Chapter Five
Shauna
S hauna and Taryn had dinner with Dan and Jazz in the ranch’s main house.
The house was divided into three separate apartment units, connected by a common lounge. The common area included business offices used by Ryan to run the ranch and his wife Elizabeth to manage the group home. It was also where the ranch held most of its formal and informal events.
Like Saturday movie nights for the teenagers in residence.
Shauna wasn’t fooled by Taryn wanting to stay for the movie.
The attraction was Remi, not the latest instalment in the Marvel franchise.
But she’d be well-chaperoned, and since it saved Shauna from having to spend the evening at home making progressively less-polite conversation with a girl who couldn’t peel her eyes off her phone for more than ten minutes, she didn’t see any harm.
A high-beamed ceiling crowned the biggest TV screen she had ever seen in her life. Heavy leather furniture knelt on a stone floor before it, bowing heads to the king in the room. She helped Jazz drag beanbag chairs into the circle of homage while Dan and Taryn made popcorn.
Dallas Tucker and his wife Hannah wandered in behind the popcorn, holding hands. Dallas, a doctor, ran the local free clinic. He helped Hannah lower her heavily pregnant body onto one of the sofas, then leaned in to kiss her. Weren’t they just the cutest pair ever?
Nix was the exact opposite of Dallas. He’d paid more attention to her horse than to her, and while granted they weren’t a couple, still. What was his problem?
The Double O Seven comment rankled. Other than Taryn, and only because she wanted to talk about her, Shauna didn’t care who saw her with him, but when she’d suggested they speak in private, he’d gotten weird about it—as if he thought she was… How did Taryn put it? Rizzing him up.
She wasn’t rizzing any man up while she had her little sister living with her. She’d make that clear when she met him. Maybe then he’d quit acting so whacky around her.
Except, when Remi arrived for the movie, the way he homed in on Taryn had Shauna reconsidering her plan to meet Nix.
Taryn might think she was worldly—and compared to the local kids in Grand, she probably was—but not up against someone like Remi.
She was a pampered poodle compared to his wolf.
A young wolf, granted. More of a pup. But a wolf, nonetheless.
Shauna wasn’t confident petite, red-headed Elizabeth, with her PhD in social work and specialty in violent male young offenders, could predict the lengths this one would go to when it came to getting something he wanted.
Then she felt bad for being judgmental, because as a lawyer, she should believe in his potential for rehabilitation. As Taryn’s older sister, however…
It was a lucky thing for young Remi that she’d focused on real estate law.
Dan started the movie. Jazz sat on one side of him with Shauna on the right, which placed her directly behind Taryn and Remi, who’d pulled their beanbag chairs together.
Shauna massaged her eyebrow, trying to fend off a dull pain.
This was no big deal. They were two teenagers forging a friendship, not plotting a joint life of sex, drugs, and crime.
Her first weekend as a teenager’s guardian, and already, her nerves couldn’t take it.
The movie started and her attention flipped between the screen, the teens, and a clock on the wall, watching its hands creep toward seven thirty. At seven twenty-six, she was forced to decide. Either meet Nix or sit here glowering at the back of her sister’s blonde, vapid head.
She slapped a hand to her back pocket and drew her phone out. “I’ve got to make a work call. Land deal. I’ll take it outside,” she said to Dan, waggling her phone at him. “Would you keep an eye on Taryn for me?”
The glare from the screen highlighted the opinion expressed on his face. “Would you like me to handcuff her to me until you get back?”
She knew he was kidding, but still. “If I said yes, would you do it?”
He bumped her shoulder with his. “Don’t worry. I’ll shoot the first one who moves.”
“Thanks. That’s all I ask.”
Outside, the brilliant blue of the sky had deepened to twilight and there was a distinct bite in the air that had her wishing she’d brought a sweater.
The thin cotton gauze of her blouse didn’t offer much by way of warmth.
She followed the solar-powered lights bordering the footpath that led past the bunkhouses to the outbuildings and barns.
The sliding door to the machine shed was open, but except for a work light hooked to the underside of a tractor, the interior of the building was dark.
The work light banished enough of the shadows for her to see legs protruding from under the tractor.
She recognized the boots and the frayed cuffs on his jeans.
