Heartbreak Ranch (19 page)

Then Jed's voice sounded behind her, and his words completed the sense of unreality that encompassed her. “Well, don't just leave them standing on the porch, Jules. Invite them in.”

She stared at him for a long moment. From the lack of surprise on his face, it was clear that he'd invited the couple. The sense of unreality gave way to utter amazement.

Pushing open the door, Julianne said, “John and Ellie, please come in. Jed forgot to inform us of his plans, but I'm frankly delighted that you're here.”

Ellie smiled then, and her husband slipped an arm around her waist as they entered the house. “Actually, my husband prefers to be called Sully. If you call him John, I'm afraid he won't answer.” She slanted a glance at the man beside her. “We enjoyed the trip from the airport. It's
beautiful country.” As she made small talk, one hand was stroking Sully's arm soothingly. “Neither of us have ever been west of the Mississippi. I can't wait to see more of the ranch.”

In a heartbeat, Julianne realized what the woman was up to. Jed and Sully were silent, watching each other with the wary air of two stalking predators. She'd thought before that they shared a similar sense of danger, and the air was charged with it now. Without conscious decision, she joined forces with Ellie Sullivan.

“I'll make sure you both get to see as much of the ranch as you like. There won't be time for it tonight, but tomorrow…” As she chattered, she led the couple further into the house. “You'll have a choice going by horseback or truck. Going by horse you'll see more of the spread, of course. But the truck will save your backside.”

Sully finally spared her a glance. “I'm not sure how long we'll be here.”

She aimed a winning smile at him, one fashioned to charm. When it had no appreciable effect, her estimation of John Sullivan went up a notch. “Certainly you'll remain long enough to see a few sights. Jed meant for you to stay for a while, didn't you, Jed?”

His voice devoid of welcome, he replied, “Yeah. Sure. For as long as this takes.”

At his flat tone Julianne's smile bumped up in wattage and she resisted the urge to kick him. Hard. She was still struggling to comprehend that Jed had invited his brother here, despite his earlier decision not to. Now wasn't the time to figure out what the act meant. And it certainly wasn't the time to allow a tender sprig of hope to grow roots and bloom. She shifted into hostess mode and guided the group into the kitchen.

She brought out refreshments and introduced the couple
to Annie. When the tension between the two brothers didn't lessen noticeably, she decided it was time to forget finesse and resort to bullying. She was equally adept at both.

“Jed, why don't you and Sully go to the den. Ellie and I will get acquainted out here.” She gave him a look that was forged with steel, and she hardened herself against the fleeting panic on his face. The flash of emotion was quickly replaced with annoyance.

“I don't need herding.”

“I know that. If I thought you did I'd get the cattle prod.” Ellie's laugh behind her was quickly disguised by a cough. But Julianne's gaze never wavered from Jed's. After a long moment he looked at Sully and muttered, “Follow me.” Turning on his heel, he exited the room.

“Wait.” Sully turned back at his wife's voice. She reached into her purse and withdrew a manila envelope, holding it out to her husband. “You'll probably want this.” He reached to take it from her, sliding a finger over her wrist in an intimate caress. Then he followed Jed from the room.

Ellie's voice was tinged with worry. “Do you think it's wise to leave them alone?”

“Wise?” Julianne debated the word as she began to make coffee for what would surely prove to be a long night ahead. “Maybe not. But definitely necessary. Nothing is going to get resolved with either of us providing a buffer between them.”

The other woman hesitated for an instant, then sank into a chair. “I suppose you're right. But I can't help worrying. Sully doesn't exactly trust easily.” The two women shared a look filled with understanding.

“Then that's something the two of them have in common.”

 

Jed motioned Sully to a chair and circled the desk to the portable bar. “Drink?” he asked in a clipped tone.

“Whiskey, if you have it. Neat.”

He splashed some liquor in the glass, then poured a Scotch for himself. When he'd made the call to John—no, he corrected himself—to
Sully,
he'd been operating on a combination of exhaustion and desperation. Now he wondered what the hell he'd been thinking of.

He turned and strode to the man who claimed to be his brother. Something inside him dodged admitting to a relationship,
any
relationship with him. Julianne had spoken of closure, and that's what this meeting was about. He downed a swallow of the Scotch in one burning gulp. That's what this meeting was
supposed
to be about.

Sully sipped from his glass, watching him expressionlessly. “Julianne is who I talked to on the phone when I called?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems like a determined woman.”

