Despite not getting much rest, Jace woke feeling refreshed and more content than he had since returning to Colorado. The beautiful woman nestled against him was responsible for that. She had one leg thrown over his, and her head was resting on his bare chest, her hair a riotous red-gold tangle. He wanted to run his fingers through it, but touching her was why he hadn’t gotten more than two hours of sleep. The sun was starting to rise, and he had work to do. If he touched her now, how would he find the self-discipline to get out of bed?
He hadn’t even left her yet and was already looking forward to seeing her later today. Of course, once the drive started this morning, he’d have to share her company with the tourists and other ranch hands. At yesterday’s orientation, watching her interact with others had only improved his already high opinion of her. She was kind and answered questions thoughtfully, and she liked horses as much as he did. She spoke about her vet practice passionately but cracked jokes, too. Unlike his brothers, she seemed capable of balancing both a work ethic and a sense of humor.
There was a lot to enjoy about being with her, but Jace particularly appreciated that she saw him—not as an eligible billionaire or a family screwup, merely as a man she desired. Too many people in his life had preconceived or outdated notions about him. Or ulterior motives for wanting to get close. It was a relief to spend time with someone who didn’t.
Well, spending more time together will have to wait until you’re on the trail. He’d lingered here too long.
He moved away from her as gingerly as possible, trying not to disturb her.
“Oh, no.” She mumbled her protest facedown into the mattress. “Morning already?”
“Afraid so. You can probably grab another hour, but I need to head out. The last thing we want is for Boone to come looking for me.” Jace hoped none of the ranch hands had noticed his absence from the bunkhouse last night. It wasn’t uncommon for a hand to spend an evening in town with a sweetheart or even camp out in nice weather, but the night before a drive, everyone was usually accounted for. “Need anything before I go?”
“I have some syringes in my medical bag. Any chance you could inject some coffee straight into my veins?”
Chuckling, he brushed a kiss against her temple. “See you later, Doc.”
She muttered a drowsy response and fell back asleep as he finished dressing. He carried his boots out to the front porch and pulled them on. He was just fastening his belt when his cell phone vibrated. Someone was calling him at this hour? It was barely dawn. Shit. Maybe Boone had noticed he was missing.
Jace strode away from the cottage before answering, hurrying in case his presence was required at the stable or main house. But once he had his phone in hand, it wasn’t Boone’s number he saw on the screen.
Heath? When was the last time the middle Malone brother had placed a call to him? If Reed’s preferred method of communication was disapproving lectures, Heath’s was terse text messages.
“Hello?”
“Jace.” The shaky voice on the other end of the phone certainly didn’t sound like stoic, number-crunching Heath. The last time Jace had seen him upset was...
Fear coiled in his gut, and Jace went cold all over. “What happened?”
“It’s Grandpa Harry. Heart attack. Reed’s asking questions, but we’ll know more when he’s out of surgery. You should be here. Just in case—”
“On my way.” Jace cut him off before he could say anything more. The possibility was too awful to contemplate, much less hear out loud.
To hell with the cattle drive.
The whole reason he’d been here instead of at home on the Triple Pine was that he’d wanted to prove himself to his grandfather. But if being here had robbed Jace of the chance to say goodbye? A horrible déjà vu churned in his gut, his mouth sour with the long-familiar cocktail of guilt and loss.
Jace broke into a run, praying that the universe wasn’t going to take another loved one.
The beautiful morning matched Mia’s sunny mood. But her stroll to the rustic picnic tables for breakfast came with a few muscle twinges. After last night, she would definitely be a little tender in the saddle. Worth it. She was grateful she and Jace made the most of the opportunity while they could—repeat occurrences on the cattle drive would be unprofessional and awkward.
Yet despite her mature resolution to maintain a friendly distance, she found herself already glancing around for him. To say good-morning, not to seduce him on a picnic bench. That was just common courtesy.
“Excuse me? Dr. Zane?”
Mia turned to find a gangly young man, his freckled face anxious. “Morning, Levi.” They’d met last night when he came by the dinner table to introduce himself to the group. At first, she’d mistaken him for a teenager vacationing with his family, but it turned out he was an agriculture major who worked summers on the dude ranch. Had Boone sent him to find her? “Is there an issue with one of the heifers?”
“No, ma’am. Leastwise, not as far as I know. I was supposed to keep an eye out for you so I could give you a message from Mr. Mal—from JT.”
“Oh?”
“He ’bout ran me over on his way off the ranch this morning. Family emergency, so he won’t be making the cattle drive after all. He asked me to tell you goodbye.”
Oh. She wouldn’t see him again this week? Disappointment stabbed through her, far more intense than she would have expected.
If Levi found anything strange about the fact Jace had singled her out, he didn’t comment on it. He frowned. “I hope everything turns out okay with his family. His brothers and grandpa are real nice.”
