Heartbreak Ranch (13 page)

All in all, the evening was turning out much better than she'd had any right to expect, and merely strengthened the conclusion she'd drawn. Anything between them but friendship and a certain quirky connection should be avoided at all costs.

She raised her glass in a toast. “To us. And to a return to the sometimes strained and ever-amusing relationship that passes for normal between us.” She sipped daintily,
then noticed that he'd failed to do the same. “What's the matter, Sullivan, not big enough to admit when you're wrong?”

“Not usually,” he said with an indefinable glint in his eye. “But you're going to have to help me out here. Just what was it that I was wrong about?”

“Do you want the short list? Specifically, about you and me, and that…flicker of passion we indulged in.” Ignoring the quick rising heat at the memory, she shook her head.

“Frankly, neither of us wants, or needs a diversion at this point in our lives. Am I right?”

Seeming bemused, he nodded slowly and tipped his beer to his lips.

She looked at him with approval. He was going to manage to be civil about this, after all. It was more than she'd dared hope for. “It would be ridiculous for us to risk what we have together for a temporary flight from our senses.”

He contemplated the label on his bottle. “And just what is it that we have?”

Waving a hand casually, she said, “Oh, you know. Familiarity, some degree of affection and a certain grudging respect.”

His gaze rose from the bottle to fix on hers. “We have all that?”

Because it suited her to do so, she ignored the hint of irony in his words. There was a higher purpose to be achieved here, at any rate. “Even more than that. Too much to throw away on some momentarily clashing hormones.” She was almost certain she saw him choke slightly at her words. “I think we can rise above our libidos to salvage what's really important, can't we?”

He took another long swallow, and his answer was slow in coming. “I guess I can if you can.”

“Good. Good for you.” She beamed a smile meant to
charm. “Our relationship might not be the easiest, but I don't think it's wise to mutate it into some shortsighted orgasmic mistake, do you?”

This time he did choke. “You're a poet, you know that? Julianne Dickinson.”

She set her wine aside and clasped her hands over her pleasantly full stomach. “You're just being sarcastic because you know I'm right.” Lazily she stretched to jostle his foot with hers. “Would you mind bringing me a bottled water while you're up?”

“I'm not up,” he pointed out.

“But you should be. Eating the way you did with no follow-up exercise is a terrific way to start a paunch. Middle-age spread begins in the thirties, you know.”

 

Doing her bidding was easier than listening to her lame gibes, and that was the only reason he got up and brought the water she requested from the kitchen. As a silent comeback, he also grabbed a couple more cookies. Unconsciously, he ran a hand over his washboard-flat stomach. The woman's tongue could rival that of a demented mynah bird.

He sat back down, finished off the cookies and washed them down with a long drink of beer. Crossing his legs at the ankle, he decided that there were worse ways to spend an evening. He'd always liked this room, had felt an immediate connection the first time he'd entered it. Although filled with valuable western paintings and the occasional work of art, it was then, and had always remained, a man's room. There was a quiet elegance to the entire house that missed fussiness and targeted on relaxing. It was a house meant to be lived in.

It couldn't have been further from the spacious penthouse where he'd lived so briefly with Kimberley and Lu
ther Templeton. He imagined that the home they'd brought him to had been just as expensive. Certainly it had been jammed with priceless objects. Objects meant to be observed and appreciated. Objects that broke too easily in a young boy's hand. Kimberley's displeasure had been swift and sharp.

You clumsy child. Learn to be more careful, Jed. You're not living in a back alley slum anymore.

Although memories of that back alley slum were dim, they were still there, seeping into his unconscious when he least expected them. Mostly he remembered the smells, the sharp pangs of hunger, the incessant noise. He couldn't summon a memory of his birth mother's face, but he remembered a short temper and quick hands. And in the darkest part of his dreams lingered the memory of another child in that squalid apartment, the smell of smoke, the stench of burning flesh and a sizzling agony that had seemed endless.

Before the memories could completely bloom, Jed switched off his mind, concentrating on the cool beverage in his hand and the simple indulgence of doing nothing at all. Not that looking at Julianne constituted nothing. She was easy on the eyes, explosive to the senses. He frowned into his beer as he remembered how casually she'd dismissed the idea of something more intimate between them. She hadn't said anything he hadn't thought himself, although admittedly never in such colorful terms. But he was male enough to be annoyed at how easily she'd managed to dismiss the whole idea. Moodily, he surveyed the woman stretched out across from him.

