Too Hot to Handle, page 13
“Yeah, but you’re an old man now. Hardly able to enjoy life at all.”
There was no mistaking Cole’s grin this time. He definitely wasn’t thinking about the ranch. And hell, if Shane could have that kind of happiness every night, he’d be smiling, too. Hell, one night of it and he already found his gaze going a little hazy at the memory.
“Still no word from your brother?” Cole asked.
“No. Nothing.” He and Cole had been acquaintances in high school and friends later. Cole knew part of the story. Hell, everyone who’d lived in Jackson then knew that Shane’s dad had disappeared. It had been a much smaller town.
“What do you think he’s up to?”
“Hell, I have no idea. He was really into motorcycles. Maybe he’s working in a shop. Maybe he’s been cruising around the country this whole time. Maybe he’s dead.”
“Fuck, man. He’s not dead. You would’ve heard something.”
“Yeah,” Shane said, but he didn’t believe that. Anything could’ve happened to Alex in fifteen years. If he’d fallen into drugs and died on the streets, no one would’ve bothered tracking down his long-lost family.
No, Alex was gone. Maybe not dead, but just as out of reach as their father had been for all these years. It was just Shane and a mother who couldn’t get out of her own head long enough to live a life.
Whatever pleasure he’d had with Merry last night, whatever joy he found in her presence, he couldn’t have more than that. Maybe he’d never leave Jackson, maybe he’d never run, but just staying in one place was hardly a commitment. Hell, even when his dad had been here, he’d had a girlfriend. Dorothy Heyer, otherwise known as Mrs. Greg Heyer. There’d been rumors about them for months, about all the time Shane’s dad had spent with the young woman married to a rich old rancher. It had been an open secret confirmed by their disappearance together.
And Shane’s grandfather hadn’t been any better. His first wife had died in a car accident, but not before she’d walked out on Gideon and his cheating ways. Jeanine had lasted much longer, but only because she’d turned a blind eye, ignoring his philandering until he’d finally kicked her out for “the love of his life,” Kristen.
Shane’s own history didn’t inspire confidence, either. He’d never been in love. He’d never even been close. Hell, he could barely stand to be around his own mother anymore. No, despite the temptation to make it something more with Merry, he was destined for a solitary life. He’d build his house out in the middle of nowhere. He’d have a place to work. A shop. A barn and pasture for horses. That was all he needed. It was all he could handle. A wife and kids would be nothing but a long-term investment in disappointment and hurt. It would only be that much worse if he fell for a nice girl like Merry.
He and Cole sat under the blue sky, wrapped up in what must be very different thoughts. Cole was a man who would settle down. His biggest challenge would be talking Grace into it, but Shane had a feeling he’d succeed. Grace was damned prickly and tough to deal with, but she’d gentled a little in the past few months.
As if to refute his very thoughts, Grace exploded out the front door, the red tips of her hair flying as she looked back and forth. When her eyes locked on Cole, she bounded down the stairs. “I need a ride!”
“Okay. Where?”
“Merry had some trouble out at the ghost town and I’ve been trying to call her for two hours but the call won’t go through. I’m worried.”
Shane shot to his feet before Cole could stand. “What? What kind of trouble?”
“Vandalism, I think,” Grace said in a distracted tone. “Someone posted an antitourism sign or something. I’m sure it’s no big deal, and her phone goes out a lot, but I’d like to check on her.”
“I’ll do it,” Shane volunteered.
Grace narrowed her eyes at him.
“Look, I go out there every day. I’m familiar with the place and where she might be working if she’s not in her office.”
Cole nodded. “Good. Call us when you get there. If you’re okay with that, Grace?”
She watched him for a long moment, but then she nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Shane.”
He would’ve felt triumphant about her softening toward him if he hadn’t known that he didn’t deserve it. After all, she was worried that he was going to use her friend and walk away. He might not be using Merry, but he was lying to her, and there was no doubt he’d walk away at some point.
But none of that mattered as he got into his truck and headed toward Providence. He tried her on his cell and the call went straight to voice mail. Maybe she’d just forgotten to charge it. Maybe she’d gotten excited about some new ridiculous story and lost track of everything else.
But what about that sign? Shane shifted and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying to push some of the tension out. He’d have thought nothing of it, except for that weird accusation Jeanine Bishop had thrown at him. Was he being set up?
It wasn’t beyond possibility. After all, two million dollars was at stake here. There wouldn’t be any proof he’d done it, because he hadn’t, but maybe suspicion would be all it took. If they could paint him as the bad guy in a town this small, his case would have less of a chance.
More importantly, he knew he hadn’t threatened the Providence operation, so who had?
Shane pushed the truck faster, risking a hefty ticket if he got caught. Merry still wasn’t answering her phone. And she couldn’t be much more alone than she was out there.
Even aside from what had happened between them last night, he couldn’t stand the thought of Merry being in any danger. She was just so…unprotected. It wasn’t just the fact that she was alone in a deserted town, but in the rest of her life, as well. It was as if she’d somehow grown up with no shell. No armor.
