Return to Oak Valley (31 page)

Sauntering into the office, Sloan murmured, “Honey, you really should be careful what you say. There are some men who might take that as an invitation…for oh, just all sorts of things.”

“But since you're not one of those men,” she said, one hand resting on her hip, “I really don't have anything to worry about, do I?”

“Don't push your luck.”

“Come on, Sloan—what is it you want? We've said good-bye, and I can't think of one thing we need to talk about—I certainly don't have time to play games.”

He stared at her, thinking she looked good enough to eat—even in stained blue jeans and a smudged oversize purple T-shirt. The jeans fit just as they should, cupping her butt and sliding slimly down her thighs, and despite its large size, the T-shirt did nothing to disguise her breasts. She wore a bra under the shirt, and he had some dark thoughts about the gentleman who had invented that confining garment. The image of her swelling breasts and raspberry-hued nipples swam into his mind, and he felt his own body's instant response. Since it was unlikely that she would welcome an advance at the moment, he quelled his unruly instincts, trying to act in a civilized manner.

Smiling ruefully, he asked, “Why do I have to want something? Maybe I just came in to say thanks again for lunch. Did you think of that?”

“Did you?”

He scratched his check. Amusement gleaming in his eyes, he admitted, “Nope. I came to ask you out to dinner on Friday night.”

Shelly looked astonished. “As in a date?” she asked cautiously, curiosity in her gaze.

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Because it would be a waste of both of our times,” she muttered. “Look, I know that what happened Saturday might lead you to think that I have ball-bearing heels, but let me assure you I don't. And if you're looking for an easy lay—I ain't it.”

His face darkened, and he walked up to her, crowding her back against the file cabinet. “Honey, you're overestimating your charms—if all I wanted was to get laid, believe me, there are enough women out there who would be willing to share my bed with damn little encouragement from me.”

“Modesty isn't your strong suit, is it?” she said, her breathing rapid, sexual excitement welling up inside of her. He'd always had this effect on her, and she hated herself for her response—and him for being able to create the almost irresistible urge to fling herself into his arms. Again.

He grinned. “Nope. Ballingers have always known their worth.” He ran a lean finger down her cheek. “And you know something else? We've always known exactly what we want…and more times than not, we get it.”

“And that's supposed to mean something to me? I should take heed, or warning or something?” she asked, an open taunt in her voice.

Sloan crowded up closer, his hard body pushing into hers, trapping her between the file cabinet and his bulk. “Yeah, honey, you really should take warning.” He bent his head, his breath caressing her ear. “I want you, Shelly. Saturday changed nothing between us.” His lips trailed light as a butterfly's touch across her jaw. “In fact, you might say, Saturday clarified things for me. Made me realize
precisely
what it is that I want—you.”

Shelly had trouble breathing, her heart was hammering in her chest and her blood simmered, racing in her veins. His mouth was so close, so temptingly close…She fought the impulse to throw her arms around his neck and crush her lips against his. “Is that so?” she managed to croak.

He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “Yeah, honey, it is. So, you gonna have dinner with me Friday night?”

Fighting back a laugh at his pure male arrogance, she shoved him hard in the chest. “Get out of here, Sloan. Like I said—I don't have time to play games.”

He let her push him backward. Turning his hat in his hand, he said quietly, “No games, Shelly. Let's start over. Let's just shuck all the baggage from the past and see what happens this time. We're not kids anymore. We're adults, and we should be able to act like it.” He grinned. “At least most of the time.”

She smiled faintly, but she was shaking her head. “Starting over doesn't solve anything for us. I can't forget the past—not when I know you lied to me and were seeing another woman, telling her you loved her at the same time you were telling me the same thing.” Her smile faded and her eyes searched his. “I'd never trust you—I'd always wonder if you were stringing me along again.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek and his eyes darkened. “I never strung you along, goddammit! I loved you, and I meant it when I said so. What happened with Nancy was—”

“Was what?” she asked when he stopped. “A mirage? Something I dreamed up? Something I imagined I saw?”

“No, you saw it all right, and you heard what I said just fine, but suppose I told you it was all a setup?” he demanded, anger bubbling just below the surface. “Suppose that Nancy and Josh put their heads together and created a little play that night—I was the lead and you were the audience, only neither one of us knew the act was especially written for us—that its whole purpose was to bust us up.”

