Kiss Me (Fool's Gold series) (15 page)

Stress, she told herself. This wasn’t anyone’s idea of a relaxing time. Plus she hadn’t been sleeping very well. When she got home she would take a couple of days to unwind and get her equilibrium back.

She heard footsteps behind her but didn’t turn around. She felt someone sit beside her on the rock. Even without looking, she knew it was Thad.

“Tommy’s doing fine,” he said. “Chase cleaned out the wound and put on a bandage. The boy’s with Gladys and Eddie. They went to see if there were any brownies left from lunch.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, as if sharing information. But she wasn’t fooled. She heard the criticism hidden in his words. She should have stayed and helped take care of Tommy. She should have been the one to tell him that he would be fine and then get him a snack.

She sighed. That wasn’t fair. Thad never judged her. Sometimes she wished that he would.

“I caught Lucy going through our saddlebags,” she said. “I told her we hadn’t brought any money with us, so there was no point in stealing.”

Thad rested his hand on the small of her back. “What did she say?”

“That she wasn’t stealing. She claims to have been looking for a bandage for Tommy, but she was right there when I said I was going to get the first-aid kit from Cookie.” She squeezed her arms tightly against her chest. “I know you think I was wrong before when I said they stole from us, but I know what I saw.”

“You think she was doing it again?”

C.J. shrugged.

“Is it possible she was telling the truth? Looking for a bandage?”

She wanted to say no. She wanted to scream that these were not the children she’d wanted. It wasn’t fair. None of it. She and Thad were good people. They were honest and they worked hard. Was it so wrong for them to want a baby?

Pain sliced through her until it was impossible to breathe. Her throat ached. The ever-present anger rose up inside of her until it was all she could think about. There was such coldness in her rage. Such brittleness that sometimes she wondered if she would eventually shatter.

There was a time when she’d been soft and yielding, but not anymore. Not for a long time. Unexpected sadness overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes against it and dropped her chin to her chest.

“I used to laugh,” she whispered. “I used to be fun and funny. What happened to me? When did I start changing?”

Thad was silent for a long time. Finally she turned to look at him. His blue eyes never wavered as he studied her.

“Do you really want an answer?”

Did she? Did she want to know what her husband thought of her?

Slowly she nodded.

He shifted so that he was facing her, then cupped her face in his hands. “It wasn’t when we found out we couldn’t have children. Maybe it started after the cancer. Maybe after what happened in Kazakhstan.”

Tears spilled out of her eyes. She couldn’t deny his words—he spoke the truth. There had been too many disappointments, too many almosts. Too much pain. Rather than let it overwhelm her, she’d closed her heart.

He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “You’ll be fine,” he promised.

C.J. wasn’t so sure. Something inside of her had died a long time ago. In that space where she’d once held laughter and light, there was only anger. How could a person survive like that?

“I still love you,” he said.

She looked at him. She wanted to ask how that was possible. How could he care when she’d become so dark and ugly on the inside?

“I love you, too,” she told him, because it was true. He had always been her anchor. Her solid rock. Her life.

But what was she to him? A burden? He was a gentle, kind man burdened with an angry, cold wife. He might love her, but she would bet he didn’t like her very much. Not anymore.

Could she blame him? C.J. wasn’t sure she even liked herself these days.

She almost said so to Thad, then stopped. If she confessed her secret, she knew what he would say. He would tell her to change. Easy words, but meaningless. Change? How? Where would she find the key she needed to unlock her heart and let the world back in?

* * *

P
HOEBE
STOOD
UNDER
a large tree of an undefined nature. She really should have brought a couple of flora and fauna books with her on the trip. She could have used them to identify the plants and trees she saw on the ride. Well, she wasn’t completely sure she would be able to read while riding Rocky. Did motion sickness apply to horseback?

She turned around and watched as Zane assembled the tent Lucy and Tommy shared. Zane worked quickly, his muscles bunching and releasing with each movement. There was an air of confidence about him, probably because he knew what he was doing. He was a man comfortable in his world. She, on the other hand, had always felt slightly out of step with her surroundings.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves. They’d stopped a little early today. Her butt appreciated the abbreviated ride nearly as much as it had appreciated the massage the night before. Would Zane be offering again?