All his frustration was loaded into his next words. “What she is is a pain in the ass.”

Hiding his slight smile in his glass, Sully inquired, “And what else?”

Jed speared his fingers through his hair and took another drink, welcoming the liquor's warm explosion in the pit of his stomach. “Damned if I know.”

The genuine bafflement in his tone had Sully's face lightening a fraction. “I think I've been where you are not too long ago. You'll figure it out soon enough.”

“Right now we have a few other things to figure out,” Jed reminded him. His gaze met the other man's and held.

“As far as I know, I don't have any brothers.”
Alive.
The
word whispered across his mind. With an ease born of long practice, he shoved it away.

“We're half brothers, I suspect. Though there's no way of telling, short of medical tests, we most likely had different fathers.” Sully reached into the envelope Ellie had given him and withdrew some documents. Without a word, he handed them to Jed.

Jed perused them one by one. It was a stack of birth certificates, and his was on top. With a curious sense of detachment he scanned the information on it. It read the same as the copy he had in his lockbox, with the exception of the parental information. The mother listed was Marcy Elaine Sullivan. Father…unknown.

He stared at the document in his hand for long moments, expecting to feel something. Anything. But there was no emotion to bubble to the surface, no long-forgotten bit of memory to burst forth. The absence of either would have comforted him if he didn't believe that they would pounce when he least expected it.

He flipped to the next document, a birth certificate for the man before him—a second brother he never knew existed. With a feeling of dread he went to the last document, already knowing the name it would carry.

Cage Sullivan.
Birth date just twenty-two months after his own.

The emotion that had been missing just moments earlier flooded through him now, great crashing waves of it, pounding him with relentless urgency. His brother's name whispered across his mind, dragging unwanted memories in its wake. Memories that wouldn't be banished. And a guilt that wouldn't subside.

He shoved the documents back to Sully, who took them and handed him a sheaf of papers. “County record copies
of our births,” he said. With a sharp gaze he watched Jed carefully. “They can be checked out, if you want to.”

Jed stared at the papers blindly. “You went to a lot of trouble.”

Sully lifted a shoulder. “Figured you might need convincing.” He shifted in his chair, his first outward sign of unease. “I would, if I was in your shoes.” When Jed didn't respond, he went on. “I found most of this stuff when I cleaned out my…
our
mother's apartment. She died eight months ago. The birth certificates were there, some legal papers and these.” He reached into the envelope again, this time drawing out a handful of photographs.

Jed took them slowly, reluctantly. And with a feeling of dread he forced himself to look at them, to read the notations on the backs.

The first photos were of a young Sully, pictured with a blond woman whose good looks seemed to deteriorate in each successive shot. The next photos pictured the same woman, a little younger, this time with two boys. There was no mistaking the older of the two for himself. He had pictures taken only a couple years later, after his adoption, and the resemblance was too great. He handed the pictures back blindly, and rose to pace around the desk, to the window. And wished he could retreat from the dogging memories as easily.

“I don't want to hear a peep out of you two, you hear?”
Why was it he'd had no memory of his mother's face, but the sound of her voice lingered in his mind like a persistent ghost? The memory beckoned others, and it was too late to slam that mental gate shut. They wouldn't be denied.

The door closed, and the total darkness of the closet seemed to swallow them up. He and Cage huddled in the shadows, clutching each other, and tried to block out the noises in the bedroom.

He tipped his glass to his lips and swallowed the remaining Scotch. Somehow the darkness had been the worst of it, he remembered. Worse than the hunger, worse than the beatings that would follow the slightest misdeed. At least it had seemed to be until that last night in the apartment.

Swinging away from the window, he went to refill his glass. Without asking, he brought the whiskey bottle to Sully and splashed some more inside. “You're right,” he said bleakly, meeting the other man's gaze. “At least I figure you must be. That's me in the pictures.”

“I was as surprised as you are. Marcy never mentioned any of this.”

Jed's smile was humorless. “I'll bet not. I didn't live with her long, at any rate.”

“Yeah, I found the court documents in her things. I know her parental rights were severed.” At Jed's nod he continued, “I've pieced together some of it. We can probably compare notes.”

There was a not-too-distant place inside him that would have liked to pull away from the whole scene now, a part that was every bit as cowardly as Julianne had accused him of being. He said nothing. It was too late, too late to do anything but play this bitter scene to the end.

