Rocky Mountain Desire: Six Pack Ranch, Book 3 (23 page)

Good thing she was headed toward Matt, who she knew could do something definitive about her sexual tension.

Matt slipped away from the gathering to start his truck so it would warm up before they headed to Hope’s. She had to open the shop early while he was off morning chores this weekend, and it made more sense to crash at the apartment.

He grinned to think that he got to consider such things. Where they would sleep, whose bed, which home. It was a neat stage to be at in their relationship—comfortable and exciting at the same time. He hit the john before turning toward the main room. A solid grasp on his arm jerked him to a stop, and he twisted to face his attacker.

Helen’s bright blue eyes shone in the faint hall light.

Matt jerked his sleeve from her fingers. “What?”

She snorted. “So much for the legendary Coleman politeness. Nice to see you again too.”

He stepped back a foot and looked her over quickly. Her outfit was far more revealing than it used to be when they dated, and the neckline seemed to be unevenly buttoned. “You want something?”

Because there wasn’t much he wanted to talk to her about.

“Just thought we could visit for a minute or two. It’s been a long time, and we didn’t get to discuss much the other night. I figured I’d find you around here. Colemans’ traditional Friday night meeting at Traders, and all that.”

Now
she admitted she knew about the family traditions? He waited. The way she dropped her shoulders—her entire body language—was far from the confident, almost demanding woman he’d been with over a year ago.

She lifted her head and stared into his eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

A shot of pain stabbed him, not in his heart, but in his gut. If she’d come back a month after leaving—or even six months later and looked at him like this? Confessed that same thing? He would have given her a chance. Would have tried to find a way to forgive her for cheating on him.

But too much time had passed and it was no longer enough. He’d moved on, and all her confession did was make him sad.

“Sounds as if you had a lot of time to think.” Matt leaned on the wall, his arms crossed in front of him. Putting up a barrier between them that was far smaller than the ones she’d shoved into place.

Her gaze fixed on his mouth. “About a lot of things. About how good you and I were together. Matt, this past year, not having you in my life? God, it was tough.”

He didn’t want to listen anymore. “It was tough for a while for me too, but things change. It gets better. Give it time, you’ll figure it out.”

“Matt, I want to get back together with you.”

The burst of laughter couldn’t be stopped. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? Or are you drunk again like at New Year’s?”

He was trapped in the back hallway of a bar with the woman he’d loved for most of his adult life before she’d taught him to hate. And only recently, he’d learned to forget.

She stepped against him, slipped her hands around his waist and dropped her head on his chest. “Not drunk. I love you, Matt. I always did.”

This was not happening. Matt grabbed her upper arms and peeled her off. She had to let go unless she wanted to actually cling as he forced her away. “Oh, no. Don’t you dare. You’re not actually doing this…”

Helen tilted her head to the side, tears shining in her eyes. “But it’s true. It just took me a while to understand. I mean it. You always wanted me to say it. I can tell you now. I love you. I want to be with you.”

My God, this was some kind of nightmare. Matt backed down the hall, trying to escape as she swung from smiling and seductive into a weeping mess. “Damn it. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re the one who ripped us apart last year. You left, Helen. Not me. And even if by some strange chance we had called it off together, did you really think you could just waltz back in and we’d be a couple again? You’re crazy.”

He turned on his heel and walked away. There was nothing more he had to say. Nothing she could say that he wanted to hear.

“Because you’re with Hope? What did you do? Go looking for her as soon as I left town?”

Matt kept walking.

“She’s not going to make you happy. Acting as if she’s some princess of the country. She’s using you just to get back at me…”

Helen raised her voice to a near shout. Matt paused at the entrance to the main room. From his vantage point, his entire family was visible. The girls gathered in a tight group, laughing and smiling as they eyed the guys at the tables. His brothers shooting the breeze and kicking back after a full day of labour. The kind of country living Helen had refused to see as valuable. The love and family she’d turned her back on at every chance.

Matt twisted to face her. “You trying to convince me your sister is pulling a fast one?”