Disgust filled her. Turning away, she said bleakly, “You know, I'd have a lot more respect for you if you'd just admit the truth instead of trying to lay the blame on someone else.”

Sloan reached for his shirt pocket, then remembered he didn't smoke anymore. Cursing under his breath, he said, “I'm not blaming them—they had their own agenda—Nancy never made any bones about wanting to marry me, and Josh, despite what he may have said to you, would have rather seen you in a damned convent than married to me. I'd be the first to concede that they did a great job. We both fell into their hands like ripe plums—and it was all a sham—a well-constructed scene with Nancy pushing my buttons to get me to say exactly what you needed to hear to convince you that I was a liar and two-timing cheat.” He gave an ugly laugh. “And you bought it, lock, stock, and barrel, just as Josh knew you would. But just to make certain, he whisked you out of the state and away from me so damned fast you couldn't have changed your mind if you wanted to—and I was never allowed to explain to you my side of the story. Did it ever occur to you that I might have been trying to throw Nancy off the scent? She could be vicious when she didn't get her way—and she was older, far more sophisticated—you'd have been no match for her. If she'd thought for one second that you had something that she wanted, in a thousand ways she'd have made life hell for you—and I wasn't about to allow that to happen.”

Something in his voice made her look at him, really look at him. His expression was bitter, the gold eyes icy and grim.
He believes everything he's saying.
His words and expression shook her. Was it possible that she had misinterpreted what she had seen and heard that night? She had believed the opposite for so long that it was difficult even to consider an alternative point of view. But. But she couldn't pretend that his take on Nancy wasn't correct. If Nancy had thought for even one second, had even suspected, that Sloan wasn't in her thrall, she'd have come after the competition with fangs bared and claws outstretched. Shelly swallowed. These days Nancy's words and actions would be more irritating and infuriating than hurtful, but at eighteen…. At eighteen, unsure, not totally confident with herself, Shelly realized how vulnerable she would have been, how devastating having Nancy as an enemy would have been. Nancy had been older, smarter, infinitely crueler, and more selfish, and would have known a dozen different ways to annihilate her, to destroy her confidence, her belief in herself, even her belief that Sloan loved
her
and not Nancy. And Sloan…One thing about Sloan that she had never doubted—he would always protect his own…. Everything he said made a painful sort of sense to her. Her heart clenched. Despair swept through her. Had she completely misunderstood what she had seen that night? She shook her head. But he
had
to be wrong! Josh wouldn't have—Her thoughts crashed to a halt. And it occurred to her again that Josh had done a lot of things she wouldn't have believed possible until recently. She bit her lip. Maybe…maybe there was some kernel of truth in what Sloan was saying. She wanted to believe him, but believing him would mean that Josh had…Jesus. This was crazy. Why was she listening to him?
Because her heart wanted to believe.
Cool logic might reject everything he said, but her heart; ah, her heart had a mind of its own.

Her gaze fell to her dusty boots. “Where would we go?” she asked, scaring herself at how easily the words came.

Sloan's breath sucked in, his heart pounding with thick, hard strokes. “Ukiah,” he said, glad to hear that his voice sounded normal and not stunned. “There are a couple of good restaurants there. Not world-class, but good.”

She risked a glance at him. Smiled almost shyly. “OK. What time?”

“Uh, the drive'll take an hour and a half, how 'bout I pick you up about five-thirty?”

“OK. Five-thirty Friday afternoon.”

Wearing a smitten smile, Sloan floated away, hardly able to believe his luck. He had a date with Shelly.
Hot damn!

Unaware that she was wearing a smile similar to his, Shelly watched him leave. She was crazy. Absolutely raving mad. Sloan was probably the best liar she'd ever met. Worse, he was a Ballinger, and she was a Granger. If she dared to believe one word he said, she'd have to admit that her brother, a man she had respected, trusted, and loved all her life, had lied to her and tricked her in the cruelest way possible. She didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to examine too deeply what might or might not have happened on a certain night seventeen years ago.
Sloan is likely just spinning me a line. Maybe not. And oh, God, I'm looking forward to Friday night.

