But then, what the devil did Jamie Parsons’s marital status have to do with him?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
She’d made that abundantly clear. He turned up the collar of his jacket.
But she’d liked the kiss. Oh, yeah. She’d deny it from here to eternity, but the truth of the matter was that the lady, in the split second before she’d come to her senses, had kissed him back. Hard. Urgently. As if she’d been waiting for years. He’d felt it. That sizzling spark of warm, wet lips eager for more.
“Give it up, McCafferty,” he growled under his breath as he snapped his toolbox closed. Even if Jamie was available, he didn’t have time for a woman right now.
“Give what up?” Matt’s voice stole upon him.
Slade turned to spy his brother, shoulders hunched, trudging through the snow toward him. Harold, paws slipping a bit, followed behind, keeping to the path Matt had broken through the icy powder.
“Never mind,” Slade growled.
From somewhere in the nearby fields a calf bawled.
“Doesn’t have anything to do with a certain good-lookin’ attorney, now does it?”
Slade impaled his brother with his sharp gaze. “You’ve been talking to Randi.”
“She swears you’ve...let’s see, how did she put it?” He tapped a gloved finger to his lips as if in deep thought though Slade suspected better. His brother knew exactly what their sister had said. He was just enjoying needling his younger sibling. “Oh! That you’ve got it ‘bad’ for Ms. Parsons, that was it.”
“What would Randi know about it?” Slade countered. “She can’t remember anything about her own damned life.”
“She remembers some things. And besides, she does write a column for singles. ‘Solo’ has a pretty big readership, so I imagine she knows a little about relationships.”
“Then what about her own? Hmm? What about J.R., er, Josh’s father? Who the hell is he? Why should Randi give two cents about my life when hers is a full-scale nightmare?”
“Ouch. Touchy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, well, yeah, I am. It’s below freezin’ out here and if you haven’t noticed, someone’s trying to kill my sister, and I’ve got to put up with you jawin’ about my love life or lack thereof when it’s none of yours or Randi’s damned business.” He pulled his hat lower on his head and picked up the tools.
Matt’s dark eyes turned serious. “You’ve got a point there. Until we find the maniac who ran Randi off the road and tried to kill her when she was in the hospital, nothing else matters.”
“Except your wedding,” Slade reminded him as he glanced at the long drive and saw headlights cutting through the gloom of the afternoon. “It looks like your bride is here.”
Matt’s face visibly brightened and for the first time in his life, Slade felt a jolt of envy.
“See ya later.” Matt was already plowing through the snow to Kelly Dillinger’s little beat-up Nissan while Harold sniffed at the fence posts. As Kelly climbed out of the car, Matt scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it in her direction.
The redhead laughed, hid behind her open car door and began furiously gathering snow, packing tight balls and flinging the frozen missiles in rapid succession at her fiancé. “You’re in trouble now, McCafferty,” she warned, firing yet another icy ball. It smacked hard against Matt’s jacket, leaving a splat of white powder, proof of her dead-eye aim.
“Don’t I know it?” Another snowball whizzed by his ear and he ran forward, past the shield of the door, and grabbed her around the waist as Harold barked wildly at the excitement.
“Oh!” Kelly cried, but was laughing as Matt spun her off her feet and kissed her as if he never intended to stop.
Slade had seen enough. He turned away and carried the toolbox into the stables. It was good that Matt was finally settling down, that he’d found a woman who was strong enough to stand up to him, a tough, determined lady who, until a few weeks ago, had been with the sheriff’s department.
Kelly Dillinger had given up her job to marry Matt. Now, she worked with Kurt Striker as a private investigator. Together they were tracking down Randi’s would-be killer.
Slade thought of Jamie Parsons—Attorney-at-Law. Would she give up her career for Chuck Jansen? Did she care for the bastard, or was she just using him?
What does it matter? Slade thought, closing the door behind him. Inside, the familiar scents of horses, dung and leather mingled with the aroma of dusty hay. The General, an aging chestnut gelding, snorted at Slade’s approach, then poked his head from his stall. “How’re ya, old man?” Slade asked, rubbing the horse’s crooked blaze.