So Levi knew Jace personally? A half-dozen questions flitted through her mind, but she didn’t allow herself to ask them. It would be wrong to use a crisis as an excuse to pry. “I hope everything’s all right, too. Thanks for passing along the message.”
Levi nodded, then tipped his cowboy hat and ambled away. Mia lined up with the tourists at a long trestle table laden with pastries and bacon, but she wasn’t really hungry.
Maybe this is for the best. Not the emergency part, of course—she hoped whatever it was could be easily dealt with—but perhaps a clean break was an unexpected blessing. If she was this bummed now to see Jace go, how would she have felt after a week on the trail with him?
Last night had been unforgettable. Perfect. She’d never been so uninhibited with a man, so insatiable. From the second he’d opened the door to her cabin to the moment she’d finally drifted to sleep in his arms, she hadn’t cared about the outside world.
Including her clinic.
But this was a new day, and she had responsibilities. His departure spared her further distraction and any resulting awkwardness that came from a one-night stand. It was best not to see him again—except in the occasional, inevitable fantasy. Sighing wistfully, she said a silent farewell.
See you in my dreams, cowboy.
TRUCK! The word roared in Jace’s head but caught in his throat. He opened his mouth to shout a warning to his dad, but no sound emitted. Then, impact. Their car spun out of control. Metal scraped metal, and glass shattered. Jace heard his mom scream, and the world flipped upside down as darkness pressed in around him. Sirens shrieked in the distance, growing louder as—
Jace struggled awake, his heart and head both pounding.
The specific details of the nightmare sometimes shifted, not always accurate. Sometimes he dreamed he’d been in the front seat instead of his mom or that the color of the truck speeding through the intersection had been different. But the suffocating dread never changed. He swallowed roughly, his mouth dry. Before returning home to Colorado, it had been months, maybe years, since he’d had the too-familiar dream, but ever since Grandpa Harry’s heart attack...
That’s not a siren.
Although he was awake now, the shrieking noise from his nightmare hadn’t stopped. He belatedly realized it was a baby crying. Brooke. His niece might only be four months old, but her volume was impressive as hell.
Relieved to focus on something besides bad dreams and his grandfather’s health, Jace grabbed the T-shirt balled up on his nightstand and followed the sound of his wailing niece. The house was dark, but he’d gone up and down the main staircase plenty of times without light, often when sneaking out or returning after curfew.
The main house was a sprawling three-story home with an indoor pool and two apartment suites added during renovations. Jace was willing to bet Brooke’s cries could be heard through every square inch. Hell, they could probably hear her in Grover, where he’d spent most of the week working in one of the Malone field offices.
The main kitchen, with its multiple ovens and four-thousand-dollar refrigerator, was the province of the cook, the housekeeper and occasional catering staff. There was a smaller offshoot that was little more than a microwave and a long oval table that had hosted a lot of family game nights...and game-related arguments. It was in that room where Jace found his brother Reed, barefoot and uncharacteristically disheveled, pacing laps across the tile floor with Brooke in his arms.
From what Jace could hear, his brother was attempting to reason with the red-faced infant. “If you’re not wet and you don’t want a bottle, maybe you’re just tired. Sleep would fix that. Please, please go to sleep.”
“Maybe,” Jace drawled, “she can’t sleep because someone is making an unholy racket.”
Halting mid-lap, Reed glared. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Jace almost chuckled. Normally, Reed was above sarcasm. Of course, normally his hair wasn’t standing on end, either. Was it weird that Jace preferred 2:00 a.m. Reed to the competent older brother who ran the company and was trying to run the family while Grandpa Harry was in cardiac rehab?
“Here, let me take a turn,” Jace offered. “You look like you need a break.”
Reed clutched his daughter tighter. “What do you know about babies?”
This is the thanks I get for trying to help? “Just that you’re supposed to give them light beer instead of the regular stuff and you have to change their diapers once a week.” He gritted his teeth. Why had he thought his brother would welcome his assistance? “Enjoy your screaming bundle.”
“Wait...”
Jace paused.
“I do need a break.” Reed slowly passed over the baby. “Be careful with her! Sorry—that wasn’t personal. Just reflex.”
Being a divorced single parent couldn’t be easy, but it had to be easier for billionaires. “Don’t you have a nanny?” Jace resumed Reed’s path around the kitchen, adding a tiny bounce to his step.
“For during work hours, yeah. But if I leave her to someone else at night, too, when would I see my daughter?” Reed shoved a hand through his dark hair. No wonder it was on end. “That’s not how we were raised. Mom and Dad were hands-on. Down-to-earth.”
Reed’s uncharacteristic mention of their parents vividly conjured the images of Jace’s nightmare. In the first year after the accident, the arguments and accusations had been so brutal the brothers had almost come to blows. It had taken many talks from Grandpa Harry and some grudging family therapy before an uneasy truce had been reached.
Jace swallowed. “You don’t talk about Mom and Dad.”
“Well, I think about them all the time. And I owe it to them to be the best dad I can. I owe it to Brooke.” He looked away, composing himself. “Sorry she woke you.”
