Chapter 2 #3
“That tale has been greatly exaggerated,” she said, sniffing.
“My great-great-great-grandfather engaged in a couple of dowsing scams. I can’t deny that.
Absolutely occurred. But the thing is, he actually ended up finding water, and the guy who owned the property was so grateful he wound up leaving it to him when he died.
So nobody really got scammed. He was an old man who lived by himself.
He didn’t have anyone else to leave the land to. ”
Flynn couldn’t even really be scornful. Considering how he had ended up with his property. They both had property thanks to an old man who had decided to leave it to them for some reason or another.
“Have you been up to Lonesome Ridge?”
“No. That’s your place?” she asked.
“Yep. I own most of the mountaintop. That’s actually why I started ranching elk. Because they do better on the mountain than cows.”
“How does that …? I mean, how is that even going? It’s such a weird thing.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a weird thing. But my brother has cows, a lot of people have cows. I wanted to do something of my own, something that didn’t compete, but that still … Ranching is in my blood. Some of my blood, anyway.”
“Did you scam anybody to get the land?” she asked.
“Kind of. My grandpa Parker was maybe the only person in the world who thought I was decent. Might have been a scam to let him think so.”
“Right.”
He had rarely heard Jessie Jane at a loss for words, but she seemed to be now. Granted, he had never really been with her when she wasn’t in public. This was the first time he’d ever been alone with her. His muscles went tight, his blood hot.
“So,” she said, her breath hissing through her teeth, “you have an extra bedroom, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m not having sex with you,” she said.
His neck practically popped as he whipped his head around to look at her. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Well, a woman can’t be too careful,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “Because men make assumptions. And I don’t have any interest in getting tangled up in your assumptions.”
“I didn’t make any assumptions,” he said.
“I can’t bank on that. You know what they say about assuming.”
“It makes an ass out of you and me?” He was beginning to wonder if this entire scheme was going to make an ass out of both of them.
“That is correct. That’s what they say.”
“Right. Well. No danger of me coming on to you, Jessie Jane. If I was going to do it, I could’ve done it anytime over the past … I don’t know, decade?”
“I guess so,” she said. “But you know, you might not go out of your way to get, like, a frozen pizza, but if it’s available, it’s what you’ll eat.”
“Are you comparing yourself to shitty pizza?”
“Sort of. Not exactly.”
Silence settled between them. “If I want a woman, she doesn’t need to ask for clarification. She knows.”
It sounded good, but it was a lie. Because he wanted her. But he didn’t want to want her, and he was going to go ahead and claim what mattered. Because he was never going to do anything about it. At this point, his pride was tangled up in that shit.
And her making assumptions about the fact that he might …
“I’ve never had to do anything underhanded to get a woman into my bed, Jessie Jane Hancock. And you ought to know that.”
“Yeah. I’ve watched you walk out of the bar with a whole parade of women, so there is that.”
“Right. The thing is, you don’t really know me.”
“You don’t know me either. And why would you? Our families are mortal enemies and all of that.”
“Yeah. Well. It’s going to be interesting to see what Austin thinks about all this. I’m going to have to level with him.”
“He’ll understand,” Jessie said. “I’m sure he will.”
“You don’t know him either,” Flynn said. “You really have no idea what my brother would understand or not.”
“I guess I don’t, but I do know that your relationship with Danielle is complicated.”
“I don’t know that I would call it complicated.
I would call it nonexistent. When we were kids, we were forced to interact sometimes, and every so often my mom manages to guilt me into going to an Easter brunch or something.
But I’m never sure why she wants me there.
It has something to do with her own guilt, I think. ”
“Yeah. I don’t know. For dirtbags, my parents are pretty great.”
That was funny. He had never given it much thought, but the Hancock family was close. Not just the siblings, like the Wilders, but the parents. They seemed to be a united group, and that was something he didn’t know anything about.
His dad had been all right. Just irresponsible as hell. And then he had gone and gotten himself killed being a dick driving drunk on his motorcycle.
“Nice for you. My dad was lousy at picking partners to have babies with. And he never really grew up himself.”
“Yeah. I know. I mean, everybody knows. It’s kind of town lore.”
