Kiss Me (Fool's Gold series) (13 page)

Phoebe sighed. “I wanted to check my sleeping bag one more time. I’m missing an earring.”

“Is it shiny?”

“Of course. You’re going to tell me it’s raccoons, aren’t you? I’ve already heard about them. The thing is, if they took my earring, should I go ahead and leave them the other one so they have a matched set?”

One corner of Zane’s mouth twitched as he pictured a raccoon with Phoebe’s earrings dangling fashionably.

“It’s your call,” Chase said.

“I want to make sure I keep my cell phone tucked away. With my luck, it would be taken by a raccoon family with relatives in Madagascar.”

Chase laughed. “Come on. I’ll help you look for your earring.”

Zane turned to tell his brother that he would take care of that and that Chase could move on to another tent, but just then Maya strolled up. She reached for his mug and took it from him. After draining it, she handed it back.

“So how’s the head cowboy this morning?” she asked. “Are we dealing with friendly Zane or crabby Zane?”

He poured more coffee. “I’m always friendly.”

“If only that were true.”

There was something about her words and the way she didn’t look at him as she spoke that got to him. He sighed. “I never disliked you.”

“Wow. Talk about a compliment. Wait. Don’t say anything for a second. I want to feel the love.” She dramatically clasped her hands together over her heart, then shrugged and dropped them to her sides. “Sorry. I know you didn’t hate me or anything. You were very generous in your tolerance. You tolerated me and you tolerated my mother. Not that I blame you for that. She was obviously in it for the money.”

Zane didn’t know what to say. Maya’s mother had been a Las Vegas showgirl when Zane’s father had met and married her.

“It wasn’t all her fault,” he told Maya. “My father never loved her. He shouldn’t have married her.”

“I don’t know. Their marriage might have been hell, but I enjoyed my time on the ranch.”

Zane remembered a gawky blonde blossoming into a beautiful young woman. Maya had been the sort of serious, responsible child flaky parents often produce. She’d ignored the neighboring young men, had concentrated on her studies and spent all her spare afternoons with Chase.

The summer after she’d graduated from high school, things had changed. She’d fallen for a local guy, then had bailed on all of them when she’d headed off to college.

He passed her the mug. She took it and held it between her hands.

“Your father expected you to run things, but he wouldn’t let you make any decisions,” she said, looking at him over the steam. “I remember a lot of teeth grinding on your part.”

Chase and Phoebe laughed about something. Maya turned to watch them. “He’s growing up.”

Zane was aware of that. “His stunts are getting worse.”

“He’ll always be a handful, but you’ve done a good job with him. He’s going to be a good man.”

Zane wasn’t sure about that—not yet. But if it was in his power, he would make sure Chase didn’t have to live with the bitterness of too many regrets.

“’Morning, folks,” Gladys said as she crossed the camp. She collected mugs for herself and her best friend, then poured coffee for both of them. There was a slight tremor in her hand, but overall, the two elderly women seemed sprightly despite the early hour and the long day yesterday.

“Fine morning,” Eddie said with a smile. “There’s nothing like sleeping in the outdoors.”

Maya stretched. “I don’t know. There’s something to be said for a feather bed and heated towels.”

The two kids raced into the clearing, with C.J. and Thad trailing after them. Andrea and Martin followed.

“Chow’s on,” Cookie yelled as he banged on the large triangle bell he’d brought with him. “Get it while it’s as hot as these two hot young things.” He winked at Eddie and Gladys.

People jostled for position. Zane stepped out of the way. He told himself he was being polite, but he was also watching to see exactly when Chase and Phoebe emerged from the close confines of her tent.

Ten seconds later, Chase popped out, shaking his head. Phoebe followed, looking defeated. Zane took that to mean that they’d been unable to find her earring. His gut churned at the thought of them looking together, heads bent close, arms touching.

He stalked over to the wagon and grabbed a plate, then took his place in line.

Andrea was up in front. Cookie held a ladle full of scrambled eggs over her plate. His dark expression warned there would be trouble if she refused. Martin—apparently smarter than his wife—nudged her elbow so that her plate shot toward the grumpy old cook.

“We love eggs,” Martin said. “I have to say that so far the food has been really delicious.”

Cookie grunted and scooped more eggs for his plate, then thrust out two platters. One was covered with bacon and sausage, the other had flaky biscuits. Andrea blanched at the sight of so much animal flesh in one place. She took a couple of biscuits and stumbled away. Martin hesitated.

