Rand had gotten up to feed and gone right back to bed. By the time Thursday night rolled around, the whole town was abuzz that the newlyweds had gotten into some kind of row and were no longer living together.
Rand was curled up on the couch with a plate of nachos, Scout hanging over her shoulder, both watching the movie Serenity, when Red came walking through the door.
Rand glared at him. “What happened to your new knocking habit? I was growing fond of it.”
“I came by to check on you.” Red’s narrowed gaze drifted from the nachos to her disheveled, puffy appearance. “I’m going to kick his ass and drop him in the swamp. He’s gator food.”
Rand set her nachos down on the coffee table and promptly burst into tears. She felt Red’s weight on the couch before he wrapped her up against him. “Honestly, I told him that if he hurt you, we were going to have it out.”
She sniffled and hiccupped. “He’s your best friend.”
“So are you.” He squeezed her.
“You like him better,” she argued.
“No, I fight with him less, but I share more with you.” He nudged her, and she looked up at his smiling face. “You’re the glue, Rand. Jake and I could have ended up not being friends after that thing with Candace Seasons in eighth grade.”
Rand snorted. “You were both being idiots.”
“Yeah, but if it hadn’t been for you, we might not all be friends. And let’s be honest, you know if that fight had gone the other way, you would have taken my side.”
She smiled. “At this point, I’m going to go with yes.”
“But not just because Jake is acting like a giant douche, right?” Red said teasingly.
“No, not just because of that,” she said, her laugh sounding slightly soggy.
Silence stretched between them for a minute before Red asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
She laid her head against the back of the couch. “No.”
“Then do you want to know a secret?” he asked, smiling brightly.
She turned her head to the side and said unenthusiastically, “Sure.”
His eyes gleamed. “I wrote a novel.”
She lifted her head and her eyebrow. “You?”
He looked affronted. “Hey, I’ll have you know I am pretty kick-ass at English and writing. Got A’s every term except for that one I had mono.”
“Okay, so what kind of book is it?”
He blushed as he muttered, “Romance.”
She started laughing; she couldn’t help it. “Really? What’s it called?”
He was blushing so hard, his skin matched his hair. “Kiss Me Again. It’s about a girl who has loved her best friend forever, and he’s never seen her like that. Then, just when she starts seeing someone else, he realizes he loves her.”
She lost her laughter and tried to temper the sadness the description brought her. “That’s great. So are you going to have it published?”
“I sent it off a few weeks ago to several publishers. Just waiting to hear back.”
“That is amazing. I am so proud of you.” Rand stood up. “Well, this calls for a drink. Want a beer?”
Red followed her into the kitchen and took the beer she offered. She popped her beer and held it up to his. “Here’s to my best friend, Alfred Reginald Calhoun, becoming a best-selling author and changing the world, one throbbing member at a time.”
Red laughed, and they drank. Red held his beer up and said, “And here’s to you and Jake. May he stop being a fucking idiot and come crawling back to beg forgiveness. Without an ass whoopin’.”
Rand took a drink of her beer, trying to hide her wince. She missed the idiot, so much it was killing her not to find him and beg him to come back. She wasn’t going to do it, though. Whatever else she might have believed in the past, she knew that she wasn’t going to settle for less than the love Earl and her mother had, and she definitely wasn’t going to subject herself to a one-sided love.
“You want to watch Serenity?” She wasn’t really in the mood for company, but left alone, she might cave and call Jake.
“Hell, yeah, I love that movie.”
Rand followed Red into the living room to watch the movie, but it didn’t feel right without Jake’s arms around her.
* * *
“I raised you better than this!”
Jake woke up bleary-eyed with a pounding head from too much whisky the night before, only to find the shouting Harrington wasn’t a nightmare but his own sweet mother.
“Jesus, Mom—”
Smack! His mother hit him full in the face with a pillow so hard, it stung.
“First of all, you do not take the Lord’s name in vain, and second, can you explain why you are in your old apartment instead of at home with your wife?”
The last thing Jake wanted to talk about at—Christ, six thirty in the fucking morning—was Rand. “We just had a fight, it will be fine.”