The calculating expression spread, Helen’s eyes brightening. “She was so damn proud the first time you guys got together, she emailed me, gloating she’d finally gotten another thing I used to have. It wasn’t enough that she got the business and the apartment. She went after everything I had in my life.”

Weariness settled around Matt’s shoulders like a blanket of snow. The complaints were familiar—Helen often had something negative to say about Hope. For years he’d listened with only half an ear whenever she’d moaned about her younger sister receiving special attention, thinking it was typical family grumbles. Like him and Daniel poking that the twins got off easy being the youngest in the family—nothing serious, nothing more than a temporary protest. Now? Blinders fell from his eyes. She really did want him to think evil of Hope.

Still, he’d give her the rope she so obviously wanted just to let her well and truly show her colours. “Why would she do that?”

Helen stepped toward him unsteadily, and he wondered again if she was drunk in spite of there being no scent of liquor. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Hope’s jealous. You know that—she’s always been jealous of me. Remember when we were young? She always managed to get the best of everything from my parents. Spoiled and greedy. She’s the same now as then.”

Matt watched as Helen placed a hand on his arm and rubbed her fingers over his biceps. “I remember you complaining.”

She nodded. “See? She doesn’t care about you.”

The sour taste in Matt’s mouth was enough to make him ill. A profound sadness settled over him. There was no depth that Helen would not stoop to. One deception after another. And like he and Jaxi had spoken about—Helen had chosen her path.

She wanted a war? She’d get one.

Matt laid a hand over hers and stopped her from caressing his skin. The optimism in her eyes—did she really think he was that gullible? Some country hick willing to swallow any story? To go from saying she loved him to trying to ruin his relationship with Hope?

When he pulled her hand off and dropped it as if he’d held a dead mouse, her sparkling confidence clouded.

“If Hope has the best of anything, it’s because she’s worked for it. She deserves her happiness. The business, the apartment. After you left she put in the time and made it happen.”

Helen’s right eye twitched. “You fell for her lies. She used money that should have belonged to both of—”

“I don’t know the financial details, and I don’t care. I’ve heard enough and seen enough to know that when it comes down to who I trust, you have nothing to stand on. Hope says you don’t own any of the Stitching Post? I believe her.”

Helen lifted her chin, “And what about me being in love with you? How convenient that she’s with you, at least for now.”

Matt shook his head. “You don’t love me. You never did.”

“Neither does she.”

“This conversation is over. I think it’s best if you don’t bother to try to talk to me again.”

“She’s not the pristine and pure thing you think she is.” The words burst out like a gunshot.

Images of Hope wrapping herself around him and accepting his nearly violent lovemaking raced through his brain. Pure? Pure heaven. “None of your business.”

“Remember what she did for a living while she was in school. She stripped, Matt. She did all kinds of things to the guys. Hell, I bet she was fucking a dozen of them a night all through college.”

This had gone beyond stupid. “You know what, Helen? You’re not getting it. What you and I had is over and gone. What Hope and I have is here and now. For all I care she could have fucked half the college and all the profs. But I doubt very much she did because that’s not the kind of woman she is.”

Helen laughed, a dark, dirty sound. “That’s what you think. Who did you think I got the idea to ask you for the ménage from?”

The stab of pain returned, harder than before, but none of the agony was connected to Hope—all the blame landed firmly on the shoulders of the woman in front of him.

He was a stupid ass for having stayed to listen in the first place. But now that she’d tried to poison his life again, he was going to have his own say.

“Helen, you broke my damn heart, but you taught me a lesson I needed to learn. I can’t make someone love me. For years you refused to say the words, and now I’m glad, because I don’t think you ever did love me. And what I felt for you—well, it might have been a kind of love, almost a practice for the real thing. Whether I’ve got that now or not you’ll have to watch from the outside because you’re not welcome around me. Hope can decide if she wants you around her, but—”

“Hope doesn’t want you around either.”

A warm hand slipped over his arm as Hope nestled against his side. Helen stared at her sister with increasing dismay.