Her lips pressed together.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said to his boots. “I was worried you might be too busy to talk.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so sarcastic, but when Taryn batted her eyelashes, grown men climbed on bulls to impress her. Shauna, however? No need for men to waste time or effort on rizzing her up.
He slid out from under the tractor and sprang to his feet, wiping grease-stained hands on a rag he then stowed in his back pocket.
Unbelievable. Even unshowered, unshaven, and covered in grease, he made hiccups form in her chest. Meanwhile, it had taken her an hour that morning to decide what to wear, she’d put on makeup, and she got zero reaction from him.
“I have plenty of time to discuss ways to get your little sister to change her mind about taking my clinic,” he said. “I’m just not sure her mind can be changed.”
Shauna wasn’t sure either, but she hated to admit that she had so little sway.
“I’d planned to let her find an excuse to back out on her own, because I don’t really believe she wants to ride bulls, but we both know what the real attraction for your clinic is, and I want a stop put to that sooner rather than later. ”
“You and me both,” Nix said, with feeling.
Enough feeling, in fact, that it made her defensive. Taryn might be a terror, but she was still her little sister.
“If I thought she was more interested in bull riding than boys, I’d be in favor,” she added, and where had that come from? Because no, she was not in favor. Not for anyone, let alone Taryn, who weighed maybe a hundred pounds at the most.
Nix’s eyebrows framed an equal surprise. “You think she signed up because she’s interested in boys?” Then he began backpedaling, which raised all sorts of questions. “Of course. Of course, she’s interested in boys. She’d have no other reason to sign up. What other reason could there be?”
Shauna was lost. He was hiding something from her, but she had no idea what it might be. “Hold on a second. Why do you think she’s here?”
His eyes darted past her as if mapping the shortest route to the exit. “Your sister is the kind of girl who likes a challenge. The bigger, the better.”
“What could be a bigger challenge than bull riding?” she demanded, truly bewildered by now.
“Don’t ask me. She’s your sister, not mine. You know her better than I do.”
Not strictly true. They didn’t have a whole lot in common, and there was a big age difference between them.
Taryn was interested in attention—it didn’t matter what kind—and boys.
Pretty much in that order. So, what was more challenging than boys to a teenaged girl who liked attention, especially from guys?
And it hit her. The look on Nix’s face when they’d emerged from the shed now made more sense. She started to laugh. Not much wonder he was so jumpy.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m laughing with you, not at you,” she said.
“That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing.”
She swiped her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to get her fit of giggles under control. She was just so relieved . “I wouldn’t take her too seriously. She once propositioned a female police officer who patted her down.”
“She did what ?” Nix’s jaw slackened, which made her laugh even harder. “This isn’t funny. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? She’s a child . And the young cousin of one of the ranch owners. Do you not understand that she could get me fired over something like this?”
The giggles subsided. He had a legitimate concern. “I understand completely,” she assured him. “But I was so worried you were the one chasing her.”
Now he looked mad as well as insulted. “I prefer women, not little girls.”
Good to know. Because that was not how it had looked. “Out of morbid curiosity, what did she do?”
“Why don’t we focus on what’s important?
” he said. He changed the subject too quickly, meaning whatever it was, it had to be good.
Taryn knew how to hit weak spots. “A group of moron boys, out to impress her, and her egging them on… Factor in a thousand or so pounds of lean and mean grade-A beef. Think about it. She’s going to cause me nothing but trouble. Can’t you withdraw your consent?”
“If I did that, then I’d be the one with the problem,” she pointed out. “Come on. Tell me. What did she do? Should I be worried?”
“Not as worried as me.” Embarrassment clung to him like the grease stains on his hands. “She thanked me for being s-sweet. Then she said I could g-g-give her…” He cleared his throat and shifted his feet. “ Private lessons. ”
That was what had him so spooked? A shaft of pity pierced through her amusement. His discomfort really was sweet. He’d never survive a few months of Taryn if that was all it took for her to unnerve him. If she’d sensed weakness in him, he was already done for.
Shauna couldn’t resist teasing him either. “That’s it?”
His eyes locked on hers. Then, they narrowed. “She did this, too.” He reached out and ran his fingertips over the back of her hand.