Only His (2 page)

“You'll pay for it in the morning.”

While the advice was sound, right now morning seemed a long time away. “Vodka tonic. A double.”

“Want anything to eat?” Jo asked, sounding more like a concerned parent than a woman who made her living serving liquor.

“No, thanks. I don't want to slow the process.” If she drank enough, she would forget. Right now, forgetting seemed really smart.

Jo nodded and left, only to return seconds later with a large glass of water.

“Hydrate,” she growled. “You'll thank me later.”

Nevada dutifully sipped the water until her drink arrived and then carefully gulped about half the contents. Now it was just a waiting game, she thought. Waiting
for the vodka to cloud her brain and make her awful afternoon fade away.

As a rule, she was a big believer in facing her problems head-on. Figure out what was wrong, come up with several solutions, pick the best one and act. She'd always been a doer. She did her best to keep her complaining to a minimum and to be a team player. That meant exactly jack shit when it came to Tucker Janack.

She couldn't fix the past. There was no game plan for going back in time and undoing a bad decision. The reality was, she'd been crazy in love with the man and she'd acted rashly. The fault was hers. She could accept that. What really fried her was having to pay for it now.

She finished her drink and motioned for another. Before it arrived, the door to the bar opened and her sisters walked in. A quick glance at her watch told her that less than fifteen minutes had passed since she'd sat down in the booth.

“Impressive,” she called to Jo.

Her friend shrugged. “You know how I feel about people drinking alone.”

“It's medicinal.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I heard that.”

Nevada turned her attention to the two women walking toward her. They were exactly her height, with the same blond hair and brown eyes. Hardly a surprise, considering they were identical triplets.

When they'd been kids, telling them apart had been a nightmare for nearly everyone, including family. But they'd since cultivated distinct differences, including how they dressed and their personal style. Montana
wore her hair long and curly, favored flowy dresses and all things soft. Dakota went the more tailored route, although the fact that she was currently pregnant would make identification even easier.

Nevada had always considered herself the more sensible sister—her present condition notwithstanding. She spent much of her days on job sites, where jeans and work boots were a requirement rather than a fashion choice. She made smart decisions, thought things through and did her best to avoid having regrets. Tucker was the biggest bump on the otherwise smooth, slightly lonely course that was her life.

“Hey,” Dakota said, sliding into the booth across from her. “Jo called.”

Montana slid next to Dakota and tilted her head. “She said you were drinking.”

Nevada waved her empty glass toward Jo. “Maybe a quesadilla, too,” she called.

“I thought you didn't want to eat.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Good.” Jo walked toward her and grabbed the empty glass, then took orders from Dakota and Montana. “If only you were smart enough to stop while you could still avoid a hangover.”

“Sorry, not happening.” Nevada waited until Jo had left, then looked at her sisters. “You two got here faster than I expected.”

“It's this new invention called a phone,” Montana told her. “It speeds up communication.”

Dakota placed both her hands on the table. “What's going on? This isn't like you. You don't drink in the middle of the day.”

“Technically, it's past the middle.” Nevada squinted. Ah, there it was. The faintest of buzzes moving through the back of her brain.

“Fine. Normally you would be at the office, but instead…” Dakota sighed. “Your interview. That was today.”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced toward the bar, wishing Jo would hurry.

“It had to have gone well,” Montana said, loyal as always. “Didn't Mr. Janack realize how qualified you are? He needs someone with your experience to deal with the local factor. Plus, you look really nice.”

Nevada inhaled the scent of grilling tortillas and cheese. Her stomach growled. She hadn't eaten lunch—nerves about her interview had caused her to work instead.

“What happened?” Dakota asked, apparently less interested in Nevada's appearance than her sister was. “Why do you think the interview didn't go well?”

“What makes you think I believe that?” Nevada asked, the buzz getting stronger by the second. Even so, when Jo brought the second drink, she took a big gulp.

“The drinking was my first clue.”

