Toby headed for the lake, trying to walk off the pain in his shoulder. When he’d hit the ground, he’d heard—and felt—a distinct pop.
He couldn’t take another setback—especially not one delivered by a damn mechanical bull. He’d been on plenty of mechanical bulls in country-western bars all over the good ol’ US of A, and he’d never fallen off. But then again, Jane Harding had never walked past him mid-ride and turned his head like that either.
She was wearing a formfitting dress with a neckline that showed off graceful shoulders and more skin than usual. He’d done more than a double take…he’d rubbernecked so hard it had thrown off his equilibrium.
Pausing at the water’s edge, he raised his hand to his opposite shoulder. The joint was on fire. He shrugged to make sure it still worked. Burning pain aside, at least he could move it.
“Are you hurt?”
Toby turned around to find Jane standing a few yards behind him. Her tone was as stiff as her posture. It had gotten dark, but the nearly full moon gave off enough light to see the wariness in her eyes. But there was something else in them too; something he couldn’t name.
The sight brought him back to the last time he’d seen that look in Jane’s eyes at the New Year’s party eight years ago. He hadn’t been looking for Jane particularly, but when he’d found her, curled up in her father’s study, he’d been drawn to her. The kiss they’d shared had been spontaneous, something he didn’t even know he wanted until it was over. And by then she was walking away. It had been easier to let her go than to try and understand why. But now, looking at her standing in the moonlight, he found all he wanted to know was what she was thinking. Although he was probably better off not knowing.
“I think I’m fine.” He raised his right arm, grinding his teeth against the wince.
“You don’t look fine.” Jane kept her distance. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I’ll be fine.” He’d better be fine. “But I really appreciate you coming to check on me.” He smiled to show her everything was A-okay.
Jane didn’t smile back. Her stare was cold. “Beth asked me to. I’m not sure why. It would probably make more sense for Aubrey to be out here.”
“Aubrey tried to come out here with me and I sent her away.” He and Aubrey had hooked up a year ago, but they’d agreed that neither of them was looking for a relationship. And yet somehow, she seemed to know every time he had an appointment in Denver. He strongly suspected his mother had been feeding Aubrey information. Aubrey had called him up a couple of times, inviting him to dinner, which he’d agreed to assuming she’d understood they were just friends.
Jane had crossed her arms as though the night air chilled her skin. “I’m not sure why you would send her away when you invited her to come to the shower in the first place,” she said stiffly.
Despite the throbbing in his shoulder, Toby managed to laugh. He slipped off the flannel he had on over his T-shirt and draped it over her bare shoulders. “Is that what she told you? I definitely didn’t invite her. Last time I was in Denver I mentioned the wedding and from what I hear, she informed Beth that she was my plus-one. I hadn’t counted on her being my date.” He’d been as surprised as anyone else to see Aubrey walk in tonight.
“You might want to tell her that.” The truth didn’t seem to loosen Jane up any. She still stood at a distance, feet planted on the grass instead of the sand. He studied the rigidness in her shoulders, the gloss of detachment in her eyes. It didn’t look like anger. It looked more like…fear. That’s when it hit him. Her father had drowned in the river outside of town. Kayaking accident. He looked at the reflection of the moon shimmering on the water. Beautiful, but Jane likely didn’t think so.
“How long did you and Aubrey date in high school?” The question drew his attention back to her.
“I don’t know. It was on and off for a few years, I guess.” He walked up to where Jane stood, trying to keep his shoulder from moving. “It feels like a lifetime ago though.” He didn’t want to talk about Aubrey. The only thing on his mind right now was Jane, even though he knew it made no sense for him to pursue her. She wasn’t someone who did casual, and that was his only speed in relationships. But she’d kissed him earlier today—that had to mean something, didn’t it? He went to reach for her, but his shoulder seized up and he couldn’t stop the hiss of pain that escaped his lips.
“Oh, God.” Her hand came to rest on his arm. “You really hurt yourself, didn’t you?”
“Nah,” he lied. It looked like he’d be making another trip to Denver tomorrow. “I have some ice packs back at my place.” He cradled his arm against his chest. “I’ll pop some anti-inflammatories, ice it for twenty minutes, and then I’ll come back to the shower.” He started to walk away before she could see how much pain he was really in.
“I’ll come with you.” After a few steps, Jane caught up with him.
“You don’t have to.” If she came home with him, he’d only want to kiss her again. He’d only want to do more than kiss her again, and as much as the idea appealed to him, Jane didn’t seem to be feeling the same way she’d felt when he’d kissed her earlier.
