Just Once (12 page)

I squeal and try to roll away.

“Stay put.”

I roll the other way.

“Nearly there.”

I buck upward on the mattress, trying to throw him off, but he’s ready, and the next thing I know he’s got a knee in my back and his devious hands are killing me. He’s killing me.

“Stop!” I shriek.

“Count to ten.”

“I can’t!”

“Ten…”

“Nineeightsevensix—”

“Nine…”

“Shane!” Tears are pouring from my eyes. My shoulder is a hotbed of pain, like a barbed, flaming poker is being stabbed through again and again.

“Eight…”

I cry out as the pain intensifies impossibly more—then suddenly, somehow, it’s extinguished, leaving me with a faint, distant ache, soothed by Shane’s awful, wonderful hands.

“Feel that?” he asks.

“What happened?”

He lowers his head, and I can feel his lips on my cheek as he speaks. “You gave up.”

I push against him, but he’s still got his knee in my back. “Never,” I breathe.

He straightens and laughs. “It’s better, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. I can’t move.”

“Hang on. Stay put.”

I feel the mattress lift as he stands for a moment, then returns. “What is that?” I ask as I hear some sort of adhesive backing being removed.

“Heat pad.” He smooths it over my shoulder blade. It’s blissfully soothing, instantly warm and penetrating. “That okay?”

I swipe a hand over my damp eyes. “Yes.”

He moves away again, then quickly returns. “Here.”

I look up to see that he’s handing me my tank top. I sit up gingerly and accept the shirt, fully aware that he’s watching as I slide it over my head. My shoulder aches, but it’s a faint, vague pain, nothing like the shooting agony from before. Shane hands me the second shirt, but I just hold it in my lap. I’m suddenly embarrassed. I cried. And wailed. And writhed like a child when he was just trying to help. With a knee in my back.

“You don’t listen,” I accuse, for lack of anything better to say.

“To what?” He leans back against the dresser, feet crossed at the ankles.

“To no!” I exclaim. “I told you that hurt.”

“Kate,” he says, stepping forward and smoothing a wayward hair from my forehead. “I’ll listen to no when you mean it.”

Chapter Eight

“N
OOOO
,” I G
ROAN
the next morning. At first I think it’s my head that’s pounding, then I remember I hardly drank last night and pry open my eyes. Someone’s at the door, knocking softly but insistently.

“What?” I hiss, and the noise briefly ceases. “Who is it?”

“Luke,” a strange voice answers.

I run a hand over my face and look at the clock. 6:08. “Who?”

“Luke. One of the wranglers.”

I stagger to the door and pull it open. Wrangler Luke is standing in the dark hallway, hat in hand.

“What are you doing up here?” There are strict rules about boys in the girls’ bunk.

“Alec told me to come,” he answers. “There’s nobody downstairs.”

“I—What?”

I fumble for the light, and we both wince as it flickers on. I find the staff schedule I keep on my dresser and scroll over to Thursday’s early shift. Janie.

“Okay,” I tell Luke. “I’ll get her. Tell them five minutes. Sorry.”

He leaves, and I feel my way down the dark hall to the room the kitchen/cabin girls share. I can just make out the bulky shape of the bunk beds and hear faint snores.

“Hey!” I whisper-shout, rapping loudly on the wall. “Janie!”

“What’s going on?” someone mumbles. I think it’s Hailey.

“Janie!” I whisper-shout again, this time louder. “You’re supposed to be working.”

“Oh God, stop shouting,” Hailey groans.

“Cover your eyes,” I warn her. “I’m turning on the light.”

I hear the rustle of fabric as I feel for the light switch and flip it on. It takes another second for my eyes to re-adjust, then I gape at the nearly empty room. “Oh shit,” I breathe.

Moments later, hastily dressed, I hustle into the dining room and face two tables of hungry wranglers and, strangely, one table of hungry ranch hands. I spare Shane a confused glance, and he shrugs. I mutter apologies and hurry into the kitchen where Alec is expertly cracking eggs.

“What’s going on?” he demands at the same moment Shane enters with the same question.

I sigh and try not to cry. When I left Shane’s trailer last night, I was unduly optimistic. I felt relaxed and hopeful that things around here could improve. But now three of my four kitchen/cabin girls are AWOL, and the fourth one is in the shower, trying to wash away the stench of last night’s overindulgence.

“They’re gone,” I say. “Three of the girls. Their stuff’s gone…They left.”

“Shit,” Alec says.

I grab a notepad. “I’ll take orders. Be right back.” I move past Shane to the door. “Excuse me.”

“You okay?” he asks.

“Never better.”

The wranglers are surprisingly understanding. In my previous summers we’d had people abscond in the middle of the night, but never quite like this. I take orders and run food, and Hailey comes in just in time to help clear. She enters the kitchen with a perplexed look on her face, and I know what’s prompted it.

“They just showed up,” I say, regarding the ranch hands.

“They never eat in the dining room,” she replies. “What’s changed?”

“Guess they realized it was a waste of time to have us run food out there.”

“Whatever. I’m over it.” She pours a cup of coffee and drinks it too quickly, then winces, fanning her burnt tongue. “God. Where do you think they went?”

I shake my head. There aren’t a lot of options out here. The girls must have hitched a ride into town.

“I can’t think about it now,” I say. “We’ve got too much to do. You’re not planning to leave, are you?”

“No.”

“You can tell me if you are.”

“I’m not. Promise.”

“Good.” I check the dining room. Empty. “Come on,” I say, picking up a bus bin. Hailey does the same and follows me. We have about five minutes to get the room reset for the guests, then the two of us will manage the entire service. What a mess. How am I going to explain to Hank and Mary that my promise to fix things resulted in a mass walkout?