He wasn’t sure how that could be true for a girl who’d grown up poor with no father around, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed protecting. Maybe that was only because he knew he was hurting her himself.
Yeah. That felt about right. He was worried for her, because he should be. Because he knew he was going to hurt her.
“Fuck,” he cursed, slamming a hand against the steering wheel.
How the hell had he let this happen? Why couldn’t he control himself around her? She was so harmless and nice; it should’ve been easy to treat her as nothing more than a friend. But somehow she’d snuck inside and become something dangerous.
Not that resisting her would’ve absolved him. Even if they’d stayed just friends, he’d lied to her. Used her trust to get something he wanted. And shit, it wasn’t even worth it. What had he learned aside from the board’s tactics? He could’ve gleaned those from afar, and his lawyer had barely been interested.
He was going to have to stop coming out here. He’d check on her, be sure she was fine and then he’d tell her he didn’t have time to keep working on the saloon. Too little too late, but the best he could do at this point.
Once on the gravel road, the slower pace wound his gut up in knots, but he finally caught sight of Providence after what felt like eons. There was no gravel dust in the air ahead of his truck, which meant no one had driven through in the past half hour. He tried to make himself see that as a good sign.
And when he pulled into the parking area, he spotted Merry’s car and no others. Another good sign, surely.
“Merry!” he called when he got out of the truck. He slammed the door and heard it echo for miles, but there was no response from Merry.
He called her name again, moving steadily toward the little house she’d claimed for work, but keeping his eyes moving, just in case. He made it all the way to the porch without any sign of her, but when he rushed into the small room, he saw her iPad right away, and his heart froze. She never went anywhere without that damned thing. So where was she?
The saloon. She had to be there, but he rushed over to find that building was deserted, too. What the hell had happened to her? For the first time since Grace had asked for help, Shane’s worry turned to true alarm.
There weren’t too many natural dangers that would cause her to disappear. A mountain lion, maybe, but not in the middle of the afternoon. So could it have been the vandal? Or had she just wandered off?
A thought suddenly freed itself from the fog of erotic memories of last night. When he’d been staring at Merry and wishing he could kiss her, she’d been talking about…something. It must have been Providence; there was no question of that. She’d been excited and babbling and bright with curiosity.
An ice house, she’d said. Somewhere at the start of the canyon.
“Thank God,” he muttered as he took off at a jog. That had to be it. Her phone wouldn’t work up there, and she probably wouldn’t have carried her iPad along. Hopefully she was just caught up in her explorations and wasn’t hurt.
He knew from his childhood that the trail that followed the canyon actually skirted above it, so Shane ignored the packed dirt trail and cut into the narrow canyon itself. At this time of year, the stream was still a fairly healthy flow. In another month it would decrease to a trickle. But at least it wasn’t spring. Merry would have to work pretty hard to be swept away in this water, but during a wet spring, it would be damned hazardous.
“Merry!” he called again. He had to keep a close eye on his footing as the place was strewn with loose rocks and boulders that seemed to have been stacked on top of crumbling slate, but he stopped every dozen yards or so to sweep the area with his gaze.
Finally, about fifty yards up the canyon, he heard a voice. Singing. Shane sucked in a deep breath and sighed with relief. Okay. She was fine.
He rounded an outcropping of rock and found her walking toward him, singing a pop song he recognized from the radio. When she finally glanced up, the song turned into a screech of horror and she stumbled back so quickly she nearly fell on her ass in the narrow stream.
Shane jumped forward to steady her, but she waved him off. “Holy crap, you scared me!”
“Are you okay?”
“Aside from the fact that I almost wet my pants, yes.”
“Grace was worried about you. She said there was some kind of vandalism up here, and then neither of us could get a hold of you.”
“Oh.” She looked guiltily away. “I’m sorry. Yeah. There’s no signal up here. Thank you for coming to check on me.”
“It’s no problem. You’re sure you’re fine?”
“I’m good. In fact…” She brightened up and waved her hands. “Come back with me! I found the ice house! Or what’s left of it. I think. It’s pretty cool.”
He started to demur, but she was already scrambling back up the canyon, so he had no choice but to follow. Plus, he didn’t mind looking at her curvy hips ahead of him. Or the plump ass he’d curved his hand around when he’d kissed her good-night. A mix of relief over her safety and watching her swaying hips combined to cause him a problem he’d never experienced before: hiking with an erection.
“Christ, man,” he muttered. “Get a grip.”
After all, Merry didn’t seem the least bit aware of him as she rushed ahead. She was too busy being excited about the two decaying boards of wood she pointed toward. “Look!”
“Uh,” he responded, doing his best not to tell her it didn’t look anything like an ice house.
“It’s pretty broken down,” she explained unnecessarily.
“Yeah.”
“But look at the flat stones laid out here in this notch. I’m pretty sure this was the floor. See how it’s set down below the level of the dirt? And there’s still a board wedged in here.”
“Very cool.”