Nickering softly, the gelding sniffed at Slade’s pocket where oftentimes he hid a treat.
“Nothin’ today,” Slade said, hearing the sound of Kelly Dillinger’s laughter seep through the cracks in the siding. With some effort, he tamped down his jealousy. He had no right to feel this way. He was glad Matt and Kelly were getting married. It was time for ex-lady-killer Matt to become a one-woman man.
And what about you? Are you going to spend the rest of your life mourning Rebecca and the baby? Or are you going to get on with your life? Find yourself a wife?
A wife. Man, he’d never considered himself the marrying type, even with Rebecca and a baby on the way. He felt another slash of guilt because he hadn’t really loved her, not the way Thorne adored Nicole or Matt idolized Kelly. He and Rebecca had been better friends than lovers. They’d met white-water rafting, had enjoyed extreme sports together and had dated eight months when she’d found out she was pregnant. The accident that had taken her life had taken place less than a month later.
So what about Jamie?
Yes, what? His eyes narrowed as he considered. His feelings for Jamie had never even bordered on “even keel.” No, he’d been passionate for her. Wild. Out of his head with wanting to make love to her over and over again...her appetite and curiosity had matched his own and never had another woman been so uninhibited as she had. Every other woman had wanted something from him. Including Sue Ellen and Rebecca.
“Fool,” he grunted.
The General, as if in agreement, turned back to the manger.
Slade frowned when he thought of the other women he’d been involved with, too many to think about. The only one that mattered right now was Jamie Parsons. Even Rebecca’s image was fading.
Absently he fingered the scar on the side of his face and listened as a mare whinnied softly in the darkness. Rebecca. Pregnant and dead at twenty-six. He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath and told himself not to step into that particular guilt trap, as it was laid open, waiting for him, always ready to spring.
Walking through the building, he reached for his pack of cigarettes out of habit, his fingers scrabbling at the pocket and coming up empty. He hadn’t been with a woman since Rebecca’s death. Hadn’t wanted one.
Until now.
Until Jamie Parsons.
And he felt guilty as hell about it.
* * *
“You’re coming to Grand Hope?” Jamie said into the receiver, her heart dropping as she twisted the cord of her grandmother’s phone. The last thing she needed was Chuck Jansen showing up right now.
It would be complicated.
Messy.
And she didn’t want to deal with him; not only personally but professionally, as well. Didn’t he trust that she could handle the property transfer, name change and whatever other legal matters the McCaffertys wanted without him peering over her shoulder? “I thought you were too busy to get away right now,” she added, shivering as the heat from the fireplace wasn’t able to seep from the living room to the back of the house.
“I am, technically,” Chuck conceded, “but then I realized that the McCafferty account is worth switching my schedule around, and besides...” His voice lowered and Jamie braced herself.
Here it comes, she thought with mounting dread.
“I miss you.”
“Oh.”
He paused. “‘Oh’?” he repeated. “That’s all you have to say? Just ‘oh’?”
“You surprised me.” Liar! Come clean.
“The proper response is, ‘Oh, Chuck, I miss you, too. I can’t wait to see you. When will you get into town?’”
“I guess I missed my cue,” she countered, unwilling to go there.
That was one of the problems with Chuck. As her boss, he was a great one to laud her accomplishments in public, to extol her “sharp mind.” But when they were alone, he was often quick to point out how she could have handled a situation with what he referred to as “a little more legal finesse.” He’d often wink at her, rap his knuckles on her desk and say, “Don’t worry, hon, you’re getting it.”
As if she were a fifteen-year-old girl instead of a grown woman with a law degree displayed on the wall of her office. Or as if she weren’t quite as bright as she thought. It griped her. “So, when will you...get into town?” she asked, refusing to be baited or to mouth the words he wanted to hear.
