When Trent stormed out of the room, albeit quietly, Bryn couldn’t decide if she was disappointed or relieved. He made her furious, but at the same time, she felt so alive when he was around. Six years had not changed that.
She sat at Mac’s bedside for a half hour, just watching the rise and fall of his chest. In some ways, it was as if no time had passed at all. This man had meant the world to her.
When he finally roused from his nap and shifted upright in the bed, she handed him a tumbler of water, which he drained thirstily and placed on the bedside table.
He stared at her, his expression sober. “Do you hate me, girl?”
She shrugged, opting for honesty. “I did for a long time. You broke your promise to me.” When her parents, Mac’s foreman and cook, died in a car accident years ago, Mac had sat a fourteen-year-old Bryn down in his study and promised her that she would always have a home on the huge Wyoming ranch where she had grown up.
But four years later that promise was worth less than nothing. Jesse, spoiled golden child and chillingly proficient liar, turned them all against her in one insane, surreal instant.
Mac shifted in the bed. “I did what I had to do.” His words were sulky…pure, stubborn Mac. But knowing how much he had suffered softened Bryn’s heart a little.
In spite of herself, forgiveness tightened her throat and squeezed her chest. Mac had made a mistake…. They all had made mistakes, Bryn included. But Mac had done his best to look out for her after her parents were gone. Until it all went to hell.
Then he’d sent her to Aunt Beverly. Punishment by exile. Bryn had been crushed. But six years was a long time to hold a grudge.
She sighed. “I’m sorry Jesse died, Mac. I know how much you loved him.”
“I loved you, too,” he said gruffly, not meeting her eyes.
His behavior bore that out. Mac hadn’t forgotten her. For six years he’d sent birthday and Christmas presents like clockwork. But Bryn, hugging her injured pride like the baby she was, promptly sent them back every time.
Now shame choked her. Did Mac’s one moment of weakness erase all the years he’d been like a grandfather to her?
She took a deep breath. “I came back to Wyoming because you asked me to. But even if you hadn’t, I would have been here once I knew Jesse was gone. We have to talk about a lot of things, Mac.” Like the fact that she wanted a paternity test to prove that Jesse was Allen’s father. And that her son was entitled to his dead father’s share of the Sinclair empire.
Mac’s lips trembled, and he pulled the blanket to his chest. “There’s time. Don’t push it, girl.” He slid back down in the bed and closed his eyes, effectively ending the conversation.
Bryn stepped into the hall, leaving the bedroom door open so she could hear him call out if he needed her. The study was only steps away. She couldn’t help herself…she went in.
The room seemed benign now, not at all the way she remembered it in her nightmares. That dreadful day was etched in her memory by the sharp blades of hurt and disillusionment. She’d considered herself an honorary Sinclair, but they had sided with Jesse.
“What are you doing in here?”
Trent’s sharp voice startled her so badly, she spun and almost lost her balance. She placed a steadying hand on the rolltop desk and bit her lip. “You scared me.”
His scowl deepened. “I asked you a question, Bryn.”
She licked her lips, her legs like jelly. “I wanted to send my son an e-mail.”
Trent’s face went blank, but she saw him clench his fists. “Don’t mention your son in my presence,” he said, his voice soft but deadly. “Not if you know what’s good for you.”
Bryn could take the knocks life dealt her, but no one was going to speak ill of her baby while there was breath in her body.
She squared her shoulders. “His name is Allen. And he’s Jesse’s son. I know it, and I think deep in your heart, you and Mac and Gage and Sloan know it, too. Why would I lie, for heaven’s sake?”
Trent shrugged, his gaze watchful. “Women lie,” he said, his words deliberately cutting, “all the time—to get what they want.”
For the first time, she understood something that had never before been clear to her, especially not as an immature teenager. When Mac’s flighty young wife abandoned her family years ago, the damage had run deep.
The Matthews family had come along to fill in the gaps. For more than a decade, Bryn and her mother had been the only females in an all-male enclave. And Bryn had assumed that trust was a two-way street. But when Jesse swore that he had never slept with Bryn, Mac and Trent had believed him. It was as simple as that.
Bryn chose her words carefully. “I don’t lie. Maybe you’ve had bad luck with the women in your life, but I can’t help that. I told the truth six years ago, and I’m telling the truth now.”
He curled his lip. “Easy for you to say. With Jesse not here to defend himself.”
