The horses neighed and stomped in greeting the minute Eli walked into the barn.
“Hello to you, too,” he murmured, running his hands over Phineas’s star, pulling on his forelock. Lucky snorted and danced in the next stall, and it broke his heart to be leaving her here.
“You’ll miss me, won’t you?” he murmured. A lifetime spent in this barn and this deaf old horse might be the only creature to care when he left.
Didn’t say much for his life up to this point.
He heard the scrape of feet against the hard-packed ground and his stomach flinched in sudden dread. Victoria. It had to be. But when he turned, it was the little boy standing there in rain boots that came up to his knobby knees.
“I’m sorry.” Jacob wrapped his hands in the hem of his own shirt, and Lucky stomped and shook her head in reaction to the boy’s agitation.
“What are you sorry for?” Eli asked, scratching behind Lucky’s ears just the way she liked. The horse immediately calmed, but the boy still vibrated with emotion. Down the way, Darling stomped her feet. Jacob was worse than a storm when it came to agitating the horses.
“I got you fired.”
Eli smiled sadly at the boy. “No, kid, you didn’t. Getting fired was all my doing.”
“But I knew my mom would be angry if I rode that horse and I did it anyway, and I tried to tell her but she wouldn’t listen and then she fired you and—”
Eli stepped up and put his hand on Jacob’s head, which was so little that his thumb and fingers touched the boy’s ears. His silky hair, so like his mother’s, sprouted up between Eli’s fingers. “Not your fault.”
The boy hung his head. “I’m still sorry,” he whispered.
For a second Eli thought about warning the boy about the dangers of taking on other people’s crimes, about guilt and the burden over the years, but in the end he just gave Jacob’s head a little wag and let go of him.
“You taking all the horses?” Jacob asked, jogging to keep up with him as he made his way to the office.
“Phineas, Patience, Darling, and Buddy.”
“What about Lucky?”
“Not my horse.”
“Who is going to take care of her?” Jacob gasped as if Eli were abandoning the horse on the side of the road.
Eli smiled down at the kid. Maybe he was putting off leaving this place, or putting off going to see Victoria, or maybe he was taking a minute to do something good. Which was practically a trend with him at this point.
“How about you?” he asked.
“Me?” The boy lit up like a bonfire.
“Jerry will handle him, keep him clean. But you’re going to need to feed him.”
“Oh … okay.”
“I’ll show you what to do.”
Ruby put a bowl of her yogurt and grapes sprinkled with granola in front of Victoria and waited for the verdict, a smug smile on her pink lip-glossed lips.
“I think this is the best granola yet,” said Celeste, who was sitting beside her at the counter.
Victoria tasted the granola and agreed. Filled with pumpkin seeds and dried cherries, it was crunchy and delicious. After that first considering bite, she dug in with gusto. Torrid dreams and shamefaced masturbation gave her an appetite.
“Where’s Jacob?” she asked.
Celeste sighed. “I don’t understand why all of a sudden you want to talk with your mouth full.”
“He went into the barn,” Ruby said, looking out the sliding glass door. “Eli’s there, picking up his horses.”
Victoria’s throat locked down like a prison. She pushed the grapes away.
“Already?”
“His truck and trailer are out by the barn.” Ruby pointed vaguely toward the front of the house.
“Amy is coming this morning to bid on the project. Any minute,” Celeste said, making notes in the calendar at her elbow.
Ruby turned, staring at them wide-eyed and horrified.
“Is that … a problem?” Victoria asked, though she could feel the answer in the air.
“Amy hasn’t been back on this ranch since she left, when Eli was eight,” Ruby said.
Victoria’s stomach twisted, those pumpkin seeds turning into heavy clumps in her throat. “Because Eli always goes to see her in Dallas? Because despite her leaving they have always had a loving and close relationship?” She sounded delusionally hopeful. Perhaps she should have pushed Ruby for more information about Amy Turnbull, but she’d just been so excited about getting a woman down here to look at the project.
“As far as I know, Eli hasn’t talked to his mother since she left.”
There was a stunned moment of silence before Victoria and Celeste scattered into action.