“Bacon’s real good,” Cookie said with a sly wink. “It’s the real thing. Lean and tasty. Not like that store-bought crap you get in the city.”

Martin reached for the serving tongs. He’d nearly picked them up when Andrea’s voice cut through the morning. “Martin, what are you doing?”

Martin backed away as if faced by the devil himself. “Nothing. I’ll be right there.” He took three biscuits, then scurried toward the chairs.

The kids were next. They took some of everything Cookie offered. Thad took a plateful as well, but C.J. only wanted coffee. Eddie and Gladys pretended not to like Cookie’s flirting as they collected their breakfasts and walked toward the chairs. Maya moved up behind Zane.

“I want to be like them when I grow up,” she whispered.

Zane glanced at her. “A cougar?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. They’re not letting age stop them from doing anything. They’re still having adventures. I wonder if they get lonely sometimes.”

Zane saw the longing in Maya’s eyes. From his observation, she had always both yearned for and feared romantic love.

“If you’re lonely, find some guy and settle down,” he said.

“Oh, right.” She stepped in front of him and held out her plate to Cookie. “Because charming, sensitive types always fall for lady shark news producers.”

“You don’t want some sensitive man,” Cookie told her. “You want a real man.”

Maya laughed. “Not you, Cookie. You’re too much man for me. You’d plain wear me out.”

“That I would.”

Zane listened to their banter but didn’t join in. Unlike Maya, he didn’t want romantic love. Not because he mistrusted it, but because he knew what it did to a person. He’d grown up with parents who loved each other to the exclusion of all else, and he’d always felt like the third item on a list of two. Love wasn’t the great gift everyone claimed. Love isolated, and sometimes it even destroyed. From what he could see, it cost too much and didn’t offer enough in return. He’d spent his whole life avoiding love, and he had no plans to change.

CHAPTER TWELVE

P
HOEBE
DELIGHTED
IN
the beauty of the morning. A light breeze teased at her hair, the sounds of the birds provided a tinkling melody for the background beat that was the hooves of the cattle. Despite her relatively sleep-free night—erotic fondling and kissing by Zane did that to her—she felt happy, energized and alive. So when Rocky meandered toward C.J. and her horse, Phoebe didn’t pull him back into line, even though C.J. wasn’t the friendliest person on the cattle drive.

The two women rode next to each other for several minutes before Phoebe thought of something to say.

“Have you and your husband taken many foster children on vacation?” she asked.

C.J., a blonde woman in her early forties, shook her head. “We’ve never done anything like this before. We wouldn’t have except the people who had agreed to bring Tommy and Lucy on the cattle drive had a death in the family and were unable to go. Rather than let the kids be disappointed, we agreed to accompany them.”

Phoebe nodded. The words sounded fine, but there was something about her tone that wasn’t right. Was C.J. here out of obligation rather than preference? The thought made her feel sad.

“I grew up in foster care,” Phoebe told the other woman. “My parents died when I was seven. There wasn’t any family, so I became a ward of the state.”

C.J. looked at her. “You were never adopted?”

Phoebe shrugged. “It wasn’t like it is now. Prospective parents had no way to meet kids like me. For the first year, I was in shock over losing my folks. If anyone came around looking, I doubt I made a very good first impression.”

C.J. nodded. “We’ve seen some children like that. Their eyes are so sad. Do you remember your family?”

“Not as much as I would like. I have a few memories, some pictures. After a while, the kids I met in the various homes became my family.”

“Did you think about getting adopted?” C.J. asked.

“Sometimes. We’d talk about it. I knew my parents were dead, but other kids I’d met had just been abandoned. They would make up stories about what it would be like when their parents realized they’d made a mistake and came to get them. Even if we said we didn’t care, we all secretly wanted to belong to a family.”

Phoebe smiled sadly at the memory. “I wanted a big house with a couple of dogs and a cat that slept on my bed at night.” She’d imagined parents, too, but they’d been vague figures, and she’d always felt guilty—as if her emotional needs made her disloyal to her dead mother and father.

“The babies were never around long,” she continued. “A few of the toddlers were adopted, too, but the older kids never had a chance. I’ve heard that these days there are parties to introduce prospective parents to available children.”