“Yeah.” She sighed, kneeling down to put her hands to the stones. Half of them were buried in silt from some long ago flood, but Merry didn’t seem to see that. She seemed to see a complete ice house here, newly built by hardworking folk and used as a summer playroom for mischievous children. “So cool,” she whispered. “We can’t make it part of the tour, obviously. It’s too treacherous up here, but I’ve got a lot of pictures. I can make a little display about it, use some quotes from the story I heard.”
“Right.”
She looked up at him with a huge grin, and Shane felt a now familiar rush of warmth fall through him. He knelt next to her.
“See this?”
“Merry.”
When she turned back to him, he kissed her, aware that he always had to draw her attention before he could claim her mouth. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that when his lips touched hers, she always melted into him. She always wanted more.
But why the hell did her greatest passion have to be the one thing he couldn’t support? If it was anything else, he could happily play second fiddle as long as she sighed like this when he touched her. As long as her shy tongue snuck in to taste him and drive him wild.
“Oh,” she said when he finally let her go.
“We should get back. The sun’s setting.”
“Okay.” She sighed, taking his hand when he stood to pull her up.
She followed him, quiet for once, in that way she only seemed to get around him. He liked her shyness around him, but he was happy when she finally spoke.
“Shane?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“No problem. Just be sure to tell people when you’re heading into the hills, all right? We were worried.”
She got quiet again, and despite the beauty around them, the running water and deep shadows and dancing Aspen leaves, Shane couldn’t take the quiet. He’d gotten used to her voice.
“You okay, Merry?”
“Sure.”
He stopped and pulled her around to look at him. “I feel like I should say something about last night. So you’ll know it wasn’t…”
“I know! I know it wasn’t some big declaration. I’m not your girlfriend. And I’m good with that. I swear. I needed that. Big time.”
He answered her smile, but that hadn’t been what he’d meant. He’d wanted to say… Well, fuck, he’d wanted to say it had meant something, that it hadn’t been just some attempt to get laid. But how could he tell her it had been meaningful without implying that he’d want something more?
“I don’t think I can do the friends with benefits thing if you’re dating around,” she said. “That’s too much for me. But last night? With you? That was so good, Shane.”
“I’m not dating around,” he growled, strangely angry that she might think that. “Look, I’m not the settling down type, but I’m not a player. I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”
“Oh, good!” she said brightly, then a blush climbed her cheeks. “Maybe we could…”
He raised his eyebrows, wondering what she was about to say.
Merry covered her face and took a deep breath, then seemed to brace herself and stand straighter. “Maybe we could do it again? Just once more? Or more than that? I don’t know how these things work. Would that make me a booty call?”
“What? No!” He shook his head and then saw the way her face fell. “I mean, yes we can do it again. Christ, Merry.”
She crossed her arms. “What?”
“You’re not a booty call, all right? I want to sleep with you again, but not like that.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“It’s just that you’re nice. I like you. And I don’t know how to say that I want to sleep with you, but I don’t want any…”
“More?” she offered softly.
Jesus. How could he even answer that? What kind of man was he? “It’s not that I wouldn’t want more. You’re a great girl. I like you.”
“I get it,” she said and flashed him a comforting smile. “I feel the same way.”
Her voice wasn’t quite convincing. He studied her carefully.
She covered her eyes. “Stop looking at me. I want to have sex with you, okay? Can we stop talking about this?”
Well, fuck, he couldn’t argue with that. “Okay,” he finally said.
She dropped her hand and smiled. “Just don’t tell Grace.”
“I value my male anatomy way too much for that.”
“Hey, me, too!”
His laughter winged through the narrow canyon, joining up with hers when she laughed, too.
“Seriously,” he said as they began picking their way down loose rock again, “that girl scares me.”
“She should.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Grace was in school to become a makeup artist. She was already amazing, though, she just needed the certificate to get her foot in the door. I had the great idea that I’d learn to do hair, which doesn’t make any sense. I can’t even do my own hair. She came across me practicing layering on a wig and told me to give it up.”
“Ouch.”
“In a nice way, though. Well, not in a nice way, but I could tell she felt bad about breaking the truth to me like that. I dropped out and went back to work as a waitress, but I stayed in touch with Grace. She let me live with her for a month, and we’ve been best friends ever since, no matter where we lived or what we were doing.”
“Opposites attract, I guess.”
“Yeah. We take care of each other. And we’re more alike than you could know.”
Shane couldn’t see it, but he didn’t argue. Grace was all fists and fire, and Merry was like some sort of funny earth mother, if earth mother types were sexy. But he was smart enough not to say any of that to her.
“Be sure to call Grace as soon as we get out of the canyon. I hope finding that ice house was worth risking her wrath.”
“She’ll be fine. And it was!”
Shane had inadvertently triggered another enthusiastic description of a Providence story she’d heard, but he smiled as he followed her over a pile of boulders, then hopped down to put his hands around her waist and ease her down. She didn’t stop talking.
“These people were so amazing. Can you imagine coming here when it took a whole day on horseback just to run across the closest neighbor? When there were no doctors? No hospitals? They brought their children here and built these houses from scratch.”
“And then they left.”
