Righteous Lies (Book 1: Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (28 page)

"I don't
have to be a man's type to get screwed over," she said. "All he has
to have are balls. If you're a eunuch, then fire away. If you're still intact,
don't bother." When he said nothing, because he was at a loss how to
respond to her double-edged statement, she got up and walked across the great
room and started up the long bank of stairs to the rooms lining the balcony
above, and went into Room Five, not so much as giving him a backwards glance
before she shut the door. It wasn't until he started to get up that he realized
she'd taken the book with her and planned to read the thing, and he wished he'd
written a different ending.

***

Justine was
shaking so hard by the time she shut the door to her room she could barely
stand. She'd never encountered a man like the one downstairs. He'd pegged her
from the start. It was as if she'd been standing naked in front of him, and not
only had he seen her body, he'd burrowed into her psyche. She'd felt trapped
and vulnerable. She'd even told him about her affair with Sean Elliot. She'd only
said a few words, but the man got the whole picture.

Justine Page in
a nutshell.

She was curious
about the book though. She'd already gotten well into it before she found him
watching her from across the lodge. She had no idea how long he'd been standing
there, but when she looked at him, it was like an electrical charge was buzzing
between them. Not so much the man's looks, though that hadn't escaped
her—taller than Sean, broader shoulders, dark hair to Sean's blond hair,
penetrating eyes that fixed on her like twin lasers. Hard eyes. Cobalt blue
she'd realized when he got closer. And unshaved. Sean had never gone unshaved.
Did it morning and again before bed. Shirts always starched. Silk suits.
Designer ties. Nothing but the best for Sean Elliot. Nothing but the best for
the firm. And she'd been the best. She just made the mistake of screwing the
boss. But that man downstairs... She couldn't begin to piece him together. He
was like a mismatched puzzle. All the pieces fit, but the picture didn't match
up.

And like her,
he wasn't taking part in the activities at the ranch. Not the sleigh ride, and
not the barn dance Grace insisted she go to the night before, where she'd
stayed long enough to know that barn dancing wasn't her thing. But she would
have noticed the man downstairs if he'd been there. She could not have avoided
it. She always gravitated towards men who would screw her over and drop her
flat. She was setting herself up again for that scenario.

Concluding it
was pointless to give further thought to a man she hoped would be gone by
morning, and knowing she would not leave her room until the others returned
from the sleigh ride, on the chance that the man might catch her alone again
she decided to waste away the remainder of the evening in her room, with the
book...

By three
o'clock in the morning she was still reading. The guests had returned from the
sleigh ride hours before, but after a little chatter in the great room below,
they'd gone to their rooms, and before long the place was quiet. But she'd kept
reading throughout. It wasn't so much the unfolding of the story in the book,
but the mind behind it. The story captivated her in a perverted way. But the
mind behind the story truly bothered her.

Setting the
book aside, she went to the window and peered out. The snow looked sparkly in
the glow from the high utility lights. But beyond the reach of the lights, she
could make out the string of log cabins along the creek. In the one almost
directly across from where she stood looking down, she saw a light. She knew
Grace and Jack closed the guest cabins for the winter and only kept the lodge
open after the first of September. Yet, there was definitely a light in the
cabin, the one with two bedrooms and a kitchenette.

She saw a
figure pass by the window, casting a shadow on the rectangle of light thrown
against the snow. A tall figure. Broad-shouldered. Restless. Moving back and
forth. Then he stopped at the window and looked directly at her. She couldn’t
see his eyes, or his face, but she knew who he was. And she knew he knew she
was watching him. She turned away, but she couldn't stop wondering why the man
would also be awake at three in the morning, pacing back and forth in a cabin
that shouldn't be occupied...

An hour later,
she went to the window and saw the man still pacing. It bothered her that he
seemed so restless, but she didn't know why it should matter. The man made her
uncomfortable. Yet there was a pull between them she couldn't deny.

