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Jolie had never been so glad to see anything as she was Tuesday night. After getting almost no sleep the previous night, she was exhausted. Worrying over Billy’s possible appearance in town or Danni’s safety was not what had kept her awake. All night, images of Jake had roiled in her mind. He was attracted to her. She believed it. Otherwise, why would he have let people in town see them together? Why would he have taken her on a drive and showed her the house and land he had bought? She believed that to him, the house and land purchase was private enough to be intimate.
She imagined herself in that old house on the canyon rim waiting for him to come home every night, as Billy never had. She imagined him taking her on long, quiet drives through the countryside and in his soft, deep voice, telling her things she didn’t know, as Billy never had. And she imagined him coming to her at night and holding her, thrilling her in ways she had only read about in novels, as Billy never had.
As soon as she tucked Danni into bed, she went to bed herself. But she spent another restless night, her fantasies of Jake Strayhorn and a new worry about Danni revolving in and out of snatches of sleep. School would be out in a week. What would Danni do all summer? They lived twenty-eight miles from town. Jolie couldn’t expect a ten-going-on-eleven-year-old girl to while away her days in front of TV in the ranch house’s family room. With Brady’s ten-year-old son soon to come for the summer, she had to worry over what kind of mischief he might drag Danni into. Or what if he rejected Danni as a friend altogether?
Then there were the horseback riding lessons and the possibility that Dannie could get hurt.
Jolie’s alarm buzzed at five a.m. She rose from bed knowing she had to go to the grocery store after the noon meal to pick up the few odds and ends to take her through the rest of the week. She wished she wasn’t hoping she might see Jake in town, but she couldn’t help herself.
She took the time and endured the inconvenience of washing her hair in the cistern water. Because of the inconvenience factor, weeks back she had given up on the rainwater and resorted to using the softened well water to wash her hair. Now, looking in the mirror, she had to admit her bleached hair looked like a haystack and was hard to manage. She did the best she could with it and gave up. After doing her hair and makeup, she put on jeans and a plain red V-neck tee and added gold hoop earrings.
She wore a butcher’s apron over her clothing all morning, being careful not to get food stains on her shirt. She made a hearty soup of leftover ham and navy beans and a cast-iron skillet of cheese and jalapeño corn bread. Only Brady and Mr. Strayhorn came in for lunch, so she left the serving to Irene and passed up eating lunch herself.
She stopped off in the half bath just inside the door coming from the garage and made sure her makeup looked as fresh as possible. Then she drove to Lucky’s.
She shopped in Lucky’s less often than she had when she first started working at the Circle C. She had now established a routine and gotten organized to the point where she was planning better and coordinating food buying with Buster. Now she received deliveries from the supplier that serviced the cookhouse and the ranch supply store.
Seeing the CLOSED sign on the Maisie’s Café door caused her a moment of anxiety and she wasn’t sure why. At the grocery store, she mentioned the sign to Suzanne, who made jokes about it. No comment was made of Mr. Strayhorn in association with the café owner, so Jolie was careful to dial back her own words. Her boss’s social life was none of her business.
As she left the grocery store with her bags, parallel-parked directly across the street from the door was Jake, his butt pressed against the passenger side of his silver pickup, his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms crossed over his wide chest. Was he waiting for her? Daring to acknowledge that he was, she felt a stone dropping inside her stomach, but a grin quirked the corners of her mouth.
He came across the street and reached for her bags. “Had lunch?” he asked as he began to lift the bags of groceries into the bed of the Circle C’s pickup.
It was insane how his very presence made her tongue-tied. “Uh, no, uh, I haven’t. I didn’t take the time to eat before I left the ranch.”
“Got anything perishable in these sacks?” He placed the last plastic bag in the pickup bed.
“No. It’s all dry stuff.”
He flashed a breath-stealing smile. “Then it’ll be okay until we get back, right?”
She looked up at him and lost herself in the pool of his green gaze. In all ways he was unlike any other man she had ever known. “Right.”
He took her elbow and steered her to the passenger door of his pickup, her feet hardly touching the ground. He opened the door and held it while she climbed inside. Watching him briskly round the front end, she was almost giddy with joy, but sneaking through her happiness was the reminder that even if she didn’t have all of the problems she had, Jake Strayhorn was out of her reach.
He scooted behind the steering wheel and belted himself in, his big body and his woodsy scent filling the cab. She felt only slightly less nervous than she did the day she went for a drive with him. “Is your deputy minding your office?” she asked.
He glanced across at her and smiled. “Yep. It’s his turn.”
His perfect face was made for a cowboy hat, she thought. “Where are we going?”