“I’m not.”
Reed raised an eyebrow.
“Bad dreams,” Jace mumbled, embarrassed to sound like he was still six and needed their father to check under his bed.
Reed didn’t ask for details, and Jace didn’t offer any. When the pause grew uncomfortable, they both turned their attention back to Brooke and her intermittent cries. Though she was clearly winding down, she still stubbornly fought sleep. Hardheaded. Definitely a Malone.
“You’re good with her.” Reed’s compliment would have carried more weight if he didn’t sound so shocked.
“What can I say? Ladies love me.”
His brother rolled his eyes.
“I picked up some practice around the office in Dallas. We offered an employee day care for infants and toddlers.” It was one of the few company policies Jace had been proud of. He sighed. “I understand why you think I’m a quitter, but I didn’t leave Dallas because I was bored or because the job was too hard. Clint’s cutthroat tactics and our corporate disregard for long-term environmental impact were making it impossible for me to live with myself.”
His employer had shot down his appeals for change. Jace had come home hoping he would have better luck with his own family. Ha.
Frustration tinged his voice. “Energy companies should be a positive force in their communities.”
“Are you saying Malone Energy isn’t?”
Jace opened his mouth, closed it again and remembered that he was trying to soothe a baby, not pick a fight with his brother. “No. But I am saying that we could take something already good and make it even better. For everyone, including future generations.” He glanced meaningfully at his now-sleeping niece.
Reed looked thoughtful.
“I’m not the selfish kid you remember,” Jace added. There was so much more to him than the shoplifting teen or flippant college dropout who’d charmed pretty classmates into writing his papers. He just needed the chance to prove it.
In his darker moments, though, he agreed with his brothers. Maybe he didn’t deserve that chance. After all, if it weren’t for him—
“Alonzo Boone did say you were a hard worker when he called to check on Harry. And I probably shouldn’t take the recommendation of a four-month-old, but my daughter seems to like you.”
She was peacefully snuggled against Jace’s chest. He’d overheard moms in the office say babies could sense stress. She might have been feeding off of Reed’s exasperation that he couldn’t do more to help her. Jace refrained from pointing that out, however. His sleep-deprived brother might take it as criticism. This was the closest they’d come to mutual respect in over a decade, and Jace didn’t want to disrupt the peace.
Reed exhaled heavily. “I hope, for Grandpa Harry’s sake, you’re right about having changed. He wants to believe in you. And he has enough heart problems without you breaking it.”
Again. Jace knew how many times he’d let their grandfather down.
Well, no more. He renewed his determination to stick to his goals and not get derailed by anything, including past loss. Or more recent, pleasant distractions, like decadent nights with breathtaking redheads. In the weeks since he’d seen Mia, he’d thought of her frequently and even considered reaching out to her through her clinic. He’d told himself that the least he could do was say goodbye properly.
But he’d ultimately talked himself out of it. Explaining that he was no longer JT the ranch hand would be complicated, and he wasn’t looking for complications right now. Focus. He needed to make his family proud and help assure that their legacy was a positive one. Chasing after a woman he barely knew was something the old Jace would do.
He passed Brooke back to his brother. “You can trust me.”
Reed studied him for a long moment, and Jace hoped his brother would find whatever it was he was looking for. But all he said was, “Good night.”
Jace sat alone in the kitchen after Reed left, in no hurry to fall back asleep and risk more nightmares. But the truth lingered, haunting him even now that he was awake. While the accident was technically the fault of the trucker who’d nodded off and run through a red light, Jace’s parents being at that intersection was his fault. They would have been at a city hall event if Jace hadn’t been nabbed by security on his way out of a novelty gift store.
The memory was so vivid. The muggy air of the warm night, the familiar smell of his mom’s perfume, the disappointment etched on his dad’s face.
“Do you know how mortifying it is that my son was stealing?” his father demanded as they climbed into the car. “You could have paid for everything in that store—we have money! And, damn it, we have values. Haven’t we taught you better than this?”
Jace leaned sullenly against the back window, staring out at dusk. It was pointless to explain. How could his parents understand when they were beloved in the community? He was not. They didn’t know what every day was like for him at school. Teachers expected him to live up to his straight-A brothers, but he wasn’t as disciplined as Reed or as smart as Heath. Classmates either resented his family’s riches or jockeyed for favors and gifts.
His mom turned around in her seat. “It’s those new friends of yours. Why are you so determined to hang out with troublemakers?”
Because he’d finally found a few people who didn’t treat him like a Malone, but merely a fellow delinquent. He stayed silent, unable to meet his mother’s concerned gaze.
And in refusing to apologize or justify his actions, Jace had unknowingly squandered the chance for one final conversation with his parents. He’d give anything to undo that, to undo all of it. He missed them every day.
I’m so sorry.
He couldn’t bring them back. But, even though it was too little, too late, he would work his ass off to become the son they’d deserved.