Having a trained psychologist as a sister was a double-edged sword, Nevada thought. “I don't want to talk about it. If I did, I would have come to see you both. But I didn't. I'm here, getting drunk. Leave me alone.”

Her sisters exchanged a glance. If Nevada put her mind to it, she could probably figure out what they were thinking. After all, they were genetically the same. But
right now all that concerned her were the smells drifting back from Jo's small kitchen.

“Nevada,” Montana began, her voice gentle.

That was all it took. A single word. Nevada shook her head. Why couldn't she be like other people and hate her family? At the moment, a good estrangement sounded like the perfect plan.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “The interview wasn't with Mr. Janack, aka Elliot, the father. It was with Tucker.”

“That's the guy who was friends with Ethan all those years ago?” Dakota asked. She sounded as if she wasn't completely sure of her facts. That was reasonable, considering her only encounter with Tucker would have been over a summer, back when they were kids.

“I don't get it,” Montana said. “He's in charge now?”

“Running the whole project,” Nevada said, still watching the door leading to the kitchen.

“Why is he a problem?” Dakota asked.

Nevada abandoned her hope for food anytime soon and faced her sisters. “I know Tucker. When I went off to college, Ethan told me to look him up, which I did.”

“Okay,” Montana said, sounding confused. “But isn't knowing him a good thing?”

“I slept with him. Let me just say, that makes for an awkward interview.”

Jo appeared with the quesadilla and several napkins. She set herbal tea in front of Dakota and gave a diet soda to Montana. After placing a basket of chips and bowl of salsa in the middle of the table, she left.

Nevada picked up a slice of the quesadilla and took a bite, ignoring her sisters' wide-eyed stares.

“Not today,” Montana said in a whisper. “You're not saying you slept with him today.”

Nevada finished chewing and swallowed. “No. I didn't have sex during my interview. It was before. Back in college.”

She ate some more while her sisters stared at her expectantly. Montana cracked first.

“What happened?” she demanded. “You never told us this.”

Nevada wiped her hands on a napkin, then took a sip of her drink. The buzz was stronger now, which would make exposing her secret easier.

“When I left for college, Ethan asked me to look up Tucker. He was working in the area.”

Although she and her sisters had been extremely close, they'd made the decision to go to three different colleges. The four years apart had given them the chance to solidify their identities, or some such crap, she thought hazily. While it had seemed like a good idea at the time, now she wondered if things would have gone better with one of her sisters around.

“I wasn't especially interested in spending time with a friend of his,” she continued, “but he kept bugging me, so I did. I called Tucker and we agreed to meet.”

She still remembered walking into the huge open room in the industrial complex. The ceilings had probably been thirty feet high, with light spilling in from all the windows. There'd been a huge platform in the middle and a beautiful woman wielding a blowtorch. But what had caught Nevada's attention was the man standing by the platform. The grown-up Tucker was very different from the kid she'd remembered.

“It was one of those things,” she said, taking another bite of the quesadilla, chewing and swallowing. “I took one look at him and fell head over heels. I didn't have a chance.”

Montana leaned toward her. “That's not a bad thing, right?”

“It is when the guy in question is madly in love with someone else. He had a girlfriend.” If one could give Cat such a pedestrian title. “I was crazy about him, and he was wild over her and she wanted to be my friend. It was hell.”

“Who was she?” Dakota asked. “Another student?”

Nevada shrugged. “It doesn't matter.” No way was she going to say the name. There was a chance they would recognize it and Cat wasn't anyone Nevada wanted to talk about.

“I hung out with them a few times,” she said. “Then I couldn't stand it anymore, so I pulled back. One night I heard they broke up and I went to see Tucker. He was seriously drunk and we had very bad sex.”

She didn't mention that she'd basically thrown herself at him. And that, looking back, she was a little surprised he'd even remembered it was her. After all, he'd called Cat's name at the crucial moment.

She sighed. “It was a mess. They got back together, I was crushed and that was it. I never saw either of them again. Until today.”

