HEATH STUDIED THE Scrabble tiles nearly filling the board and plunked down an O and a P with a shrug. It was his best option. Or so he guessed. With the fetching redhead beside him, ready to pounce on his every move, who could focus? Despite the soothing, honeysuckle-scented air filtering through the window screens, and the bullfrogs serenading the balmy night, his body felt like an overwound clock. Awareness stiffened his joints and raised the small hairs on his arms.
“Op?” Jewel’s petite nose wrinkled. Wearing a light blue tank top revealing toned arms and a trim waist, her burnished hair flowing around her freckled shoulders, she’d never looked prettier. Or maybe he was coming around to her kind of pretty?
He fought the urge to run his fingers through her waves, teasing them apart. “Op is short for operation.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to talk you out of it.” Then she chuckled and placed S and T before his OP.
“Fine. You got me.” Heath’s gaze dropped to her beautiful mouth, as rosy as her freckles, then lifted to her sparkling brown eyes. The relentless desire to be her first kiss had already cost him countless hours of sleep. What would she taste like? Spicy and sweet, like a Fireball candy…one of his favorites? “But I’m still ahead.”
“And I’m not finished.” With a flourish, she added a B, A, N and K, using all but one of her remaining tiles. Then she sat back on the couch, her expression triumphant, arms folded across her chest.
“Stopbank?” He summed up the points. Eighty-one—which put her in the lead. Whoever lost tonight had to ride in the rear of the herd tomorrow, a long, lonely day. “That’s not a word.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Are you challenging me?”
“Heck, yeah.”
She passed him the dictionary. “You’ll lose your turn when you find out I’m right.”
“You’ll lose those points when I prove you’re wrong.” With quick flicks of his fingers, he turned to the S section, scanned down the page then stopped.
Stopbank.
A levee.
Exactly what he needed to stop his building feelings for Jewel. With time running out this summer, a wedding date decision waiting at its end, along with a looming courtroom family showdown, he had to rein in his emotions. They threatened everyone and everything in their path.
“What’s it say?” Jewel crowded close, and his fingers curled around the book binding at her fresh, clean scent. It was like breathing in sunshine after a spring rain.
“Says you’re wrong.”
“Liar!” She lunged for the book. When he held it aloft, her momentum carried her forward, tumbling them down to the couch.
The book dropped from his nerveless fingers. Neither seemed to notice as they stared into each other’s eyes, their mouths a whisper apart.
“Jewel,” he groaned, cupping the back of her head. Her soft hair tickled his cheeks as it fell around them like a velvet curtain.
Her dark eyes glazed. “Heath—”
“Yoo-hoo!”
Jewel scrambled backward at Kelsey’s call. Heath bolted to his feet so fast he upended the board.
“What are you up to?” Kelsey’s heels clicked on the wooden floor once she strode inside. “I’ve been calling your landline, but you haven’t—” At the sight of Jewel, smoothing down her hair with a shaking hand, Kelsey jerked to a stop.
Heath rose and glanced at the empty phone cradle. “One of the kids at the party must have knocked it over.” He pressed a perfunctory kiss to Kelsey’s raised cheek, searched the floor for the phone and replaced it.
“And you didn’t notice?” Kelsey lifted a fingernail to her mouth, as if to gnaw on it, then shoved both hands in her pockets.
“I was beating him at Scrabble.” Jewel crouched to pick up the pieces. “You know men. They’re only focused on winning.”
“I had you until that last move,” Heath protested, joining her in retrieving the tiles.
“Dream on.” Jewel grinned, and he laughed, unable to help himself. She always made him laugh…when he didn’t want to hold her tight and kiss her until they both lost their minds.
“Heath. I’d like to talk to you.” Kelsey’s voice emerged tight. High. The sound of a steaming tea kettle about to blow.
Jewel dropped the last piece in the box, jammed on the cover, then fell back onto the couch. She jutted her chin. “Don’t mind me.”
“Alone.” Kelsey’s lips wobbled slightly before she clamped them tight.
“Let’s sit on the porch swing.” Heath tugged her outside, wishing, oddly, to reassure Jewel. Her tough expression had shattered when he’d reached for Kelsey’s hand, the color leaching from her face. Even her freckles faded to beige.
Something panged inside him. What would he reassure her of? That he cared for her, not Kelsey?
Insane.
Yet he might have kissed her if not for Kelsey’s interruption. It made him the worst kind of man. Disloyal. Dishonest. A cheater…
The floorboards creaked as they crossed to the wicker swing. When they sat, it swung backward with a tinny rattle of its metal chains. The silence between them was as hard and brittle as glass.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Kelsey crossed a knee over the other, and her heel swung. “Like, ‘I’m glad to see you’ and ‘My, don’t you look pretty.’”
He shifted, his stomach churning. “You surprised me. I didn’t know you were coming over.”
Weak, Loveland. Weak.
Kelsey pursed her bright pink mouth. He didn’t have to use his imagination to know it’d taste of chalky makeup. “I need an invitation to see you?”