Liquid desire trickled through her. As Maya had teased her earlier, she had it bad.

Her gaze drifted over the tents already set out, but not yet put up. Something wasn’t right. There was no symmetry to the camp, no sense of flow.

She crossed the grass to stand next to Zane and cleared her throat.

“I’ve been reading up on feng shui,” she said.

Zane straightened, pulled off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. He didn’t look wildly excited to see her, but at least he didn’t turn his back.

“It’s an ancient Chinese way of organizing one’s world to make sure the positive energy forces flow correctly.” Phoebe hesitated. “I think it’s Chinese. For sure it’s Asian.”

“Good to know.”

“Our camp is in the shape of an octagon, so we just have to find the front door and then we can position the tents so they’re in the right area. Tommy and Lucy should sleep in the ‘children area’ so they stay safe and healthy. I guess I’d want to be in the career area because things aren’t exactly great there right now.”

Zane’s dark gaze never wavered from her face. When she was quiet, he blinked a couple of times. “I thought you said you wanted to stop helping people all the time. You said it got you into trouble.”

“I forgot.” She sighed. “I just thought...”

“You were trying to help.”

She nodded. “It does seem to be a compulsion.” She thought about the feng shui and what he must think of it—and her. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I never thought you were. Your idea for the campsite is interesting, but it’s going to be windy tonight. I’m positioning the tents so that the wind doesn’t blow inside or blow them down.”

“Oh.” She fingered the hem of her T-shirt. “Okay. I guess that works, too.”

“Would you hand me that?” he asked, pointing to tent stakes bundled together.

She collected the thin metal hooks and handed them to him. As he secured Lucy and Tommy’s tent, she felt the first whisper of breeze drift across her cheek.

“It must be nice to have a place like this for your backyard,” she said. “Did you ever go out riding and get lost when you were a kid?”

“Some.”

“What happened?”

“Eventually I found my way back.”

“I’ve never had much sense of direction,” she said, “which can make showing houses a challenge.”

He straightened and stuck the remaining tent stakes into his back pocket, then crossed to stand behind her. When he put his hand on her upper arm, a ribbon of heat wove its way through her body.

“There,” he said, turning her and pointing. “See that mountain?”

She raised her gaze to the snow-covered peak. “Uh-huh.”

“The ranch is in a valley just at the foot of that mountain. When I was a kid and I’d get turned around, I’d ride for high ground. When I could see the mountain, I knew my way home.”

As he spoke she could almost see a younger version of Zane riding a horse through the wilderness, headed for a mountain that would forever mean home.

“I’m not sure that would work with freeway signs,” she said.

He squeezed her arm and released her. “Then you’ll have to invest in GPS.”

“Believe me, I have it. Every real estate agent’s best friend.” But GPS wasn’t nearly as exciting and romantic as a mountain that would always lead one home.

“So one day you’ll be telling your children about the mountain,” she said. “And they’ll want you to tell them about the times you got lost and had to fight off a big black bear with nothing more than a canteen and a broken branch.”

“I like to think I’d be smarter than that. A canteen’s not much of a weapon.”

“What if the bear is thirsty? You could distract it with the promise of water.”

Zane turned back to the tents, but not before she saw him smile.

“Good to know,” he said. “But I’m not planning on having kids.”

“But you have to. If you don’t, the family line won’t go on. You’re the fifth generation. Doesn’t there have to be a sixth?”

“Chase can take care of that.”

She started to say that his brother didn’t seem to be a big fan of ranching, but decided she didn’t want to go there with Zane.

“Don’t you like kids?” she asked.

“Sure, but liking them isn’t the problem.”

She eyed his perfectly muscled body and doubted there were any problems there. “So what is? I would think a wife and a few kids would be the next logical step.”

He glanced at her. “It’s not that easy. Most women find the ranch too isolated.”

