Chapter 20
20
T he whole point of taking the four days out to camp was to get away from Meredith, not be stuck with her. Not that he would be stuck, per se. Just that he wouldn’t have the space to think. They'd consummated their marriage and then repeated the act over the last three nights––Willow sleeping in the cabin to “give it a test run” was an additional incentive. Then his parents had moved home, Willow had moved back into her room next door, and everything came to a screeching halt because privacy was lost with the thin walls.
Coming together for the first time had started out with all the urgency possible for a human to possess. Rough kisses, shoving her against the wall, and quick hands stripping her of her clothes. Then he'd laid her on the bed, covered her body with his, and time slowed, touch softened, and two people connected so deeply it had left him stunned.
The hell with all the potential awkwardness they might be creating. The hell with it all. He'd found a new nirvana and wanted to wallow away his time there––with her. Continuing this practice was all he could think about. He felt like a top spinning recklessly out of control, and he needed to topple over and catch his breath. When she was around, he lost the capacity to use skills that separated man from beast. Like reasoning and calculation. He became primitive and only wanted to constantly mate and promise her the world.
Now the whole damn family lived within spitting distance of each other, and this pent up whatever-it-was-called was making him crazy. Yeah, he was happy to have Pops back on the ranch, but the early mornings and late nights were becoming the highlights of his day. Something intangible had shifted. Together he and Meredith worked in harmony getting chores done, and though she occasionally would turn a perfectly good steak into unintentional beef jerky–– Jace didn’t care. He’d eat canned soup everyday if that was what it took to keep things just the way they were. Last night they'd gotten into bed talking about the ranch and laughing as he shared stories about growing up with the mountains outside his backdoor. He loved her endless questions about the workings of his family business. Then he had lain there for hours dreaming about exploring her body.
All the reasons why he decided to get outdoors for a few days. Clear his head.
Leave it to a meddling mother to jack up those plans.
Now they would be sharing a tent. Jeez, he’d never get anything done. All because his mother was a master manipulator.
“Someone should stay behind to help you out,” Jace said.
“I have Willow.”
“Wait, I thought Willow was doing summer school.” He tried to focus on the distraction of his sister instead of the fantasy of Meredith naked in a sleeping bag. Good Christ, he was so easy to please. Everything she did made him hard—wear a flannel shirt, make coffee, eat a sandwich. He was a freaking lost cause.
“Her summer A class was cancelled, so she’ll be home for six more weeks, then head back to campus for summer B. Let’s get you packed, Meredith.”
Meredith and Willow were whispering furtively. Jace strained to hear what they were saying.
“What are you two hiding over there,” Marjory said, pointing to Willow and Meredith.
“Um…” Willow said.
Yep, they were up to something. Jace was certain, and by his mother's narrow gaze, she knew it, too.
“Did you say I needed to do something, Marjory?” Meredith asked.
“I said we need to get you packed.” Marjory crossed her arms. “What's going on here?”
“Nothing. I was telling Meredith about some of the icky parts of rustic camping.” Willow busied herself by buzzing around the kitchen, stacking items like water bottles and granola bars on the counter.
Jace would bet his sister was lying, but he had a larger pressing issue going on than whatever it was his sister was hiding.
He turned to Meredith. “When was the last time you rode?”
“Um, a few years ago maybe, but I—”
His mom shoved him in the shoulder. “Whose fault is that? From day one you should have had this woman on a horse.” She turned to Meredith “You’ll need some warmer clothes. It gets cool out there at night.”
Jace glanced at Meredith, who looked like he felt—railroaded. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I'm sure Willow mentioned it can be kinda grubby out there.” He looked between the two. “She told you there were no flushing toilets, right?”
“It's called an alpine smear, Meredith. Once you poo outside, you take a rock and–– ”
“Enough, Willow! Some things should be left to the imagination,” Marjory scolded.
He watched her process what that meant, a variety of expressions crossing her face. She and Willow hadn't been discussing camping. He could see that in her horrified expression, and had he been in a better state of mind, one that possessed a sense of humor, he’d have laughed. He was torn. Part of him hoped that would put her off, but another part wanted her not to be bothered by that.
“I ah…well, I don’t want to be a bother, so if I’ll be in the way, I’ll just stay here.”
Well, hell. How was he supposed to answer that? Of course she’d be a bother, just not like she was thinking.
“Jace, tell your bride she would not be a bother on this trip.” His mother pushed him in the shoulder then shifted her focus to Meredith. “You at least need to try and decide if it’s something you’d like to rustic camp again in the future. It’s a rite of passage here. No pressure, though.” She lowered her voice as if mumbling to herself. “All Shepard woman do it at least once.”
Jace was curious as to how she’d react to the Shepard woman challenge. She set her jaw and pushed her shoulders back. “I’d like to go.” She was quiet, but her voice was firm.