He should have been relieved at her words. With the two of them working to stomp out the sparks they'd been striking off each other, they ought to be able to avoid a mistake that could be disastrous. He'd spent a lifetime
keeping most people at a distance, and didn't especially appreciate the sensation of being dragged into something by his glands. Julianne wouldn't be content with the little he was willing to offer to a woman. No, she'd push and prod until she held a man's heart in her hand. His heart was perfectly healthy behind the shield he'd constructed around it, and he planned on keeping it that way.

Still, there was no denying the purely masculine disappointment he was feeling, which only pointed out the vast distance between logic and libido.

He ignored her nagging to put on some music, and eventually she roused herself enough to slip a CD into the stereo before plopping back down. In the next moment he reconsidered his stubbornness as the familiar crooning of a popular rock star filled the air. Her taste in music hadn't improved since she was a teen, a fact he felt obliged to point out.

She didn't bother to open her eyes. “The insult would have more sting if it didn't come from a guy who regularly listened to grown men wailing about their dogs, their pickup trucks and their women, in that order.”

“The term you're searching for is
country-western,
and to bad-mouth it is almost unpatriotic. I think you can get jail time for that these days.”

“For what, failing to salute a gun rack?” Her lip curled.

“I'll take my chances.”

She hummed along with the music, the smoky drift of sound just loud enough to curl through his system and tangle in the heat that was inexplicably blooming there.

“This is nice,” she murmured lazily, propping her head on one of the pillows he'd set out and leaning back. “I've always loved this time of day. I used to imagine that if my mother had lived, we'd have been a real family. One who would gather after dinner to play games, put puzzles
together….” Her voice trailed off. She opened one eye to consider him. “Did you ever have that? I mean, before Kimberley and your father divorced?”

What they'd had, he recalled, were long, icy silences, punctuated by the sound of crystal shattering during some of Kimberley's more violent tantrums. A growing sense of defeat, as he began to understand that the purpose of his adoption, to make the couple a family, was doomed to failure.

He sent her a long look meant to silence. “Yeah, I really miss Ward and June.” He should have known that she wouldn't be put off. If anything, she was intrigued, both eyes open now and head cocked to survey him consideringly.

“She wasn't much of a mother even then, was she?” He remained silent, but she continued to muse aloud. “I mean, Kimberley never struck me as the maternal type, but then, I was only a kid when the two of you came here. Even though we didn't have much to do with each other, I sort of tolerated her because I thought maybe she could make Harley happy.” A note of wistfulness entered her voice. “She must have loved him once to marry him and move the two of you out here.”

What she'd loved, Jed suspected, was the way Harley had spent money when she'd met him in the casinos, and the prospect of plenty more of it. Love was one emotion he doubted Kimberley was well versed in.

“Do you see her much?”

That, at least, he could answer honestly. “No. We exchange birthday and Christmas cards, all very civilized. Maybe a couple times a year, a phone call.” Usually when her finances were in a mess and she needed someone to untangle them. He didn't mind helping her out occasionally, but he did think it odd that what he felt for Annie
was ten times stronger than any emotion Kimberley had ever inspired in him. He'd never spent a lot of time worrying about what that said about his family. He was certain he already knew.

Julianne was in a contemplative mood. “My mother died before I could know her, but I did miss having one. I always thought that if she'd lived things might have been different.”

“What things?”

She lifted a shoulder self-consciously. “I don't know. Maybe she would have been enough for Harley. Maybe he would have been satisfied to stay here, instead of chasing the excitement of a big win.” Shaking her head, she settled back against the pillow. “I'll never know. Don't you ever wonder about things like that?”

He could have told her that he didn't waste his time on things he couldn't change. Instead, he focused on making sure he didn't lose any more than he already had. He tipped the bottle to his lips and drank. “What's the point?”

“The point is figuring out who we are and why we do the things we do. Haven't you ever considered tracing your roots, trying to find your birth mother?”

His answer was immediate and heartfelt. “No.”

“But why not?” she pressed. “Kimberley and your adoptive father might have failed you, but you may have blood relatives out there. Don't you wonder about them?”

“My birth mother signed over her legal rights to me when I was four,” he said tersely. His relaxed mood was fast dissipating. “When you talk about failure, it doesn't get more definite than that.”

He had her interest now. He recognized it in the way she leaned forward, her pretty face serious and her wide eyes sincere. “She might have had no other options. It doesn't necessarily make her a monster.”