She wondered if his ex-wife had felt that way. Phoebe thought about the beauty of Zane’s place, the history and the feeling of belonging. She thought of family traditions, of never having to fight freeway traffic, of silence and snow and Zane to wake up to each morning. Then she carefully popped her fantasy bubble because she knew better than to dream about things she could never have.

“Where there’s love, there’s enough of everything,” she said. At least that’s what she’d always believed. She’d never actually dared to test the theory for herself.

Zane was looking at her in such a way that her heart suddenly began throwing itself against her ribs. She felt tingly and hot, as if she was getting a fever. Her mouth got dry, but other parts of her did exactly the opposite.

Would Zane mind if she pulled off her shirt?

Before she could ask, Cookie rang the bell for supper. Phoebe turned and ran toward the wagon, leaving temptation and all her impossible fantasies behind.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M
AYA
LEANED
FORWARD
and laughed. “He actually accused me of sleeping with the professor to get an A, if you can believe it.”

“Was the professor sexy?” Eddie asked.

“What did you do?” Gladys said at the same time.

“I went to my professor and explained what was going on. He was furious. I don’t know that he cared about me as much as he resented what the jerk’s comments said about him. I’d done all the work, I’d gotten the good grades on the test, and at the end of the term, I’m the one who had the internship.”

Gladys patted Maya’s arm. “Back in my day a woman had to have real determination to have any kind of professional career. To be honest, I never wanted more than to be Ephraim’s wife and stay home to raise our children.”

“I’ve seen mothers with their kids,” Maya told her. “I think a career was the easy way out.”

All three women laughed. Zane reached for another cup of coffee to hide his smile. He would never in a million years have pictured his high-powered take-no-prisoners ex-stepsister gabbing with two grandmother types—somewhat warped grandmothers, that was—over roasted marshmallows and an open fire. She’d sure mellowed over the past few years, although he knew if he said that to her, she would tell him that he was the one who had changed. Maybe they both had.

He shifted slightly, so that he stretched out on the ground, with his feet pointing toward the fire. Phoebe was across from him and just a little to his right. He could watch her without turning his head.

Firelight brought out hints of red and gold in her dark brown hair. Shadows danced across her cheek. She pulled her long branch from the fire and tested the softness of the marshmallow she’d been roasting. When the hot center gushed out over her fingers, she jerked her hand back and licked the sticky mess from her skin.

The quick movements of her tongue reminded him of kissing her and holding her. The memories had a not-surprising result on his libido and his dick. Half frustrated and half resigned, he shifted so she wasn’t in his line of sight. Maybe if he couldn’t see what he couldn’t have, he wouldn’t want her so bad.

Maybe the steers would fly the rest of the way.

He grinned at the thought. Maya glanced at him and raised her eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m a man who enjoys life.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. Tell me another one.”

“Maybe I’m impressed by all your accomplishments.”

Maya made a show of glancing behind her, as if to see who he was talking to. Then she shook her head. “We have children trying to fall asleep in that tent over there, or I would tell you exactly what I thought of that.”

“You don’t think you impress me?”

“Only with my ignorance.”

Gladys handed her another marshmallow. “Of course your brother thinks the world of you, dear. Why wouldn’t he?”

“I could list the reasons,” Maya muttered.

“You graduated at the top of your class,” Zane said. “That’s a great accomplishment.”

Maya didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t call him a liar to his face. Chase walked over and sat down between Maya and Zane.

“The cattle are snug in their beds,” he said as he grabbed Maya’s branch and a handful of marshmallows. “What did I miss?”

Phoebe grinned. “Zane was just telling us that he thinks Maya is brilliant because she graduated at the top of her class in TV school. Maya, of course, doesn’t believe the compliment.”

“We don’t call it TV school, either, but, yeah, that about sums it up,” Maya agreed.

“You’d do well to follow Maya’s example,” Zane said. “She knew what she wanted, and she applied herself.”

Chase jabbed his stick toward the fire. “I am applying myself.”

“Not in school.” Zane sat up straighter. “Chase, you can be anything you want. You have brains and opportunity. But instead of working hard, you take the easy way out and get lousy grades in the subjects you think don’t matter. You’re going into your senior year of high school. You can’t keep screwing around.”