“You didn’t learn very much in your time away.” Hope stepped in front of Matt, as if to defend him, and he would have laughed if the whole situation weren’t beyond unbelievable. “Please. You’re making a fool of yourself. You’ve seen for yourself that the shop is out of your grasp. Matt isn’t interested in you. Just give up and start again. There are plenty of things you can do instead. You can’t have what I’ve worked so hard for.”

Helen sneered and twisted on her heel, racing down the hall and slamming out the emergency exit door.

Hope sighed. “That was the most awkward thing ever.”

Matt pulled her against him, cradling her carefully. Hope’s hug grew stronger and she rubbed her face against his chest.

It was bizarre. He’d waited years for Helen to tell him that she loved him. Would have begged for the words at one point in his life.

All he could think of now was how fortunate he was that she’d never said it—and how much he wanted to hear that Hope cared about him in the same way that he was growing to care for her.

Chapter Twenty

“You can’t be serious. It’s going up to what?”

“Forecast calls for temperatures to rise to a balmy summer day. The Chinook’s going to make that winter chill disappear and turn the snow into a slushy mess.” Joel tossed Matt the wrench in his hands then stood and wiped his hands on a rag. “If you’re interested, Dad gave us permission to play in the southeastern pasture. We’re digging a new ditch there come the spring so he doesn’t care if we tear it to hell. Want to join in?”

“Mud bogging? In the freaking snow?”

Joel snickered and Matt figured he must have looked borderline horrified. “You won’t melt.”

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass when we get stuck.”

“We won’t get stuck.”

Matt raised a brow, and Jesse laughed from where he was hauling stuff out of the truck’s passenger seat. “He’s right, Joel—we’ll get stuck. But that’s part of the fun.”

Joel grinned back. “So, you in?”

Having the twins home during their February reading week was always an adventure. With Mother Nature cooperating this time and giving them a break in the weather, Matt should have known the boys would come up with something crazy to play at.

Fine. “I’ll bring my block and tackle. I hope that we aren’t the only idiots going.”

“Hell, no.” Jesse hung out the window like some ten-year-old on a caffeine high. “Everyone who’s got cabin fever is going to be there around two, and we set up a barbecue after for those who want to stick around. Don’t be late if you don’t want to enjoy the truck equivalent of sloppy seconds.”

“Jesse,” Joel groaned.

Matt slapped Joel’s shoulder.

Joel snapped his head up and pulled a face. “What you hitting me for? It was him that said it, not me.”

Matt snorted. “Right, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

“I…well, fine, I was thinking it. But I have enough restraint to resist spitting out every damn thing that pops into my head.”

Matt turned away and headed to his own truck, still snickering over his youngest brothers and their crazy ideas. Since the day was insanely warm, maybe a little downtime would be a good idea. While there was enough work to keep at it every minute, that wasn’t good—all work and no play, that kind of thing.

Joel ground the old Ford into gear and spun out of the driveway, heading down the narrow gravel road toward the rough pasture. Matt laughed at Jesse in the passenger seat, who had his phone up to his ear and an evil grin on his face.

These two—barely controlled natural disasters.

They were right, though. The underground spring in the area had made the right side of that field too boggy to cultivate for the past few years. Turning it into a proper dugout might help deal with the excess moisture.

But in the meantime, seeing who could get their vehicles through the mess was a great way to spend the sunny Saturday afternoon. They were guaranteed to end up filthy and ready for more than a few drinks.

A little family bonding time was always a good thing.

The day flew past, the temperature rising high enough to make him peel down to a T-shirt outside the barns. Matt got stuck fixing a couple pens before he could get away, finally turning his truck toward the field. He dug out his phone and tried calling Hope, but there was no answer. He left a message on her machine and rounded the corner to see a virtual fleet of Coleman vehicles parked randomly over the field, a few running boards already covered with thick mud.

He pulled to the side and hopped out, figuring he’d check the situation before committing to the chaos. Cheers and roars of laughter rose over the ridge. He topped the crest, and his stomach fell.