“Honestly?” Hailey says as she wipes down a table. “I’m kind of glad they’re gone. I mean, Janie was a bitch.”

“Totally.”

“And Becca was a bitch robot.”

I laugh. “Yep.”

“And Lisa…”

We share a look. There’s no need to say more. Lisa was the vaguely unwilling member of an evil clique—the one who’s not sure she wants to be bad but isn’t sure how to be good, either. But now she’s gone, and we’ve got a mountain of work ahead of us.

“Hey,” Shane says, boots thudding on the wooden floor as he enters. The door swings shut behind him.

Both Hailey and I look up in surprise. “Hey,” I reply.

Hailey hurries into the kitchen with a bus bin, and I resume wiping down tables and straightening chairs.

“Tough break.”

“I’d say.”

“How’s your shoulder?” I nearly jump when I feel his fingers pressing on the heat pad through my shirt. I’d planned to take it off before work, but dressed so quickly I forgot.

“Much better. Thank you.”

“Any time.” There’s more than a little innuendo in that statement.

“I think I’m fixed now.”

He laughs and drops his hand. “Have it your way. I came to give you something.”

I no longer need the sex dream to remind me that I find Shane incredibly attractive. Maybe it’s his matter-of-fact personality, the steadiness in his dark eyes that suggests he sees right through my “I’m mature now, honest!” façade and likes me anyway, or the way everyone automatically respects him, but I’m drawn to the man, even when I know I shouldn’t be. That’s why, even though I wouldn’t be entirely offended if the “something” he wanted to give me was in his pants, I keep my voice level and professional and ask, “What?”

“Pete!”

Plodding footsteps thud down the porch and a moment later Pete, the incompetent handyman, enters. “I’m here,” he announces unnecessarily.

Shane shoots me a look that says,
See what I have to deal with?

I look back to say,
So you’re giving him to me?

“Pete here will help you out for the rest of the day,” Shane says. “Isn’t that right, Pete?”

Pete shrugs. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“He’s all yours.” He gives me one last look that says so many things I can’t even begin to interpret and leaves.

I study Pete. He’s got floppy brown hair and big puppy dog eyes. He looks like the guy who writes sappy love songs that rhyme, not the guy who fixes things. Which probably explains why Shane’s so willing to part with him for the day. Whatever. Beggars can’t be choosers. “Let’s go, Pete.”

Because Pete has no idea how to take orders or even talk to guests, Hailey and I put him on dish duty and handle the dining room. We’re rushed off our feet, but no one seems to notice we’re short staffed. It’s a relief to know the dining room won’t fall into complete disarray as a result of the girls’ disappearing act.

The cabins, however, are a different story. It was a struggle for four of us to get them done yesterday, and just three people sharing the same load—one of them being Pete—is almost too much to contemplate. But I don’t have the luxury of bemoaning my bad luck. I hand Pete a checklist, confirm that he knows the difference between shampoo and conditioner (his soft, shiny hair suggests he does), and send him on his way. I’m going to inspect the cabins today, no matter what—if I spot a bat I’ll just look the other way.

Pete and Hailey depart with their cleaning supplies, and I return to the kitchen for a glass of water before following them. Alec is already working on prep for lunch, and the rhythmic chopping is soothing as I gaze out the window at the green mountains and horse paddock. My eyes drift in the direction of the barn, and my mind conjures up the image of the man inside it—the one who so kindly promised not to fuck me, no matter how much I begged. The man who pinned me down and massaged the hell out of my shoulder, who let me rant and rave about my hatred for a teenage girl, who offered help when I needed it but was too stubborn to ask.

I could probably stay on this train of thought for another hour or so, but the sight of a small figure shuffling down the dirt road toward the ranch catches my eye. She’s far enough away that I can just detect blond hair and the dark bulk of something she’s tugging behind her.
Janie?
is my first thought, followed by a more optimistic,
Lisa?

I set down my glass and dart out the back door, running to meet her. It
is
Lisa. Her face is still swathed in bandages, but she looks otherwise unharmed.

“Lisa!” I exclaim as I reach her. “What on earth? What’s going on?”

She raises teary eyes to meet my stare. “They left,” she confesses. “In the middle of the night. Woke me up and said we were going. So we left and then…I don’t know. We were sitting at a bus station, and I said I didn’t think we should do this, and Janie said shut up, and Becca was like, ‘Yeah, shut up,’ and at first I did shut up, but then I couldn’t help thinking…maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I should stay. So I came back. I’m sorry, Kate. I’m really sorry.”

She’s crying in earnest now, and to be honest, I’m more exasperated than anything. I’m glad she’s okay, and I’m glad one staff member came back so we’re that much less short-handed. But we really don’t have time for this teary confessional, and I pat her on the shoulder and say as much.

“Okay,” Lisa says, wiping a hand under her nose. “You’re right. Definitely. Let’s get back to work.”

I help her lug her suitcase upstairs and wait in the hall as she changes back into the ranch polo shirt. Because she missed yesterday’s checklist lecture and Pete has never had one, we join him in cabin one and start the lesson.

Three cabins later, it turns out Pete’s a pretty good student. And with guilt to motivate her, so is Lisa—though it was more than a little difficult to keep their attention focused on my instructions rather than each other. What does it say that even with a hand-sized bandage covering the center of her face, Lisa can still find a way to flirt? And what does it say about Pete? He’s either able to overlook the bandage or has an interesting fetish for gauze…I don’t dwell on it.

It’s quarter to twelve when we finish the cabins and meet Hailey back in the supply closet. “What are they doing in cabin nine?” she demands. There’s an enormous wet spot on the front of her shirt, and she’s sweating profusely.

“Bedding in the tub?”

“We should shut off their water!” she fumes. “No more sheets! What the fuck?”