“I don't know much,” he said. He lowered himself to a chair opposite Sully's. For the first time, he let the memories play out. “My adoptive mother told me some, when I asked.”

Surprise sparked in the other man's eyes, eyes too much like his own. “You were adopted?”

Jed contemplated the amber eddies in his glass as he nodded. “When I was six.” In a cynical understatement, he added, “It didn't work out.”

“With your last name of Sullivan I just assumed…”

“I took my birth name back when I was nineteen.”

“That made it a whole lot easier to find you. What about Cage? Was he adopted, too? Do you know where he is?”

The question was expected, but that didn't seem to lessen the punch of emotion that coursed through him. The tidal wave of guilt was never more than a heartbeat away, threatening to drag him into the darkness.

“Cage is dead.”

The words were too sharp, too sudden, but he knew of no way to pretty up the truth. He saw the shock on Sully's face, saw the way he put the glass to his lips and took a long swallow.

“Hell.” The two men drank in silence for long minutes, both wrapped in regrets, each stemming from a different place.

Finally Sully heaved out a sigh. “How did it happen?”

“There was a fire in the apartment. We were alone. Cage didn't make it.” The words were succinct, the feeling behind them wasn't.

Sully's gaze snapped to him, a frown on his face. “Are you saying he died in the fire?”

Fingers gripping the glass in his hand tightly, Jed responded, “Yeah.”

The other man shook his head. “That doesn't make sense. I've got records of the proceedings in which Marcy gave up her parental rights. You and Cage are both mentioned by name. Details of the injuries both of you sustained in the fire were documented, I suppose to support the county's case. They said you were treated for serious burns, and Cage for smoke inhalation. There's no mention of his death.”

There was a haze in Jed's mind that owed nothing to the alcohol, and everything to a cautious, blooming hope. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying that I have every reason to believe that our brother is alive.”

T
he first thing that struck Julianne when she descended the staircase the next morning was that the door to the den was still closed. She paused midway down and contemplated it. It was early, at least an hour before she usually rose. That didn't seem to matter since she hadn't done much sleeping last night, anyway. When she and Ellie had finally retired, her mind had refused to shut off and let her rest, despite the lateness of the hour. She couldn't tear her thoughts away from what was happening in the den between Jed and his brother.

And Sully and Jed
were
brothers. What Ellie had told her had persuaded her of that. She wondered if Jed had been convinced. She wondered if he would let it matter.

She continued down the stairs slowly, her gaze fixed on that door. There hadn't been any noise from the den last night, and she'd know, she'd been listening. Surely the fact that the two men had been locked up together for hours was a good sign, wasn't it?

Hesitating outside the door, she mentally listed several reasons for continuing into the kitchen. She didn't need to get drawn any closer into that dark and dangerous place in which he hid his feelings. Didn't want to fall deeper into the trap of wishing to help. The only one who could help Jed was himself.

Her hand reached for the doorknob and turned it. Someday, she acknowledged, she really would have to start listening to that wise inner voice.

She took only two steps into the room before she saw him behind his desk. His gaze rose from the glass in his hands and fixed on her.

“Either you didn't get to bed last night or you've come up with a new morning routine.” Her approach was cautious and she surveyed him carefully. The hours since she'd last seen him had been rough ones. His hair was falling forward on his forehead in the way he'd always hated, and his jaw was unshaven. From the looks of the half-empty bottle next to him, Scotch was at least as much to blame for his heavy eyes as lack of sleep.

“Are you drunk?”

“No.” He raised the glass before him and contemplated its contents. “But it's an option I've been seriously considering.” He watched the way she scanned the room and his brow arched. “Looking for bodies?”

Her attention snapped back to him. “Of course not. I just…I mean, it was late when I went up. I assume you showed Sully to his room?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

He said nothing else, and for a sudden aching moment she doubted he would. Was this just one more experience then, for him to shove into a forgotten corner of his mind, one he would do his best to avoid dealing with?

She edged further into the room and perched gingerly
on the edge of the couch. “So how long will Sully and Ellie be staying?”

“They're leaving today.”