“When you didn’t come to Emma’s party, I assumed…”
She plopped her purse in her lap, pulled it open, and yanked out a small, brightly wrapped gift box. “The engravers didn’t have it ready in time, and I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Plus, the food bank ran short on diapers, so I had to run to the store and buy a trunk load.” She shoved the present at him. “Tell Emma it’s one of a kind.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.” Kelsey…always so generous. Although presents didn’t matter as much as being there for loved ones…like a soon-to-be-niece once—if?—they married. The fundamental difference in their values, his for family and hers for money and appearances, yawned wider than ever.
“And…” Kelsey prompted, smoothing a hand over her sleek hair. The complicated half up, half down style practically screamed “don’t touch.”
“You do look pretty.”
He heard a strangled exclamation from inside the house and glimpsed Jewel stalking across the living room to disappear upstairs. A tearing sensation ripped through his chest. He wanted to chase after Jewel… and he wanted to reassure Kelsey he wouldn’t disappoint her.
What do you want?
He ignored the internal question and tore his gaze from the house to peer at Kelsey.
The corners of her mouth pulled downward. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“I didn’t expect you,” he said again, avoiding the question. “And you never come here because of the drive.”
“How else am I going to see you? You’re spending too much time at the ranch.”
When she reached for his hand, he grabbed a lighter instead, flicked it on and touched its flame to a citronella candle. “I’m working.”
“Didn’t look like work in there.” Kelsey’s brows lowered. “Maybe you’d rather play board games with that prickly cowgirl.”
“There’s more to Jewel than meets the eye,” he insisted, thinking of how kind she’d been to Emma at the party, how open and vulnerable.
“You’re defending her over me?” Kelsey sucked in a raspy breath.
“Of course not,” he denied, more to keep the peace than anything else. Strange how Kelsey’s feminine softness hid an inner hardness whereas Jewel’s tough-as-nails exterior shielded a tender side. It aroused his protective instincts. “Look. You just surprised me.”
“I didn’t plan on coming until the other night.”
His eyes stung at the acrid smoke rising from the candle beside him. “The other night?”
“At Silver Spurs.”
Heath planted his toe on the porch planks and set the swing in motion, like he and his siblings had done when they were kids. Pa had always warned them they’d go flying off the porch, but that’d just made them swing harder to see if he was right. What he’d give to sail straight over Mount Sopris, clean up to the moon, above the gravity of his life. Free. “What’s that got to do with you stopping over?”
“I thought Jewel might need reminding you’re taken.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Jewel?”
“She’s got it bad for you. She has for a long, long time.”
His heart stopped, along with the rest of the world it seemed, as he absorbed her words. “No, she doesn’t.”
“You’re blind. She used to moon over you when you were in 4-H together. And I saw the way she looked at you on stage.”
“She likes my music.” The swing whooshed faster now so their feet rose, weightless, before plunging to earth again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He swallowed back the accusations hurling themselves against his gritted teeth. “Just what I said.”
“Are you saying I don’t like your music?”
“You want me to quit.”
“I want you to grow up,” Kelsey countered. “And please stop rocking the swing. You’re making me motion sick.”
When Heath obliged, Kelsey continued. “Do you want to be one of those pathetic middle-aged men singing in honky-tonks, pretending they’re young?”
“I am young.”
“Almost thirty isn’t young.” She patted his leg.
He pulled away, brushing at her hand like a persistent fly. “Dreams have a life span?”
“Aren’t I your dream?” Kelsey cried. “Having a family, a life with me?”
He opened his mouth, but only silent confusion emerged. He did want a family, a wife, but did he want them with Kelsey? They’d gotten engaged so young. He’d planned to grow old with her, but instead it seemed as though they were growing apart.
“If you’re not careful, you’re going to lose everything.” Her eyes swept over his house, then down to the barns and fenced-in pastures. “And I mean everything.”
“Is that a threat?” Anger cracked through him, like the first tentative step on a newly frozen pond.
“No.” Kelsey’s head drooped for a moment before she stood and strode away. When she reached the stairs, she paused and gripped the balustrade. “It’s an observation. Loveland Hills is going under unless you find the cash to catch up on your mortgage payments.”
The swing rocked as he propelled himself from it. “You want the ranch to go under to free me up to be with you.”
“How can you accuse me of that?” Kelsey stormed. “Don’t you know me anymore?”
When he didn’t answer, she flung herself down the steps and into her sports car. It purred to life, low and heavy, like the growl of a predatory cat in the dark.
“Kelsey!” He strode after her, then stopped when she reversed into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. The car yanked to a halt beside him, and the window slid down.
“Do you still love me?” Her tortured eyes met his.
“Yes,” he insisted. But was he in love with her?
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d answered differently,” she whispered. The glass rose, and she peeled off down the road.
Heath’s clenched jaw ached as he watched her vehicle disappear into the night. Even if he wanted out of his engagement, how could he end it without hurting her? They’d meant so much to each other once. She didn’t deserve to be jilted after waiting ten years for him.
But would he make her happy if he wasn’t happy himself?
