Taming the Moguls (16 page)

She wrinkled her nose. “That seems kind of
rude.”

“I’m pretty hungry.” She slapped his arm
playfully. “Well, I
am
. What kind of
soup?”

“That Mexican six bean you like.”

“Oh, yeah,” he tugged her arm. “We’re going
back.”

“Lyle, we—”

A scream bellowed out of the cabin. Shiloh’s
scream. Lyle and Erica stopped in their tracks. “On second thought,
a sandwich sounds pretty good.”

Erica nodded, grabbed his elbow, and turned
him around. “You’re in luck. I make a pretty good sandwich.”

Chapter 32

Gretchen was ready to crawl out of her skin
as Tommy maneuvered the truck along the narrow road over snow piled
several feet high. If she had her phone or her computer, she could
call home or they could call for help. How long would they be stuck
in the middle of nowhere, alone, with everything from the past
between them?

“How are we going to get inside the cabin?”
she asked.

His jaw clenched, and he sat forward,
squinting at the road. It was hard to tell where the road sat under
all the snow. “He has a hide-a-key…somewhere.”

“Somewhere?” She choked. “You don’t know
where? And we’re supposed to find it when everything is covered in
snow?”

He hit the brakes and spared her one long
glare before turning his head forward. The next time he stopped was
in front of a log cabin with a covered porch and a mountain of
firewood next to the door. “This is it.” He shut off the truck.
When he reached over to open the glove compartment, she flinched.
He grabbed a pistol and a flashlight.

Her eyes bugged at the sight of the gun. “You
own a gun?”

“Most folks do.”

“Not where I’m from they don’t.”

He shrugged.

“Why do you need a gun? Are we in
danger?”

“No, but I’d rather have it inside with me
than out here in the truck if we need it.”

“Will we need it?”

“Hope not.” He opened the door and left her
sitting in the truck, wondering what they were in for.

She wrapped her coat tight around her and
followed him to the porch. Tommy lifted pieces of wood, the welcome
mat, and gave a half-smile when he found the key under a wooden
bear. He opened the door and went in first, his gun gripped tight
in his hand. She stayed on the porch until she heard him say, “You
coming?”

“What was with the cop routine? Did you think
someone was in here?”

“Nobody’s here.”

She rubbed her gloved hands together and
looked around. A stone fireplace took up one wall and was
surrounded by a green couch and a leather chair with a quilt throw
draped over the back. The small kitchen on the other wall held a
full-sized refrigerator, a stove, a microwave, and a counter that
separated it from the main room. Gretchen pointed to the doorway on
her right. “Are those the bedrooms?”

“One bedroom, one bath.” He flicked the light
switch. When nothing happened, he moved to the kitchen and switched
anther. “Power’s out.”

“There’s only one bedroom?”

He ignored her strangled tone and crouched to
look into the fireplace. “Do me a favor and hand me that
flashlight. I need to see if this chimney is clear.”

“What if it’s not clear?”

“Then we’re going to have a cold night
ahead.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any
worse. She took the flashlight from the end table, careful not to
touch the gun, and walked over to where Tommy sat on the hearth.
She ignored the tingle zipping up her arm when their fingers
touched as she passed it over. He lay on his back, wedging himself
as close to the opening of the fireplace as possible, and flashed
the beam into the chimney. Gretchen leaned over him, resting her
hands on her knees. “Is it clear?”

“I can’t tell.” He scooted closer, twisting
so his head was practically lying on the grate. When he pulled the
iron lever for the flue, a cloud of dust dropped onto his face. “He
coughed and sputtered. He sat up abruptly and hit his head on the
opening. “Damn it!”

Gretchen moved in to check his head, but one
look at his soot-covered face had her choking back a laugh. “Are
you okay?” He looked like a clown with his black face and
exaggerated frown. She tried to swallow a giggle.

“You think this is funny?”

“I…no, of course I don’t.” But she couldn’t
contain her laughter. She threw a hand over her mouth, but that
only made him furious. “You look like a vaudeville performer.”