“Day after tomorrow. I’ve already booked a night at the Mountain Inn. I’ll give you a call once I get settled. Maybe we’ll go out to dinner.”
“Maybe,” she said, trying to force a lilt into her voice. But she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm at the prospect of seeing him again. Ever since returning to Grand Hope she’d realized just how little they had in common, how little she wanted to be with him.
For months she had talked herself into the relationship, reminding herself that he was successful, wealthy, smart, in great shape...but...the truth of the matter was her pulse never quickened at the sight of him, her heartbeat didn’t accelerate. Not like it did whenever she was around Slade McCafferty. She’d told herself that she was too mature for those kinds of girlish feelings...but then she’d run into Slade McCafferty and realized she’d been lying to herself and all those things she’d thought were important—security, a man with a steady job, a responsible person with a stock portfolio—weren’t enough...or maybe even important.
“Oh, I’ve got to run,” he said. “Barry just walked into the office. See you soon.”
He hung up before she had a chance to say anything else.
You should have broken it off with him, before he showed up here. You’ve been meaning to end it for months.
Getting involved with Chuck had been a mistake from the get-go. She’d started dating him out of convenience. He was older, yes, and she supposed he represented some kind of father figure to her. But they didn’t want the same things in life and he expected her to change her dreams, to give up any thoughts of conceiving a child of her own, and that didn’t sit well. Damn it, she wanted a baby, wanted to be a mother. Stepmother to nearly grown kids that were being raised by their biological mother in another state just didn’t cut it.
She’d have to break it off with Chuck. And soon.
Before he met with the McCaffertys and figured out that she and Slade were...what? Ex-lovers? There was nothing between them anymore, no matter what Slade implied. So they’d shared a kiss, so what?
So your knees turned liquid when he touched you... So looking into his eyes causes your heart to trip... So the sound of his voice, saying your name, gives you a thrill.
All just stupid, leftover emotions from something that happened a lifetime ago. And yet those damned lingering feelings served to point out why it wasn’t working with Chuck—why it would never work.
Rubbing her arms against the chill, she tried not to think about her reasons for accepting her first date with Chuck. She’d resisted for a few weeks, then agreed to meet him for dinner. She hadn’t been seeing anyone at the time and he seemed like a perfect match. He was handsome, successful, and had a quick sense of humor. True, he was quite a bit older than she and in a different place in his life. Now, as she yanked her jacket off a peg near the door, she supposed Chuck Jansen represented everything that had been lacking in her life—specifically a responsible father figure.
“Shrink fodder,” she muttered under her breath as she slipped her arms into the heavy jacket, then yanked on a pair of boots. After donning gloves, she grabbed the largest basket she could find and braved the elements. The snow hadn’t stopped all day and she broke a path through several inches of white fluff to the little barn where she checked on Caesar who, tail to the wind, stood in the paddock near the stables. He greeted her with a whinny, and trotted inside, where she poured oats into his manger and scratched him between the ears.
Satisfied that he wasn’t freezing, she made her way to the garage, then loaded her basket with kindling and firewood.
Her breath fogged in the air as she stamped the snow from her boots on the back porch.
Once inside she found Lazarus lazing on the back of the couch, close enough to the fire to keep warm. He yawned, showing needle-sharp teeth and a long pink tongue as she pushed aside the screen and tossed fresh wood onto the flames.
Sparks drifted up the flue and hungry flames licked the dry oak as she glanced at a picture on the mantel taken forty years earlier. Nana, Grandpa and their only son. Jamie’s father.
She gritted her teeth as she picked up the photo in its tarnished silver frame. Leonard Parsons had been a promising athletic boy who had turned into a handsome, hard-drinking, womanizing man who had been unable or unwilling to hold a steady job. He’d pulled a disappearing act when Jamie was in elementary school and her mother had promptly gotten involved with an uptight older man who had never bonded with Jamie and as she’d entered high school, had had no use for a headstrong teenager. Eventually, after one too many run-ins, Jamie had landed here in Nana and Grandpa’s loving, if strict, arms.
