Hawk's Way Grooms (25 page)

Jenny clutched Colt around the neck and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. Just as quickly, she let him go and stepped back. It was too tempting to cling to him. “It's a
perfect
gift. No woman could ever have a more perfect gift.”

Then she remembered she was planning to call off the wedding.

“I guess there won't be any more talk about selling the Double D,” Randy said as he mounted his gelding. “Wait'll I tell everybody about this!”

He kicked his horse into a lope, shrieking like a Comanche on a raid and kicking up a cloud of dust that Jenny waved away.

Jenny turned back to Colt and said, “How could you have teased Randy like that, saying you thought I should sell the Double D, when you'd already bought Rob Roy?”

“I wasn't teasing,” he said.

“But with Rob Roy—”

“One bull isn't going to solve all your problems, Jenny. In fact, he's only going to make more work for you. I suppose with the income he'll bring in you could hire a man to help you out, but—”

“I'll still be alone, because you're not going to be around,” Jenny finished for him.

“I made my choice a long time ago, Jenny.”

Jenny couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. “I know, Colt. You and Huck both. Like I said, I can take care of myself.” She opened her mouth to call off the wedding, but what came out was, “Thanks for the bull. It's the nicest gift anybody's ever given me.”

Jenny turned and headed toward the house. She tried to walk, but she was feeling too much, hurting too much, and she started to run. She waited for the sound of Colt's footsteps coming after her.

But she never heard them.

 

R
ANDY'S HEART LURCHED WHEN
he caught sight of Faith through the open kitchen window of her house. “Hi, Faith.”

“Hi, Randy. Let me finish here at the sink, and I'll let you in.”

Randy shifted from foot to foot on the back porch. Faith's dad was foreman for a neighboring ranch, and Randy noticed their single-story white clapboard house sported a fresh coat of white paint. Pink and purple petunias grew in profusion along the back porch. He had a moment to think how much Jenny would have appreciated the paint and the petunias before Faith unhooked the screen door and held it open for him.

He stared at her, stricken mute, unable to move.

Faith smiled shyly and said, “Won't you come in?”

“Uh. Okay.”

The instant he stepped inside, he was assailed with a sense of order and the smell of Pine Sol. It was a far cry from his house, which suffered from too much work and too few people to do it.

“I'm glad you decided to come,” Faith said.

“I said I would.”

“I know but…I'm glad,” she repeated, lowering her lids and hiding her eyes from him.

He recognized it for the defensive gesture it was, and couldn't help resenting it. He wasn't going to hurt her. If she'd just give him half a chance, he'd prove it.

He looked around the kitchen, not surprised to see it was pristine. The Butler girls had always come to school in starched and ironed dresses and with their hair in arrow-straight pigtails. At least, they had until Hope took the bit in her teeth and began to defy her parents. After that, it was only Faith who came to school perfectly dressed.

He took advantage of the fact Faith's eyes were averted to take a long look at her. Her left hand was hidden behind her back, so the image she presented was one of perfection. Her long-sleeved pink oxford-cloth shirt had a crisply starched collar and was belted into jeans that had a stiff crease. Her boots were so shiny he could have seen his reflection in them. Her straight black hair was tucked behind her ears.

He thought of the quick dousing he'd given himself in the barn. He'd rinsed off the worst of the sweat, but he wasn't precisely clean. His shirt wasn't ironed because Jenny had long ago given him the responsibility for doing it, and he'd decided he didn't mind the wrinkles. His boots were too scuffed to hold a shine, if he'd been inclined to give them one, which he wasn't.

Randy suddenly felt self-conscious. He should have taken a little more time to make himself presentable. He looked at the large kitchen table full of wedding paraphernalia and realized things were set up so they'd be sitting next to each other.

And me smelling like a workhorse.

“I…uh…I'm not sure how long I can stay,” he said, wondering how he could make a graceful exit before she got a good whiff of him.

“Great! You're here!” Hope said, breezing into the kitchen. “I was afraid you wouldn't come, and I'd get stuck with Faith wrapping all that birdseed in net and tying it with ribbons.”

Randy was relieved to see Hope wasn't dressed any better than he was. Her skintight jeans were torn at the knees, and she wore a Western shirt with the sleeves ripped out, strings still dangling, the tails tied in a knot that revealed a great deal of her midriff. Her tangled hair hung over her shoulders in disarray.

He almost smiled at the contrast between the sisters. Looking at them, you might easily get the wrong idea about which was the imperfect twin.

“You're not going to abandon us!” Faith said anxiously to her sister.

“I can help for a little while,” Hope said. “But I've got other plans for later on.” Hope plopped down into a chair on the opposite side of the rectangular oak table. “Let's get going. The sooner we start, the sooner this'll be done.”

“You can sit here, Randy,” Faith said, gesturing with her right hand to one of the two seats beside each other across from Hope.

He hesitated, then slid into the chair she'd indicated, because he wanted to sit next to her. After all, it was why he'd come. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“You can hold the pieces of net while I measure out the birdseed. Then I'll hold the net while you tie the bow. How does that sound?” Faith asked.

“All right, I guess,” Randy replied. It dawned on him that she was going to need two hands. And that she was going to be using that hook on the end of her left arm as one of them. He felt a little jittery at the thought, and steeled himself not to shudder or do anything that would make her uncomfortable.

He glanced up and caught Hope watching him through narrowed eyes. And realized she was there not to help her sister with the wedding favors, but to protect Faith from him. He wanted to reassure Hope, but at the moment he wasn't certain how he was going to react when Faith hauled out that hook and started using it so close to his own hands.

