River's End (River's End Series, #1)(60)

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged and stretched his legs before him. “I mean, I clearly saw that your brother meant you harm of some kind or another. I also knew you had no one else, and no place to go. It didn’t take me long to figure that out. So I decided you could stay. Even before Chance pulled that stunt. Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t fire him? I hated him. I detested the work he did and never trusted him getting near any of my horses. Why did you think I let him stay?”

“Because of Joey.”

“No. It was because I knew you had nowhere else to go.”

She snapped her mouth shut and felt the deep heat of a blush that started in her chest and swiftly rose up her neck and into her face.

“You risked letting me stay. I could have easily turned out to be like Chance.”

His gaze brushed over her face. “No. You couldn’t. I knew that much.”

“You always trust your judgment despite the obvious proof otherwise?”

“Yeah, I do, and I’ve never been wrong yet.”

She shook her head at his cockiness. And confidence in himself. She’d never felt sure of anything in her life, or any thought she’d ever had.

“Your brothers don’t like me.”

“My sons do.”

She was closer to him. Physically, their bodies moved closer, as if drawn together. His face was turned towards hers, looking down. She froze. What did the look in his eyes mean? What were the strange emotions roiling in her gut? And why was her attention pinned on his mouth?

She swallowed and felt like her heart just climbed up her throat and lodged into her tonsils. “I should go.”

It was a stupid thing to say, yet again. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Jack knew that. Of all the people in the entire world, Jack most certainly knew that about her.

He finally stood up. “I was thinking you’re ready to try riding outside the arena. Want to take a walk down the road?”

She let air fill her lungs as the strange tension left. “You mean on horseback?”

He chuckled. “Of course, on horseback. What better way to hurry this day over? You up for it?”

She hesitated, then nodded. She might have been a loser in every other aspect of her life, but she could learn to ride a horse. And happily spend the worst day of her life with Jack, instead of all alone and feeling depressed.





Chapter Eighteen


Jack and his brothers were busy over the next few weeks. They planted all the fields and spent hours of their days moving sprinklers and keeping the alfalfa damp. It would feed most of the horses during the winter. As the days lingered longer, the work to do also increased. They started before sunrise, and worked long into the twilight. Jack was busy as always with his sons, his brothers, the ranch business, and horse training. Most nights, he fell into his bed, asleep before he managed to even cover himself.

Once in a while, he wished for a woman. For Lily. For sex. Luckily, however, he was too busy to spend a lot of time wanting what he couldn’t easily have. River’s End was a small place. He sure as hell wasn’t sleeping with someone’s sister or daughter from around there. And since he wasn’t interested in a relationship of any sort, he mostly took care of such urges when he was out of town. Plus, he didn’t want his sons to ever find out what he was up to or with whom. He frequently left the ranch overnight to take one of his horses to market, or return a trained horse to its home or a buyer. He met up with people from all around the west coast, seeking to buy one of his horses or asking him to train their horses.

It previously wasn’t as tough to deal with however. Frequently, he could go months without sex. But now, there was Erin. Right there on the ranch, not five hundred feet from the house, every single day. He saw her often enough, since he continued to teach her to ride, and other times when she wandered around the beach and barns. For a city girl, she spent hours on end out and about. Looking, walking, sitting, talking to the horses, and figuring out weekly chores she could do, as well as taking the initiative to do them.

He had to admit she surprised him. She was downright helpful and always tried extremely hard to do anything he said. She strove to remember all the instructions he gave her, with an earnestness and sincerity that made him turn away rather than let her see his amused smile. She was like Charlie in her eagerness to please.

Regularly seeing her out and about on the ranch, he now had an attractive, adult female in his constant sight. It wasn’t like he wanted to see Erin. It was just hard not to notice her subtle cleavage whenever she bent over to scoop hay into a stall, or her firm, little ass in jeans as she stretched to get her leg over a horse. It wasn’t like he wanted Erin Poletti; he was sure of that. He wanted a woman, but having Erin there always reminded him what he lacked, and soon became a bigger distraction than he counted on. Not since Lily first died did he miss having someone in his bed every night so much.

But she slept with his brother. Not only that, but he saw her with his little brother, all dewy and fresh in the morning at the beach. He knew what her wild curls looked like after getting all messed up from sex. He knew then that he would never sleep with her.

Beyond her tryst with Joey, she was completely wrong for him. He had a fifteen, almost sixteen-year-old son who was as close to Erin’s age as he was. There was something very strange about that.

Besides, they were so different, it wasn’t even possible to imagine them together.