’t being married to him and living the same type of life his parents had enough for her?
Eventually, the no-win argument culminated in her leaving him.
In the aftermath, Abe wondered if he’d mistaken her shyness for malleability. There was little resemblance in the Janie of old, to the new Janie. Now she was sophisticated, with her chic short haircut and trendy wardrobe. She exuded confidence in all social situations, using her charm and deeply dimpled smile to enchant both men and women.
Still, Janie’s departure from his life had prompted his enrollment in college. He’d never felt smart enough for her. But after his first year of classes, earning a degree became something Abe wanted to do for himself, if for no other reason than to prove he could.
He had the chance to confess about his secret academic life when Hank busted Celia for keeping her barrel-racing career a secret. But he hadn’t come clean. It’d become a point of pride that if he failed, no one would know but him.
Abe logged into his student account, mentally preparing himself for a two-hour lecture on the “Analysis of Sustainable Agriculture in the Global Marketplace.” He plugged in his headphones, grabbed a pencil and settled down to work. Thoughts of seducing his ex-wife were lost in ag projections and corporate farming practices.
Abe was not acting at all like the Abe that Janie remembered.
He wasn’t hovering and fussing over her.
He definitely wasn’t coddling and soothing her.
He’d cooked comfort food for her.
Then he’d left her to her own devices. For three hours.
Last night when he’d emerged from his office, he’d double-checked the locks, sweetly kissed her on the forehead and retired to his room.
Janie expected things to be different tonight. She’d spent all day by herself while he was doing mysterious, never-ending ranch stuff. So after he returned from finishing chores, she intended to complain about her aches and pains, expecting he’d offer to rub her neck. Or massage her back. Or put his face between her thighs and use that wickedly talented mouth to make her come.
But he’d not done any of that. He’d cooked, cleaned up, and vanished into his office again. Which indicated the man had no plans to seduce her tonight.
So proposition him.
Right. She already felt crappy, and if Abe turned her down . . . she’d be even more mortified. She shuffled to the bathroom and popped two ibuprofen. While scrubbing her teeth, she scrutinized her appearance in the mirror. Pasty white skin, black circles beneath her eyes . . . terrific zombie imitation. No wonder Abe hadn’t sweet-talked his way into her panties.
Janie stopped in the hallway outside of Abe’s room, debating on whether to bother him. The door opened so fast she almost believed he’d been waiting for her.
“Is everything all right?”
Holy hell, no, everything was not all right, she was about to have heart failure. The man wasn’t wearing a shirt. And check out those exquisitely formed pectorals—firm, chiseled bands of muscle. Her eyes followed the sexy line of dark hair bisecting his well-defined chest, down past his ribcage to abs of steel. Talk about a lip-smacking six-pack. As her gaze drifted farther south to the waistband of his camo boxers, Abe cleared his throat.
Guiltily, she met his eyes. “Sorry. It’s just a shock to see you.”
“Really? Because you knocked on my bedroom door.”
“I did?” She stared at her knuckles as if they had a mind of their own because she didn’t remember knocking. “Umm . . . I didn’t mean it was a shock to see you as much as I meant it is a shock to see you half-naked.”
“I’m getting ready for bed. Something you need?”
Dammit. Conjuring a plausible excuse on the fly wasn’t her strong suit. “Ah, I just wondered”—when you got into such fantastic shape—“what time you were getting up?”
“Around five. Same as I always do. Why? You want me to get you up?”
“No. In fact, I might sleep with a gun under my pillow in case you decide to try.” Abe’s tendency to adhere to a rigid schedule, especially so freakin’ early in the morning, had been a major annoyance during their marriage. He’d always wanted her to tag along when he did his first round of feeding, which never made sense to her because she wasn’t muc
h help, but he’d always nagged the point. “I wondered if you were taking me to the Split Rock, or if I could borrow a vehicle. I need to be there around eight.”
“I’ll take you. I oughta have the first round of feedin’ done by then.”
“Well, thanks. Good night.”
“Night, Janie. Sweet dreams.”
They’d be a lot sweeter if you curled your banging body around mine.
“You sure you’re all right?”
Janie caught the mirth in his eyes, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I’m fine.”
Put your eyeballs back in your head. Turn around. Go to bed.
And somehow, Janie did just that.
Chapter Twelve
No surprise things had come to a head with Renner. Not because Tierney had been pestering him with endless questions. His fury had come from jealousy and disbelief that employees had been approaching her with operation questions—not him—while Janie was recuperating.
So maybe she had acted a little smug. But that hadn’t given him the right to insult her.