There was so much more. The fact that Tucker had chosen Cat over her. Not a surprise, really. Cat was beautiful and larger than life and they'd been together first. Still, Nevada had been heartbroken and humiliated. Plus, the sex really had been awful. So bad that
she'd waited nearly three years before risking getting intimate again.

“I wanted the job,” she said, picking up her drink. “I wanted the chance.”

“You don't know he won't hire you,” Montana told her. “You're the best candidate.”

“I don't think that's a deciding factor.”

Dakota sipped her tea. “Was it hard to see him again?”

“It was a shock. I was expecting his father. But that's not what you're asking, is it?”

“No.”

Nevada considered the unasked question. “I'm over him. It was a long time ago and I was young and foolish. Everything is different now.”

“There aren't any lingering feelings?” Dakota asked.

“Not even one.”

Nevada spoke as firmly as a nearly drunk person could. The good news was, she was pretty sure she wasn't even lying.

T
UCKER HAD NEVER THOUGHT
much about small-town America. Mostly his work took him to remote places, where they had to create their own infrastructure to get the job done, or to urban areas, often those that were crumbling. He wasn't used to cheerful storefronts and friendly people strolling along clean sidewalks. In the ten minutes it had taken him to get from his hotel to the center of town, he'd been greeted multiple times, told to have a good day, asked if the weather could be any better and nuzzled by a tiny toy poodle in a pink sweater.

He'd been to Fool's Gold before, back when he was about sixteen. Tucker's mom had died when he was pretty little, so his dad had taken him along on construction jobs. He'd grown up all over the world, getting his education through local classes and tutors. His dad had worried that he wasn't socializing enough with kids his own age, so every summer Tucker was sent to a different camp in the States. One year it was space camp, another had been a drama camp. The year he'd turned sixteen, his father sent him to a cycling camp, where he met Ethan Hendrix and Josh Golden.

The three of them had hung out all summer. Josh and Ethan had both been serious about cycling. Josh had gone on to make a career of it. Tucker had gone
into the family business, and went where the next big project was. Ethan had stayed in Fool's Gold.

Tucker crossed a narrow street and saw the sign for Hendrix Construction. Back in high school, Ethan had planned to go to college, then get the hell out of Fool's Gold. He and Tucker had talked about Ethan coming to work for Janack Construction. They'd daydreamed about a dam they'd build in South America or a bridge in India. Instead, Ethan's father had died, leaving Ethan responsible for running the family business. As the oldest of six kids, with a heartbroken mother, Ethan hadn't had a whole lot of choices.

Tucker opened the door to the construction office and smiled at the receptionist sitting behind the desk. “I'd like to see Nevada, please.”

He'd arrived early enough in the morning to catch her before she headed to a job site, but still expected to be asked if he had an appointment. Instead, the receptionist pointed toward a door at the rear of the big room.

“She's in her office.”

“Thanks.”

He circled around a couple of empty desks and knocked on the open door.

Nevada stood with her back to him, pulling out a file drawer. In the second it took her to turn, he saw she wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of the trousers and blazer from the day before. Heavy work boots added a couple of inches of height, bringing her closer to his eye level. She was tall and lean, with curves in all the right places.

Attractive, he thought absently. Sexy. And she'd
probably been back in college. Not that he would have noticed. Being around Cat had been like looking at the sun—he couldn't see anything else. Life would have been a whole lot easier if he'd fallen for someone normal like Nevada instead of Cat.

As Nevada spun to face him, he noticed she wasn't wearing much in the way of makeup and her face was pale.

“Good morning.”

She blinked at him. “Maybe for you.”

Her eyes were red and looked a little puffy. Judging by the shadows underneath, he guessed she'd had a difficult night.

“Hangover?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Had she been out drinking because of him? Well, them. He hoped he was the cause of her morning pain. If only for proof that their meeting had affected her as much as it had affected him.

“Whatever you're thinking, stop,” she told him.

“Why?”

“You're looking smug. It's annoying. In fact, you should go away. Why are you here, anyway? Are you looking for Ethan?”

“I'm looking for you.”

She touched her forehead, as if trying to rub away pain. “I can't imagine why.”