“Doesn't it?” His lips quirked humorlessly. She liked to push and poke at a person until she could peer inside them, dissect their thoughts and feelings. Wanting to shock her, he took a slice of the truth and slammed it down between them like a gauntlet. “I don't remember much about her, but after bugging Kimberley for months, she finally told me what she knew. My birth mother was charged with neglect. She'd gone off for the evening and the apartment caught fire.”

Horrified fascination sounded in her words. “Did she come back in time to rescue you?”

His palms began to itch and he wished for a cigarette. He folded his arms across his chest. “I never saw her again.” There was no emotion in his voice. He was practiced at keeping it trapped deep inside. “When she returned two days later, I was in a hospital and the cops were waiting for her.” And the other child he could remember only faintly, his younger brother, was never seen again.

“Your shoulder,” she murmured in understanding. The scars on his right shoulder blade had been a part of him so long he no longer questioned them. When she was a kid, she'd pestered him about their origin until Annie had caught her at it and put an end to her torment.

“What with skin grafts and endless infections, I'm told I was in and out of hospitals for almost two years.” Dredging up the past never brought him any measure of comfort, but his words had finally managed to silence her. Her eyes were sober and soft with sympathy, a sympathy he didn't want.

“You're going to have to harden that soft heart of yours if you don't want it splashing all over the ground in front of you, Julianne. There aren't always happy endings. You, better than most, should understand that.”

But if he thought to quiet her he should have known better. Her chin angled up and she met his cynicism head-on. “I don't blame you for not wanting to find your birth mother, I guess. But what if you have brothers or sisters out there somewhere? Aunts or uncles? You might be denying yourself the chance for a real family.”

He ignored the dart of pain that pierced him then. He'd never seen his brother again after the fire, and he was certain he knew the reason why. “I'm not like you, Jules.” He drank from the beer in his hand and wished for something stronger. “You might need someone to hang on to. I don't.”

He uttered the words, and believed them with every fiber of his being. “I don't need anyone.”

J
ulianne rode out the next day, her hands unsteady on the reins, her heart in her throat. Gabe had said that Jed was checking on the cattle in the south pasture. The men had spotted elk nearby, always a worry because of the disease they could spread to the herd. She urged her mare to a faster pace and silently cursed the man for choosing this day to fail to carry his two-way radio with him.

She spotted his truck and some horses ahead, and breathed a silent prayer of relief. She stopped her mare, slid off and gestured him over. He took one long look at her face and started toward her, his long strides eating up the ground.

“You've about got poor Casey worked into a lather. What's up?”

She wet her lips and forced her voice to remain steady. “It's Annie.” Her voice deserted her then and she paused to fight down the unreasonable panic. One of her hands was wrapped tightly around the fence post and he covered
it, his larger, rougher hand engulfing hers and providing an immediate, soothing comfort.

She took a deep breath. “Her niece just called. Annie took a tumble down the front steps yesterday and spent the night in the hospital.”

His fingers tightened around hers and his voice became urgent. “How badly is she hurt?”

Julianne shook her head and took a breath, trying to force her drumming pulse to a more sedate pace. “Betsy, her niece, said it wasn't too bad, but they held her for X rays and observation. That's all she knew. The doctor hadn't been in to talk to them yet. I don't want to wait, Jed. I have to go see her now.”

“We'll take the plane,” he said simply, and she turned her fingers under his and squeezed as a wave of silent relief washed over her. She was overreacting; she knew that. But in this battle of reason and emotion, emotion was clearly the victor. Annie had always seemed somehow indestructible. Julianne couldn't imagine life without the woman.

Refusing to let the tormenting fears take root and bloom, Julianne focused instead on the terse orders Jed was giving the men. At his suggestion, she left her mare for one of the hands to take home and climbed into the truck with him. It occurred to her on the way back to the ranch that the knot in her throat had eased a bit, and she knew it was because Jed was at her side. For the first time in her life, she welcomed having his strength to lean on. She was too worried about Annie to contemplate the ramifications of that.

 

Julianne paused outside Annie's bedroom door and took a deep breath, trying to force aside her bone-deep exhaustion. The woman had always had her own room and bath just off the kitchen, a fact that had saved Julianne many
steps these last few days. Pasting a determined smile on her face, she knocked lightly, then pushed open the door. Annie looked up.

“Good heavens, girl, you don't need to be bringing me fresh lemonade. You're gonna run yourself ragged the way you wait on me hand and foot.”

“Well, since you've got two bum feet, I'm loaning you mine for a while.” Julianne set the tray on the table Jed had placed next to Annie's bed and poured the woman a glass.

Annie took the lemonade from her and sipped. Setting it down on the table, she patted the bed. “Come sit down for a few minutes. You look ready to drop where you stand.”