He started to lay back down, but she hit him again. “Oh no, you get your ass out of this bed and into that shower, young man. What you need is a little perspective and a whole lot of God’s grace.”
Jake looked his mother square in the eye and snapped, “The only thing I’m doing this morning is sleeping, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone is going to say to change that.”
Turning his back on her was his first mistake. He had barely closed his eyes before he was doused with a bucket of ice water, and when he flew out of bed, coughing and spluttering, he wiped the water from his face and shouted, “Get the hell out, Mom!”
Instead of listening, his short, kindhearted mother sent him the same terrifying expression that had made him race to do her bidding as a kid. Now, he just found it mildly irritating.
“Jacob Michael, I want you to remember something. I brought you into this world, I can take you out, and there is a special place in hell for boys who don’t respect their mothers.”
Jake stomped toward the bathroom and slammed the door.
“And be sure to shave! I’m not letting you leave the house looking like an unkempt heathen.”
* * *
“I’m not talking about it, Earl, so just mind your own business.”
“It is my business when that lily-livered dog has you crying so hard, you look as puffy as a marshmallow that done sat on the fire too long.”
Rand was sitting at Earl’s kitchen table with a mountainous plate of pie and ice cream, glaring at him.
“Hey, I’m just stating facts. You look like hell, and I don’t like it.”
Shoving a massive bite into her mouth, she ignored his prodding. The last thing she needed was Earl getting involved in her marriage and making things worse than they already were.
* * *
Jake kept trying to drum up the nerve to drop by and see Rand, but he was afraid she’d simply slam the door in his face.
Granted, it wasn’t the first time Rand had kicked him out of her house or even told him to go to hell, but it was the first time he’d ever felt like she meant it.
He wanted to apologize. He’d missed her like crazy, lying in his old bed and thinking about her soft body curled into his. He missed kissing her awake in the morning and having her bat at him and grumble. But when she finally opened her eyes and they focused on him, she’d give him this sleepy smile…
Jake saw Earl standing in front of the store, pacing angrily at 7:00 a.m. on a Monday, and knew he was in trouble.
“Howdy, Earl! What brings you?” He tried to sound casual, but the narrow-eyed rage he saw on the older man’s face took him back a step.
Earl marched forward and growled, “I warned you what would happen if you hurt that girl.”
Jake, on the defensive, said, “I don’t know what Rand told you, but…”
Earl cut him off. “She didn’t tell me anything, but I could tell she was miserable by looking at her. I’ve known her since she was a little sprout, and the girl could never hide when she was hurting.”
Jake relaxed. “We just had a little argument.”
“A little argument that has you sleeping away from home instead of on your own couch? Must have been some spat to keep you away from your own wife for six days.”
Jake gritted his teeth and ground out, “It’s between Rand and me, Earl, not you.”
Earl didn’t back down, not that Jake thought he would, but damn it, he didn’t want to be arguing with the man in the front of his store. “Look, Earl, I’m going to go home and talk to Rand tonight. I just needed a couple of days on my own.”
Earl snorted. “Next time I see her, she better be happy, or you and I are going to have it out.”
With that parting comment, Earl walked to his old beat-up truck and roared off, leaving Jake in a worse mood than he’d already been in.
The bell on the door rang, and Kim walked into the store, carrying a paper bag. Her pretty face was stretched into a wide smile as she set the bag down. “Hey there, Jake. I just came by to bring you some lunch. Thought maybe you could use a little comfort food since you and Miranda are having problems.”
He didn’t buy her innocent, sweet act for a minute and cursed the loose-tongued gossips in this town. “Thanks, Kim, but I’m actually fine. And so are Miranda and I.”
She reached out and patted his arm sympathetically. “Of course, Jake, you are such a good man. I can’t imagine it’s easy being married to Miranda.”
Jake reached up to yank her hand off his arm and caught movement out the window. Rand stood on the sidewalk, looking in at the two of them. She met his eye through the glass and gave him a disgusted look before she turned away.
