Rodeo Daddy

She put down her fork. She hadn’t had any appetite in the first place and Terri Lyn’s casserole certainly hadn’t improved it. “Look, Jack, I know I shouldn’t have just shown up here like this, but after what Cody told me...”

He nodded, his jaw tensing, then pushed his plate away and got up to clear the table.

“Let me help,” she said as he slid out of the booth.

“No!” He gave her an apologetic smile at his curt tone and motioned for her to stay put. “This kitchen is too small for more than one person.”

He was right about that. She watched him clear the table, seeing his discomfort in the tensed muscles of his back through the thin white T-shirt. She tried not to notice the way his jeans fit. Or remember the feel of his long legs wrapped around her.

She fanned herself with her napkin, wishing there was more air in the room, wishing she hadn’t drunk the wine, wishing there was an easy way to say what she’d come to say. Jack’s admission that he hadn’t completely forgotten about her gave her courage. That and the wine and the fact that Terri Lyn couldn’t cook.

“I’m sure you’re wondering about Samantha,” he said, his back still to her as he began to wash the dishes.

What was there to wonder about? Jack had found someone else right after leaving the Wishing Tree.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back at his dishes. “What she told you just about covers it. I found Sam on my doorstep nine months after a one-night stand.”

“You’ve raised Sam alone?”

He nodded, still not looking at her. “It wasn’t any big deal.” He chuckled. “At first I was as lost as a young bull in the ring. But Sam and I have done all right by ourselves. She’s taught me a lot.”

There hadn’t been anyone special in his life besides Samantha? “Then you never married?”

He gave another nervous laugh. “I’ve been too busy to even date.”

“You seem to have found time to attract a casserole maker,” she said lightly.

He laughed. “Terri Lyn? We’re just friends.” He made a noise as if he hadn’t meant to say that and instantly regretted it.

She felt her heart inflate like a helium balloon, and without thinking, she opened it to him. “Jack, there’s no one serious in my life, either.”

He froze but didn’t turn around.

She rushed on before she lost her nerve. “I never knew what happened ten years ago. You just up and left. I thought you’d changed your mind about me. Then after my father’s heart attack, I found the check he tried to give you.”

Still Jack said nothing. Nor did he move, as if he were waiting for a blow.

“I know my father regretted what he did. He tried to tell me in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. He knew how much I—”

“Don’t,” Jack said, his voice low. “Chelsea, don’t.”

“But, Jack...” She slid out of the booth and was so close to him that she could feel his body heat. Cautiously, she laid a hand on his back, not surprised this time by the current that raced from her palm to her heart—or his flinch at her touch. “Tell me what happened between us was real. Tell me you weren’t rustling our cattle and just stringing me along. Please, Jack.”

* * *

THE FAMILIAR SOUND of his name on her lips grabbed his heart and squeezed it like a fist. He closed his eyes, her palm radiating warmth that ran like a live wire through him. Heat to heat, reminding him how it had been between the two of them. As if he’d ever forgotten.

“Jack, my father never should have done what he did without giving you a chance to—”

“Chelsea.” He turned quickly, breaking the contact between them as he moved. He held her at arm’s length, his voice rough with emotions he didn’t want to feel. “Listen to me.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, brimming with tears.

He’d almost forgotten how brown her eyes were. How tiny gold flecks shone when she was excited or angry. Or aroused. If only he’d been able to forget the rest. The feel and smell and sound of her. Or the way her father had handed him the check that morning in the corral so many years ago.

“It doesn’t matter, don’t you see that?” he said. “What happened was for the best. Your father was right. You and I were all wrong for each other. The ranch hand and the rancher’s daughter. So he thought I was stealing his cows. He also thought I was trying to steal his daughter, and he wasn’t having any of it.”

He pushed her away and waved an arm at the confined space he called home, thinking of the Wishing Tree Ranch and its massive rooms and high-timbered ceilings and all the antiques handed down through generations of Jensens.

“There is no way we could ever have made it together,” he said, the words beating him like stones. “Look at us, Chelsea. I’m a rodeo cowboy. That, and a ranch hand, is all I’ve ever been.”

“Jack, none of that matters if—”

“It matters to me. And it mattered to your father.”

“He was wrong,” she whispered. “If only he’d let you explain—”

“Chelsea, why dredge this all up again?” He moved away, turning his back on her. For years he’d hoped she would come after him. Now he realized just how wrong he’d been—seeing her served no purpose.

“Ryder Jensen did me a favor.” The rancher had reminded Jack just who he was. A man not good enough for his daughter. He turned to meet her gaze, something that took every ounce of his will. “He could have had me arrested but he didn’t.”

Her eyes darkened. She shook her head, a pleading in her gaze that broke his heart. “Tell me the truth.”

“Will you leave here and never come back?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice broke with emotion.

“Then it’s true.” He turned his back on her, leaning over the counter, the pain worse than being gored by a bull—and he’d been gored enough times to know. He wanted to stop but knew he couldn’t. Not if he hoped to finish this once and for all. He should have done this years ago, but he hadn’t been strong enough then. He wasn’t sure he was now.

“I’m everything your father and brother told you I am. Now get out of here.”

CHAPTER FIVE

CHELSEA WINCED as if he’d slapped her. “I don’t believe you.”

He shook his head, his back to her.

“I know you, Jack. Look me in the eye and tell me you were only after my money, that none of what we shared was real, that you never loved me. Tell me to my face and look me in the eye when you do it.”

He turned slowly.

She felt her heart leap to her throat as his gaze came up to meet hers. In his eyes, she saw the answer. Her limbs went weak with relief. “You can’t do it, can you?”

“It doesn’t make any difference whether or not I was stealing your father’s cattle,” he said quietly. “I was sleeping with his daughter and I wasn’t good enough for her. That was a far greater crime than stealing a few bovines.”

“That’s not true. If you had stayed, I could have proved how wrong you were about my father and brother.”

He let out a laugh. “Chelsea, they’d already convicted me and were ready to slip the noose around my neck.”