Lately, he’d only felt at peace riding the range, working alongside Jewel. She was tart-tongued and prickly, not sweet-smelling and soft like Kelsey. In fact, most times she was downright dusty and smelly…but from hard work. Honest work. Work he admired. Despite being no friend to his family, Jewel gave everything she had to the cattle drive, all except going against her brothers’ wishes to cross the old easement.
Maybe her kind of help didn’t have the potential to save the ranch the way Kelsey’s cash influx could, but he valued it more. Did she labor on Loveland Hills because it was her nature, a promise to her mother, their bet—or…did Jewel have a crush on him like Kelsey suggested?
A strong hand clapped him, hard, on the shoulder. “Women.”
Heath turned to study Daryl. The silvery moonlight seemed to deepen the lines around his mouth, dragging down the corners. “LeAnne okay?”
“Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure,” Daryl said gruffly as they mounted the stairs. “And some Tylenol.”
Heath hid his wince, knowing Daryl wouldn’t want his pity.
“How about you and Kelsey?” Daryl asked once they were inside. He grabbed a knife, unwrapped Emma’s birthday cake and cut a couple of generous slices. “She left in a hurry.”
Heath poured them some milk and touched the cold glass to his burning forehead. “She’s got a bee in her bonnet that there’s something going on between me and Jewel.” He tried to laugh, but the sound emerged like a gasping croak.
Daryl passed Heath a fork. “Is there?”
“No!”
“That was quick.” Daryl pulled out a chair and dropped into it, as if he’d been standing all day by sheer willpower alone.
Heath speared a bite and lifted it to his mouth. “I don’t have to think about the answer.”
One of Daryl’s shoulders lifted and fell as he chewed. “Maybe you should.”
When Heath opened his mouth to insist the opposite, Daryl lifted a hand to silence him. “Can’t thank you and Jewel enough for making Emma’s birthday special. You make a good team. And I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. There’s something there.”
Under Daryl’s piercing stare, Heath’s bluster faded. “If there is, I can’t do anything about it.”
“Why’s that?” Daryl slid the side of his fork into the cake and scooped up another bite. “Jewel’s good people.”
“It’d kill Kelsey.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you love Kelsey?”
Heath gulped his milk, probing his heart. “We’ve been together so long, I must.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re in love with each other.” Daryl turned his face to stare out the window at the distant lights of his cabin.
Was he thinking of LeAnne?
“You’ve always tried to please women who can’t be pleased, like Ma.”
Heath gaped at Daryl. “I was the only one who could, except the night of Cole’s party.” His voice cracked.
Daryl reached across the table and wrapped his large hand around Heath’s wrist, squeezing it. “It wasn’t your responsibility. You were a kid who deserved a happy childhood, and she took it from you. From all of us.” Daryl released him and scooped up a pink frosting rose with his fork. “Don’t waste your future, too. Maybe the person you need to choose is you.”
Heath pressed his fork into the cake crumbs, mashing them. Was Daryl right…could he put himself, and his wants, ahead of everyone else?
“I haven’t talked much about what happened between me, LeAnne and Cassidy,” Daryl said, naming the sisters who’d been estranged after he’d dated one, then married the other.
“You don’t have to,” Heath rushed to say.
“If it’ll help you avoid the same mistakes I made, then I’d be wrong to stay silent.”
“What do you mean?”
Daryl spoke without lifting his eyes from his plate. “I married LeAnne because I had to.”
“But you loved her…”
With a heavy sigh, Daryl said, “She’s my wife now, and she has my loyalty. But I’ve never been able to make her happy, no matter how hard I’ve tried, and for that, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Because you don’t love her?”
Daryl pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because I loved someone else more.”
Heath thought of Cassidy, how happy she and Daryl had been when they’d visited the ranch on college breaks. If he’d loved Cassidy, why had he turned to LeAnne?
Daryl shoved back his chair and stood, his shoulders tense, as he strode across the kitchen. At the archway, he turned. The raw pain in his eyes darkened them to black. “Two things about Lovelands. When we love, we love forever. And when we commit, it’s forever, too. There are no takebacks for us. Go after what you want and get it right the first time. It’s the most unselfish thing you could do.”
Heath collected the dishes, cranked on the faucet and scrubbed them, his gaze drifting to the brilliant moon.
Was it unselfish to please himself? And if he could choose any path he wanted to, where would it lead? Kelsey insisted Jewel had feelings for him, and he suspected he returned them. Seeing her with the children, he’d glimpsed a softer side that called to his heart. Plus, he couldn’t stop thinking about her never being kissed. But if he opened himself up to Jewel, he’d let everyone down and his family might lose the ranch without his financial help. He wouldn’t accept Kelsey’s generous offer to pay down their mortgage with her trust fund, but he wouldn’t have a problem funneling his salary from her father’s company to keep them afloat until the drought ended, or the easement was returned.
Still, Daryl had a point. Lovelands were loyal. Whatever road he chose, he’d travel forever. Was two weeks enough time to decide on the rest of your life?