* * *
Rand heard Jake yell her name from inside the store, but she didn’t want to look at him. He’d been gone for six days, and while she’d been miserable and missing him like crazy, he’d been getting back to his old self.
She grabbed for the door handle of her truck, and a very male hand slammed down on the window. She could feel the warmth of Jake’s lean body against her back. “Rand, it’s not what you think. She stopped by, and I was just getting ready to tell her to leave. You know I can’t stand Kim.”
She let go of the handle and gathered her pride, as tattered as it was, and turned to him. His green eyes looked so sad, she wanted to believe him. Wanted to so badly.
Fool me once…
She steeled herself and said as casually as she could muster, “I really don’t care, Jake. Do whatever you want, but it was your idea to help me keep the Double C. I’m going to need you to come back to the ranch and live there, like we planned. I don’t want the gossip to spread to Mr. Cranston that we aren’t following my granddaddy’s wishes and have all this be for nothing.”
He dropped his arm from the car. “I wanted to apologize for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I was just…”
“I don’t really care, Jake, okay? I just want to get through the next year without a hitch. We’ll just try to stay out of each other’s way.”
He grabbed her arm, and his voice was pleading. “Rand, that’s not what I want. I was just freaking out.”
“I know, Jake, but actually, it was probably a good thing all this happened. Otherwise, we would have gone on pretending that you wanted me and we were happy, and things would have just gotten more complicated.”
He grabbed her other arm and argued, “I do want you! I was happy! I’m still happy with you, I just didn’t want…”
She finished for him. “You didn’t want to stick around longer than you had to. I get it. Marriage with perks for a year, and then we get a divorce and go back to being just friends. That was the plan. But I can’t just go back to the way things were.”
“I am so sorry…”
She waved his apology off. “It’s fine. I’m trying to forget about it. But I hope you can respect the fact that I want to go back to my original plan for a marriage in name only.”
His eyes narrowed, and his face turned purple. “You want to just pretend what we had never happened?”
She hoped she was giving him a blank expression when she answered, “Yes, that’s what I want.”
“What about what I want? I handled everything badly, Rand, I know that. I fucked up big-time, but can’t you forgive me?”
Fool me once…
She shook off his hands and reached for the door again. “I forgive you. But I can’t just go back. Sex just complicates things, and we promised Red we’d leave this thing as friends.”
She was just getting inside when he asked, “Are we still friends?”
She couldn’t look at him or he’d see the tears she was trying to hold back. “I don’t know.”
He didn’t stop her from closing the door to her truck and driving back to the Double C, and a part of her wished he had yanked the door open, pulled her off the seat, and kissed her into submission.
* * *
Later that night, he came back to the ranch, and she lay in her bed, listening to him come through the door and walk down the hall. She waited for him to try the door, come inside, and beg her again to change her mind.
He paused outside her room for a minute before she heard his footsteps retreat back to her granddaddy’s room. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t even tried.
Her brain believed her, but her heart didn’t. She rolled away from the door and cried herself into a fitful sleep.
* * *
Jake and Rand fell into a routine of avoidance, him leaving early and getting home late. She made sure to get in bed when she heard his truck pull up and didn’t get out of bed until she heard him leave.
She missed him, and the whole situation wasn’t working. It didn’t make her love go away, it just made her heart ache worse. She had been reduced to one of those whimpering simpletons who cried at everything and buried their sorrows in junk food after a breakup. She used to laugh at those characters on sitcoms and movies, and the girls in town were worse.
Oh, how the mocking had fallen.
On Friday, Jamie and Tabitha showed up on her porch at six, and Tabitha yelled, “Surprise! We’re kidnapping you!”
The last thing Rand wanted to do was hang out with anyone, and she said tiredly, “Sorry, guys, I’m not really in the mood.”
Jamie, decked out in a schoolgirl skirt and a black tank top, shook her head. “Too bad, you’re coming. You need to get out of this house and have a little fun. No one has seen you in a week.”
“I’m hibernating.” Her growl matched the statement.
Tabitha pushed past her, ignoring her intimidation attempt. “You are not going to mope because Jake is an idiot.”