She tamped down her anger, desperate to get through to him. “Jesse was a troubled boy who grew into a troubled man. You all spoiled him and babied him, and he used your love as a weapon. I have the scars to prove it. But Jesse’s gone, and I’m still here. And so is my son. He deserves to know his birthright—his family.”
Trent leaned back against his wall, the hard planes of his face showing no signs of remorse. “How much do you want?” he said bluntly. “How big a check do I have to write to make you leave and never come back?”
The bottom fell out of her stomach, and her jaw actually dropped. “Go to hell,” she said, her lips trembling.
He grabbed her wrist as she headed for the door. “Maybe I’ll take you with me,” he muttered.
This time, there was no pretense of tenderness. He was angry and it showed in his kiss. Their mouths battled, his hands buried in her hair, hers clenched on his shoulders.
At eighteen she’d thought she understood sex and desire. After Jesse’s betrayal, she’d understood that his love was an illusion. As was Mac’s…and Trent’s.
Now, with six years of celibacy to her credit and a heart that was being split wide open with the knowledge that she had never stopped loving Trent Sinclair, she was lost.
The kiss changed in one indefinable instant. She curled a hand behind his neck, stroking the short, soft hair that was never allowed to brush his collar. His skin was warm, so warm.
She went limp in his embrace, too tired to fight anymore. Her breasts were crushed against his hard chest. Her lips no longer struggled with his. She capitulated to the sweetness of being close to him again. A sweetness tainted with the knowledge that he thought she was a liar. That she had tried to manipulate them all.
Gradually, they stepped away from a dangerous point of no return. Trent’s expression was closed, his body language defensive.
She nodded jerkily toward the desk. “I’ll use the computer later. I’m sure you have work to do.”
When he didn’t respond at all, she fled.
Trent was not accustomed to second-guessing himself. Confidence and determination had propelled him to success in the cutting-edge, fast-paced world of solar and wind energy. When he’d received the call about his father’s heart attack, Trent had been in the midst of an enormous deal that involved buying up a half-dozen smaller companies and incorporating them into the already well-respected business model that was Sinclair Synergies.
Except for some start-up cash that had long since been repaid, he’d never relied on his father’s money. Trent was damned good at what he did. So why was the CEO of said company cooling his heels in Wyoming shoveling literal horseshit?
And why in the hell couldn’t he read the truth in a woman’s eyes? A woman who had stayed in his heart all these years like a bad case of indigestion.
Had Jesse lied? And if so, why? Mac, Sloan, Gage and Trent had doted on the little boy who came along three years after his one-after-the-other siblings. Jesse had suffered from terrible bouts of asthma, and the entire family rallied whenever he was sick. So, yeah—maybe Bryn was right. Maybe they had catered to Jesse’s whims, especially when their mother bailed on them. But that didn’t mean Jesse was a bad person.
Heroin overdose. Trent shifted uneasily in Mac’s office chair. Going through the books was proving to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. Jesse had never been a whiz at math, so God knows why Mac put him in charge of the finances. His youth alone should have been a red flag. And his inexperience.
Already, Trent was uneasy about some ways money had been shifted from one account to another. A heart-to-heart with Mac was in order, but until the old man was a little steadier on his emotional feet, Trent would hold off on the questions.
Which brought him back to Bryn. What was Mac thinking? Why had he brought Bryn back to Wyoming?
Trent shoved back from the desk and stood up to stretch, his eyes going automatically to the magnificent scene outside the window. Wyoming was his birthplace, his home. And he loved it. But it had not been able to hold him…or Gage or Sloan, either, for that matter.
Gage had developed a bad case of wanderlust at an early age…and Sloan—well—Sloan’s brilliance was never going to be challenged by ranching. Had Jesse felt the need to be his father’s heir apparent? It didn’t fit what Trent knew of his baby brother’s temperament, but what else could explain Jesse’s role in running the ranch?
At one time the Crooked S had been the largest cattle operation in a six-state area…back when Mac was in his forties and had a brand-new twenty-year-old bride at his side. Now it was nothing more than acres of really valuable land.
What would become of the ranch when Mac was gone?
Trent waited until he heard Bryn talking on the phone in her bedroom before he went back in to check on his dad. Mac was sitting up in bed, and already his eyes seemed brighter, his skin a healthier shade. Had something as simple as bringing Bryn home wrought the change?
Trent sat down in a ladderback chair near the foot of the bed and hooked one ankle over the opposite knee. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “You’re looking better.”
Mac grunted. “I’ll live.” The two of them had never been much for sentimentality.