Wrenching her mind away from Friday night and a certain summer night seventeen years ago, Shelly spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in her studio, painting. In the time since she had returned to Oak Valley, she had been so busy with Josh's affairs, Granger Cattle Company, getting the barn office ready, as well as her studio, reacquainting herself with old friends and meeting new ones, that she had spared little time for her art.

Creating a dreamy, otherworld landscape had always soothed her, and this afternoon, standing before a blank canvas, she was relieved to discover that putting brush to canvas still pushed everything out of her mind but the gradually appearing subject in front of her. She painted all afternoon, deciding that tomorrow she really must call the gallery in San Francisco that her New Orleans dealer, Madame Fournier, had recommended. She sighed. A trip to the city was probably called for—she'd need to introduce herself and take along a portfolio of some of her works. The glowing letter from Madame Fournier would help, as would copies of the art reviews she'd received. She made a face. It was probably the list of her sales that would turn the tide. And she reminded herself, she
was
fairly well known…in certain circles.

Dusk was falling by the time she cleaned her brushes and felt relaxed enough to wander downstairs. No one seemed to be around and, grabbing a banana, she peeled and ate it as she ambled to the barn.

She discovered that Nick was in the loft, throwing down hay to the cows. Calling to him, she climbed up to join him. He was just tossing down that last flake of hay, and she said, “Thanks for feeding. I was just thinking of doing it.”

Nick grinned and, sitting down on a bale of hay that overlooked the manger, patted the place beside him. “Come on over and sit. To my way of thinking this is one of the best parts of the day.”

“What about your stock? Don't you have to get home and take care of them?”

He shook his head. “Mine are on pasture—such as it is—just like yours will be in a few weeks.”

Shelly joined him on the bale, and together they watched the cows as the purple-and-gray edges of twilight crept around them. The cows pushed and butted each other in their greed and eagerness for the hay. Some lowed to each other, the calls soft and oddly soothing and appealing. As the minutes passed and each cow found her place at the manger and nosed through the hay for the choicest morsel, the gentle rhythmic sound of contentedly eating cows drifted upward to where Shelly and Nick sat.

Shelly looked at Nick and smiled. “It's great, isn't it? That sound? Makes me feel connected to the past.”

He nodded. “Like I said, this is my favorite part of the day. There's something about them shuffling through the hay, the snuffling and lowing…I don't know. It gets to me. Makes me glad I'm a cattle rancher—or trying to be.”

“Me too.” She grinned. “Of course, you've been a rancher longer than I have.”

They talked softly for several minutes, enjoying the quiet, the sound of the cows, the deepening twilight. Even though he seemed his usual lighthearted self, Shelly sensed a somberness, a sadness about Nick tonight that troubled her.

Keeping her gaze on the gray shapes of the cows below them, she asked gently, “Did it bother you today? When we were talking about the family? The Grangers?”

Nick kept his eyes on the cows. “Yeah. It did. It's hard to talk about them like a disinterested outsider. Something wells up inside of me, and I want to stand up and shout: Look at me—I'm a Granger, too.” In the gloom, he flashed her a twisted smile. “Silly. I should be happy being Nick Rios. That's what Raquel says—but then there's no question that Rios was her father. I just have his name. Not his blood. You know the really queer part—I don't want to change my name, I don't want to become Nick Granger, I just want….” He dropped his head. “I guess I just want people to know who I really am. I don't want it to be a dirty little secret anymore. And I guess more than anything. I want to know the truth. Mom is no help. She won't talk about it. She just ignores me when I start pestering her.”

Shelly's heart ached for him. He reminded her of Josh in so many ways—or at least the Josh she'd thought she'd known, and in her mind, there was no doubt that he was Josh's son. She felt closer to Nick than she did to anybody else in the world. There was a bond and a trust between them that she couldn't explain—not even to herself. Some of it, she knew, came from their shared childhood, but some of it…well, there just wasn't an explanation for it. They understood each other. And, she thought with a wry smile, they shared a dream—Granger Cattle Company. But Nick had another dream, she admitted painfully. A dream that somehow she had to help him obtain—impossible though it seemed right now.