Chase pulled back the branch and tugged off the browned marshmallow. “You think I screw around because you don’t like the same things I like.”

Zane felt the familiar whispers of irritation. He and his brother had gone around and around on this subject. For once, Zane would like Chase to understand what he was saying.

“You’ve done a great job with your electronics,” he said carefully. “You get A’s in math and science. But what about English and history? They’re important, too.”

“Not to me.” Chase shoved three marshmallows onto the stick. “I want to go to MIT, and you want me to go to some farm college and study animal breeding. Either way, nobody’s gonna care what I got in English.”

“Oh, they’re
gonna
care,” Maya said. “Whether you’re working on the ranch or in computers, you need to be a well-rounded person.”

Chase snorted.

“Maya’s right,” Phoebe said quietly. “Better to have too many opportunities than not enough.”

Her tone was wistful. Zane wondered what opportunities she’d missed in her life, but before he could ask, Eddie murmured something to Gladys and stood up.

“Today wasn’t bad,” she said, pointing right at Zane, “but tomorrow, I expect you to show a little skin. We were promised sexy cowboys on this trip. Wouldn’t kill you to ride without a shirt for a couple hours.”

With a laugh, Phoebe rose, as well. “On that note, I’m turning in, too.”

Zane watched her go, then turned his attention back to his brother.

“Maya and Phoebe have a point.”

“Figures the only time you’d agree with them is when they’re taking your side.” He scrambled to his feet and tossed down his stick. “You think I care about any of it? I don’t. You know why? Because none of it matters. If you’d just once listen to me instead of always telling me what I’m doing wrong, you might get it. You might see that my robots aren’t a hobby. I’m not playing with my computer when I’m up in my room. I’m making something. I’m creating things that didn’t exist before. But you don’t give a damn about any of it because you’re too busy always telling me how I screw up.”

Zane took a deep breath and told himself he had to stay calm. Yelling at Chase had never worked.

“I have listened about your robots.”

“You’ve stayed in the room while I was talking, but you don’t really care. You think they’re a waste of money.”

Zane didn’t want to get into that now. The costly experiments were the reason Chase had taken money, which had led to the cattle drive. Better not to discuss that in front of everyone.

“Chase, you’re not being fair,” Maya said quietly. “You shouldn’t expect Zane to care about robots the same way you do.”

“Why not? He expects me to care about the ranch.” He glared at Zane. “I don’t. I never will. I hate it. You want me to be like you. I’m not. I’m someone different. You’re going to try to force me to do what you want, and that’s not going to happen.”

Chase turned and stalked off. Maya scrambled to her feet and hurried after him. Zane didn’t know what to do. Stay or go? Finally he sagged back against the log and shook his head. When he and Chase were having it out, the only thing that helped heal things between them was time.

He turned to Gladys, who was the only one left by the fire. C.J. and Thad had turned in after the kids went to bed, and Andrea and Martin had disappeared soon after dinner.

“Sorry about that,” Zane said. “Family fights weren’t supposed to be part of your vacation package.”

Gladys shrugged. “When people live together, they clash from time to time. Chase is still a teenager. That can be a difficult time. Ephraim and I had three daughters, so I’m used to the yelling.”

“Three.” Zane didn’t want to think about that. He had enough trouble with one. Maybe girls were simpler.

“Kids are funny creatures,” the older woman said as she pushed a marshmallow onto a stick and held it close to the dying fire. “Or maybe it’s just folks in general. Some are easy to love and some are hard.”

She glanced at Zane and smiled. “Loving Ephraim was the easiest part of my life. That’s why they call it ‘falling in love,’ ’cause when it’s right, it’s as effortless as falling...” Her voice trailed off and she sighed.

“We were together since we weren’t much older than Chase. We grew up together, really, learning what worked and what made us want to kill each other. He yielded where I wanted to be stubborn, and he stood his ground when I wanted to bend. I trusted that man heart and soul. But kids. That’s a whole different kind of love.”