Trent smothered a smile. “Do you feel like going for a ride? I need to pick up a few things in town. Might do you good to get out for a couple of hours.”
His father seemed to wilt suddenly, as though his burst of energy had come and gone in an instant. “Don’t think I ought to try it yet. But maybe Bryn would like to go.”
Trent stiffened. He wasn’t ready to spend the hour and a half it would take to go into Jackson Hole and back cooped up in a car with the woman who was tying him in knots. “I’d say she’s still tired from her trip. And I can be there and back in no time.”
Mac’s dark eyes, so much like his son’s, held a calculating gleam. “Bryn promised to pick out a new blanket for my bed at the Pendleton store. You know how women are…always shopping for something. I don’t want to disappoint her. And you can have dinner before you drive back. Julio and I are going to play poker tonight.”
Julio was one of the ranch hands. Trent sighed. He knew when he’d been suckered. But he wasn’t going to fight with his dad…not yet.
Moments later, Trent knocked on Bryn’s door. It was slightly ajar, and he waited impatiently until she finished her phone conversation.
Bryn ground her teeth when she realized Trent was standing in the doorway. Maybe she should put a cow bell on him so he’d quit sneaking up on her. “What do you want?” The curt question was rude, but she was still stinging from their earlier encounter.
Trent’s expression was no happier than hers. His lips twisted. “I’m supposed to take you into town with me to do some errands…a blanket my father mentioned? And he wants me to take you out to dinner.”
She cocked her head, reading his discomfort in every taut muscle of his lean body. “And you’d rather wrestle with a rattlesnake…right?”
He shrugged, leaning against the door frame, his face impassive. “I’m here this month to make my father’s life easier. And if that means allowing him to boss me around, I’m willing to do so.”
“Such a dutiful son,” she mocked.
His jaw hardened. “Be out front in twenty minutes.”
Bryn fumed as he walked out on her, and she locked her door long enough to change from jeans into nice dress slacks and a spring sweater. She didn’t understand Trent at all. But she read his hostility loud and clear. From now on, there would be no kissing, no reliving the past. She was here to right past wrongs, and Trent was no more than a minor inconvenience.
She managed to make herself believe that until she climbed into the passenger seat of a silver, high-end Mercedes and got a whiff of freshly showered male and expensive aftershave. Oh, Lord.
Her stomach flipped once…hard…and she clasped her hands in her lap, her feet planted on the floor and her spine plumb-line straight.
The atmosphere in the car was as frigid as a January Wyoming morning. Trent turned the satellite radio to a news station, and they managed to complete the entire journey in total silence.
He let her out in front of the Pendleton store. “I’ve got some business to attend to. Can you entertain yourself for an hour or so?”
She sketched a salute. “Yes, sir. I’ll be right here at six o’clock.”
His jaw went even harder than before, and his tires squealed as he pulled away from the curb.
Bryn’s brief show of defiance drained away, and her bottom lip trembled. Why couldn’t Trent let the past stay in the past? Why couldn’t they start over as friends?
She picked out Mac’s beautiful Native American–patterned blanket in no time, and visited a few more of the shops down the street, managing to select gifts for her aunt and for Allen. A friendly shopkeeper offered to stow Bryn’s bulky packages until Trent returned, so Bryn took the opportunity to stretch her legs.
Back in Minnesota she and Beverly and Allen walked each evening when the weather was nice. The two women enjoyed the exercise, and it was good for Allen to use up some of his energy before bedtime.
Bryn missed her baby. He hated it when she called him that. He was five and would be starting kindergarten in the fall. She wasn’t ready. Maybe because it pointed out the fact that he wouldn’t always need her. He’d go off to college and meet some scary girl who would take him away for good.
She laughed softy at her own maudlin thoughts. She was twenty-four years old. She was two semesters away from finishing a degree in communications, and as soon as she was able to return home, she would fall back into her familiar, comfortable routine. She had her whole life ahead of her.
So why did she feel despondent?
The answer was simple. She wanted Trent to trust her. To ensure Allen’s future, she had no choice but to insist on a paternity test. But everything inside her rebelled at that thought. She didn’t want a litigious battle with the Sinclair family.
She wanted Mac, Trent, Gage and Sloan to admit that she was one of them, blood or not. She wanted an apology. She wanted to see more in Trent’s face than suspicion and anger.
Her daddy used to say, “Men in prison want out.” So what?
She was sitting on a bench, packages tucked beside her, when Trent returned. Without speaking, he got out, opened the trunk and waited for her to put her shopping spoils inside.