“I’m coming.”
Toby knew better than to argue again.
They crossed the meadow and approached the edge of the forest where his cabin sat. When he’d started working at the ranch, Mara had given him his pick of cabins. This one was tucked back into the trees, but he still had a view of the lake and the mountains beyond.
“This was my dad’s man cave.” Jane said the words so quietly it took him a few seconds to translate them. “He used to come here with his fishing buddies, even though it’s so close to the house.” She walked up the steps seeming to inspect the old stair rail as though remembering her father’s hand running along it. “He called it his vacation home at home.”
“You almost don’t need a vacation when you live in a place like this.” Toby opened the door with his good arm and gestured for Jane to go inside. He hadn’t known the history of the cabin, or that her father had used it that way, but he could see why. “I bet you see his fingerprints all over the ranch, huh?” He went to the freezer and pulled out the ice pack. When he turned around, he was shocked to see tears in Jane’s eyes.
“My mom wants to sell.”
He’d wondered. Mara had hinted on and off about getting the place ready for the market. Still, he was surprised to see so much emotion from Jane. As far as he’d heard she hadn’t exactly spent much time at home during the last eight years. “You don’t look like you’re happy with the news,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table with the ice pack balanced on his shoulder. The cold didn’t seem to reach through his shirt.
“I want to be happy for her.” She came to sit across from him, staring down at the table.
“But,” he prompted. She wasn’t happy. That much was obvious.
“But it made me think about all the memories we’ll lose. Of him. Of our life with him.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Like you said, my dad’s fingerprints are all over this place.”
“Is that why you never stay very long when you visit?” Toby asked, repositioning the ice.
“You should put it under your shirt.” Jane pointed at the ice pack. “It’s not going to do you much good unless it’s against your skin.”
She was as good at avoiding questions as he had been during their talk at the library. Toby tried to shove the ice pack inside his shirt, but there wasn’t enough room.
“Just take off your shirt,” Jane said, coming to his side of the table.
“Are you sure you can handle it?” Teasing Jane had always been one of his favorite pastimes. She took it a lot better these days than she had back in high school, simply rolling her eyes. “Your muscles don’t impress me, Toby Garrett. I’m not Aubrey Munson.”
“Thank God for that.” He raised his shirt with a wince, and Jane helped him slide it off his shoulders. She gently molded the ice pack to his shoulder, her fingertips grazing his skin, bringing on a whole new kind of ache.
“There.” The woman peered down at him, her gaze more empathetic than it had been before. “Now where’s your ibuprofen?”
“In the cabinet by the sink.” He started to stand, but her hand guided his good shoulder back to his seat.
“I’ll get it. You focus on keeping that ice in place.”
Toby watched Jane walk to the sink, the dress swishing around her thighs. The sight made him forget about his pain and think instead about sliding his hand up one of those legs. “I’m still waiting for you to answer my question, by the way.” He wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. “Why haven’t you come home much?”
“I’m not exactly sure.” She came back to the table and set the pills in front of him along with a glass of water. “I told myself it was because I didn’t love it here growing up. Especially after my dad passed away.” She took her seat across from him again, gazing over the table with a thoughtful look. “But being here, I’m finding that’s not exactly true. There’s a lot I love.” Jane pushed the pills closer to Toby’s hand as though reminding him to take them. “I think I stayed away because I never felt like I fit in here. Like no one…except for Beth and my dad knew the real me. Though I know a lot of that was my fault. In a lot of ways, I’m the one who didn’t let anyone get to know me.” She looked up at him abruptly, like she worried she’d said too much. “Even if it was my own fault, it’s a terrible feeling not to be known.”
Forget the pills, he held his whole focus on her. “I’d like to know you.” It might have been the most honest thing he’d ever said, but even to him it sounded…tentative. They were only here for a short time and God willing he’d be back on the road again by fall. He didn’t have much to offer her.
Doubt filled her eyes. “I’ve spent eight years moving on, building a new life. But then I came back here and seeing the ranch…reconnecting with Beth… it makes me realize how empty my life was back in California. A little lonely.” Looking down, she picked at one of her nails. “When my dad died, I lost my champion. He understood me in a way no one else ever seemed to. When I lost him, I felt like I lost everything that mattered, and I never want to feel that way again.” She peeked up at him. “I guess that’s part of the reason I left. But I didn’t really leave behind the fear or the pain.”
“Yeah, those tend to stick with you.” No matter what he’d done to stave it off, the fear and pain still followed him around too. “It’s easy to look past them when you’re away though. It’s easy to pretend the fear and pain isn’t there.” He blew out a sigh. “And then you come home and you find it’s still there waiting for you.”
