Hard Ridin' (2 page)

“We’ll figure it out.” He clamped his lips shut before he begged her not to walk away from him. His throat clicked when he swallowed. “Go on. I’ll come up and see you tomorrow.”

Chapter Two

Behind her, Laurel heard the rumble of Jens’s truck engine as he started it. She slowly made her way toward Holden. Tears soaked her face, but she deserved whatever pain she felt. She’d agreed to go out with Jens. She hadn’t seen him as Holden’s friend—just a hunky cowboy with a big smile, and that’s what she’d needed to help her put the shattered pieces of her heart back together. She’d expected to go on a couple of dates, but soon she liked Jens too much.

She’d gone months without word from Holden. He’d promised to call her, to send her a note to let her know he was safe and still thinking of her. Then…nothing.

What was she supposed to do? She and Holden had only been dating for about four months before he left for an Alaska fishing boat, and the promise of a year’s worth of income for mere months of work. When she didn’t hear from him, she assumed the relationship had been one-sided—she’d been deeper than he was.

Judging by the pain radiating from his hunched form, she was wrong.

At the sound of her footsteps, he straightened, still facing away from her.

“You should have gone with him, Laurel.”

“We need to talk.”

His voice was thick. “What’s to say? I came home with the delusion that I had a girl waiting.”

“This was my fault, Holden. Jens didn’t know you and I were…a thing.” Hell, were they a thing? She’d fought her desire to be Jens’s girl, and Lord knew Jens had been relentless in securing her, but nothing had ever been said between her and Holden to this effect. “I should have told Jens, but I couldn’t bring myself to.”

Because he would have left me too, and I couldn’t handle that rejection a second time.

She sucked in a deep breath of the cold night air. “I was selfish.”

Holden spun around. His hat shadowed his face, and she longed to see his eyes. To know what was going on in his head. She still felt his pull on her—from the beginning, he’d been like a big, warm sun and she a planet caught in his gravity. When he’d left, her heart had cracked. After months with no word from him, it had shattered to pieces.

Jens had begun to put it back together. Now she’d hurt Jens more deeply than he’d let on, and the knowledge clawed at her insides.

“Why didn’t you wait?” Holden’s voice broke.

“You said six months. Even by that time, I’d given up hope that we’d take up where we left off. You could have called. Written,” she said again. How many nights had she sat at home, awaiting a phone call that never came? How many times had she run to the mailbox, expecting a letter?

The old bitterness swelled up. Over the past two months she’d been with Jens, some of that pain had dissipated. She folded her arms and fought the hurt and longing.

Holden was here, in front of her.

And she loved him.

God help her, she loved both him and Jens.

The sob caught her unaware. She bit it off and fought her rising cries.

“God, Laurel.” Holden reached for her, and she fell into his arms. His familiar scent made her cry harder. He folded her tightly against him, and she dropped her nose to his shirt, gulping his scent. Eight months without him, and now she was in his embrace. But she might have forever walked away from Jens.

Pain streaked through her chest.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Holden caressed her hair, stroking it off her wet face. “So stupid of me to not call or write. I have no excuse. But dammit, Laurel. Why Jens?”

The fury in his voice rocked her. Tearing free of his hold, she stumbled a few steps away. That she’d screwed everything up for herself was one thing. Knowing she’d quite possibly shoved a wedge between friends sliced her up.

“I-I…I’m sorry, Holden. I can’t do this right now.” She spun and fled. After running across the parking lot, she jumped the ditch and took off into the field. Jens had driven her to The Hellion, and he’d probably left thinking Holden would drive her home.

Except Holden didn’t know where “home” was now. She’d rented the old Ransom homestead from Jens, but no one had told Holden. The two-story farmhouse sat on twenty acres of land, which Jens and Holden owned.

Suddenly, all her dreams blew away like smoke. She’d worked hard to prepare the soil of her rented plot to start organic farming. The seeds were ordered and ready to put into the ground after the final frost. Jens had planned to help her with it. But would he now?

The better question was—could she look him in the eye after her treachery? And would she be kicked off the land? She was living on her nest egg and had quit her job as a nutritionist to follow this dream. She’d planned out every last dollar it would take to successfully launch her organic farm. This year’s harvest would provide a modest profit, which would see her through another year. Then she’d possibly be able to lease more land from Jens and Holden.

At least that had been the plan.

As she ran, the stitch in her side increased until she could barely draw breath. Tears blinded her and her sobs echoed on the still air.

If she was feeling this horrid, how were the men in her life holding up?

Jens drifted from the living room to the kitchen, bouncing between the phones. Every muscle of his being ached to call Laurel. But a darker, more hurt part of himself warned him not to.

Why hadn’t she told him about dating Holden?

“Fuck!” Jens thrust the heel of his hand off an open cabinet door, slamming it with a crack.

Never should have walked away and left them together.
His mind played vivid images of what might be happening between Laurel and Holden now—Holden’s mouth slanting across hers, bruising her tender lips, scraping his stubble over her sensitive skin and marking her…

“Dammit, no!” He grabbed the kitchen phone, put it to his ear and then rifled it across the room. It struck the wall and bounced, spilling its battery onto the hardwood floor.

Behind him, the front door opened. Whirling, he fixed his gaze on Holden. “Where is she?”

“She ran off.”

“What?” Panic lumbered through Jens, slow and sluggish, as if his sense had taken a hit along with his jaw, his gut and his heart. “You fucking left her out there? To make her own way home? This is a small town, Holden, but we both know there are assholes out there who would take any opportunity to fuck with a lone female.”

Grabbing his truck keys, Jens moved toward the door. He had to go find her—to make sure she was okay.