Shrugging into
a jacket and tugging on a pair of snow boots that Grace had loaned her, she
slipped out of her room and crept down the bank of stairs leading to the great
room below and left the lodge through the back door. She had no idea what she
intended to do once outside, but she felt an urge to find out what the man was
up to.

As she stood in
the shadows beyond the glow from the overhead lights, she tried to reason why,
at four in the morning, she was standing in snow that was still coming down,
even dusting her coat and hair, staring at a cabin not more than twenty feet
away. She couldn't see the man inside, and when she finally decided there was
no logical reason to remain there, and still no sign of him, she turned to go
back into the lodge...

And found him
not more than eight feet away, watching her.

"Why did
it take you so long to come?" he asked, making no move toward her.

She stared at
the man, heart racing from its shot of adrenaline, mouth open to suck in enough
frigid air to fill her lungs. "I don't know what you're talking
about."

"You saw
me from your window. You were watching for me here. Why?"

"I was
restless. I'd been reading and couldn't sleep. It's the book."

"Pulp
trash. Why should that keep you up?"

"Not the
story. The mind of the writer. It bothered me."

"You're
not supposed to be in the mind of the writer when you read," the man said.
"You're supposed to suspend reality, get caught up into the drama of it.
If you're trapped in the writer's mind, he failed."

"It's a
twisted, perverted mind," she said. "I don't think I'd like the
man."

"Most minds
are twisted," he replied. "Isn't yours at times? Maybe right now?
You're standing in the snow with me at four in the morning, and you came down
here to find me. Did you change your mind?"

"About
what?"

"About
sleeping with me. You said you'd been to bed with your share of men and I
wouldn't be one of them, yet, here you are, outside my cabin, waiting."

"I told
you before I couldn't sleep because of the book."

"Because
of the mind of the writer. It's twisted. And perverted. And you're here with me
in the middle of the night. Maybe men screw you over because you let
them."

"Maybe
you're right."

"Do you
want to come to my cabin?"

"Ask me if
I will."

"Same
difference."

"Not the
same at all," she said. "One is, do I want to? The other is, will I?
The answer to the first is, yes. The answer to the second is, no." She
turned and went back into the lodge, wondering why she'd admitted something she
hadn't considered until the moment he asked.

And that was
the story of her life. But this time, she'd resisted the first man she'd ever
truly felt something intense in a way she couldn't explain. So intense, she
would not give herself to him, because to do so would drive him away.

***

Justine looked
around the living room of Grace and Jack's log home, a rustic, homey place just
down the drive from the lodge. Homemade Christmas decorations were
everywhere—sprays of fresh holly decorated with little red bows, crocheted
snowflakes hanging from threads in the front windows, hand-knitted stockings
with the names of each of the three boys. And sandwiched between two tall red
candles was the Santa-in-a-sled centerpiece Grace always put on the dining
table. The Christmas tree, which sat on its own table out of reach of the boys,
also had Gracie written all over it, with fir cones edged in glitter, and
puffed rice balls wrapped in plastic, and beautifully decorated gingerbread
men, all hanging from the branches by tiny red satin ribbons. And draped
between the limbs were garlands of popcorn.

Justine looked
at Grace, who was standing at the kitchen counter, surrounded by the makings of
a fruitcake, and said, "Ever since you were a little girl you knew exactly
what you wanted to be when you grew up. You never played with Barbies. You only
played with baby dolls. I remember how you'd feed them, and bathe them, and
change them—your baby dolls also wetted. But I always played with Barbies. It
was all about dressing them in high-fashion clothes, and undressing Ken and
wondering why Barbie had boobs and Ken was missing a cock. I guess my mind was
twisted even when I was ten."

"I thought
about that too, some," Grace said.

"When?
When you were eighteen?"

"Maybe a
little before."

"Can I ask
you something, Gracie? Don't answer if you don't want to," Justine added.

"Sure,"
Grace said. "You're here to talk things out and try to come to terms with
things. What do you want to know?"

"How old
you were when you lost your virginity."