Then he saw Faith's right hand was trembling and realized she was as scared as he was. A lump the size of Texas constricted his throat, and his chest felt like four football linemen had piled onto it.

He reached out and picked up a piece of net and placed it on the table in front of her. “Ready for—” He cleared his throat and said, “Ready for some seed.”

He watched her pick up a two-pound plastic bag of birdseed at the top with her real hand, then grasp the bottom with the hook and aim the open corner onto the net. Too much poured out.

“Oh,” she said, setting the bag down abruptly. Her eyes darted nervously in his direction, then focused on the mess she'd made.

He felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. If he blew this, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to get a second chance. “It's all right,” he said, reaching quickly for another piece of net. “I'll divide this in two.” He suited word to deed and poured half the birdseed onto the second piece of net. “Now what?”

“Get a piece of that pink ribbon over there.”

The narrow silk ribbon had already been cut into lengths. While he grabbed the ribbon, she gathered the net around the seed with one hand, and held it closed at the top with the hook.

As nonchalantly as if he tied ribbons into bows every day, he surrounded the net below her hook with the ribbon and tied a creditable bow. “How's that?” he said when he was done.

She released the hook from the net and slid it away as she surveyed his work, but he noticed she didn't retreat with it under the table. “Pretty terrible,” she announced at last.

He shot her an astonished look and saw she was smiling at him. His heart did a flip-flop. He looked back at the lopsided bow and said in an unsteady voice, “I'll do better on the next one.”

“Hey, there! Anybody home?”

Randy looked over his shoulder at the screen door and said, “Hi, Jake.”

“Hi, Jake,” Faith said.

“I'll see to Jake,” Hope said. “You two just keep on with what you're doing.”

“I've got that delivery of hay your father ordered,” Jake said when Hope pushed open the screen door. “Ask him where he wants me to put it.”

“I'll show you,” Hope said. “Follow me.”

Hope was glad Randy hadn't turned out to be a jerk. Otherwise she wouldn't have been able to leave Faith behind with him. She'd been waiting a long time for the chance to get Jake Whitelaw alone.

This was it.

His shirt was dirty, the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, sinewy forearms. His Stetson was sweaty around the brim, and shaggy black hair was crushed at his nape. His cheeks were hollow, and he had a sharp nose and wide-set, ice-blue eyes. He was half a foot taller than she was, lean at the hip, but with broad, powerful shoulders. He made her body come alive just looking at him.

“How are you, Jake?” she said, walking with her shoulders back so her breasts jutted and her hips swayed.

He eyed her sideways. “Just dandy,” he muttered.

“Daddy wants that hay in the barn,” she said, hop-skipping to keep up with his long strides.

“Why didn't you just say so? You don't need to come with me, little girl. I know where it goes.”

Little girl.
Hope ground her teeth. She'd show him she was no
little girl!
“There's some stuff needs to be moved first,” she hedged. “Machinery that's too heavy for me to pick up by myself.”

“Why didn't your daddy move it?”

“I told him I could do it. That is, before I realized how heavy it was,” she fibbed.

Jake didn't look suspicious, but it wasn't going to take long once they got inside the barn for him to realize she'd lied. The space where the hay was supposed to be stacked had been cleared out that morning. She opened the door and went inside first, then waited for him to enter before she closed the door behind him.

Sunlight streamed through the cracks between the planks of the wooden barn, leaving golden lines on the empty, straw-littered dirt floor.

He turned to confront her. “What the hell is going on, little girl?”

She was backed up against the door to keep Jake from leaving. She put her hand over the light switch when he reached for it, afraid of what she'd see in his eyes in the stark light of the naked overhead bulb. He didn't force the issue, merely stepped back and stood facing her, his legs widespread, his hands on his hips.

“What happens now?” he said. “You want sex? Take off your jeans and panties and lie down over there on that pile of straw on the floor.”

Hope's eyes went wide when he started to unbuckle his belt. “Stop! Wait.” She was shocked by his brutally frank speech, by the rough sound of his voice, by his plain intention of taking what she seemed to be offering without any pretense of romance. This wasn't how she'd imagined things happening between them.

He had his shirt unbuttoned and was ripping it out of his jeans when he paused and looked her right in the eye. “You chickening out, little girl?”

Maybe if he hadn't made it a dare, she would have run, which is what she realized he expected her to do. She stared right back at him and began untying the knot at her midriff.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

She watched his eyes go wide, then narrow. A muscle jerked in his cheek. He no longer seemed interested in taking his clothes off. He was too busy watching her. Waiting, she suspected, to see how far she would go.

Her mouth was bone-dry, but she wanted him to know why she was doing this. “I…I love you, Jake.”

He snorted. “Get to it or get out.”

Her cheeks pinkened with mortification, but she refused to run. It wasn't easy undressing in front of him. She kept her eyes lowered, while she fumbled with the knot. He stood watching, waiting like a lone wolf stalking an abandoned calf, certain of the kill.

When the knot came free, her shirt fell open. She let it slide off her shoulders and onto the floor, revealing the pure white demi-cup pushup bra she'd bought with her babysitting money, which revealed just about everything but her nipples.

When she lifted her gaze to his face, she was frightened by what she saw. His eyes had a dangerous, feral look, his jaw was clenched tight, and his hands had balled into fists. He looked distant, unapproachable, but she forced herself to walk up to him, to slide her hands around his neck, to lift up on tiptoe to press her lips against his.