“Really?” He ran a hand over his face and
flipped it over to inspect the damage. He looked up at her with a
gleam in his eye. If she hadn’t felt so relieved to see something
other than anger or disgust on his face, she might have had time to
react. He reached out and ran that soot-covered hand down her face
from forehead to chin.

“Tommy!” She jumped back and stumbled over
the braided rug. Tommy bolted up and caught her before she tumbled
into the heavy wooden coffee table.

“I got you,” he said, righting her. They were
so close she could see the tiny flecks of gray in his brown eyes.
Instead of letting her go, he leaned in and, holding her arms,
rubbed his dirty face along hers as she squirmed and gasped. The
feel of his stubble on her skin, the smell, and the aura of him
surrounding her made her dizzy and disoriented.

He must have realized she’d gone still. He
pulled back, but didn’t let go of her arms.
“There. Not so funny now.”

She hadn’t forgotten his playfulness or the
competitive streak that ran through him as thick as blood. She
simply hadn’t expected to see it on display. “No, it’s not.”

“Chimney’s clear.” He let go and wiped his
hands on his jeans. “I’ll get some wood and get a fire
started.”

He’d already started a fire—a fire in her
belly. Did he feel the thread of their connection, the connection
that had bound them from the first year they lived together as
stepsiblings? The fire they banked but could never extinguish, the
fire that had engulfed them when she’d finally taken the biggest
risk of her life and told him how she felt in college? He’d fought
it, even when the force pulling them together was stronger than his
resistance. His surrender seemed all the sweeter for having been so
hard won.

He wouldn’t surrender again. Punishment
seemed the only option on the table—for both of them.

***

Tommy concentrated on the task at hand. They
needed heat, and they needed it fast. His fingers were going numb,
and he didn’t like the color of Gretchen’s skin after she’d gone
into the bathroom and washed the soot from her face.

He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to move
into her. He was only trying to stop her fall, but after, when he’d
grabbed her and held on, inched forward, and rubbed his face along
hers, it was as if a switch had been flipped. They were acting
young again, searching for ways to touch each other that wouldn’t
and couldn’t be construed as anything other than playful. They’d
danced around each other as teenagers, wrestling, picking,
insulting—anything they could do to jab the other because what they
really wanted to do was to kiss and touch and behave as anything
other than siblings.

Leaving her to go to college had been a
blessing and a curse. He finally got outside her obsessive bubble
and tried to free his mind with other women. Poor substitutes one
and all. When she’d come to Bickford during his sophomore year,
away from their parents and finally legal, he still tried to avoid
her. It was like trying to avoid the sun. He felt her before he saw
her. Her laugh rang out over the quad as if she were giggling in
his ear. The sound of her name on his classmates’ and teammates’
lips made him want to crash his fist into a wall.

When she did the unthinkable, when she came
to him and offered herself, he was unable to resist any longer.
Everything he’d fought against, every instinct he’d denied sprang
to life and consumed them. He’d never been more alive or contented,
even with keeping their relationship secret. She’d shattered him
when she left without a word. Her marriage to his rival had
completed the total destruction of his life. Knowing what had
happened, what had caused her to make such rash and hurtful
decisions didn’t soften the blow. It somehow rekindled the fire,
never completely destroyed but only banked. Banked and waiting.

He wanted to kill Ryan Lowry with his bare
hands. He wanted to slap his mother and her father’s heads together
and demand to know how they could have sacrificed Gretchen for a
game and a university that meant nothing. He wanted some time away
from her to process what she’d told him. The last thing he needed
was to be in a confined space with her where no one and nothing
could distract him from the only woman he’d ever loved.

And it was his fault. He’d known a storm was
brewing. He knew the sun would set before they returned to the
valley. He knew being alone with her for any amount of time was a
bad idea, but he’d done it anyway. He feared what the night would
bring and what would be left of them both in the morning.

Chapter 33

“Louisiana?” Shiloh bellowed. “Are you
kidding me?”

Okay, Kevin told himself. Don’t back down
because she freaked out. Habits were harder to break than he
thought. “It’s not forever.”

“How long is not forever?”

“Three, maybe four weeks.”