Marjory clapped her hands together with glee. “Fabulous. Let’s get you packed.” Marjory ushered Meredith out of the room, and just over an hour later, they had their horses saddled and loaded with the bare essentials.
Meredith in jeans, a T-shirt, and hair in a ponytail looked far different than the bride he met and married in the same day. Gone were her painted nails and polished look, replaced by a casual and appealing Meredith. Jace looked away, not wanting to make something out of nothing. So what if her nail polish was chipped off or that she wore her hair more casually.
She rode Willow's sporty mare named Fancy and, though a bit stiff, appeared more natural in the saddle than some of the locals. “You okay? Comfortable?”
She rode past him without so much as glancing his way. “Would it make you happy if I wasn't and had to go back to the house?” She slowed Fancy and glanced back at him.
“It's not that I don't want you here. It's that I have things to do and I can't be distracted.” Jeez, even that made him sound like an asshole, and there was no doubt she took it that way because she sat up straighter and swiveled in her saddle.
“So I'm a distraction?” Her mouth dropped open with indignation.
Jace couldn't help but smile. “Not a bad distraction. A good one. A real good one.”
Meredith blushed and turned away.
Jace looked around to get his bearings. He'd been so preoccupied, he needed a moment to make sure they were headed in the right direction. “We’ll start in the far east pasture and circle back around. I usually like to go out and work my way in, but we’re getting a late start.”
“You know, if you tell me what to look for, I might be some help out here. There's more to me than you think.”
Jace sat back in his saddle, his reins in one hand, his other hand resting on his knee. “I know this. You've done great learning stuff around the house and pitching in, but how about you fill me in on some specifics? I know very little about you, and when I ask, I get silence.”
She bit her lip. “I grew up around horses. We had a house next to my grandparents, and they had the horses. My grandmother used to race thoroughbreds as a business but had gotten away from that and into training, breeding, and some horse rescuing. I rode every chance I got.”
“Why did you quit riding?” He moved up next to her and pointed down into a valley, the direction they needed to go. He didn’t want her to stop now that she’d started. “You know my mother died.” She glanced at him, likely waiting for a nod. “My grandparents died in the same accident. My father sold off everything after their funerals. Including the horses.”
“One afternoon when I’d returned from therapy, my father told me what he planned. The next day, my favorite horse, her name was Lizzy, and the others were gone. A week later, we moved away from the only home I'd known to this ugly McMansion on the outskirts of the city. Far from where I had grown up, but close enough to be just out of reach.” Meredith brushed a finger under one eye then the other. “Leaving it all was like losing my mother and grandparents all over again.”
She looked ahead, avoiding his gaze, and he wondered what it would be like to lose most of the people he loved in one day. And he was worried about her getting too close to her family. If ever there ever was a person who needed people, it was Meredith.
He was a top dick, thinking only about himself and getting the ranch. He shook his head, Sabrina’s advice ringing in his ears. Hadn't she told him that to get something he had to give something? He was getting the ranch out of this deal. It was only fair for him to look for an opportunity to give to her.
“You were a teenager, right, when they died?” He rode next to her but didn’t look at her, knowing she would be uncomfortable.
“I was sixteen.” She stretched forward and rubbed her horse’s neck.
“We’re going to camp right at the top of that hill there.” He pointed.
They rode in silence until they reached a tree that stood out from the rest. After sliding off their horses, Meredith tied them to a large branch and worked with Jace to unpack their tent .
“If you want to talk about it, I’m here. I know when we got Pop’s diagnosis, I felt like the world tilted and was trying to toss me off.” He paused, plucked a long blade of grass, set it between his lips, and then leaned against a tree. That day had been awful, so many unknowns, and for a man as self-sufficient as Jace, it rendered him helpless in ways he never thought possible. No matter how strong or smart or cunning he could be, it would never be enough to cure his father.
He watched her, her face changing expressions from moment to moment. Was she reliving it? Did it bring back a plethora of memories like Pops did for him? It was always a game of comparison. He’d watch Pops struggle with opening a sandwich bag and recall a time he took down a steer. Each of those were gut punches, as he would then try to envision his father paralyzed and confined to a chair. Jace pushed from the tree and scooped up the tent. After pulling it from the bag, he grasped two corners and cracked it in the air, spreading it out. Meredith took one side and staked it.
“My father was the sort who was present, but mostly in body and not spirit. So losing my mother was—is—the most painful experience I’ve ever had.” She connected the poles and threaded them through the tent side. “It was as if my father went nuts afterwards and was determined to remove all traces of my mother.” The tent was up, and Jace tossed their sleeping bags inside.
“Here, help me hang up the bear container.” He tossed her a rope and carried the large cylindrical container over to a different hill upwind, several hundred feet away from their tent.
“Wow, bears keeping popping up.” She looked over one shoulder, then the other.