Surprise parted Jane’s lips. “How do you know?”
The question edged him closer to the cliff he’d been dancing around since he’d gotten home. Every time he came back it got harder to pretend. Maybe because he’d grown up and he didn’t want to pretend anymore.
“You need to take the medicine.” Jane reached across the table, picked up the pills, and spilled them into his hand.
Before she could pull away, he clasped his fingers around hers. “I want to know you.” He’d screwed up when he was a stupid kid. He should’ve considered how her loss had made her want to hide. He knew the comfort hiding could bring, at least temporarily, but in order for him to know her he needed to let her know him too. “You said I’ve never had to deal with anything hard, but that’s not true.”
Jane didn’t look away from him. She simply waited for him to continue.
Toby gazed at her, at the tears still glistening in her eyes, at the concern furrowing her brow. He’d never told anyone. He’d never felt the freedom to tell anyone, not when his own parents never discussed Tanner, and then so much time had passed it seemed too late. How could he tell anyone when he’d ignored his brother’s memory for so long?
But Jane would understand, and he knew she’d never breathe a word of it to anyone else if he didn’t want her to. “I lost my brother.” That was the first time he’d spoken those words out loud, and even though they brought a rise of pain, they also opened up something inside of him.
“Your brother?” Jane’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “I thought you only had younger sisters…”
“That’s what everyone thinks.” He adjusted the ice pack, even though he hardly felt it against his skin. “But we lost him before we moved here. Tanner was my twin, he died when we were seven.” Emotion gripped him by the throat and for once he didn’t try to fend it off.
“Toby,” Jane uttered through a gasp. “Oh, no. That’s…unimaginable.”
“As unimaginable as losing your dad as a teenager,” he murmured gently.
Jane nodded, her eyes brimming with tears again. “I’m so sorry.” She let out a sad laugh. “I used to hate it when people said that to me. What good does it do?”
“Coming from you it does a lot of good.” An ache raced through him, settling in his fingertips. He wanted to touch her, wanted to pull her to him and let the feel of her in his arms dull the pain. “Everything was fine until the year we turned two and then my parents started to notice something wasn’t right with him.” Toby didn’t remember that part. He didn’t remember Tanner always tripping and falling while Toby was able to run as fast and as far he wanted. He didn’t remember his brother’s struggles with speech and motor skills.
“The doctors diagnosed him with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when we were three. I don’t remember him before that. I don’t remember him ever being healthy.” His brother had already been in a wheelchair full-time by the time they turned four. “He was my best friend though. I pushed him around in his wheelchair. I helped him eat. I played catch with him. And I read to him. He loved that. He loved cowboy books.”
Jane pressed her hand to her mouth, and brushed away her tears, but she said nothing. She simply waited for him to continue.
Talking about Tanner made a burn rise in his gut. But he had to tell her. He needed to. Like Jane had said, it was a terrible thing not to be known. Tanner deserved to be known. “When we’d go out, everyone would stare at him, but he was just my brother.” Toby hadn’t thought of him any different. “He couldn’t do the physical things I could do, but he was smarter than me, and he was funny too. He always had a joke to tell.” He smiled, remembering, and Jane smiled too. “I never thought…I didn’t realize he could die. But one night his heart just stopped.” He couldn’t say more. Not without losing it, and he couldn’t lose it. He’d never been allowed to lose it.
Jane rested her hand over his, not even trying to hide her tears now. A few tears may have slipped down his cheeks too. He couldn’t be sure.
“I think I was in shock. Because I hadn’t considered he would die, but my parents…I think they’d been preparing for it all along.” They must’ve because they’d so quickly and efficiently planned his funeral and packed up the medical equipment. In just days, it was like Tanner had never existed at all. “They were sad and they were different. Almost angry all the time.” They’d seemed short with him and impatient. Now he understood that was just their grief but at the time… “I felt like I had to make them happy. Like it was all up to me. I did everything I could to make them smile and to be okay so I could keep them from getting upset.”
“That’s too much,” Jane said, touching her hand to his cheek. “That’s too much for a child to carry.”
It had been too much. Too heavy. “A few weeks after Tanner’s funeral, my parents told me we were moving. That we were starting over. Moving on.”
“But you never really move on.” Jane scooted to the edge of the chair so that her knees touched his.
“No. You never really move on.” He set the ice pack on the table and stretched out his shoulder. “My parents still won’t talk about him. We don’t have any pictures in the house. And yet I still see him everywhere.”
