Shameless (11 page)

D
EVON AND
P
IPPA
had spent the morning on horseback as he showed her around his ranch, where his Angus cows were suckling their spring calves, returning to the house in time for lunch. He'd asked her if she wanted to call her father and let him know that she was planning to stay overnight with him, but she'd declined. He'd taken one look at her troubled face and let the subject drop.

After they'd eaten some sandwiches and chips, she'd insisted on loading the dishwasher while he made some business calls. Then she'd settled into the comfortable corduroy chair in his living room to read some of his ranch journals while he finished up paperwork for his cow-calf operation—and tried to figure out what to do about their sleeping arrangements.

Devon had told Pippa he had two bedrooms, which was true, but he was using the second one as an office. The second bedroom contained a full bath, and he'd put an enormous upholstered couch in the room, which his brothers had told him made a comfortable place to sleep.

While they were having dinner, he'd convinced Pippa to take his bed while he slept on the couch in his office. She was in his bedroom right now—with the door closed—changing into one of his plaid wool shirts and a pair of long john bottoms he'd provided in lieu of pajamas, which he didn't wear.

He glanced at his watch as he reached for the ringing phone. He'd been expecting this call—and dreading it. Someone was surely looking for Pippa by now. He'd said nothing to his brothers about meeting Pippa at the pond, because he knew they'd give him a hard time about it. But since he was a Flynn, he was as suspect as his brothers whenever there was trouble in Jackson.

As soon as he picked up the phone, Brian said, “Pippa Grayhawk is missing. Matt's crazy with worry. He found his truck abandoned in town. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“She's here with me.”

“You'd better call Matt and let him know she's all right.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Pippa needs some time to herself. I'm making sure she gets it.”

“Are you telling me she's planning to stay there overnight with you?”

“Overnight and as many nights as she wants,” Devon replied.

“Holy shit, Devon! What's gotten into you? Have you gone nuts?”

“Pippa's a grown-up. She can decide what she wants to do with her life.”

“She's
nineteen,
” Brian said. “You're
twenty-eight.
What are you doing getting involved with a kid like that?”

“She'll be twenty in a couple of months.” That response sounded lame even to Devon's ears. “The point is, she's had plenty of opportunities to contact her father, but she hasn't. All I'm doing is giving her a safe place to stay until whatever argument she had with Matt blows over.”

“Don't you think Matt deserves to know she's safe? That she hasn't been kidnapped and killed and buried in a shallow grave? You know we had those teenage girls go missing a while back. The ones who turned up dead?”

Devon had forgotten because the culprit had supposedly been caught. That didn't mean there weren't other loonies out there, so he could understand Matt's fear. But surely Pippa wouldn't leave him to worry long. “Pippa asked for my help. I can't refuse her any more than I could refuse to help any creature that needs a refuge.”

“What's going on, Devon? Are you infatuated with her or something?”

It was definitely
something,
Devon thought, but he wasn't sure exactly what himself. “I told you, I'm only giving her a place to stay.”

“At least let me tell Matt she's safe,” Brian pleaded.

At that moment the bedroom door opened and Pippa stepped out. Her eyebrows were raised, as though questioning who was on the phone.

Devon hissed in a breath when he realized she was wearing his shirt but her very long, very attractive legs were bare. The long john trousers dangled from one hand. Apparently, she'd been halfway done dressing when the phone rang. He wondered if the rest of her was equally naked under his shirt. Her long hair had been released from its ponytail and fell over her shoulders like golden silk.

His body responded so quickly that he stepped behind the corduroy chair so she wouldn't see the thick ridge forming in his jeans.

“Who is that on the phone?” she asked.

He responded to the anxiety in her voice by covering the mouthpiece and saying quietly, “It's Brian.”

Her eyes opened wide in concern, and her body remained tense as she took two steps toward him. “What are you telling him?”

“I've told him you're here—”

“Oh, no!” she wailed, crossing the rest of the distance between them and flinging the long johns over the top of the corduroy chair behind which he was standing.

He edged his body sideways, aware that it wasn't going to help the situation if she figured out the condition he was in. “Brian won't say anything.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I asked him not to.”

“Devon? Are you there?” he heard Brian ask.

He took his hand off the mouthpiece but kept his eyes focused on Pippa. “I was telling Pippa that you won't spill the beans to her father about where she is.”

“I think you're making a big mistake keeping her whereabouts a secret from Matt. Tell Pippa how worried he is.”

“I don't think—”

“Tell her!” Brian insisted.

He covered the mouthpiece again. “Brian said to tell you that your father's going crazy wondering where you are, that he's imagining you dead in a ditch somewhere.”

Pippa winced at the image Devon had described.

“Brian thinks you should give Matt a heads-up so he can stop hunting for you.”

Pippa crossed her arms protectively, unintentionally raising the hem of the shirt—and Devon's blood pressure. Then her jaw firmed and she shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?” Devon asked, curious as to why she wouldn't want to assuage her father's concern.

“Because Daddy's liable to come here and haul me home like a naughty five-year-old,” she retorted. At his look of disbelief she added, “He's done it before!”

Devon felt a pang of misgiving. Pippa had run away before? When? And for how long? Maybe he was making a huge mistake keeping her here without her father's knowledge.

“I'll explain everything to you,” she promised. “But please ask Brian to keep my whereabouts secret. Just for a little while.”

Her gray eyes glistened in the firelight, and Devon realized he couldn't betray her. He took his hand off the mouthpiece and said, “I'm counting on you to keep what I've told you in confidence, Brian. Matt will just have to trust that his grown daughter can take care of herself.”

“All right. I'll keep my trap shut. But I think this is a bad idea.”