She bounced from the couch with the energy of a launching rocket. “I knew it! I just knew it!” The anger flooded, as much at herself as at him. She despised herself for the fragile bud of hope that had blossomed inside her. Hated to admit that her desire for things to be different could still blind her to the reality. A couple of paces took her away from the desk, then she whirled to stride over to it. Shoving her face close to his, she accused, “You did everything you could to push him away, didn't you? You just couldn't hold out one tiny particle of faith that Sully could actually be something to you.
Mean
something to you. Because you're scared. Scared and selfish.”

He replaced the glass on the desk without taking a drink. He watched as fury pushed her away from the desk, carried her across the room and then back again. “Selfish?”

“You're damn right, selfish. That's exactly what it's called when you hoard parts of yourself like a miser, as if by opening up you chance someone sneaking in and stealing them.”

“Actually,” he said slowly, “that's a fairly accurate description of what's happened.”

She didn't stop to listen. Disappointment and nerves rasped fresh, raw wounds inside her. Furiously she called herself every kind of fool. For believing that things could change. For
wanting
to believe it.

“I didn't kick him out, if that's what you're thinking.”

“No,” she agreed caustically. “You rolled out the red carpet, right? Made him feel right at home like a member of the family? Oh, I forgot. You don't have any family. You won't let yourself.”

The glint in his eyes could have been temper. In the
next instant it was gone. “Sully couldn't take much time away from work right now. He told me that when I called him. He's in the middle of a case.”

Not entirely pacified, she stopped to eye him suspiciously.

“He's a DEA agent in Florida.”

“Oh.” The memory of the pale scar that stretched across Sully's neck flashed into her mind, and a shudder worked through her. No doubt the man was as tough and hardened as Jed. There was absolutely no reason to be encouraged by the fact that the two men had exchanged such rudimentary information as their occupations. She wouldn't allow herself to be.

He took out a cigarette and lit it, causing her brows to climb. “Taking a liking for living on the edge?”

“After the last few hours, one more cigarette isn't going to matter.” For the first time, she noticed the heavy cut glass on the desk filled to overflowing with cigarette stubs.

“I'm going to arm Annie with the wooden spoon myself.”

He inhaled deeply and released a narrow stream of smoke. “She'll have to take on two of us, and I'm betting I can outrun her.”

“So, Sully smokes.” Calmer now, she sat down again.

“Something you have in common.”

“A bit more than that, it seems.” Pensive, he blew out a smoke ring. “It appears we share the same mother.”

It was so little, but more, much more than she'd begun to expect. “You believe him, then?”

At first she didn't think he'd even heard her. He was watching the smoke that drifted between them reflectively. His answer, when it came, seemed directed as much to himself as to her. “I really don't remember much about her. But the life he described seemed like a long-forgotten
echo. The poverty, the men.” His gaze slowly lifted to hers then, and held. “The drugs.”

His voice had a rawness to it that made her wish she could leap in and save him from the scars inside that had never quite healed. She remained motionless. There was no rescue from feeling, no escape from emotion. It was a lesson Jed had learned from the most bitter experience.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and meant it. Sorry that the memories he had of his childhood were ragged bits of hurt and despair. And sorry he seemed intent on letting them ruin any chance of happiness he could have in his future.

He seemed to find the glowing tip of his cigarette fascinating. “Sully did some research before coming here.”

“I wondered how he found you.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Since I took back the name Sullivan it probably was simple. He had my original birth certificate. Mine and Cage's.”

Her heart was a dull knot in her chest. “Did you tell him about the fire?”

“He already knew. Seems he has copies of the court proceedings to sever custody.” His gaze finally lifted, as if drawn by an invisible force. His voice was deceptively detached when he added, “The proceedings were for two children.”

She blinked, comprehension slow to dawn. “But you said Cage was…”

“Dead.” He completed her words when her voice trailed off. “I thought…I was always sure…”

Hope unfurled inside her. Understanding came on wings. “Oh, my gosh. Oh, Jed.” She sprang to her feet and moved, unconscious of doing so. She rounded the desk and came to stand before him. “You were told Cage was gone, and to your traumatized mind that meant dead. But he must have been alive, had to have been, to have been
named in the court proceedings.” The prospect dazzled; relief flooded her. “There's some other explanation. He was placed in a different foster home, he was adopted….”

“You're way ahead of me,” he warned. “All we know is that Cage survived the fire. We don't know what happened to him, or if it would be possible to find him.”

She surveyed him with eyes suddenly brimming. She wondered if he even realized how naturally he'd just said
we.
“But you're going to try.” The words were a dare, one she could only hope he'd take her up on.