Nita Parsons had been bound and determined to not make the same mistakes with Jamie as she had with her son. Hence, her chores.
“Now, listen, you’re my granddaughter, and Lord knows I love you more than life itself, but you need to learn about responsibility,” she’d told her headstrong granddaughter. “The henhouse, that’s yours. You be good to my little ladies. Gather the eggs, keep fresh straw in the nests, give them oyster shell and corn and feed, let ’em pick bugs in the yard and you’ll clean the mess in the henhouse—every two weeks whether it needs it or not—mind you, it will. Then there’s the garden...”
The list had never seemed to stop. But Nana had been fair and paid her granddaughter each Sunday evening, rationalizing that Jamie would spend the money more wisely if she was given her wages at the beginning of the week rather than near the weekend, where, Nana knew, trouble could tempt.
Jamie had resented her chores at the time, but now realized the hard work of keeping up the little farm—whether it had been learning to put up jam, taking care of the cackling hens or reshingling the garage—had not only taught her skills, but also kept her busy, tired, and walking the straight and narrow.
It hadn’t worked entirely and Jamie’s fascination with Slade McCafferty had been the result. A daredevil who defied convention, a rebel after her own rebellious heart, Jamie had stupidly fallen head over heels. When he’d kissed her, she’d melted. When he’d reached beneath her blouse into her bra, she’d been exhilarated. When he’d slid her jeans off her tanned legs, she hadn’t resisted.
Oh, no, she thought now, pulling back the old gauze curtain and gazing at the blanket of snow on the bare branches of the aspens in the front yard. She’d given herself willingly, beneath a bright Montana sun in a field of tall grass and wildflowers. Slade’s body had been tanned and taut, smooth skin tight over defined muscles, dark hair sprouting from a rock-hard chest. The day had been warm, his body hot, her virginity ripe for the taking.
They’d come close before, but she’d always resisted. That afternoon as a few lazy clouds drifted across a blue sky and the sounds of the creek echoed through the canyon nearby, she’d closed her ears to the voices of denial reverberating through her head. She’d drunk a little wine, just enough to lose what little inhibitions she’d had, and given in to the glorious sensations sin
ging through her body. His hands against her sun-warmed skin were magical. His lips, sensual fire. His words, intoxicating.
“Goodness, you’re something,” he’d whispered, looking down at her breasts, pink-tipped against the white skin forever covered by the top of her swimsuit. He’d leaned down and slowly kissed each rosy bud, taking his time, gently pulling back his head and tugging until a throb of hunger made her achingly aware of that private spot between her legs. “Beautiful. So...so damned beautiful.” He’d kissed her lips and his hands slid over her flat abdomen to the mound of curls where her legs came together. “I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as you.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d thought he might be lying, but she’d ignored that horrid little idea. His hand had slipped lower, found her, and she’d froze.
“Easy now,” he’d whispered gently. “Just relax...” His lips, tasting of wine, were upon hers again and he’d kissed her long and slow, all the while his fingers explored, touched, gently probed, until she’d felt hot and moist and been aching for more. “That’s it. That’s my girl,” he’d said as she’d started to move with his touch, her hips lifting, the ache in her intensifying. “Let me love you, Jamie.”
The words had brought tears to her eyes.
“Please.” His lips, against her ear, allowed his tongue to trace the shell. “I won’t hurt you.”
Oh, but you might, she remembered thinking vaguely as he’d begun to kiss her neck and the tops of her bare shoulders.
“I’ll make you feel good.” He’d rubbed against her, his hot, sun-drenched skin, causing friction with her. “So good.”
She’d moaned softly and he’d rolled atop her, his weight a pleasant burden. He’d nudged her knees apart and she’d felt his arousal, hard and long, as he rubbed her with it. Deep inside she’d been on fire and, as he’d pressed against her, levering up on his elbows, leaning down to kiss her lips, she’d given in completely, her arms encircling his neck, her mouth molding over his, her tongue seeking its mate.