Jamie passed her and handed her a white pastry bag. Okay, so maybe they could come in for a minute. “What makes you think Jake did something?”
Tabitha snorted. “Because he’s a man, and men are stupid.”
Jamie chimed in as she dropped some bags on the couch, “And she heard Red tearing his ear off on the phone for being an asshole.”
Rand stuffed a bite of pastry in her mouth to hide her smile. She loved the big loyal ox.
Tabitha started rummaging through the bags. “So we’re going to give him something to be really sorry about. Aha!”
She pulled out a red halter top and grinned, “Nothing gets a man to heal faster than other men sniffing around his woman.”
“That looks cold.” Rand swallowed the last bite and shook her head. “And besides, I don’t want to bring him to heel. I don’t want anything from him.”
The other women looked at each other, and Jamie said, “I kind of got the feeling you loved Jake.”
Rand grimaced. “What made you think something so stupid?”
Tabitha laughed. “’Cause for a while there, you were fun to be around. Mellow and even nice. Only love can make you want to be better.”
Rand scowled. “If I’m so intolerable, then why are you guys here?”
Tabitha pulled out a short jean skirt and shoved that and the halter at her. “’Cause the three of us have something in common to bitch about. Men.”
Jamie grabbed her arm and added, “And despite your best efforts to be ornery, we like you.”
Rand let her drag her down to her bedroom, and Tabitha ordered, “Go take a shower, and be sure to shave your legs.”
“Where are you taking me?” Rand asked as she was pushed toward her bathroom. “And you are freaking nuts if you think I’m wearing this!”
She caught Tabitha’s and Jamie’s evil grins and swallowed. Hard.
* * *
Jake sat at the same table he always did with Rand and Red, drinking his beer and trying to wind down. He couldn’t relax, though, when both his friends were missing.
Red had given him an earful yesterday and called him every name under the sun before hanging up on him. And he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Rand since their little talk at her truck. He’d managed to stay away long enough so he wouldn’t see her standing in the kitchen, her ponytail swaying as she made dinner. He’d been able to avoid having to smell the steam from her shower, the aroma of peaches enough to make him say to hell with her wishes and storm her defenses. And he’d even resisted the urge to knock on her door and beg her to let him in.
An idiot he might be, but he wasn’t so stupid he didn’t realize what had happened. He’d fallen in love with Rand.
He never thought he’d feel this way about being with a woman, but with Rand, it had been easy. And the thought of spending the next eleven months in the same house with her and never touching her again was looking more impossible by the day.
Red sat down across from him with a beer in his hand. “Hey ya, buddy.”
Jake lifted his brow. “Hey, thought you weren’t talking to me.”
Red shrugged and replied, “What’s the point in being mad at you for being you?”
Jake glared at Red. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”
Red took a long pull of his beer and asked, “So you wanna grab a twelve-pack and head over to the ranch, watch a movie?”
Jake looked at his watch and shook his head. “Rand doesn’t go to bed for another hour.”
Red scoffed. “So? She’s not home anyway.”
Unease settled over Jake as he asked, “How do you know that?”
“Ran into Tabitha as she was leaving. She and Jamie were going to take her out for a girl’s night.”
Jake snorted. “Yeah, ’cause Rand’s going to be into that.”
“You never know. Maybe she wants to avoid you just as badly as you want to avoid her.”
Jake snapped, “I don’t want to avoid her, but I’m not going to pretend we’re just friends or roommates living together and sit around talking about bills and the weather.”
Red’s face was blank as he asked, “Well, what do you want to talk about?”
Jake glared at him. “None of your damn business.”
Red grinned at him. “Now doesn’t that sound just like your wife? It’s too bad you guys hit such a rough patch, ’cause if I know Tabby, she’s probably going to drag Rand out to a club in a tube top.”
Jake’s body heated with rage at the picture in his mind of his wife dancing with a bunch of groping, grinding, handsy… “Can you call your sister and find out where they are?”
Red grinned as he whipped out his phone. “I was hoping you’d ask.”