Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
What seemed like only ten minutes after he’d crawled onto his cot, Jake awoke with a start. This was due to Tucker climbing off the couch and kicking him on the back of the head with his foot as he did—not, Jake was certain, entirely by accident.
“Sorry,” Tucker muttered, sounding anything but.
Jake had been dreaming about being back in Callie’s bed, which had been a great place to be. So great that when he’d been there last night, he hadn’t wanted to leave, which in turn had given him a panic attack, and he’d nearly killed himself to get out. “What the hell time is it?”
“Five thirty. Time to rise and shine, city boy.”
Jake had to laugh at that. “You used to be a city boy yourself. You used to whine like a baby when I’d wake you for kindergarten.”
“Yeah, well, that was a damn long time ago.” Wearing only his boxers, Tucker grabbed his jeans off the floor and headed toward the bathroom.
“I’d have to peel you off me to get you on the bus,” Jake called out.
Tucker tripped but caught himself. The bathroom door slammed behind him.
Jake lay back and studied the ceiling. Dawn never seemed this early when he was in the firehouse. And it was butt-cold out here for spring. The windows were fogged.
He didn’t want to get up. He’d have liked to just lie there and think about the amazing sex he’d had last night, but as with everything out in the boondocks, even that had ended badly.
His own fault. He’d been a shit for leaving like that, when all she’d wanted to do was talk, and he deserved whatever she dished out today. He wondered what form his torture would take. Feeding more pigs? Moving more cows?
And who willingly did those things every day?
Maybe these people were all a little off their rocker. Yeah, that would explain a lot.
The shower turned on.
Aw hell. They got up at dawn and worked so hard because they were dedicated. And Jake had to admit, stretching, wincing at the ache in his shoulder, that his baby brother wore responsibility surprisingly well.
An extremely welcome change.
After a few more minutes, the bathroom door opened and a fully dressed Tucker headed toward the front door.
“Tuck?”
One hand on the door, Tucker hesitated. “Yeah?”
“When are you going to forgive me for leaving you?”
“I was only five, you were nothing to me.”
A lie. They both knew that. They’d been everything to each other. “You know I had to go,” Jake said softly. “Mom—”
“I don’t care.”
“She was jealous of us. She had all the control then, and she used it—”
The front door slammed shut. Before Jake could lie back, it was whipped open again. “You going to help with chores or what?” Tucker demanded.
“I’ll help.”
“I know you don’t want to get your hands dirty, so maybe you could just show up in the tack room and help organize the gear for our day trip.”
“I don’t give a shit if my hands get dirty. I just wasn’t used to trying to direct a damn cow—”
The door slammed again and Jake was left alone. He got up slowly, shoulder stiff, feeling twice his age. A hot shower didn’t help.
He stepped outside and glanced at Callie’s cabin.
He could still be in there right now, holding her gorgeous body and getting lucky again.
But no, he’d had to run out like a bat out of hell rather than talk.
He hated talking, especially about what she’d wanted to talk about—himself and his feelings.
He made his way to the barn. Moe gave him the evil eye as he entered. “Okay, listen,” he said, stopping at his stall, extending a hand to pet him. “How about a peace treaty?”
Moe bared his teeth.
Jake yanked his hand back. “Or not,” he muttered and went to the tack room.
A few days ago, he and Eddie had moved the puppies and their mother there, onto a soft bed of hay.
They’d named the brown dog Tiger, for her fierce protective tendencies, and she seemed proud of it.
Now the dog raised her head and sniffed at him, and then let him pet the puppies, which sent them all into wiggle, mewling mode.
At least somebody here liked him.
Living alone and working twenty-four-hour shifts didn’t suit a dog’s life, so he didn’t have one. But he stroked the belly of a warm, chocolate brown puppy and felt a yearning inside him.
Knowing he couldn’t take one home, he sighed and went looking for some sign of what Tucker needed done.
He had no idea, and no one was around, so he left, walking up to the big house in the early-morning sun.
He didn’t hear a sound. No planes, no cars, no honking trucks, nothing.
Just the occasional snort of a horse, the clucking of a hen or two.
The sky yawned wide in front of him, as vast as the land around him.
Towering rocky canyons surrounded them, outlined by thick oaks and sycamores.
Nowhere to go, no fires to put out, no purpose.
Even more depressing was the little niggling voice inside saying, What if this is all you have?