Then he faced her across the roof of the car, his expression stoic. “Where would you like to eat?”
Bryn’s temper had a long fuse, but his manner was insulting. She glared at him. “There’s a sandwich shop on the corner. We can grab something and eat on the way home…so we don’t waste any time.”
Her sarcasm hit the mark. He opened his mouth and shut it again, displeasure marking his patrician features. “Fine.”
Twenty minutes later, they were on the road. Bryn chewed a turkey sandwich that felt like sand in her mouth. Finally, she gave up and wrapped most of it in the waxed paper and stuffed it in the bag.
Trent had finished his without fanfare and was sipping coffee and staring out the windshield in the dwindling light. Encountering large wildlife on the road was always a hazard, but Trent was a careful driver and Bryn felt perfectly safe with him.
She chewed her lip, wishing she could go back in time and erase every stupid thing she’d ever done. Including the day she invited Trent to take her to the prom. Trent had said no, of course. Bryn had cried her eyes out behind the barn, and Jesse had come along to comfort her.
In retrospect, she suspected Jesse’s motive, even from that first moment, had been troublemaking.
When the silence in the car became unbearably oppressive, Bryn put her hand on Trent’s sleeve. “I’m really sorry about Jesse. I know you loved him very much.” She felt the muscles in his forearm tense, so she took her hand away. Apparently even brief contact with her disgusted him.
Trent drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, his profile bleak. “I still can’t believe it. He was such a good kid.”
“You weren’t around him much in the last several years, though. He changed a lot.”
“What do you mean?” The words were sharp.
“Didn’t you wonder why he never graduated from college?”
“Dad said he had trouble settling on a major. He was restless and confused. So he switched schools several times. Apparently he decided he wanted to get more involved with the ranch.”
Bryn groaned inwardly. It was worse than she thought. Mac clearly must have known about Jesse’s problems, but apparently he had done a bang-up job of keeping that information from his other three sons.
Did Bryn have the right to dispel the myths?
She thought of little Allen, and the answer was clear.
“Trent—” she sighed “—Jesse got kicked out of four universities for excessive drinking and drug use. Your father finally made him come home to keep an eye on him.”
The car swerved, the brakes screeched and Bryn’s seat belt cut into her chest as Trent slammed the car to a halt at the side of the road. He punched on the overhead light and turned to face her. “How dare you try to smear my brother’s memory…. You have no right.” His dark eyes flashed, and the curve of his sensual lips was tight.
She wouldn’t back down, not now. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I really am. But Mac has done you a disservice. Perhaps you could have helped if you had known.”
Trent’s laser gaze would have ripped her in half if she hadn’t known in her heart she was doing the right thing. Pain etched his face, along with confusion and remorse, and a seldom-seen, heart-wrenching vulnerability—at least not by Bryn.
He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re lying again. How would you know anything about Jesse?”
Denial was a normal stage of grief. But Bryn held firm. “I’m not lying,” she said calmly. “Jesse called me a couple or three times a year. And every time it was the same. He was either drunk or high. He’d ramble on about how he wanted me to come back to Wyoming.”
“If you’re telling the truth, it’s even worse. He might have wanted to make a family with you and the baby, even if it wasn’t his.”
“Focus, Trent. He didn’t know what he was saying half the time. If anything, he wanted to use me and Allen to win points with Mac…to help cover his ass after whatever new trouble he’d gotten himself into.”
“Jesse loved children.”
“Jesse offered me money to get an abortion,” she said flatly. “He said he had big plans for his life and they didn’t include a baby…or me for that matter. That’s why I ran into Mac’s study that day so upset. I thought Mac would talk some sense into him.”
Trent’s face was white. He didn’t say a word.
“But instead,” she said, grimacing at the quiver she heard in her own voice, “Mac put me on a plane to Minnesota.”
Please, please, please believe me.
He shrugged. “With your talent for drama, you might have a career on the silver screen.”
His flippant words hurt, but they were no more than she expected. He’d been fed a pack of lies, all right. But not by Bryn.
She sighed. “Ask Mac,” she begged. “Make him tell you the truth.”
Trent shook his head slowly. “My father nearly died. He’s grieving over the loss of his son. No way in hell am I going to upset him with your wild accusations.”
She slumped back in her seat and turned her head so he wouldn’t see her cry. “Well, then—we’re at an impasse. Take me home. I want to see how Mac is doing.”
She didn’t know what she expected from Trent. But he gave her nothing. Nothing at all. His face closed up. He started the engine.