All Jacked Up (Rough Riders 8)

“You’re lying.”

Yep. But it served Martine right. “I’ve known Jack since I was sixteen, Mrs. Ducheyne. I found it…enlightening at our engagement party last month that his mother and brother knew zilch about you. If Jack couldn’t be bothered to tell his family about your relationship, really, how important could you have been to him?”

Martine glared but she didn’t storm off. Probably trying to formulate a snarky comment about Keely’s hair or clothes, since that was the extent of her insult repertoire.

“The truth is: it bugs the living shit out of you that you made a mistake dumping him. You can’t help but compare sexy as hell Jack Donohue, to the stodgy, pudgy old timer you settled for. Especially when you see Jack is happy and successful without Baxter.”

“Successful?” she sneered. “That’s a stretch.”

“Wrong. I’d bet your matronly purse Jack gets the Milford restoration project because I was there when he pitched it. They love him and they loved his ideas.”

Her eyes turned shrewd. “You were there?”

“Yes. And besides that project, Jack is contracted for my historic building, a courthouse in Montana and two projects in Iowa. That’s just through the end of this year.”

“What do you mean ‘my historic building’?” Martine demanded.

“Jack is supervising the restoration of a historical building which will house the rehabilitation clinic I’m opening in Moorcroft.”

“A freebie for you? How charitable. I doubt he’s spending much time on it since he’s so…busy.” She made quotes in the air with the word busy.

“Since he’s been working out of our apartment in Sundance, it’s not a long commute for him to Moorcroft.”

“You’re living with Jack in Wyoming?”

“Didn’t know that, did you?”

Martine’s face darkened.

“Jack and I have a history. We have a future. So I’ll say this as simply as I can. Stay away from me.

Stay away from Jack. If you ever corner me in a bathroom again? Be prepared for me to come out swinging.”

The elevator pinged and Gina rounded the corner. Once she saw Martine she tried to backpedal. “Oh, sorry, I’ll just wait over—”

“No, I’m ready for some fresh air.” She walked away, head held high.

Inside the elevator car, Keely laughed. “What a pretentious bitch. I can’t believe I almost let her get to me.”

Gina said, “She scares me. She scares everybody in this organization.”

“Not me. Not anymore.”

As Keely said it, she really believed it.

After she’d purchased gifts for her nephews and nieces, and a surprise for Jack, Keely returned to the hotel room. She had no idea how long Jack would be stuck in the meeting.

To kill time, she filled the garden tub and added scented oil. She slipped beneath the bubbles, sighing at the rare indulgence. Nestling her neck into a towel, she sipped the beer she’d liberated from the room fridge.

Keely blanked her mind to everything except the hot water caressing her skin. The soft popping of soap bubbles. The tart taste of the cold beer.

But her conversation with Martine bobbed to the surfaced like a rotten apple. She’d met plenty of people in her twenty-seven years who didn’t like her. But always for a reason, not simply because she existed.

No, Martine doesn’t like you because you have Jack.

What a laugh.

How much did it suck she was in love with a man she couldn’t have? Sure, she could have him tonight, his body, his undivided attention, his sexual expertise. But come tomorrow morning, they’d say goodbye. He’d be gone for the next three weeks. During which the majority of her building remodel would be completed. During which he’d most likely be awarded the Milford project. During which she’d have a breakdown, knowing she’d never find a man who’d hold a candle to Jack Donohue.

In retrospect, that’s what she’d always been afraid of—falling in love with him. It’d been easier to hate him.

“Now there’s a pretty sight,” Jack drawled.

Keely jumped. In the depth of her forlorn thoughts, she hadn’t heard him come in. But she didn’t open her eyes, not wanting him to recognize her melancholy.

“But what’s put the frown on your face, buttercup?”

The thought of losing you. When I never really had you.

She absentmindedly waved the half-empty bottle at him. “I figure you’d be pissed when you saw me drinking a ten dollar beer out of the mini-bar.”

“I can come up with an inventive way for you to pay me back.”

“I’ll bet.” Keely swigged and let the bottle dangle by the outside of the tub. “How was the rest of your meeting?”

“Long and boring. Pointless. Did I mention long and boring?”

“Yes.”

“How was your shopping excursion with Gina?”

“Expensive. Lord. Why do I have so many nephews and nieces? I limited myself to spending ten bucks on each kid and I still walked out two hundred dollars poorer.”

“You love them and you’re not really complaining.”

Keely smiled. “How true.”

“Would you rather I face you or sit behind you?”

That question made her eyes fly open. Oh wow. Jack was totally, gloriously, buck-assed nekkid.

Totally, gloriously, buck-assed nekkid and fully aroused. And holding two beers. He really was the perfect man. She scooted forward, splashing water everywhere. “You can sit behind me.”

“Somehow I thought you might say that.”

Jack handed Keely the beer. When he stretched out in the tub, she was enveloped in his substantial presence—all muscles and heat and hot, hard man.

Definitely not getting over him any time soon.

She situated herself between his thighs. Her spine pressed into his chest. Her head seemed to fit in the curve of his neck perfectly.

He’d dimmed the overhead lights and the lamps from the bedroom offered a golden illumination. Had Jack meant the setting to drip of romance? Probably not.

Jack’s free hand gently stroked her arm as it rested on the edge of the tub.

He sipped. She sipped. The water had cooled. She lifted her foot and cranked the hot water tap with her toes. After it’d warmed, she slumped back against him.

“What talented toes you have, Miz McKay.”

“Only trick I can do with them, unfortunately.”

“Pity. I was hoping you could juggle.”