“Thad and I have been to a few of those.” C.J. pushed up her sunglasses. “They’re so awkward and difficult. The children are on their best behavior and the adults...well, I’m not sure what they’re thinking. I just know Thad and I felt strange. As if we were shopping for a child. We met Lucy and Tommy at a park party a few months ago.”

“They seem like nice kids,” Phoebe said.

C.J.’s mouth tightened into a straight line. “They have some problems.”

No one could grow up in the foster-care system without having some scars, she thought, but didn’t say anything to C.J. The other woman was smart enough to have figured that out for herself.

“We can’t have children,” C.J. explained in a rush. She stared straight ahead as she spoke. “There’s something wrong with both of us. I couldn’t believe it when I found out. If only one of us had been the problem, we could have used in vitro fertilization or a surrogate mother, or something.”

“I’m sorry.” Phoebe didn’t know what else to say. The pain of not being able to have a child—she knew what it was like to feel separate and alone. Although C.J. did have Thad.

“Once we realized we wouldn’t be having a child of our own, we went the adoption route. Two days before we were approved, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That knocked us right off the list.” Her voice turned bitter. “Private adoption won’t work, either. No single mother wants her child raised by a woman who had cancer. So we decided to try foreign adoption.”

“What country?”

“Kazakhstan. We were supposed to get a little girl. She was about seven months old. But she got sick, and they wouldn’t let us go get her. While we waited, another couple went to get another child, who turned out to be our little girl’s brother. The agency gave them permission to take them both. Then the agency director was arrested on charges of accepting bribes. It’s been a mess.”

C.J. shrugged as if to say it didn’t matter, but Phoebe knew better. Nothing mattered more.

“Thad and I decided that we’ve had plenty of signs from the universe. We’re just not meant to have a child. We’re very happy together, and that’s going to be enough.”

Phoebe didn’t believe that for a second. She wanted to point out that Lucy and Tommy were right here and available to adopt. Or, if not them, then there were hundreds of other children desperate to belong. But she didn’t say anything. C.J. already knew. Maybe she was one of those women who felt she could only bond with a baby or a very young child.

“Considering all you’ve been through, it was really nice of you and your husband to agree to take care of Tommy and Lucy for the week.”

C.J. shook her head. “I didn’t want to.” She laughed harshly. “Don’t I sound like a bitch? But it’s true. Thad talked me into it. Now that we’re here,” she said as she glanced at Phoebe, “I tell myself that we’re doing something nice, and that’s a good thing. But I can’t help being angry about how unfair it all has been.”

Phoebe wanted to say it was unfair for the kids, too. None of them had asked to be orphaned. None of them had asked to be alone. She still remembered every birthday she’d spent after her parents had died. That had always been the worst day.

Oh, sure, there was a party, a cake and a few presents, but it wasn’t the same. There hadn’t been anyone to hold her and talk about the future and love her. There hadn’t been cards from grandparents and dinners with aunts and uncles. No older cousins had teased her, no younger cousins had gotten in the way. There hadn’t been any family at all. After all this time, that was still true for her.

* * *

L
ATE
THAT
MORNING
Phoebe found herself riding next to Zane. She wasn’t exactly sure how that had happened. Okay, maybe after they’d stopped for a bathroom break she might have maneuvered Rocky kind of close to Zane so that when they started out again, his was the horse Rocky followed. But she hadn’t been sure the plan would work. And now that she was bouncing along beside him, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say.

The day was still beautiful with clear skies and a slight nip in the air. She could smell the trees and caught occasional whiffs of cattle. Her butt hurt, but not enough to distract her from the pleasure of being so close to Zane. It was like being sixteen again and assigned to her crush’s study group. The afternoon practically crackled with possibilities.

She wondered if he was thinking about their kiss. Had he relived it over and over again, as she had? Not that there was a way to ask. She might find Zane a little more approachable than she had when she’d first met him, but he wasn’t exactly an open and friendly guy. Even if he was, she doubted she would be comfortable plopping down next to him and saying, “How about that kiss? Pretty amazing, huh?”

It had been amazing. Erotic, exciting, arousing and bone-melting. Kissing him didn’t just make her want to make love with him—although she was certainly becoming more open to the possibility—it made her want to get to know him. She wanted to find out about the man behind the handsome face. Who was Zane Nicholson and what did he dream about? What made him happy and what made him sad? Had he ever been in love or had his heart broken? Had he—

Phoebe mentally backtracked. Maybe she didn’t want to know about women Zane had loved. She had a bad feeling that when compared with them, she would come up short. Not that she wanted him to fall in love with her. She barely knew the man. But still, there was something about him. Something that made her wonder about the potential for more.