Holden lowered his cowboy hat another notch. Any farther and his eyes would be completely obliterated. Bracing his legs wide, he hooked his thumb in his pocket. He took up more space than he used to. Working those nets had really put the muscle on him.

“She set out through the field, Jens. I’m sure she’s fine. Her place is only a couple blocks from The Hellion.”

Jens kept his mouth shut. No, she didn’t live in town anymore. Of course, Holden didn’t know that, and Jens wasn’t about to enlighten him. Any bastard who would allow a woman he supposedly cared for to run off into the night alone and hurting, deserved any surprises he got coming to him.

If Holden had been the kind of man Laurel needed—one who called and wrote and actually showed that he gave a shit—he wouldn’t be in this mess.

A bigger part of Jens rejoiced that Laurel had been free. The past two months they’d spent together had been the best of his life.

Holden dropped the duffle bag he was holding.

“How’d you get home?” Jens asked, not caring in the least.

“I called to get a lift from the airport, but it seems you were out.”

They glared at each other. Jens’s mouth throbbed from the blow he’d taken. It was time to settle the score. He balled his hands into fists.

“Yeah, that’s right. I was out.”

“With my girl.” Holden gnawed at the inside of his cheek.

“Correction. My girl. You abandoned her, left her without a word of care. What is she supposed to do? Wait around for you, pining until you return?”

“Has she been pining?” Holden’s eyes gleamed.

“You bastard, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jens circled his friend, eyeing the point on Holden’s body where he could grip him and most easily take him down.

“Hell yes, I’d like it. Better than finding my best friend’s tongue in her mouth.”

Jens shook his head. Guilt hit him hard. All his life, he’d been the empathetic guy, the one who always stuck up for the underdog because he pictured himself in his shoes. Now was no different. If he’d returned from an eight-month, exhausting stint on a fishing boat, only to find his girl in Holden’s arms, he’d go mad with fury and betrayal.

“Holden.”

His friend held up a palm, obviously sensing Jens’s desire to straighten out this kink in the steel of their friendship. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now, Jens. I’ve been traveling for eighteen hours and I’m exhausted.”

“Why did you come to The Hellion instead of going home?”

Holden’s gaze met Jens’s for a long beat. “Max Madison was heading from the airport, and I caught a ride with him. On the way past The Hellion, I saw your truck and told him to drop me off there. Thought we could have a homecoming beer.”

Pain throbbed in Jens’s chest. He hung his head.

“I’m going to bed. That was a hell of a long walk home, and I can’t think about this catastrophe another minute.”

As Holden strode to the staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms, Jens couldn’t help but ache for his friend. And his own pain went from a dull pulsation to agony at the thought of losing his best friend and his woman in one fell swoop.

Tomorrow they’d straighten this out. Tonight, he had to find Laurel.

On a fishing boat, there was no alarm clock. Holden had spent eight months getting up when the captain yelled at him. So he wasn’t surprised to find himself outside before dawn.

Striding through the yard to the barn, he drank in the fresh scent of grass, hay and the fecund smell of animals. This was one of the things he’d missed most about the ranch. Hauling net after net of fish into a boat wasn’t really working with animals, and Holden missed that.

He slipped into the barn and blinked into the darkness. Three new calves in the pen. Pretty good for how early it was. They could probably expect a couple more by summer.

He reached over the rail corralling the calves and stroked one’s back. The velvety hide shuddered beneath his hand, and the baby nosed him.

“Nice to meet you too,” Holden said.

He kicked around in the barn for a few more minutes, petting mewling cats, patting the rumps of all the horses and even tipping more grain into a few troughs.

Making the decision to leave Rope Burn Ranch to work on the fishing boat had seemed like a good one at the time. In half a year, he’d earned more money than twelve months of farming and raising cattle. It was money he intended to put back into the ranch.

Now, he wasn’t so sure. Could he continue to share the duties of this land with a man who had betrayed him?

Even if Jens was innocent and hadn’t known about Holden’s relationship with Laurel, Jens wasn’t going to back away from her. He’d be an idiot to do that, and Jens had never been stupid. When he saw a good opportunity, he latched on to it. He was the one who’d found this ranch for sale and proposed that they go in halvsies on it.

Jens wouldn’t let Laurel go. Even if he did, would she come back to Holden? Did he want her to?

He ground a knuckle into his eye and fought back his emotion. What he needed was a good ride to clear his head.

He scanned the horses. Saddling one up would take too long. Nah, he needed keys and a fast engine.

On the hook in the small, dirty space he and Jens called an office, Holden found the set of keys hanging on a nail. He plucked them free and headed back out of the barn to the farm shed. A thin band of gray was just lighting the horizon. He had a few minutes to steal away before being faced with Jens and a very hard talk.

And harder decisions.

He picked his way through the shed, over farm implements and tractor accessories. An ATV sat at the back, facing the double doors. He pushed open the doors and made certain everything was cleared out of the way before climbing on.

Firing the engine, he pulled his hat low. This morning he’d set aside his cowboy hat—the very hat that had earned him the nickname of “cowboy” on the fishing boat. Instead, he’d donned a black knit hat. On his first date with Laurel, he’d worn this hat and she’d called it his “sexy thug” look. Maybe he’d chosen it today to recapture that memory.

He eased through the double doors and hit the turf. He tore off through the field, revving the engine. The brisk morning air bit through his thin sweatshirt and jeans, but he welcomed the cold. It centered him, cleared his senses, though it didn’t take away the burning pain.

That fire had consumed him all night long. He’d lain awake for most of the dark hours, fighting the urge to call Laurel just to hear her voice. Even with thousands of miles between them, the memory of her voice hadn’t faded in his mind. The throaty tone had been just as true to him in Alaska as it was last night in the bar.