“Because he was an important part of your life,” Jane said. “Which means he’s a part of you.” A light went on in her eyes. “That plaque. The one on the outside of the library. It says ‘In Memory of Tanner.’”
He didn’t bother to look away. She knew. Jane was not only smart, she’d always been intuitive. “He loved books. It was one way I could think to honor him.”
“It’s the perfect way.” Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders and held on.
* * *
With her arms wrapped around Toby, Jane couldn’t stop picturing him as a grief-stricken seven-year-old unsure of how to mourn his brother’s death.
Her heart broke for him, for that little boy who never got to be a cowboy. Her heart broke for his family, for their desperation to move on and simply get past it. In all the pain she and her mom and Wes and August had gone through, never once did her mother try to shy away from their dad’s memory. She kept all of their family pictures exactly where they’d been. Her mom kept her father’s memory alive for all of them, and she’d never expected them to be okay. They’d talked about her dad, they’d all acknowledged what they’d lost. But Toby hadn’t been allowed to do any of that.
She wasn’t sure how long they sat that way, Toby’s forehead resting on her shoulder, her cheek brushing his hair. He was quiet and she stayed quiet. She already knew words didn’t matter. In the unspeakable aftermath of loss, it was the being there that mattered. After her dad’s funeral, Beth would sometimes come over and simply sit in the chair that had been in the corner of Jane’s room doing her homework. A lot of times they wouldn’t speak at all, but Jane knew her friend was there and that had mattered more than anything.
“I’ve never told anyone.” Toby’s voice was muffled by her shoulder. “I didn’t even know how to talk about it, where to start.” He slowly raised his head. “But I knew you would understand.” His eyes found hers. They were red around the rims, but any tears he’d shed seemed to have already dried.
Her eyes, however, filled again. “I do.” The crack in her heart deepened. How had he kept that a secret all these years? How had he carried it all alone? “It helps to talk about it, actually. It hurts too.” She could see the pain in him. “But it helps.”
“Yeah. It does.” His face had centered on hers, those eyes of his so magnetic and full of energy. The intensity of his gaze quickened her pulse. She remembered seeing that look a few other times. The night of the party back in high school. Last night at the brewery when he’d caught her in his arms. And then earlier when he’d kissed her in the soft grass.
“I probably shouldn’t kiss you,” he half whispered.
“Probably not,” she agreed. When he’d kissed her earlier she’d gotten caught up in the moment, but he’d still been Toby the good-time cowboy. He’d still been the man who didn’t take anything too seriously. Now, though, she’d seen so much deeper into him, and she wanted to be there for him, but she couldn’t let her emotions overpower her.
She’d meant what she’d said about love. For someone like her, someone who felt so completely and deeply, it only ever seemed to end in heartache. And, despite what he’d told her, Toby still lived his life on the edge. He lived for risk, thrived on it, and she knew herself too well; she couldn’t stand another loss. She wouldn’t survive it.
“We should get back to the shower,” she said before she gave in to the desire to kiss away his pain. Before one of them started something that would be impossible to stop. Sitting with Toby had opened her emotions, bringing her to the same raw, vulnerable place he was in right now, and this wouldn’t end well for either one of them.
He closed his eyes and nodded as though trying to convince himself. She couldn’t seem to move either. Something in her wanted to wrap her arms around him again, to lose herself, to let him lose himself, but crossing that line would bring too many complications for them both. “I think you should talk to your parents,” she murmured instead of touching him. “They should know how you felt, Toby. How you still feel.” She knew how important that was, how much healing it could provide.
“I’m not sure I can. But I’ll try.” With a sad smile he stood and pulled his T-shirt back over his head like he couldn’t stand to sit there anymore without touching her.
It was only then she realized she was still wearing his flannel shirt over her dress. He’d slipped it onto her shoulders outside so casually and effortlessly, that she hadn’t even realized he was doing it until she was wrapped in his woodsy scent. At the time she’d still been annoyed with the Aubrey situation, so she hadn’t even acknowledged it for the thoughtful gesture it was. Two weeks ago, if someone had told her Toby Garrett had a thoughtful sincerity hiding deep down, she would’ve laughed, but now she’d seen it for herself.
Forcing herself to her feet, Jane slipped the shirt off her shoulders and handed it back to him. He wasn’t just the charming sweet-talker she’d always thought he was…maybe he never had been. Maybe he’d always had a depth he’d hidden from the world. But now that she’d seen it, now that she knew, she had to be careful not to lose her heart to him.