“Dairy Queen. That’s all that’s left.” He fired the engine and, checking his side-view mirror, pulled from the curb.
As they drove away, she shot a quick glance at the grocery store’s plate-glass front door. Suzanne was standing there watching them. “Oh, hell,” she mumbled.
Jake turned to her, smiling. “Suzanne see us?”
“I think so,” Jolie answered.
“I figured she was watching,” Jake said, chuckling. “It’s not a problem, darlin’.”
“But she’s Jude’s best friend.”
“It’s still not a problem. People around here don’t have much to keep them entertained, so they like being nosy. Suzanne’s harmless, but even if she did tell Jude and Brady, they wouldn’t care.”
“I don’t want to have to explain myself to anyone.” She dredged up a smile. “But I agree. I doubt if they’d care.”
Jake reached across the cab of the pickup and covered her hand with his. That little squiggle zipped across her midsection. She hesitated a moment, then intertwined her fingers with his.
“I was surprised to see the Closed sign on the café door,” she said as they rode toward the Dairy Queen holding hands. “Do you know why it’s closed?”
“Owner’s leaving town.”
“I used to think the café owner was Mr. Strayhorn’s girlfriend.”
“Why did you think that?”
Jolie laughed. “Brady asked me the exact same question almost word for word. I saw Mr. Strayhorn and her together two different times on her stairs.” She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “And they looked like a couple.”
“Well, I’ll tell you confidentially that they are. Or at least they were. How they managed to keep it quiet in a place like this I don’t know. I’ve known about it a long time.”
“Oh, my gosh. Jude told me that couldn’t be true. She and Brady must have no idea.”
“I agree. I think Jude would have said something to me if she knew. I suspect others in Willard County know it, too, but people around here gossip about the Strayhorns and the Circle C only up to a certain point. They know who their benefactors are.”
“If Maisie is Mr. Strayhorn’s girlfriend, why is she closing and leaving town?”
Jake grinned impishly. “Lovers’ quarrel?”
Jolie couldn’t keep from laughing. The idea of the unapproachable Mr. Strayhorn engaged in a lovers’ quarrel, or even an affair, was funny. And she was starting to see a side of Jake Strayhorn she wouldn’t have guessed was there. She cocked her head and gave him a look that, coming from her, was flirty. “In your job, you find out everything about everyone, don’t you?”
“Sooner or later. Whether I want to or not. How much time do you have?”
“Two or three hours. Until I have to pick up Danni.”
“We could get a couple of burgers at the drive-through, then go to my apartment and watch a movie. What do you think?”
Something was happening between them, something she wasn’t sure she knew what to do about. Common sense told her to decline. “Well, I—”
“I know that’s not much of a date, but there aren’t a lot of choices in Lockett. And you’re on a tight schedule.”
Date? This is a date? Indeed, her schedule was tight. So far, she had one day a week and a few hours in the afternoons off work. Period. “Okay. We probably have time.”
At the Dairy Queen’s drive-through window, the plump order clerk was friendly, but she did a poor job of trying to hide her curiosity about Jake’s passenger. Jake behaved as if her tilting her head to get a better view of Jolie were nothing unusual and ordered cheeseburgers with everything. Jolie rarely ate burgers of any kind, but she kept silent about it. A couple of minutes later, the clerk closed the window and disappeared.
“I wonder if she thinks I’m under arrest,” Jolie said on a nervous laugh.
Jake turned toward her and grinned. “She’s just curious. No one ever sees me with a woman in Lockett.”
“You don’t like the women here?”
“I’ve never thought it was a good idea to mix my social life with being the sheriff in such a small town. Of course, the locals all think I should be married, so occasionally, some well-meaning citizen has tried to marry me off.”
“I don’t blame you for not being married,” Jolie said. “I’ve known people who claimed to be happy, but for me it was mostly drudgery and worry.”
Jake gave her an intent look. She didn’t know what to add. That was how she felt.
The heavyset order clerk appeared at the window with a puffy paper sack. Jake lifted his butt off the seat and dug into the pocket of his tight jeans, pulled out a money clip and peeled off several bills. He handed the money through the window and told the clerk to keep the change and at the same time, handed Jolie the sack of food.
As he eased away from the order window, she said, “I don’t think I should leave the Circle C’s pickup parked downtown.”
“We can handle that. I’ll drop you off and you can drive it to my apartment.”
She followed him to his apartment and parked behind his pickup as she had done before. As she scooted down from the seat, he joined her and reached for her hand. They held hands all the way to his front door. Inside the apartment, he carried the sack of food to the kitchen. While she stood back and watched, he dragged plates from the cupboard and arranged the burgers and fries on them. He looked up at her with a boyish grin. “Want to find us a movie?”