Julianne smiled wryly. There had never been any fooling this woman. She saw way too much. She pulled up a chair rather than chance jostling Annie's ankle.

“How's the pain? Any better?” As Julianne spoke the words, she carefully searched the woman's face. Although the doctor had diagnosed her right ankle with a nasty sprain, and a deep bone bruise on the other, Annie still resisted taking the pain medication he'd prescribed.

“Oh, it's not so bad.” The words would have been more convincing if the pain lines etched near Annie's mouth weren't so apparent.

“Liar.” Julianne reached for the bottle of medication, shook out a pill and offered it to the woman. “Take it. And I don't want to hear any back talk.”

Annie looked mutinous. “I hate the way those darn things make me feel, all woozy and light-headed. Why, thirty minutes after taking it I'll be falling asleep.”

“And did you have any more pressing plans for the evening?” Julianne inquired. “Busting a few broncs, running a marathon, dancing till dawn?”

“Go on, rub it in.” Annie sighed, but she took the pill and washed it down with a swallow of lemonade. “I've never felt more helpless in my life.” Glowering, she added, “I hate it.”

Julianne smiled sympathetically. “Well, it won't be forever. If I know you, you'll be back on your feet soon enough to qualify as a medical miracle. Why, they'll be asking you to fly to medical conferences all around the world to spill your recuperative secrets. Once you're there, I'm counting on you to give me the credit I deserve.”

The woman smiled reluctantly. “You and your foolishness. You're the one who looks like she could use some rest.” Sharp eyes examined Julianne's face. “You're trying to do too much. The house, the cooking, waiting on me. You need to slow down.”

Working her tired shoulders, Julianne countered, “It's not too much. It's no more than you do every day.” A fact that was filling her with more awe by the hour. “I guess I've been living too soft if I can't handle a little dusting and baking.”

Annie leaned back against her pillow. “You've never been soft, and that's a fact. It's just a different kind of activity, one you're not used to.”

Refusing to give in to the urge to rub her aching back, Julianne smiled faintly. “Don't worry. Once you're up and about again I'll gratefully resign your position. Is there anything I can get you?”

“You might fetch me some writing paper and a pen from the study. I think I'll try to stay awake a bit longer and catch up on some letter writing I've been puttin' off.”

“You've got it.” Julianne got up and went after the items Annie had requested. The study was empty, which was unusual at this time of night. Jed generally worked for several hours after dinner. His computer was on, though.
She went over and studied the screen curiously. Listed were the current market prices for crops and cattle. She knew very little about this kind of technology, but she'd heard that through the Internet a person could access just about any kind of information they wanted. She supposed some found that wonderfully helpful. She couldn't help thinking it was a bit creepy. A friend had once told her that he could type in a name on the Web and often come up with the address of the person he was searching for, sometimes with a map to the house. She skirted the machine distrustfully and went to rummage through some of the drawers in the desk. There was something to be said for a person's right to privacy, technology or no.

She found some pink stationery, which certainly couldn't belong to Jed, and a pen. She started to rejoin Annie, and then stopped and eyed the computer thoughtfully.

Just about any kind of information.
The Web was accessed by people all over the globe. She wondered if it could be used to elicit information about finding birth relatives. If Jed changed his mind, it seemed as good a place as any to start.

That possibility seemed unlikely. He'd been adamant about his lack of interest in family. She still found it difficult to fathom the reasons for his refusal. There was no denying that he'd suffered some terrible hurts as a child. It seemed as though he'd spent much of his life insulating himself from any further ones. Maybe she could understand his reaction, but that didn't mean she agreed with it. Ghosts from the past had a way of rising to haunt long after they should have been banished. Jed's ghosts may be dormant much of the time, but they were there. She'd sensed them the other night when he'd offered the little he had about his childhood.

She quietly left the study and returned to Annie's room beyond the kitchen. She wished she could tell him how to lay those ghosts to rest for good but knew that he'd have to work that out on his own. Personal ghost-busting was a very private matter.

Annie was already looking a little sleepy-eyed when Julianne returned with the paper and pen. “Told you that darn pill would knock me out,” she grumbled. Determinedly, she took the writing materials from Julianne. “But I'm staying awake until nine tonight if it kills me.”

Julianne smiled, doubting the woman's success. Her own exhaustion seemed to have dissipated. Restless now, she got up and paced to the window, pulled the lace curtain back and looked out. From the window, Annie could view her prize roses during the short Montana summer. She doted on those roses, tended them as carefully as a baby. With a guilty pang, Julianne realized that even though she'd snuck some of the long-stemmed beauties to hoard in her room this morning, she'd completely forgotten to water the garden once since Annie's fall.

