Chapter Fifteen
“Holy shit.” Jordan stared at Lil after she dropped her bombshell.
Libby Weston was Elizabeth Jordan? He’d seen the name in his searches for background information on Carl but had no reason to suspect they were one and the same.
“Things make more sense now.” Jordan was surprised at how normal he sounded because inside he was still reeling. He continued to gather the tools he’d been putting into his toolbox when Lil approached him at his truck. “My biological dad was truly a prize.”
According to Lil, Maya had deduced that Carl Jordan had left the ranch his wife wanted to the son he’d never acknowledged for the same reason he’d left the company to his employees. Carl Jordan was sticking it to his wife from the grave. Jordan couldn’t help but agree.
“Must have been a great relationship,” Lil muttered.
“I’m so glad I went into foster care.” Jordan rubbed his forehead.
He was wound like a fucking spring, so much so that he flinched when Lil touched his shoulder in a commiserative gesture.
“Sorry.” She dropped her hand, stepped back and he had to stop himself from reaching for her, pulling back to his side where it felt like she should be.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m tense as hell.”
“Understandable.” Lil smoothed the hair away from her cheek with one hand.
The husky note in her voice belied her matter-of-fact delivery. She was as lost with how to deal with, well, them, as he was.
“We’re in a new place, Lil.”
“We are.”
In his mind, this new place didn’t fit either of them very well but it was where they found themselves. “But you can touch me, you know. I’m not going to try to marry you if you do.”
Finally, a smile, albeit grudging. “I’m bad at this.”
Bad or afraid?
All things considered, he had to go with afraid.
And she wouldn’t be afraid if she weren’t worried about loving and losing.
She probably saw that as a pattern in her life.
Her mom. Her dad. The ranch. There were probably a few loyal pets in the mix.
He’d known about her losses from the beginning but thought it was auxiliary to preferring the single life, not the cause.
Was it the cause? If so, how did he deal with something that deeply rooted?
“I’m thinking of looking up Libby Weston. You know, like you wanted to look up Joe Whitney a couple days ago. Get some answers.”
“You know where to find her?”
“I have her phone number. If she hasn’t blocked mine, and I don’t think she has, because she still wants the Willow Creek, then I’ll ask to set up a meeting.”
“With the ranch as bait?”
“What else do I have?”
“What if she doesn’t agree?”
“Then I guess we live without closure.”
Lil glanced down, afraid her expression would give her away. Living without closure was becoming a way of life for her, but she was too damned chicken to get it.
*
“You should be afraid of cows.” Lil knew from whence she spoke.
She bent to pull a small weed in the garden that Aubrey had stopped to inspect. The garden was in good shape for a change, because Lil had needed something, anything, to do to stop thinking about Jordan.
The sense of loss would fade. It had to, right?
But unlike her other losses, this loss was a phone call away.
“Okay. I’m good there.” Aubrey furrowed her brow. “I just don’t want to flinch when I’m near them.”
She had managed to slip her number to the cowboy singer they’d met at the Graff. And to Aubrey’s surprise it turned out that he was really a cowboy with a penchant for wild boots and dude-like dress. She’d met him for coffee and now she was interested in seeing more of the man.
“He has a herd of ten.” Lil lifted her eyebrows.
Technically ten qualified as a herd, but still.
“Scottish somethings?” Audrey said. “Really cute. He sent pictures.” She scrolled through her photos then held out a photo of the man with his arm looped over the neck of a Scottish Highland.
The cow peered at the camera from under her bushy bangs looking adorable despite the lethal horns.
“He said they’re registered.”
“Nice,” Lil said appreciatively.
She’d always had a soft spot for the hairy cattle.
“Cow or guy?” Aubrey smiled cheekily, then dropped the phone into her bag. “I thought if you had a nice cow we could get close to, then I could build up my tolerance?”
“I do not have a nice cow. I have cows that tolerate me and Meg and do not tolerate strangers.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“We can go out to the corral and see if there are any cows lounging around there.” Sometimes her girls took a siesta in the warm dirt after coming in for water.
“I’m game.” They left the house and crossed the driveway to the alley leading to the chute and corrals. “Where’s Jordan’s trailer?” Audrey commented as they walked past the now empty parking spot.
“He went home. There was no need for him to stay longer. He has his own life to live.”