Devon ignored the warning, focusing instead on his brother's agreement to keep Pippa's presence a secret. “Thanks, Brian.”

There was a pause before Brian said, “Be careful, Devon.”

He eyed Pippa, who'd retrieved the long john bottoms and was stepping into them. “What does that mean?”

“Don't let yourself get embroiled in something you can't get yourself out of.”

“There's nothing—”

“Keep your hands off Matt's daughter,” Brian said flatly.

Devon felt himself flushing. “Goodbye, Brian.”

“Don't forget what I said.”

Devon hung up the phone. He wouldn't forget, because touching Pippa, holding her and kissing her and putting himself inside her, was all he'd thought about all day. He'd been surprised when she took up his offer of shelter, but he'd also been glad. This interlude would give them a chance to get better acquainted, even if it came at the cost of a little of Matt's peace of mind.

Pippa deftly pulled the long johns up under his wool shirt. It came to mid-thigh on her, so he still had no idea whether she was bare beneath his clothes. Once she had the leggings on she said, “Do you have a pair of wool socks I can borrow? My feet are cold.”

“Sure. I'll be right back.”

He headed into his bedroom and noticed that both a lacy bra and skimpy panties were dripping wet and hanging off the shower rod in his bathroom.

So she
had
been naked under that shirt.

He remembered Brian's warning. He needed to get some answers from Pippa before he let himself get any more involved emotionally—or physically—than he was. How recently had she run away? And why had her father come hunting her?

Devon grabbed a pair of thick, gray wool socks from his top drawer and headed back out to the main room of his cabin. Pippa was sitting cross-legged in his corduroy chair in front of the crackling fire, leaving him the rocker.

He tossed her the socks. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, Devon.” She uncurled her legs and pulled the socks on, then crossed her legs again.

To avoid staring—he couldn't help noticing that her toenails were painted a delicate pink—he busied himself putting more wood on the fire.

“I was going to bank this for the night,” he said, down on one knee by the fire, “but I think we have a little talking to do first.” When he was done, he sat down in the rocker and settled one ankle on the opposite knee. “You promised me an explanation. I'd like to hear it.”

“I'm afraid what I'm about to say doesn't paint me in a very positive light,” she began.

He waited for her to continue, watching as she played with a loose string on one of the buttons on his shirt.

At last she looked up and met his gaze. She took a deep breath and said, “My father's cattle station in the Northern Territory was about forty-five minutes from Underhill, a town of six hundred people. There was nothing except flies, snakes, green frogs, and roos—that's kangaroos—for three hours in any direction.”

Devon had known she'd grown up isolated from civilization, but what she described sounded more remote and exotic than anything he could have imagined.

She continued, “My stepmother—Nathan's mother—ran away when he was just a baby, so the closest female I might have spent time with lived in Underhill. My father went there once a week to shop for whatever we needed and collect the mail. He took me and Nathan along, because he didn't want to leave us alone at the station. Otherwise, I was surrounded, day in and day out, by a dozen young men, all of them my father's ringers—what you call cowboys.”

“Your father didn't have a housekeeper?”

“I took care of the house—and Nathan. No woman wanted to live so far away from the world.” Her voice was bitter as she added, “Especially Nathan's mother. That's why she left us.”

“Didn't any of the cowboys—the ringers—have wives or girlfriends at the station?”

“It would have caused too much trouble to have a few women but not a woman for every man. Besides, the women wouldn't have stood for the isolation. Once a month the hands were allowed to go into town.”

“Once a
month
?”

“They tended to drink too much, and they got into fights over the local girls. It was better to keep them at the station. They were allowed two beers every Friday night.”

“Two whole beers?” he said sarcastically. “How could they stand that kind of isolation?”

“They didn't for long. You notice I said they were all
young
men. They worked for my father for the adventure of sleeping under the stars in the Outback, which they did during the muster—the roundup—on iron cots covered with mossy nets—that's mosquito nets.”

She smiled ruefully and said, “I shouldn't have left out mosquitoes when I mentioned the wildlife in Australia. Anyway, the ringers saved money, because there was nothing to spend it on. When the romance had gone out of being in the Outback, they went home to the city, to their girlfriends or wives.”

“Men left their wives behind? For how long?”

She shrugged. “Most never lasted more than a year or two on the station, but there were always other young men eager for a brief escape from the world.”

“But you were stuck there.”

“I was stuck,” she agreed. “To be honest, I loved my life. At least, I did until I got old enough to start wondering about what it might be like to kiss one of those young men who worked for my father.”

Devon felt a surge of jealousy at the thought of Pippa kissing another man and tamped it down. She was here now. Those men were long gone and far away.

“I knew it was likely none of them would hang around long enough to become a husband,” she said. “I would have been better off looking for a nice young man in Underhill.”

She paused, and he finished the thought for her. “But Underhill was forty-five minutes away. And the adventurers who worked for your father were right under your nose.”

She grimaced. “Too right.”

He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she clearly wasn't done with her story, and he was afraid if he did, he would never hear the rest of it.

“If I'd had a mother,” she said, “or another woman at the station, I might have had someone to confide in when I began to have feelings for one of my father's wranglers. She would have cautioned me, or perhaps even betrayed me to my father, which would have prevented what happened.”

He suddenly knew what she was going to say without having to hear it from her lips. “You ran away with one of your father's hired hands.”

One of the tears that had brimmed in her eyes slipped onto her cheek. She swiped it away almost angrily. “His name was Tim Brandon.”

He wanted desperately to ask what had happened next. Obviously, she hadn't stayed with the man. She was here in Wyoming, and the ringer was nowhere to be seen.

His patience was rewarded when she explained, “Shortly before we moved here, I ran away to Darwin with Tim.” She hesitated, then added, “I was head over heels in love with him.”