But the roses didn't look neglected. They were, as usual, dripping with blooms. And in the next instant she knew why. It was only a glimpse, but she'd swear she saw Jed just rounding the corner of the house. She let the curtain drop, a slight smile playing over her lips. He had the same view from his office as Annie did from her room. He must have looked out and been struck with the same thought Julianne had had. He'd just been quicker at acting on it.

The bit of thoughtfulness shouldn't have surprised her. Jed cared for Annie as deeply as Julianne did herself. He'd taken to stopping in her room after dinner, bringing her the mail and magazines he'd sent a man to town for. While she'd cleaned up the kitchen, she could hear the low rumble of his voice as he filled the woman in on the daily
events of the ranch. She even occasionally heard a rare masculine chuckle.

No, his thoughtfulness shouldn't surprise her, and it certainly shouldn't soften something deep inside, unleashing feelings that were best left unexamined.

She turned away from the window. “Annie, what do you know about Jed's childhood?”

The woman didn't raise her gaze from the letter she was beginning. “I know he was quiet as a priest, determined to a fault and, at times, rivaled only by you for sheer orneriness.”

Julianne slipped her hands into the pockets of her gauzy summer dress and shook her head. “No, I don't mean after he came here. I mean before.”

The other woman did raise her gaze then, and it was quizzical. “You mean before Kimberley divorced his father? Or before the adoption?”

When she lifted a shoulder, one thin strap slipped and Julianne reached up to move it back into place. Strolling aimlessly around the room, her fingers trailed over the odds and ends Annie had set about on every available surface. There were numerous framed pictures, both of her and Jed, taken at various ages. She paused, picking up a plaster imprint of her hand that she'd made when she'd been in kindergarten. Harley hadn't been interested in the endless collection of personal keepsakes from his daughter's childhood, but Annie had tried her best to fill the voids he'd left in Julianne's life. With a surge of gratitude, it occurred to her that the woman had had remarkable success.

Replacing the piece of plaster, she moved on to the woman's collection of whimsical frogs. Belatedly, she answered Annie's question. “What do you know about his real mother?”

The woman was slow to answer. “I have my suspicions, but I don't really know anything for fact. Enough to figure that he was well rid of her. Even though Kimberley and her first husband weren't much at parenting, Jed was taken care of after the adoption, physically at least.” Her gaze sharpening, she added, “Why do you ask?”

Unable to maintain eye contact, Julianne's attention drifted to the frogs arranged in a variety of silly poses. The pieces ranged from dime-store quality to carved pieces of jade and molded brass. Picking one in polished ebony, she ran a fingertip over its sleek lines. “Just a conversation we had. I wondered why he wasn't interested in opening his birth records. He could have other family somewhere. I would think he'd want to know.”

Annie sighed. “I can just imagine how he reacted to that suggestion. Julianne, sometimes you can't pick things apart and examine why they are the way they are. Sometimes you just have to accept and go on. Whatever came in Jed's childhood before we knew him had a hand in shaping the man he is today. He can't go back and change that, and he's not the type of man who would want to.”

“I'm not suggesting he could change anything,” Julianne protested, “I just thought…”

“Jed's a private sort,” Annie said firmly. “He didn't have much to hang on to when he was young. I can't see him stirring up what he's found here while he reaches out for what-might-have-beens.” She struggled to fight a yawn and failed.

Certain that the woman would be asleep in only a few more minutes, Julianne crossed to the bed and dropped a light kiss on her hair. “I'll see you in the morning. I'm going to finish up in the kitchen and probably make an early night of it myself.”

“Hah. I know what you're up to, girl.” The woman
waggled her pen at her. “But I said I'm staying awake until nine, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.”

Julianne cocked a grin. “Care to make a little wager on that?”

Annie sniffed. “Certainly not. Way I hear it, there's been more than enough wagering going on around here.” Her voice was stern, but she couldn't disguise the twinkle in her eye. “Don't know what those men were thinking, sitting down with you over a deck of cards. The fools are just lucky you left them with their shirts.”

Julianne didn't bother to inquire where the woman had gotten her information. “I had to leave them something for the next time, didn't I?” She moved to the door. “I'll see you in the morning. You let that medication do its work, now, you hear?”

Smiling at the woman's mutterings, Julianne stepped into the kitchen and was met by the sight of Jed standing at the kitchen sink running water over his bloody hand.