Grace took so
long to answer Justine wondered if there was a side to Grace she didn't know. A
side she could actually relate to. "Like I said, you don't have to
answer."

Grace turned
and looked at her, and said, in a contrite voice, "It was when I married
Marc. But it wasn't as if I didn't want to before," she added, as if in
apology. "It's just that we decided it would be special if we
waited."

Grace never
asked her about losing her virginity, Justine noticed, and she knew exactly
why. Grace knew when it was. "You're not surprised I was fifteen, are
you?"

Grace shrugged.
"No, but it makes me sad you thought you needed to do it. All the boys
liked you."

"Well, now
you know why. Not that I did it with all the boys," Justine amended.
"Actually, in high school, only Ross and Mitch and maybe a few others, but
mainly Ross and Mitch."

"Because
Ross was captain of the football team and you wanted to be cheerleader, and
Mitch drove a BMW and you knew his father had connections," Grace said,
but not in accusation. Just stating a fact.

Justine nodded.
"I never gave marriage a thought, only that the boys would be a means to
an end. Why have I always been like this?" she asked. "And why can't
I be happy with a man like Jack. He's the perfect man. Don't get me wrong,
Gracie. I look at Jack like the big brother we always wanted and never had. And
his twin too. But even knowing Sam and Susan are having problems, I still don't
see Sam as a potential love interest, and he's not the problem in that
marriage. It's Susan. But why can't I want men like Jack and Sam? You never
attracted the kind of men who'd screw you over. And Marc... he was devoted to
you until the day he died."

"I guess
I'm just lucky to have had the love of two really good men," Grace said.

"Do you
still miss Marc?" Justine asked. Grace had been such a young widow, and
she'd adored Marc. And he'd treated her like she was God's gift to him.

"I think
about him when I see little Marc," Grace said, "but Jack's the love
of my life. Jack and my boys. They are my whole life. All I want is to make
them happy."

"Why can't
I be happy with simple things?" Justine asked. "I've seen you and
Jack walking hand-in-hand and talking and smiling at each other and not seeming
to need anything but just to be together. But I've always needed action around
me, rooms filled with people drinking and laughing and cutting each other to
shreds and talking innuendo. I'm the one who laughs loudest at the lewd jokes,
and I'm the one men at the top of the corporate feeding chain haul off to bed.
But why do I go when I know it won't lead to anything but the glass
ceiling?"

Grace stopped
what she was doing and came over to sit beside Justine on the couch, and said,
"You've stayed here several times, but you've never ridden a horse, or
hiked in the hills, or fished in the stream, or even watched the squirrels and
birds at the feeders. A squirrel comes down, chasing the birds fly away, but
before long a Stellar Jay arrives with a squawk and makes such a commotion the
squirrel leaves. And you've never walked on top of snow in snow shoes. It's
awkward, and you step on your snowshoes at first, but when you can walk on the snow
without sinking in, and you're able to go into the hills and see the trees and
everything covered in sparkly untouched snow, it just makes life worth living.
That, and having a man like Jack in your bed every night, and a house filled
with kids to make sure you don't stay in bed too long. The temptation's always
there."

"So I
noticed," Justine said. "And the two extra stockings hanging on the
mantle. So it seems you're expecting again, and obviously twins."

Grace put her
hands on her belly. "We just found out. We don't know whether they’re boys
or girls or one of each yet, but we're pretty excited."

"That's
what I mean. I've never even baby sat. You baby sat all through high school
while I was partying and drinking and having sex. I wouldn't have any idea what
to do with a kid."

Grace squeezed
Justine's hand. "I think you would, but you've never opened your heart in
that way. You've been too focused on what you need to do to get where you want
to go. But maybe you don't really know where that is. While you're here this
time, I hope you'll try to enjoy what we have. And to get started, you and I
are going to make a trip into town to a store that sells upscale resale wear,
and get you some ranch clothes."

"I've
never been to a resale shop," Justine said.