“Just like you guys, I guess. And all the fables about you cheating people out of their land.”
“The way I see it,” she said, “we get talked about an awful lot, and it’s not for anything we choose to be talked about.
I actually run a lot of the Wild West Show.
I do a lot of the paperwork, the marketing, all that stuff.
I manage the budget. West is great. He has an eye for showmanship.
Like my dad. He does insane tricks. Totally fearless.
But he can’t complete a piece of paperwork without getting distracted.
He wants to do things. He doesn’t want to organize them.
My dad is the same. The place was a mess before I took over.
I’m good at organizing. I know that I could do a good job for the town.
I’m actually great with money. Why do you think I make it hand over fist with all that gambling stuff? I can read the odds.”
“And you want to be known on your own terms,” he said. He could actually understand that. This little gambit wasn’t going to do the same for him, but it was going to take down his mother’s family a peg, so there was that.
“Yeah. I want to be known on my own terms, I guess.”
“I get it.”
He had a feeling that was as close as he was ever going to get to understanding Jessie.
He took a sharp left turn, pulling off the paved, curving road onto the dirt driveway that led up to Lonesome Ridge. His ranch was right on the border between Oregon and California, with some of his pastureland straying over into what he considered to be enemy territory.
But the view was fantastic. The road wound up and around, but in the darkness, the vista of trees and lake below was invisible.
“Like, no offense,” she said, “but do women honestly go home with you? Because it seems dumb. Like you might be a serial killer.”
“Typically we get a room in town,” he said. “But I’m not going to spend the money when I’m not getting laid.”
She huffed. “Well, that would’ve been very showy, though.”
“We don’t want to be too showy. I don’t want this to look like just another hookup, right? This is supposed to look like the beginning of a relationship. Which … I’ve never actually had before, so that should be interesting.”
She huffed out a laugh. “That makes two of us.”
They pulled up to the house, and he felt a surge of pride, which he suppressed, allowing it to turn into annoyance.
Because he didn’t want to wonder what Jessie would think of the place.
He had been working on it pretty intensely ever since he’d moved in five years ago.
It was done now, a fully remodeled log cabin with a rustic exterior and a modern interior.
It was actually the perfect sort of place for a man who wanted to start a family. Alas, he was not that man. The only people who had been up here were his family and his friend Dalton.
“Nice place,” she said.
And he suppressed the satisfaction her praise created in him.
He got out of the truck, and so did she, following him up the wooden steps to the front door. He opened it and gestured inside.
“Not locked?”
“Up here?”
“Fair. I always lock my trailer door because we have a lot of different people working at the Wild West Show. Though I confess I am more likely to lock it if I’m inside than when I leave it.”
“Fair enough.”
She looked a little bit lost, standing there in her jeans and tank top.
He had the uncomfortable thought that she would probably take her jeans off when she went to bed and just wear a pair of panties and that tank top.
The mental image just about undid him. He also felt that he had betrayed her by imagining it, since he had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want her, and here he was, lusting after her.
She didn’t look like herself just then. She looked younger.
Vulnerable. He didn’t think he had ever seen her look vulnerable.
Gone was the bravado she’d displayed outside the bar.
“Come on now, let’s not build any suspense.
You can sleep upstairs. There are two rooms in the loft, mine is down here. You have a lock on the door.”
“I know I don’t need it,” she said, starting up the stairs at a clip, as if she was desperate to get away from him no matter what she said.
“But go ahead and use it,” he said.
Her eyes widened fractionally; then she turned and made her way up the stairs. He heard a door close behind her.
He let out a long, hard breath and went into his bedroom, closing the door firmly behind him. And locking it.
He took his phone out of his pocket and turned it over. He had a text from his older brother. Because of course he did. Oh, Austin. The man just couldn’t help himself.
What the fuck?
Not what you think. I’ll explain tomorrow. In person.
See that you do.
It’s possible you’re going to hear a whole lot of rumors before I see you, so you’re going to have to keep your shit together.
And with that, he turned his phone to Do Not Disturb. Austin could have his say, but it was going to have to be tomorrow.
What Flynn needed right now was a cold shower and a good night’s sleep.
But he didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Instead, he lay there awake all night wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.