He shimmied up a tree and tied off one end of the rope. “You should always be mindful of bears. Most are easily scared, but we got one that likes my herd. How did they die? Car accident?” What were the possibilities of three people dying in the same accident? It had to be something transportation based unless it was something so awful and tragic he couldn’t imagine.
Meredith stared up at the clear sky; she squinted at a small speck, the droning of the engine in the wind.
Jace frowned at the same spot and put the pieces together. “It was a plane crash?”
She nodded. “I read recently that there are only two places on earth left where you can go and not hear a sound made by man. Pure natural sounds. I’d like to see what that’s like.”
She looked forlorn, standing at the top of the hill looking into the sky. Young and beautiful was how he initially had seen her. Scared, too. But now he saw more than that. He easily recognized the loneliness, but Meredith was strong. Through her ran a deeply entrenched desire to be something other than the one left behind, the victim of so much loss. She’d been pale and thin, a bit shaky, and although she was still too thin for him, she’d thickened up some. Color stained her cheeks now, as it had done every day since she began working in the garden. She stood taller and was laughing more. Her hands were often dirty, and her desire to see more, do more, and live more was ever present. Now he understood why she had come to him.
“Your dad, he must have sold everything out of grief or something.” He handed her a bottle of water, took one for himself, and sat on a small campstool he’d brought. Meredith sat on hers.
“I thought that at first, but every year he got worse, more controlling. I was accepted into Brown, where both my mother and grandmother went, and he wouldn’t let me go. I went to the local college. I have a teaching degree.” She glanced at him, a small smile on her lips. “Doesn’t really help me here, but when I applied for my first job, my father made sure I didn’t get it, or any other job for that matter.”
Jace couldn’t understand a father blocking his own child. “Why?”
Meredith shrugged. “I’ve asked him that a million times. Basically, he wanted me to do what he wanted, when he wanted, for reasons he thought were important. My father is a businessman, and knowing the political climate is essential in his business. I was his tool for getting that information.”
Jace nodded and squeezed his bottle, water leaking out from beneath the lid. What kind of father did that to his child? Jace thought back to the diner and their brief reception. She’d worn a plastic smile and a vacant look, and now it all made sense. Plus, the headache.
“Hey, have you had any headaches since you’ve been here? Other than the first day?”
She looked at him and smiled widely. “No, unless you count the ones from your sister's chatter. Incredible right?”
Jace snorted. “She does talk a lot. We all have headaches, but Willow excluded, I take the lack of headaches as a good sign. An excellent one actually.” He stroked her cheek before tucking an errant wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry I was an ass today about you coming out here. I say that a lot to you, but I promise I’m trying to outgrow it.”
She laughed. “Recognizing you have a problem is the first step.” She clapped her hands together in finality. “So…what do we do now?”
Okay, she needed to move away from the subject. He could understand that. Jace stood, readjusted his hat, and offered her a hand to stand. “Since we’re here, we might as well take a look at the herd and see if any of the cows dropped. Grab your shotgun. Rule number one out here is to always have something for defense at hand.”
She took his hand, and he pulled her up. For all the toughness she'd developed since coming to the ranch, she still needed gentle touching and tonight, after dinner, he’d try to do his part and show her how much he appreciated her.
She glanced at the weapon holstered at his flank. “Got it. Carry a weapon. Even if I don't know how to use it.”
Jace swore under his breath. Yep, her carrying a gun was as useless as tits on a bull. “This is grizzly country. I’m not for the unnecessary injuring of an animal, but I’m all for my friends and family coming home alive, and that includes you. We'll get you caught up on firearms real soon. For now, grab the bear spray.”
He brushed his lips to hers once, and then again, using his tongue to caress and asking her to let him in. Kissing her, touching her, required a restraint he was learning to develop. He wanted to consume her, swallow her whole like she did him, take her into the blinding world of pleasure he’d become addicted to. With his hands on her hips, he pulled her against him, her fingers grabbing onto his shoulders. Her head went back as he worked kisses down her neck. He stopped at the base of her throat to kiss her scar. He loved the pucker of skin, even more so today because it gave him a place to start kissing her wounds. He was desperate to take her aches away.
“This?” he asked and kissed the round, raised skin. He glanced at her. Her eyes fluttered open and met his gaze.
“It’s from a ventilator. I was the only survivor of the plane crash.” Her voice was so low he almost didn’t hear it over the pounding of his heart. A tiny tear fell from her eye, others waiting for their turn.
Her words sucked the air from him. It all made sense. A girl who nearly lost her life was forced to live a caged existence. Anyone with a spirit would have run at the first chance. Meredith was no exception.
Screw the cows. There would be enough sunshine after he was done showing his wife how much she meant to him and how desperately he wanted her .
“Babe,” he said and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so sorry.” He laid her down in the soft grass. Using his hands to do all the talking, he showed her a gentle love. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, he did his damnedest to make Meredith know and feel that she was cherished.