What if you can never go back to firefighting?
Outside, Lou kneeled before a toolbox in front of Callie’s Jeep and Eddie’s truck.
They’d upped his hours at the ranch because he and Marge needed the income, but the truth was, the man kept all their equipment running smoothly and was damn handy.
Just yesterday he’d made a hero out of himself when he’d fixed both the fussy hot tub and the microwave in the big kitchen.
Lou nodded to Jake but didn’t say a word. Eddie stood in the corral working with one of the horses. He nodded to Jake, too, but also kept to himself.
Everyone had a purpose, a reason for being there. Everyone but him.
Jake shoved his hands in his pockets and headed inside.
Still no sign of Tucker. In the kitchen, he pilfered one of Amy’s excellent banana nut muffins off the stove.
He could hear the guests conversing in Japanese in the dining room, so he wandered into the weight room and over to a weight bench.
Lying down, he reached up for the bar. There was only thirty pounds on it, and his left hand gripped just fine, but his right…
he couldn’t even get it to the bar. He had to physically maneuver it with his left hand.
Ridiculous. He’d been doing his exercises, including a brutal set of thirty push-ups a day, and he still couldn’t reach for anything.
Lifting the weight was out of the question, he knew that, and yet out of apparent stupidity, he tried anyway.
And nearly strangled himself when his right arm collapsed and the bar landed across his windpipe. He fought with it for a moment, but couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Good one, Ace, he thought as his vision swam. Nice way to go—
“Ohmigod.” He caught a whir of fiery hair, which hit him in the face, and then the weights were lifted.
Callie glared down at him, looking more furious than he’d ever seen her. “You have a death wish?” She put a hand to his chest, holding him down when he would have risen. “Don’t you know your own damn limitations?”
Grabbing her hand in his, he pushed it aside and sat up, trying not to gasp for breath or look as if he hurt like hell. “I would have been fine.” This was spoken in a thin, hoarse voice that didn’t fool either of them.
Callie shoved her hair out of her face and let out a breath. “I was in my office and heard the clang of the weights. I thought it was a guest and nearly didn’t come check.” She shook her head. “You could have killed yourself, you idiot.”
Idiot? Did he call her an idiot when she got hurt? “I’m not paying to stay here to be insulted.”
“You’re not paying to stay here at all,” she pointed out. “I mean it, Jake, that was the stupidest thing—” She broke off when he sank back to the bench, lifting his left hand to rub his shoulder. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Yes, he hurt like hell, and was damn tired of it too. “I’m fine. Thanks for the lecture. You can get back to work.”
“Let me see.”
“What? No.”
“Take off your shirt.”
A laugh choked out of him. “Didn’t we do this in reverse a week ago?”
“Here—” Impatient, she unbuttoned his shirt herself, her tongue caught between her teeth with concentration.
Jake stared at that tongue while her fingers brushed his bare skin, sweeping the material off his chest and shoulders. “I decided sleeping with you again would be extremely detrimental to my mental health. So I’m begging you, put that tongue away.”
Ignoring him, she touched his scar, from armpit to the tip of his shoulder. “You didn’t split anything.”
“No.” Apparently his lower body didn’t get the memo about not sleeping with her, because it was reacting to her touch. “The incision’s closed.”
“But it hurts?”
“Only when I breathe.”
Her fingers kneaded lightly, in a motion that was both torture and pleasure. “You’re not massaging it enough. The scar tissue is stiff.” She dug in with her fingers, stopping when he sucked in a pained breath. “Too hard?”
“Nah.” Sweat broke out on his brow.
Shaking her head, she let out an irked mutter and continued to massage his shoulder and scar, manipulating it much the same way his physical therapist had. “You hanging in?” she asked a few minutes later.
He decided not to answer that because he wasn’t sure. Eventually she stopped and pushed him back to the bench when he would have risen.
“Stay,” she said, and whirled away, only to come back a moment later and set an ice pack on him, making him yelp at the cold. “Ten minutes, you big baby.”
“Damn, such a bedside manner. Are you this kind to all the men in your life?”
“You could ask my ex. I once held his own shotgun on him.”
He shuddered. “And here I thought you were so sweet. Why did you get married so young?”
“Besides being stupid?” She lifted a shoulder. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She touched his ice pack. “It’s a little pathetic, actually.”
“Well, I’m feeling a little pathetic myself. Tell me.”