Too Hot to Handle (Jackson Hole 2)

He wished he could have those years back. Wished he could watch out for his little brother instead of indulging his mom.

He could’ve done so much more. He could’ve made his little brother’s life better, but he’d been too damn busy shoring up his own false hope. “When Dad comes back…” Shane had said a thousand times, putting every opportunity on hold. When Dad comes back, this is how it’ll be. When Dad comes back, we’ll all do this together.

No wonder Alex had run.

Their father wasn’t coming back. But on this trail, beneath these trees, Shane was able to think of him in an almost normal way for the first time since he’d disappeared. It hurt. It felt awful. But the memory was still there beneath it, instead of being obscured by a thick fog of grief and hate and anger. The abandonment had been monstrous, but that didn’t mean the man had been a monster. He’d done something awful, something Shane could never understand, but for a decade, he’d been a good father.

For years, that truth had made his disappearance worse. But right now, in this moment, it actually made things better.

By the time he reached the cabin, Shane was exhausted. Not by the ride, but from having let his dad back into his life for a moment. But even past his weariness, he smiled when he saw the half-collapsed structure. Yeah, Merry would love this. Maybe he’d hang around long enough to show it to her. Or he could offer it as consolation when she decided she hated him, as she would. He could give her this place as a way to heal her wounds.

But he didn’t want her up here by herself. Even back then the road had barely been safe, and today he’d passed a washed out section of it where the trail crossed.

He tied off his horse beneath a shady tree and walked the open area around the cabin. The fire pit was still there, and even the area where they’d always set up camp was still relatively cleared, but the years had taken a toll. A corner of the cabin that had once been straight and sturdy was now collapsed. Branches littered the tall grass of the makeshift yard, broken off the trees over years of storm and wind. But a few of the old apple trees still stood at the side of the house, tiny, hard apples peeking pale green between the leaves.

Yes, he wanted to show this place to Merry. While she still liked him. While she would still share that blinding smile and crack her strange jokes. He wanted to see her happy and unguarded, not for some old man who’d told her a story, but for him. For something he’d given her. Maybe it would make up for what he was going to take away.

He explored the place, finding memories he’d lost, and thinking about his dad, and by the time he looked up at the sky, he realized it was past time to go.

He didn’t want to rush his horse on the steep trail, so he turned her down the road instead. He had to get back to Providence, load up his mare and then drive her back to the farm where he boarded her. It wasn’t too far from Easy’s, though. He should make it fine.

Rushed as he was, he wasn’t feeling reckless. When he got to another stretch of road that had been washed out to little more than four feet wide, Shane dismounted and walked. This road was a hazard. He wondered if anyone had been up here in the past decade.

That would probably please Merry. She?

??d know no one had been bothering the site of the cabin, pulling out artifacts and doing damage.

As he eased along the final few feet of the wash out, Shane caught sight of something glinting down below. He edged closer to the drop-off and tried to get a better look, but he couldn’t see anything more than the flash of sunlight on something reflective when the leaves below shifted in the breeze.

Maybe it was just water dancing on some offshoot of the stream, but he didn’t hear water and he thought he could see something white down there, a corner that could be rock, but seemed awfully straight and sharp for that.

Shane walked a little farther on, looking for a path down, but he didn’t find one, and there wasn’t time anyway. He’d come back again. With Merry. Or maybe without her. Maybe there was some structure down there even he didn’t know about and he could surprise her with that as well.

Shane mounted his horse and urged her to a trot, all his tiredness gone at the thought of seeing Merry again. He had to end it, but not tonight.

Not tonight.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MERRY HAD NEVER seen this side of Rayleen before. Oh, she’d heard rumors about a budding romance between Rayleen and Easy, but she’d understood it to be an ornery, adversarial romance. A dance like two old dogs circling each other. She hadn’t expected this.

She stole another glance in the rearview mirror.

Grace had crossed the yard to Rayleen’s house an hour earlier, and when the two women had reappeared, Rayleen had looked fresh and bright and ten years younger. Her long white hair was pulled into a loose chignon at the base of her neck, and makeup brightened her eyes and softened her skin.

She still wore her standard jeans and boots, but Grace had apparently talked her into a pretty pink gingham blouse. The unlit cigarette, however, was still in evidence, but at least it had been tucked into the breast pocket of the blouse and wasn’t clasped between Rayleen’s tinted lips.

Merry looked up at her own face and wished she’d thought to have Grace help her with makeup, too. She just looked like normal old Merry, round-faced and harmless and plain. And the thing was…she didn’t feel like that anymore. She should look different, shouldn’t she?

She was a covert vandal. A deceptive manipulator. And now…a wild, sexual woman who’d taken a secret lover. But she still looked like the girl you’d hire to housesit for you and walk your dog while you went somewhere exotic and dangerous.

Damn. Maybe eyeliner would have made all the difference. Or maybe she would’ve just looked like plain old Merry who’d gotten into the makeup drawer.

It didn’t matter, she told herself as she drove beneath the Easy Creek Ranch sign and spotted the men standing in the shade of a huge cottonwood tree that nearly filled the space between Easy’s house and Cole’s.

Grace smiled. Merry felt a smile tugging at her own lips as well, but she tried to fight it. She didn’t have an excuse for a goofy, lovesick grin. She wouldn’t be able to explain why her eyes went so bright at the sight of the three men in cowboy hats, each of them with a beer in their grasp. When she glanced at the mirror, she saw Rayleen scowling and felt better. Things weren’t as topsy-turvy as they seemed. She could pull this off. Everything was normal.

But when she parked and got out of the car and met Shane’s eyes, there was no stopping her smile. Oh, God. All she could do was duck her head and pray that everyone else was too wrapped up in their own greetings to notice.