Zane shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware that he was sitting on hard ground. Whatever Gladys had to say, he didn’t want to hear it. Not because he was afraid, but because he was uneasy. In his world, no one talked about anything more intimate than problems on the ranch and Chase’s latest screwup.

Gladys pulled off the toasted marshmallow and took a bite.

“We raised our three exactly the same,” she said when she’d chewed and swallowed. “Same house, same parents, same ideas, same schools. Yet they all turned out different. Two were just fine. But Natalie.” Gladys shook her head. “When she was little, Ephraim used to say she had a bit of the devil in her. I suppose that’s true. Not a day went by that Natalie didn’t try to raise some hell.”

Zane didn’t know what to say. He wished someone would join them and change the subject. Barring that, he tried to think of something relevant to add to the conversation.

Finally he cleared his throat. “That must have been hard on you and Ephraim.”

Gladys nodded. “She was our middle child. Folks said they were the easiest, the peacemakers. But not Natalie. She was stealing candy before she was eight and doing drugs by the time she was twelve. We tried everything. Rehab, tough love, jail time, threats, bribes. She’d get clean for a while, and then she’d fall back into it. We tried not loving her and loving her too much. She failed at two marriages, drove while high and killed her only child. I think that’s what pushed her over the edge. Knowing she’d killed her boy. Two weeks later, Natalie died of an overdose. That was in ’98.”

Zane opened his mouth, then closed it. He’d expected Gladys to give him some tired advice, not share such a personal tragedy.

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling as lame as he sounded.

“It was a time of sorrow,” Gladys said. “The pain of it nearly ended things for me and Ephraim. There was so much guilt, so much need. We about sucked the life out of each other.”

“Your marriage was in trouble?” Zane said before he could stop himself. “But the way you talk about him...”

“We managed to find our way back to each other. It took time and hard work. I lost him in ’04, but I take comfort knowing that when he passed, he knew how much I loved him without a doubt.” She threw her stick into the fire. “Just like Natalie needed us to love her, no matter what. And we did. Even when we had to turn our backs on her. Even when she died.”

Gladys looked at Zane. “You love Chase. We can all see that. But he tests your patience. I know these seem like dark times, but he’s a good kid. He’ll get through it. Sometimes they take the easy road and sometimes they take the hard one, but either way, our job is to love them and to keep on trying.”

Zane didn’t know what he felt about his brother. He knew he wanted to protect Chase as much as he could, keep him from making the same mistakes that had screwed up Zane’s life. Was that love? He couldn’t relate to what Gladys said about her relationship with her kids.

“My old man wasn’t like you and Ephraim,” he said at last. “He was hard and distant most of the time. He chewed my ass on a regular basis. The only person who seemed to matter, who touched him, was my mom. He was devoted to her.”

Gladys drew her penciled-in eyebrows together. “I know the kind you’re talking about. They seem to only have room in their heart for one person. Parents do that some with their kids—love one and ignore the rest. I never could understand it.”

Zane swallowed. He didn’t talk about personal stuff, not with anyone and certainly not with one of the most notorious gossips in Fool’s Gold. Yet now that he’d started speaking, he couldn’t make himself stop.

“I could handle most of it,” he said. “What really got to me was that he would never let me apologize when I screwed up. That was the worst. The anger, the few times he beat the crap out of me, those didn’t matter as much. It was not being able to make it right.”

Those times still haunted him.

Gladys nodded slowly. “Forgiveness is a gift given by those with a full heart. To see a mistake and still love the person, I guess that’s the best each of us can be. I know I got it right with my other two kids. With Natalie...” She paused and stared into the fire. “I tried. Sometimes I made it work and sometimes I didn’t.”

The old woman patted Zane’s shoulder. “Seems to me you’re the kind of man who’ll get it right more often than not.”

With that she rose and dusted off her fringed leather chaps. “It’s late. Sleep well, Zane.”

When Gladys was gone, Zane stretched out his legs and stared up at the sky. There were more stars up there than any man could count. More possibilities. On those nights when he’d been a kid and couldn’t sleep, he would go outside and study the constellations. Sometimes he would imagine that he could leave earth and go live up there. Things would be different then. Better.