“Sure you can.”

Despite the dark circles and her pallor, she was still appealing. He liked Nevada in jeans and a T-shirt, rather than dressed for an interview. These clothes were more like the woman he remembered.

“I want a do-over,” he told her. “The interview,” he added, just in case she thought he was talking about sex. Not that he would say no to a chance to prove himself.

“I have nothing left to say to you. You have my résumé. That's enough.”

“You're right. It is. I want to hire you as a construction manager.”

“Go to hell.”

“Is that an ‘I'll think about it'?”

“It's a go to hell. I'm not interested in being played.”

“Why would you think I'm playing you?”

“You're only offering me the job because I said you were lousy in bed.”

He winced, hoping her voice wouldn't carry. “This is a project worth tens of millions of dollars. Do you think I'd risk that because of my ego?” He moved toward her. “You're more than qualified, which is important, but as you pointed out yesterday, you're a local. You know how things are done around here. You can help us avoid making mistakes.”

It was a lesson he'd learned the hard way more than once. Paying attention to the seemingly foolish rituals and expectations of the locals could often mean the difference between coming in on time and on budget and blowing through all projections.

“I know you're interested,” he continued. “Otherwise you wouldn't have bothered applying or showing up for the interview.”

“It was supposed to be with your father,” she snapped. “Not you. I never wanted to see you again.”

“I'm the one in charge.”

“Exactly. Which is why it's okay for you to leave now.”

As rejections went, she was more than clear. He didn't like it, but he wasn't going to beg. He nodded once, then left, still confused about what was going on. He got halfway across the parking lot when a pickup pulled in next to him.

“You're a long way from the Amazon,” a familiar voice called.

Tucker saw Ethan climbing out of the truck and grinned.

“What are you doing here?” Tucker asked.

He and Ethan shook hands, then slapped each other on the back.

“I run the place,” Ethan said, pointing at the sign. “Not that I'm here much these days. I'm over with the turbines.”

Tucker knew his friend had become involved with turbine construction. Wind energy was a growing field and Ethan's product was in high demand.

“I have some names for you,” Ethan told him, pulling a worn briefcase off the passenger seat. “Good guys you'll want to think about hiring. A couple work for me, but I'll let them go. With Nevada leaving, there's going to be less construction work.”

“Leaving? Where's she going?”

“To work for you.” Ethan looked surprised. “I know she applied.”

“She did. I just offered her a job, but she turned me down.”

“I don't get it,” Ethan told him. “She was excited about the opportunity.”

“I wanted her on board.”

There had to be something else going on, Tucker told himself. It couldn't just be the past. Assuming what she'd said was true, that their time together had been…awful, even that shouldn't be enough to keep her from coming to work for him. He wasn't some jerk of a boss.

“I was planning on giving her a team of my best guys.”

Ethan frowned. “Let me talk to her.”

Tucker shook his head. “Don't. She either wants the job or she doesn't. It needs to be her choice.”

“Okay. But don't think this means you're going to be in town and avoiding me. I want to have you over for dinner. You can meet Liz and the kids. See all you've been missing with your nomadic lifestyle.”

“I like my nomadic lifestyle.”

“That's because you never were as bright as the rest of us.”

 

N
EVADA DID HER BEST
to ignore the pounding in her head. She'd taken as much aspirin as she thought was safe and had hydrated enough to water fifteen acres of corn, but she still felt as if she would have been smarter to shoot herself that morning.

Jo had tried to warn her, she reminded herself. She'd been very specific on the consequences of drinking that much—especially for someone who generally limited herself to a single drink. But had she listened? Of course not. Now she was paying the price with a pounding headache and a body that hurt everywhere but her eyelashes.

“I can't believe you turned down the job.”

The loud words came unexpectedly, causing her to jump. She glanced up and saw her brother standing in the doorway to her office. Tucker had filled up the space nicely, she thought, remembering how good he'd looked and how that had pissed her off.

“I don't want to talk about it,” she mumbled, wondering when the last of the alcohol would finally get out of her system.

