Cowgirls Don't Cry(55)

Keely’s eyes sparked tears. “Omigod. It’s like he’s a clone of Luke.”


“Those McKay genes are powerful stuff.” Jessie grabbed Landon’s cup from the fridge and a handful of animal crackers. He stayed on her lap with a wary eye on Keely.

“So you really do seem fine with all of this.”


“I have my days where I’d like to leave town with no forwarding address, believe me. But I agreed to do it so it seems pointless to complain. Plus, I know it’s temporary.”


“Is it a possibility?” Keely kicked her boots up on the coffee table. “That it might become permanent?”


“Not for me. Maybe for Brandt.”


“Were does Brandt fall in all of this?”


“He hasn’t just passed the responsibility of taking care of Landon off on me.”


“Jess. That’s not what I meant. I meant personally. Brandt is living with you. You’re together all the time, taking care of a child. I hope you’re working out some of your past issues?”


“If you mean working them out between the sheets, then yes,” she said in a rush.

“And?”


“And…it’s intense. But, again, that’s because this is a temporary situation.”


Keely gave her a calculated look. Like she was ready to call bullshit.

“What?”


“Why can’t this be the start of something that will be intense for years to come?”


Jessie couldn’t answer that to anyone’s satisfaction, so she sidestepped the question. She brushed crumbs off Landon’s shirt. “You dated Jack’s brother for awhile, right?”


“Yes.”


“So you and Jack haven’t had any fights or discussions about the time you were with Justin?”


She sighed. “We’ve had huge fights, which means no rational discussion. We don’t talk about the sexual aspect of it. Jack knows more about what happened between Justin and me only because Justin told him, I never would have. But my relationship with Justin happened a few years before Jack and I stopped hating each other long enough to really look at each other.”


“But you weren’t the source of fights between them?”


“No.” Realization dawned in Keely’s eyes. “Damn. You were, weren’t you? The source of fights between Luke and Brandt.”


“I’ve never told anyone this, Keely, but I overheard them. I wanted to die of embarrassment. My husband didn’t love me enough to stay faithful and he made sure my brother-in-law knew it.”


“Oh, Jess.”


“So I’m in a different situation. It’s complicated enough between me and Brandt without adding him—” she pointed at Landon, “—into the mix.”


“Maybe Landon’s the glue that will allow you and Brandt to be together.”


Or maybe he’s the wedge that will drive us apart.

“Look, it’s no secret that you and Brandt spent a lot of time together after Luke died. Everyone thought—”


“That I’d just slip from one McKay bed to another without any problem whatsoever? God. Has everyone been listening to Casper talk about me?”


Keely’s boots hit the carpet. “See? That’s your problem. You automatically assume everyone thinks the worst of you. Casper is the exception, not the rule. What I started to say was we all hoped you’d both find happiness in what’d been a bad situation.”