“Okay,” she said, and went to the storage shelf in the living room. Her fingers were so unsteady, she almost couldn’t flick through the DVD selections and her concentration was so fractured, she couldn’t focus on the titles. Finally, she just picked one at random.
Jake came in carrying the food and a couple of cans of Coke and set everything on the heavy coffee table. “This is pretty poor pickings compared to what you’re used to.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
“What did you find for us to watch?”
She handed over the movie.
“The English Patient,” he said. “Didn’t know I had that one. I’ve never watched it.”
“Me, neither.”
They sat on the sofa, their arms almost touching, munching their burgers as the movie began. The apartment felt cool and pleasant and soundless except for the music and dialogue from the movie. Lack of sleep caught up with Jolie and after she’d eaten half her burger, her eyelids grew heavy. She sat back, her head against the sofa back, and let her lids flutter closed. As she relaxed, she felt her shoulder sag and touch Jake’s arm and she felt the warmth and size of him. Security, her fuzzy mind thought as repose stole through her.
“Tired?” he asked.
If he only knew thoughts of him had kept her awake for two nights, she thought with amusement. “A little. I haven’t gotten much chance to slow down the past couple of weeks. So many people have been at the ranch and they all eat.”
“Well, you cook about the best meal I’ve ever had.”
She smiled, not opening her eyes. “Why do I have the feeling you could eat a rubber tire and think it was good?”
She heard his soft chuckle near her ear, felt his arm slide across the sofa back. “I’m an easy keeper, Jolie,” he said in his velvety baritone voice. “I want you to know that.”
No matter how she sorted through that remark, the implication couldn’t be misconstrued and a tiny panicky joy burst through her. “I shouldn’t be dozing,” she said, trying to ignore her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “I should be watching this movie. I really wanted to see it when it came out.”
She opened her eyes just in time to see the blond female star climbing naked into a bathtub with the male lead. She swallowed a gulp and her pulse shot to a cadence that made her dizzy. Other than with Billy a long time ago, she had never watched an explicit love scene in the company of a man. She felt a flush crawl up her neck, was too aware that Jake’s solid, sinewy body was only inches away, couldn’t keep from imagining what he would look like without clothes.
She turned to look at him, saw his green eyes even more intense than usual and before she knew it was coming, his head lowered and his mouth brushed hers. When she didn’t flinch or pull away, his mouth brushed again, then squarely covered hers. His lips were warm and soft, unthreatening. They exerted a sweet pressure. The room seemed to be spinning around them and as much as her head believed this could be a bad idea, she had no intention of stopping him or herself. She kissed him back.
He broke the kiss and his hand tenderly cupped her jaw. His mouth began to taste hers in little silky nibbles that felt so wonderful she opened her lips for more, relished his tongue touching hers. When an unfamiliar heat began to course through her and her insides began to shake, she pulled back, looking wide-eyed into his face. “Jake, I—”
“Jolie,” he murmured, stroking a tendril of her hair back from her face. “Pretty, gentle Jolie.”
“I’ve never...” She stopped. Should she tell him she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex, that she had never had sex with any man other than Billy, that she had never even been kissed by anyone else?
“Never what?” he asked, his fingertips trailing down her jaw.
“I’m not an experienced woman,” she blurted.
“I know that.”
“How—how do you know?”
“Darlin’, I’ve spent a good part of twenty years knowing more about people than they know about themselves.”
Feeling exposed and vulnerable in a way she never had been before she drew a quivery breath. “But I don’t understand. Why me? You must know a lot of women. They must surely have more—”
“They don’t. Trust me.”
She covered the back of his hand with hers and peered into his beautiful eyes. “Oh, I do trust you, Jake. I’d trust you with anything. Even my life.”
“Then we don’t have anything to worry about.”
His mouth covered hers again and this time, she had only one question when their lips parted. “Are–are we going to have...to sleep together?”
“I hope so,” he said softly, his eyes locked on hers, his mouth only inches away. “But I don’t want you to think that’s the reason I asked you to come here and have lunch.”
That thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. “We should hurry. I don’t want to waste any time.”
His lips tipped into an easy smile. He reached up and pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. His touch on her face sent a frisson of excitement through her. “We don’t have to be in a hurry,” he said softly. “We can wait until you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to wait. There’s so much I’ve missed, Jake.”
He took her hand and looked down at it, circling the top with his thumb. “I know you’re treading new ground. I want you to be sure I’m the one.”
