Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(76)

This wasn’t permanent. And it was a damn good thing he hadn’t fallen asleep with Callie, no matter that it had hurt her feelings at the time. He was playing with fire and he knew it. Last night had been his breaking point, and there had been no resisting her.

She wanted him, so why not give her what she wanted? Wasn’t that why he was here? It hadn’t made any sense to put her off. Hadn’t made any sense to deny her.

Laughing and gift opening continued around him. And for half of it he felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Because this was a family. A regular old family with a mother and a father and children. Even if they were all grown.

And it wasn’t at all like his life. But he just kind of had to sit there and be part of it without actually being part of it.

“Hey, Jake,” Callie’s father said, clapping his hand on his back. “Why don’t you come have a drink of that whiskey with me. Since I so generously bought the bottle for you.”

“Sure,” Jake said, knowing he couldn’t deny the older man, but also feeling a little bit afraid.

“Let’s go to the den,” he said, leading him out of the formal living room and into a place with a big TV and high-backed leather chairs.

There were two tumblers sitting on the table, and Jake felt very much like he had been railroaded into the moment.

He took the bottle of whiskey from Jake’s hand, sat in the chair and pulled off the top. “Set a spell.” He poured a measure of the amber liquid into the glasses, and gestured to the seat across from him.

Jake complied.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I appreciate the way you’ve been there for Callie over the years. You’ve been a real good friend to her.”

Jake gritted his teeth and sat back in the chair. “I try.”

“She admires you. Looks up to you. She always has. It’s been clear to me from the beginning just how crazy she was about you. And I can tell that’s even more true now.”

Jake had the distinct feeling that someone might have if he was being held under a microscope.

“So thank you for that,” he said. “Because you know, that’s what a man wants in life. To know that his daughter is taken care of. That she’s protected. And that she’s happy.”

“Her happiness is important to me, too,” Jake said. “Nothing is more important than that.”

“Glad to hear it. You know, Jake,” he said. “I remember years ago, I got a stallion. Big one. Supposed to be a great stud. I put him in the field with this filly. And you would think for all the world that the stallion and the filly were going to make something of it. But I knew for a fact that the stallion wasn’t doing his job. Everybody else that worked for me kept saying there was no way that stallion wasn’t covering that filly. But I just had a feeling. I had a feeling things weren’t what they seemed.”

Jake shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had no idea if he was actually hearing a story about a stallion and a filly or if this was a metaphor, and he couldn’t decide what made him more uncomfortable.

Mostly because he had absolutely, completely, covered Callie, so to speak. And he really didn’t want to be in this discussion with her dad.

“When you work with as many animals as I do, you have a sense for it. Well, it turned out that I was right about the stallion. Now, then the question was, was something wrong with him. Turns out he’d injured himself. But it wasn’t obvious. What happened was he got spooked in the trailer on the way over to my ranch. He jumped up, and a piece of metal had come down into his abdomen. Had sunk all the way in. But it wasn’t immediately clear that was what had happened. So he had this piece of metal that he was carrying around inside of him. Prevented him from functioning in all kinds of ways. Made him averse to the filly, even though we all know that a stallion wants a filly, Jake. We all know it. But because of that wound he couldn’t take her. He had to pull that shrapnel around he was carrying inside of him. And then... Everything worked just right. I got me a champion little colt out of the deal. But you know, the point is, I had to see what was in front of me first. I’m good at seeing what’s in front of me.”

The old man’s eyes met his, and again, Jake couldn’t quite puzzle out exactly what he was claiming to know. Because if it was that he wasn’t... With Callie, then he was wrong. But if it had to do with the marriage not being real...

“You can’t let the shrapnel stay there forever,” he said. “Keep you from doing what needs doing.”

“Yeah, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.”

“I think you do.”

“I think you’re giving me more credit than you maybe should.”

Abe shifted. “Well, I don’t think so. But if that’s the case... I think it will become clear when it needs to. But just to let you know. I’m a man who sees things.”

“Well, I don’t have any trouble believing that.”

“One more thing to go with that. When the dust settles, if my daughter is hurt in any way, I’ll be hunched down. So will Boone and Kit and Jace and Flint and Chance. Just because you’re not in the rodeo don’t mean I don’t know where you live.”

Jake believed it. But threats against his person were not his primary motivation for making sure Callie came out of this unscathed. “I would never hurt Callie.”