“I’ll call her and see if I can’t change the time,” Celeste said.
“I’ll go get Eli off the property,” Victoria added. She pushed her feet into her boots and grabbed a sweater from the rack by the door.
“Victoria?” It was Ruby, her tiny body casting a long shadow down the hallway. “Don’t tell him about his mom. I don’t think—”
“He’d like knowing the mother who left him was coming back to help turn his beloved ranch into a spa?” Hiring Eli’s mother would be a mistake, and she never should have went along with it. Celeste had tried to talk her out of bringing Amy in for an interview, but she hadn’t listened. Bringing Amy here was only going to hurt everyone.
“No.” Ruby shook her head. “I don’t think he’d like it.”
“You think?” Victoria slammed the door behind her as she headed out into the morning, determined not to think of that kiss, or her own hand between her legs.
Or what happens to a little boy when his mother leaves him and never comes back.
chapter
9
The barn was
warm and it smelled like horse poop and hay to Victoria, bitter and sweet all at once. A few months here and that smell suddenly wasn’t so bad. Imagine that. Poop didn’t smell so bad anymore.
Eli came around the corner from the office, a white bucket filled with feed in his hands, and beside him was her son, skipping to keep up.
They didn’t see her and she watched as Eli poured the feed from the bucket into a black canvas bucket thing hanging in front of a horse’s stall. A white horse pushed her nose against Jacob, who looked up at Eli as if he were telling him state secrets.
“Now, Lucky is a pig,” Eli said. “If she gets into the grain she’ll eat herself sick. Or worse.”
“Worse?”
“I had a pony once, got into the grain and ate until she died.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Wish to God I was. But that’s what you’ve got to remember. Hay is fine, but grain once a day.” Jacob nodded sagely and Eli kept talking, giving Jacob instructions on what to feed the barn cats and how to keep the dogs away from the manure pile.
Jacob listened carefully, trying so hard to seem older, responsible, all while his eyes glittered with gratitude
that this man was taking him seriously, treating him like a person rather than a little boy or an afterthought.
And Eli recognized his gratitude and his need. And he handled it with sure hands.
Victoria stepped backwards into the shadows of an empty stall and pushed her fist against the pounding of her heart.
Not fair
, she thought. Not fair that he could be so kind to her son and so awful to her.
Not fair that he could be exactly what her son secretly needed and what she so secretly desired.
She pressed her head against the splintered wood of the barn wall, her hair catching in the wood, pulling just enough that tears sprung to her eyes.
Since when is life fair?
she told herself.
You of all people know that fairness is a fairy tale
.
And that man isn’t what any of us needs. Not really
.
“Which is why,” she murmured, “you fired him.”
With that battle cry in her heart, she stepped out into the open, making enough noise so that both Jacob and Eli turned to look at her.
Jacob, bless his heart, managed to look both guilty and defiant, as if she’d caught him hanging out with the wrong crowd again. Which, in a way, wasn’t far off.
Eli dropped his hands to his sides and for a moment she got the impression that he was unguarded. Revealed.
So she looked away from him, because her X-rated dreams had made her feel foolish enough. She didn’t need to add X-rated daydreams.
“Eli’s showing me how to feed the animals,” Jacob said.
“That’s great.”
“I’m just picking up my horses,” Eli added.
She glanced at him. “I know.”
Looking at him was a mistake, because once their eyes had met, she couldn’t turn away. He wore his regret like a neon sign.
Asshole Eli was far easier to deny, far easier to push aside. With contrite Eli, it wasn’t going to be so easy.
“Jacob.” Eli cleared his throat. “Could you give your mom and me a second? We’ve got some business to figure out.”
“Sure. Will …” Jacob blinked up at the cowboy, not even sparing her a sideways glance. “Will I see you again?”
“I, ah …” Eli shot her a panicked look and she kept her face neutral. He had started this hero-worship; he could figure his own way out of it. She’d been the bad guy enough in Jacob’s life. “I don’t know, Jacob.”
The honesty surprised her. Joel had told Jacob lie after lie about birthday parties and trips to the park that he had no intention of being around for.