She took his hand between both of hers and kissed it. “Oh, Jake, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I never dreamed I would meet someone like you. I want to be with you. I want you to...to...I want you to make love to me.”
“You humble me, Jolie.”
“Can we go to your room? We still have time, don’t we?”
A soft laugh burst from his throat. “As much time as you want.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet. Neither of them spoke as he led her to his bedroom. While he turned back the covers on his king-size bed, she stood behind him, her fingers tightly interlocked, her emotions raw, her heart racing.
Her mind was as busy as her heart, trying to decide what Jake would expect. Should she remove her clothes herself or wait for him to do it like lovers in the movies?
She hadn’t thought about how her body looked in years. She knew she was in fairly good shape because she physically worked and she had walked miles waiting tables. And she tried to remember what underwear she had put on and whether she was wearing one of her better bras. She couldn’t have felt more clumsy and awkward.
While all of that danced through her mind, Jake came to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He lowered his head and kissed her neck beneath her ear. She closed her eyes and relished the feel of his warm lips moving over her neck. He seemed to be searching for a good place and in no time, he found one. “Oh,” she said, on a shiver as little prickles tingled over her skin.
Though she had feelings for Jake she had never had for anyone and she wanted this, she had no experience with how she should behave in an intimate tryst with a man she hadn’t yet learned to be at ease with. She pushed back from him. “When Billy and I went to bed, we just got undressed and climbed into bed. Should we do that? Just take off our clothes and get in bed?”
“Eventually.” His strong arms came around her and she placed her arms around his neck. “You’re the sweetest woman I’ve ever known,” he said. “And the most innocent,” he added with a soft chuckle.
“Really?”
“I mean that.”
His lips settled on her mouth again and reflexively, she pressed against him. They kissed for the longest time, with the world spinning around her and an odd craving building within her. Mere kissing just didn’t seem to be enough. She thought she would go crazy if they didn’t move on. His hands began to glide over her body and soon she felt his touch on her bare skin beneath her top. He pulled back and looked down at her. He must have felt her shaking all over, because he said, “Don’t be nervous. We’ll go slow.”
She looked into his eyes that were now hooded by his eyelids. “I’m...not,” she said. “We don’t have to go slow, unless that’s what you want.”
He lifted her top and peeled it over her head. “I’m—I’m not tanned,” she said self-consciously.
He smiled and drew her close in a hug. “Oh, Jolie,” he murmured against her hair. “You’re beautiful.”
He reached behind her, unhooked her bra and freed her breasts. Her breasts weren’t especially large, but they filled his hands. He touched them as if she were something precious, stroked her and caressed, murmured wonderful things against her skin.
“I should take off my shoes,” she said.
He gave a little laugh. “Me, too.”
Catching her hand, he sank to the edge of the mattress and brought her down to sit beside him. He began to pry off his boots. Her arm touching his, she untied her sport shoes and rid herself of them and her socks before he got his second boot off. She stood then and unzipped her jeans. He took the task from her and peeled them off, leaning forward and placing warm soft kisses on her belly. “Do you take birth control pills?” he asked.
“No.”
He opened a drawer in the bedside table and pulled out packages of condoms. “Let’s get in bed,” he said, and urged her between the covers. In seconds he was undressed and she couldn’t keep from staring. His body truly was all that she had imagined it would be.
Then, limbs entwined, hands venturing everywhere, they wallowed naked and wanton across his huge bed, their bodies sliding together in a sensual embrace. He took his time, kissing her and caressing her, but she was eager and ready for what came next. “Now, Jake,” she whispered. “Now.”
Together they rolled until she was on her back and he was kneeling between her thighs, rolling on a condom. He eased into her. Clutching at his shoulders, she frowned and bit down on her lower lip at the size and newness of him, while he murmured words like relax, sweetheart...that’s it... easy...
As he moved inside her, she sought his gaze, found his eyes a deep green, almost brown. Their gazes held trancelike as he moved in and out and in again. She lifted her hips to him again and again, seeking the strength and weight of him. His lips caught hers and he kissed her deeply, gently pushing up into her, tenderly coaxing her to another level. Her breath began to sough. That funny squiggle had moved down from her stomach to low in her belly. She didn’t recognize it for what it was, knew she had never felt it before. A tiny panic passed through her and she gripped his shoulders tightly, digging in with her fingertips. “Jake?”
“Just relax,” he whispered. “Let it happen.”