“Aaaarrrrghhhhh.” She flung herself onto the
couch and dropped her head in her hands.

Even for Shiloh, that reaction seemed over
the top. The outrageousness of her behavior strengthened his
resolve until her shoulders shook and he heard her whimper. Not the
frilly whine she used to manipulate him, but genuine,
uncontrollable weeping. He didn’t go to her; he was frozen in place
watching his wife—his life—crumble. Her gasping for breath brought
him out of his stupor and had him lunging to his knees before her,
cradling her head. “Breathe, baby. Take a breath.”

She tried to do as he instructed, effort and
fear etched on her face. Mascara ran down her cheeks, and her tears
soaked her pretty white blouse. Her gasps became hiccups, her
hiccups grunts. When her eyes lifted to his, the brilliant blue
seemed dimmer and more exhausted than he’d ever noticed. “I can’t
do this anymore,” was all she said.

“Shi, don’t you give up on me. Damn it, don’t
you give up on us.”

“Me?” she sobbed. “How can you leave me
again?”

“I’m not leaving you, baby. I’m getting us
back. This is the first step.”

“I can’t even get a job here because I don’t
know where we’re living or where we’re going to end up. Mrs. Lyons
wants to hire me at the bank, but she can’t because I couldn’t tell
her for sure if we’re staying.”

“We’re staying right here. Skip said the
job’s mine once I’ve done the training.”

“Kevin—” she swiped a hand under her
nose—“I’ve waited my whole life for you. I waited for you to notice
me, I waited for you to finally ask me out, and I waited while you
got your degree and your commercial license. I thought we settled
in Denver because that’s where you wanted to be.”

“Where we both wanted to be,” he reminded
her.

“I wanted to be wherever you were. I wouldn’t
live in Denver if it wasn’t for you.”

“I thought—”

“You thought. You didn’t ask. I’d follow you
to the moon if you asked me to. You haven’t asked, not in a long
time.”

He sat back on his heels. She was right. He’d
cruised along, certain she’d follow no matter what. “You’re right.
I didn’t ask. So I’ll ask you now. Where do you want to end
up?”

She took a deep breath. He held his as she
took her time answering. When she ran her fingers through his hair,
he thought,
Oh Lord, she’s about to break my
heart
. “I want to end up with you. I don’t care what I do or
where we live. It’s my downfall, I suppose, loving you too much and
not wanting anything else.”

He let his breath out in a rush, grateful and
awed by her love. He’d taken it and her for granted for way too
long.

“But if I had to choose,” she continued, “I
want to live here. I miss my mama and daddy and my friends. I’m
sure we’d make friends in Denver, but you were gone all the time.
At least here if you were gone, I’d have my family.”

“I wouldn’t be gone, not here. I’d be home
all the time.”

“What about the winter? You can only crop
dust half the year.”

“I talked to Dodge. He needs help, and he’s
wanting to slow down a bit. I’ve been working with him, and I
thought I’d hate it, but I don’t.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. Trust me, no one’s more surprised than I
am. I hated working for him when I was a kid, but now it feels
honest. It feels right. We can build something here. Something
real. Give me a chance to give that to you.”

Her eyes welled with tears again. “I can’t
stand another day apart, much less four weeks.”

“The training won’t start until January.”

“And then what? Where will we live? I don’t
want to be apart anymore.”

“I don’t either. Let me talk to Lyle. I don’t
know why he can’t stay at Erica’s and let us have the cabin.”

“Ah…maybe because he worked all summer making
this place livable for himself.”

“You saw them together. Do you really think
he wants to stay with me when he can be with Erica?” He tucked her
hair behind her ear. “He won’t be home tonight. I guarantee
it.”

“You think he won’t?”

“Not a chance. Stay with me tonight. I miss
you.”

“What about tomorrow? And the night after
that?”

“I’ll talk to Lyle. If he says no, then I’ll
either move in with your parents until we sell the house or I can
ask my mom if we can stay with her and Dodge. Lyle lived there for
a long time before they kicked him out. Surely they’d let us stay
for a few weeks.”