“You're going to talk about it. This is what you wanted. You said you were interested in a challenge. Tucker's offering all that. He thinks you'd be good for his team.”

Telling her sisters what had happened was one thing, but explaining the details to her brother wasn't a place she was willing to go.

“I'm not interested anymore.”

“Why? I don't get this. Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Then, what?”

Ethan was a great big brother. In school, he'd looked out for his baby sisters, and as an adult, he'd put his own dreams on hold so he could run the family business and put his younger siblings through college. He'd grown Hendrix Construction into a much larger company and had started a successful turbine business as well. He was a good guy.

That was why she couldn't tell him about her sordid past with Tucker. Ethan would feel the need to do something, which would only complicate the situation.

“Ethan, I love you. Let it go.”

He stared at her for a long time, then shrugged.
“Tucker's a great guy. Why wouldn't you want to work for him?”

“I just wouldn't.”

“You're being an idiot. You know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. It's your decision.”

He walked away.

Nevada was left alone in her office, her head pounding, the past threatening to bubble over into the present. She tried to busy herself with work, but could not stare at her computer screen. Not with her headache. Giving in to the inevitable, she left for the day and walked home.

Late summer was a beautiful time in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Fool's Gold sat nestled at about twenty-five hundred feet. Just high enough for them to have all four seasons, but not so high that they still had snow until June. To the east were the jagged peaks, to the west were the vineyards and the highway that led to Sacramento.

Nevada took a slightly longer route home, mostly because she wanted to be on quieter streets where she was less likely to run into anyone and have to make conversation. Between feeling like roadkill and having a very unusual urge to cry, she wanted to simply be, without any expectations.

As always, catching sight of her house made her feel better. It had been built in the 1920s by a man who loved all things Victorian. The three-story house rose well above all the neighboring homes, a fussy dowager out of place among more modern offerings. She'd
bought the place three years ago and had done all the remodeling herself.

The new exterior paint had toned down the pink-and-yellow trim to a soft white. The house itself was a pale gray. Turrets stood on either side. One was her master bath, the other was part of the guest room.

She'd turned the main floor into two small apartments she rented out to college kids. This year her tenants were grad students who did something with computers. She wasn't sure what, but they were quiet and paid their rent on time, which worked for her.

She climbed up the main staircase to her place—a spacious two-floor unit. After passing through her living room, she took a second set of stairs up to the third floor and walked into her bathroom.

She'd spent most of her time and budget on this bathroom and the kitchen and loved how both had turned out. The bathroom was huge, with a separate shower and a reproduction claw-foot tub. Big stained-glass windows let in plenty of light while giving her privacy and, when she stretched out in the tub, she could see the fireplace in the master bedroom.

Now, her head still pounding, she turned on the water and threw in a handful of jasmine-scented bath beads. In a matter of seconds, the soothing smell had combined with the steam, already relaxing her.

She walked into the bedroom and took off her boots, then stripped off her clothes. She shrugged into a robe and returned to the bathroom to wait for the tub to fill.

Without wanting to, she remembered the first time she'd met Tucker. She'd been maybe ten and Ethan and Josh had brought him home with them from cycling
camp. The most exciting thing about his visit was his father's flying to pick him up in a private jet. She'd found that far more intriguing than Tucker himself.

Eight or so years later, when she'd gone off to college, Ethan had told her to look up his old buddy. She'd made the duty call and was surprised when Tucker was enthused about seeing her again.

He'd given her directions to an industrial complex by the Los Angeles airport. She remembered being surprised by the location. The address was for a building nearly as big as an airplane hangar. The first thing she noticed when she stepped out of her small truck was the sound of music. The pounding rock beat had made the windows rattle.

She'd knocked on the half-open door, but no one had answered. Probably because no one could hear her. She pushed opened the door and stepped inside.

The open area was huge, maybe ten thousand square feet, with soaring ceilings. Big windows allowed the L.A. sunshine to illuminate everything. The floor was concrete, and the music was even louder here. The bass caused her chest to vibrate.