And it was happening. Jolting spasms swept through her, drove her to a heightened plane. At the peak of it, her inner muscles contracted against him, out of her control. He stayed with her until the last tiny spasms went away. “Oh, Jake,” she whimpered against his neck,
“Hold on to me,” he ground out, sliding his arm under her bottom and holding her tightly against him.
She hooked her heels around his bottom, cradled his hips with her thighs and held him fiercely. He thrust hard and fast, then went rigid on a groan. And just like that it was over.
They lay quiet and trembling. She felt a need to say something, but she was speechless. After a few beats, he rose and went to the bathroom. He soon returned, crawled between the covers and scooped her into his arms. “You’re wonderful,” he said softly, his gaze solemn, his fingers trailing over her cheek.
She closed her eyes, savoring his every touch. “Is it always like this?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“It was never like this with Billy. I didn’t know it could feel so good.” She snuggled closer to him, laid her cheek on his furry chest, dared to place her arm around his middle.
“It makes a difference when you care about someone,” he said.
“You’ve been single a long time. Why haven’t you found someone to care about?”
“I’ve always wanted someone special. Someone who was open and honest and wanted me for who I am.”
“I believe everyone wants that.”
“It’s harder to find that you might think. Especially if your name is Strayhorn.”
She smiled and kissed his chest. “Someone told me you’re hardheaded and iron-willed. They said that’s why you’ve never found someone who would put up with you.”
He chuckled, creating a gentle rumble in her ear. “I don’t deny it for a minute.”
She wriggled against him, loving his soft warm skin, traced the shape of his hairy thigh with her instep. “You can be hardheaded with me as long as you aren’t mean to me.”
He rose to his elbow and looked down at her gravely. “Jolie, I will never, ever be mean to you. Or to your daughter.”
“I know that, Jake,” she said softly. “One of the very first things I heard about you when I came here is that you aren’t a mean person.”
Jolie felt as if she had found a home. She let her eyelids flutter closed. They dozed for a while until she remembered to check the time. “I suppose I should get up and put my clothes on. It’s probably getting close to time for me to leave.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“I wish it, too, Jake.”
By the time Jolie reached the Circle C’s front gate, she was so nervous and distracted she was talking to herself. She couldn’t believe she’d had sex with Jake. And now that she had, she couldn’t stop thinking about it and wanting more of it. Where was this going? What might happen next?
She had to pull herself together. She couldn’t let Danni see her in this state. And she sure couldn’t cook an edible meal if she didn’t find a way to push Jake and the whole afternoon out of her mind. Then it dawned on her she had spent hours without worrying about where Billy was or what he might be doing.
The grind of the school bus’s engine yanked her out of her thoughts and soon the big yellow vehicle lumbered to a stop and Danni tramped off. She and the daughter of one of the hands parted and Danni came to the pickup and climbed in. “How was your day?” Jolie asked her.
“It was okay....Mama, I saw a pickup like Billy’s today.”
Jolie’s breath stuck in her throat. “Wh—where did you see it?”
“It was driving down the road by the gym.”
“The person driving it wasn’t Billy, was it?” Jolie’s voice had come out reedy and thin.
“I couldn’t see good. But I don’t think so.”
Like a mound of ants scattered by a footprint, Jolie’s mind raced in all directions and she had to force herself to think rationally. Most of Willard County’s population was poor. There would be plenty of twenty-year-old pickups here, wouldn’t there?
“I’m hungry,” Danni said. “Did you make a cake today?”
“There’s still some carrot cake,” she said shakily, trying to compel her breathing to a normal rhythm. “And there’s some strawberries. You can have something when we get to the house.”
“What’s wrong, Mama? Are you scared?”
“No, no. I’ve just had a busy day. And I’ve still got a lot to do.”
“What’re you cooking for supper?”
Jolie was dumfounded. She had forgotten what she had planned for supper.
But she hadn’t forgotten the last face-to-face encounter she’d had with her ex-husband. Jake’s advice rushed at her....
Do J.D. and Jude know about Billy and your situation?... You probably should tell her....
She should inform Jude and Brady, even if she might not find the courage to tell Mr. Strayhorn. She owed it to them because she didn’t know what Billy might do.
Should she also tell Jake what Danni had reported? It might be nothing and she hated the idea of going to Jake like a nervous ninny whining over nothing.
She parked the pickup in its usual spot. Before she got out, she said, “Listen, Danni, I want you to be very cautious. I don’t want you going back to the cottage without me and I don’t want you going around the ranch unless Jude or Brady is around, okay?”
“I never do, Mama.”
“I know. I’m just reminding you to be cautious.”
If only school were already out. If only Danni didn’t have to be away from her all day. “You need to be cautious when you’re at school, too.”