“But … but what if Lucky gets in the grain? Or Boots gets into the manure pile? What do I do?”
Eli’s smile was breathtaking. Small and slightly unsure of its welcome, it barely flirted with his full lips. “You call me,” he said, “and I’ll come on over to help.”
Jacob used his whole body to sigh with relief, and Victoria couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s good,” Jacob said and then to her surprise he put out his hand. “Bye, Eli.”
After a long moment Eli slowly shook the boy’s hand and she refused, absolutely refused, to be moved by Eli’s surprise. By the softening around his mouth. That he was touched by Jacob’s good manners was nothing to her.
“Ruby’s got breakfast waiting,” she said, pushing her son out the door.
One last wave over his shoulder and Jacob was trotting out of the arena. Within seconds of his departure she wished he were back. Because now it was just Eli’s green eyes staring at her across the aisle, shrinking the world down to the two of them.
Her skin remembered with terrible clarity the warmth
of his hand on her breast. The way his body felt against hers, hard and solid. Strong. Like he knew exactly how to bend her and lift her and hold her so he could screw her into oblivion.
She’d never been screwed into oblivion. It would have been novel.
Where
, she asked herself,
is your pride?
“You have everything you need?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I’ve made sure the accountant will pay you until the end of the month.”
“Victoria—”
“You’ve been, if not loyal, at least here for the last fifteen years. I figured it was fair.”
“Fair.” He laughed and then shook his head, but offered nothing else on the subject.
She bit her lip to keep from asking what he meant. She liked to collect thoughts on fairness, add them to her library, and his would have been interesting.
“Look, Victoria—”
This was it. The apology. The apology she was going to hurl back in his face. She lifted her chin and drew her sweater tighter around her chest, as if that could protect her from the embarrassment of wanting so badly a man who just wanted to punish her.
“The breeding equipment in the far stall—”
Her ears buzzed. “Breeding equipment?”
He stepped closer and she shifted back, determined to keep him as far away as possible.
At her sidestep, he stopped on a dime, his hands in fists.
“What about it?” she asked, pleased that her voice was firm.
“You have a phantom, four different ultrasounds. A chute, a couple of boxes of gloves and inseminators. Some other odds and ends.”
This was all news to her. And mostly Greek. Phantoms? But she wasn’t about to look the fool in front of him again.
“What about them?”
“I’d like to buy them. I can give you a fair price—”
She laughed. She laughed right at him and his cheeks got red, his eyes started to glitter. She didn’t know whether he was angry or embarrassed, and she didn’t care.
“Fair? You? Excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
He wiped a hand over his mouth. “That wasn’t … I wasn’t always like that.”
“A bastard?”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You remember.”
She swallowed, her body cold and then hot. “If you’re talking about what happened in the arena—”
“I’m talking about when we were kids.”
Uncomfortable, off her stride, she ran a hand down the front of her shirt, feeling the edges of the buttons like they were stones. It calmed her down, counting those seven buttons. Seven deep breaths. Seven steps back toward control.
“You don’t remember?” His voice was rough. As if her not remembering those summers when they were kids hurt his feelings.
“You were nice to me when we were kids. But that doesn’t excuse what you’ve done since then. I don’t know what’s happened to you over the years, Eli, but the boy I knew … I don’t see much of him in you anymore.”
For years in her other life, she’d lived on innuendo, backhanded compliments, letting rumors do the hard work for her in terms of letting people know how she felt about them. Telling Eli he was an ass, straight and plain, filled her with both anxiety and elation. She felt mean and righteous both at once.
“Me neither.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and her heart dipped in reaction to the very real regret in his eyes.
Eli was a big man—tall and lean through the waist but wide in the shoulders—but right now he seemed small. Diminished.
“You can call around, find out what I should pay you for that equipment.”
“I’ll do that.”
The silence buzzed, growing louder until she wanted to scream just to break the tension, but she didn’t. She glued her mouth shut and just stared right back at him until he finally broke eye contact.
As he glanced around at the high windows and stable doors, she sucked in a breath to calm her heart rate. Unclenched her cramping fists.