“Sully intends to.”

When he said nothing else, she could have wept with frustration. “What about you?”

Slowly, meticulously, he stubbed the cigarette out and dropped it in the glass with the others. “I told him I might be tied up for a while.”

“What can be more important than reaching out for your first chance of family?”

“We've got things to settle. You and me.”

Her gaze streaked to his and her nerves stumbled. “You and me?”

“I've been thinking about what you said.” He rubbed his fingers across his palms in a nervous motion that was curiously unlike him. “About the last few weeks. About…everything.” With restrained violence he pushed away from the desk to pace. “I hate that you're leaving because you've lost everything that's meant something to you. Because Harley hurt you…again.” His eyes were flinty with suppressed emotion. “I hate that I was part of that.”

She shrugged awkwardly. At that moment she knew exactly how bitter pity felt, when it was directed at her. “Like you said, if you hadn't bought the ranch, someone else would have.”

“You don't have to leave.” The words hung like fragile crystals between them, as if the slightest force could shatter them.

She released a pent-up breath. “Yes.” She forced the word out and struggled to mean it. “I do.”

He wasn't looking at her anymore. He dragged his hand through his hair and stared at the floor. “You're only leaving because you think there isn't a place for you here anymore. You're wrong. You could stay.” The words began to pour from him in a deluge. “The place belongs to you as much as me, in a way.”

She struggled to keep the ache from her voice. “Not in any way that matters.”

“It could. Legally. If you married me.”

Shock shot her spine with steel. “Married you.”

His gaze was so fierce, she felt scalded by his regard.

“It's not such a bad deal. You'd get to live here. I know you love the ranch. Half of it would be yours. You'd be close to Gabe, to Annie. You could still finish school. Hell, I'll even teach you to fly.”

Taking advantage of her stillness, he strode over to her and took her shoulders in his hands. “Think about it.” His voice was a warm river of temptation trickling through her mind. “I can give you exactly what you want.”

“Can you, Jed?” she asked in an aching whisper. “Can you really?”

His hands rubbed up and down on her arms in a heated glide, bringing a shiver to her skin, a heaviness to her heart.

“It sounds like you've thought this out. You've managed to appeal to my love for this place, my need for security and my sense of adventure. Too bad I recently decided that I deserve more.”

A muscle worked in his jaw then. “You mean the ranch
isn't enough for you.” He dropped his hands and moved away. “Well, that shouldn't be so surprising, I guess. I never thought the day would come when I'd feel the same way.”

She went completely still. “What?”

Driven to move, he paced the room, away from her, back again. He didn't seem to have heard her. “It should have been enough. It would have been…” He shook his head in frustrated bafflement. “You changed everything, Jules. You said you deserve more. And damn you, you've made me want more, too. I want it all. I must be crazy. I know I'm crazy about you.”

That stopped her breathing for a moment, but just for a moment. Then heat suffused her, and her pulse began to thrum. “Nice touch, Sullivan.”

“You could walk away at any time. I realize that. I know a wedding isn't a guarantee.”

“I could walk away from the ranch,” she agreed. “It isn't the land that would hold me.”

He hadn't seemed to have heard her. “You talk about taking risks. Well, this is the biggest one I can imagine. But there's no other way for me, Jules. I love you.” He stopped, seeming as shocked as she at hearing the words. He reached for her, ran a finger down her throat. “I love you. And I'm willing to take a gamble that given enough time, you'll love me back.” She noted the tension in his jaw, the control it took for him to relax it again, and her heart turned over at his show of nerves.

It was difficult to swallow around the boulder in her throat. “Still going for the sure thing, Sullivan?”

His eyes brightened, and he slid his hand up her neck to cup her jaw. “What are you saying?”

“Just that I love you, too.” His eyes squeezed shut for a moment in a display of emotion that made her heart
stutter and swell. Then they were reopened, trained on her intently.

“Say it again.” He pulled her up and into his arms, demand implicit in his touch, in his words.

She complied willingly. “You, too.” Her hand tangled in the hair at his nape. “I'm getting a taste for even odds, myself.”

“I need you.” His mouth pressed against the pulse throbbing at the base of her throat, cruised up her neck.

“I'm not letting you go.” He took her earlobe between his teeth. “I'm willing to bet we're for keeps.”

She twined both arms around his neck and smiled brightly. “That's one bet I'll take you up on, cowboy.”