Aubrey gave Lil a side-eye but didn’t comment as they approached the corral where three black Angus cows lay with their legs tucked close to their bodies, lazily chewing their cuds while the calves trotted and played, butting at one another.
“Four calves, three moms. One set of twins.”
“That’s adorable.” Aubrey put her hands on the rail. “No offense, but your cows are a lot uglier than Scott’s.”
“No offense taken,” Lil said lightly.
There was no way an Angus was winning a cuteness contest against a Scottish Highland.
“Have you considered—”
“No. They cost a lot and have a slow growth rate.”
“How do you know this stuff?” A calf approached and Aubrey held out her hand.
It almost touched her fingers, then put its head down and jumped sideways. Finally, after several fly-bys, the little heifer touched Aubrey’s hand and she laughed.
“Okay. I now have cow experience.” She lifted her chin at the moms sunning themselves. “No way am I getting close to one of those.”
“Wise choice,” Lil replied.
“You’re okay, right?” Aubrey asked as they made their way back to the house. “With Jordan being gone?”
“Yes.”
Aubrey left it at that, but Lil knew her friend was reading between the lines. She knew Lil well enough not to push for information just yet. It was coming eventually. But it wasn’t happening today.
If ever there was a man Lil could fall for, Jordan Matthews was that man. She’d told herself that she could walk away, no harm, no foul, when they’d first started seeing one another. Technically that was true … except for the no-harm thing.
After Aubrey drove away, Lil found herself at the goat pen, which had somehow become her thinking spot.
Time. Space. Perspective.
It sounded like a physics problem, but it was what she needed.
At some point this matter with the ranch would be settled.
Until then, while they still saw each other regularly, she was going to do the thing that felt safest. Be a tenant.
Be a … what? She tried the word friend, but it wasn’t right. Not at this point.
Keeping her emotional distance meant sacrificing the closeness she’d come to depend on, but she wasn’t going to risk needing something that might disappear; to need a man who might disappear. She’d had enough grief over the past few years without adding to it.
Coward.
The small voice startled her. She wasn’t used to internal dissent when it came to the matter of protecting her heart. She shoved the troublesome thought to the back of her mind, where it belonged, but it elbowed its way back out again.
Do you really think you can control things by not taking chances?
Rather than answer the question, she hugged herself more tightly.
*
Jordan’s message to Libby went unanswered. He sent another, starting with “I know who you are …” hoping it would startle a reaction out of her.
It did not. He wasn’t giving up, but it was time to attend to other business in his life.
Like earning a living and finding a place to live larger than his trailer.
He’d contacted his work friend Rex and told him he was interested in the October project, got a positive reply back, and then thrown himself into ranch work.
The bigger living space would have to sort itself out.
He figured with the income from the Willow Creek and the October gig, he’d be able to put a down payment on a single-wide mobile home with enough room to spread out.
As to the Reed property, that would remain on hold until he managed to track down Libby Weston, which he would, even if it involved another visit to Connery’s office with Burke in tow.
The following arrest would no doubt entertain his brothers.
As to Lil, they would be connected by the Willow Creek lease until it lapsed.
She’d warned him about her personal boundaries before he’d dived into the relationship.
He’d thought his were the same, only to learn the hard way that they were not.
He was at a loss. Usually, when he encountered an obstacle in life, he strategized his way around it.
Lil defied strategizing and thinking about her was kind of ruining him.
For that reason, he’d thrown himself into the project of rebuilding the old diesel generator that had at one time powered the ranch.
The project quieted his mind. It also required parts and several trips to town to get said parts because according to the laws of mechanicking, he never got everything he needed on the first trip.
Jordan was actually on his third trip in three days when he heard his name called from across the parking lot at Big Z’s hardware store.
“Hey. Jordan.” He turned to see Aubrey the accountant waving at him from the far side of the lot.
With her was a guy with his jeans tucked into the damnedest pair of cowboy boots he’d seen outside of the big-name rodeos. She said a few words to the man, touched his chest, then hurried toward Jordan.
“Aubrey?” he said with a half-laugh. “It’s been a while.” And he couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of him after everything that had gone on with her friend.
“Long time,” she agreed in a polite voice, but the way she was studying him made him think that she had thoughts on the Lil matter.