“You’re quiet,” Zane said.

As she wasn’t even sure he’d known she was riding sort of next to him and a little behind, she jumped slightly. Rocky turned around to glare at her, as if reminding her that it was his back her fanny thumped on.

She patted his neck by way of apology and considered Zane’s statement.

“I didn’t want to interrupt if you were thinking about something important.” Like them. Like what had happened last night. Like the fact that he’d had his hands on her bare ass and his fingers between her legs. A shivery tingle twisted low in her stomach at the memory.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked.

For a second Phoebe was terrified that she’d spoken her thoughts out loud. Heat flared on her cheeks, and she ducked her head.

“You’d said you hadn’t been on a horse before. Do you like it?”

Cool, sweet relief trickled through her. Was she enjoying herself on the cattle drive? Of course.

She sucked in a breath, then exhaled slowly. “Rocky’s being very patient with me,” she said. “Sometimes when I mess up he gives me this look that tells me I’m annoying him, but otherwise we’re getting along.”

She glanced at Zane and saw he was staring at her with a look of incomprehension.

“Don’t you and Tango get along?” she asked.

“We’re best friends.”

She thought there might be a little sarcasm in his voice, but she ignored it. “Are the cattle doing okay? Is it healthy for them to walk this much every day?”

“Do you think they should be riding instead?”

“I don’t know. You’re the cattle expert.”

“They’re fine. As long as we keep the pace slow, they’ll even put on weight. They’re grazing on good quality land.” He smiled. “For them it’s a four-star restaurant.”

Phoebe’s heart hitched a little as Zane’s mouth curved up. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and his face relaxed.

“Do they have names?” she asked.

To his credit, his smile only wavered a little. “Just Manny. He’s the lead steer.”

“The one with the bell?”

“That’s him. The steers all have a place in the herd. They go to the same spot every day. If this were about a hundred and twenty years ago and we were taking the cattle from Texas to Kansas, they’d walk that whole distance in formation. If a steer got sick, he’d drop back until he was better, then return to his original position.”

“Has Manny always been the leader?”

“Pretty much. I take him with me whenever I move cattle. He’s calm and doesn’t mind crossing water.”

“We met. He seems very nice.”

Zane tugged on his hat and muttered something like, “You’d make friends with a tree,” but Phoebe wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, so she didn’t comment.

“Manny’s pretty tame, but watch yourself with the other steers. Remember what happened with the goats.”

She instantly thought of the kiss they’d shared outside the baby-goat pen, then realized he probably wasn’t talking about that. Ah—she’d been bitten by a kid.

“The steers have much bigger teeth,” she said. “Would Manny bite me?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll only talk to him.”

“That’s probably best.”

She glanced at him. Zane looked as if he’d just swallowed lemons.

“Don’t you want me talking to Manny?” she asked.

“I don’t care one way or the other.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

His dark blue eyes crinkled as he grinned. “Crazy’s a bit strong.”

“I like animals. I don’t have any pets of my own, so I like to spend time with other people’s.”

“Cattle aren’t pets.”

“I know. Manny would probably be tough to housebreak and I sure wouldn’t want to be the one cleaning up his accidents.”

She shifted on her saddle. They’d just broken free of the trees and were out in the open. The sky stretched out for miles, as did the grassland. Small trees provided pockets of shade.

“It’s not like this in LA,” she breathed.

“Is that where you’re from or did you move there after high school?”

“Born and bred. A back-to-nature outing for me is a trip to the beach or hiking in Griffith Park.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t strike me as the city type.”

“I don’t mind visiting, but after a few days it gets too noisy and crowded.”

“I like being around people, but I can understand the appeal of this kind of beauty.” She inhaled deeply. “No smog and you have a satellite dish.”

“There’s also Cookie’s biscuits.”

Phoebe sighed. “They’re pretty amazing. If he opened his own restaurant, I bet he’d make a fortune.”

“Cookie’s not a real people person.”

She thought of his over-the-top flirtations with the female members of the group and his annoyance whenever anyone turned down one of his dishes.