“But no parents.”
“Parents, no. Workers, yes. Around the clock. Some of them stayed for years. Some of them seemed to like me a lot. Well-” he gave a wry smile “-when I was little, anyway. But then I met Alex, and we were typical, active boys, and we mostly made the workers all crazy.”
Abigail smiled back, but her heart couldn’t help aching for him.
“What about you?” he asked. “What was it like when you were little.”
“Seth and Travis were horrible to us girls.”
“I can imagine.”
“They teased us unmercifully. I was the oldest. Mandy was pretty tough. While Katrina was always really small and delicate. They weren’t too bad with her. I guess even as kids, they realized it would be cruel to go after her.”
“What did they do to you and Mandy?”
“Everything from putting spiders in our beds to throwing us into the freezing-cold lake in the spring. Travis sneaked into my bedroom once in the middle of the night and glued my hair to my pillow. The next morning, Mom had to cut it off.”
Zach smoothed back her hair. “Travis get a whipping?”
“My parents didn’t believe in spanking. But he spent the next two weeks shoveling manure in the hot sun.”
“Learned his lesson?”
“He never did anything like that again. But I don’t think manual labor ever bothered him much.”
“At St. Stephen’s they had a big old leather strap.”
“They beat you?”
“They didn’t call it beating back then. They called it discipline.”
She cringed just thinking about it. “Did you…”
“Oh, yes.”
“Oh, Zach.” She put a sympathetic hand to his cheek.
He covered it with his. “It wasn’t that bad. Schoolyard fights were worse. But it toughened Alex and me up. By the time we left, there wasn’t much the world could throw at us that we couldn’t take.”
She didn’t buy his dismissal. She knew how cruel kids could be, and she’d always had her parents as champions. And she also had her brothers and sisters by her side. Though Seth and Travis would tease them at home, they’d staunchly defended them to any outsiders.
It had been interesting when she started dating.
“Did you go to a local school?” she asked Zach.
“Classes were at St. Stephen’s.”
“So, boys only.”
“Boys only.”
“How did you date?”
“We didn’t. From about fifteen on, we had supervised outings. We sometimes came across girls, at local fairs or movie nights. But it was always in groups, always supervised, never a chance to steal a kiss or cop a feel.”
“How’d you learn about sex?” she asked. Somewhere along the way, he’d become awfully good at it.
He grinned. “Hearsay and rumor, and the occasional contraband girlie magazine.”
She smiled along with him. “And how old were you when you left St. Stephen’s.”
“Eighteen.”
“So, how long did it take you to get lucky, Lucky?”
His gaze warmed on her. “A long time. I got very lucky a few weeks ago, in Lyndon, Colorado. With a woman who was ten times more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen in a magazine.”
“Oh,
“I mean it.”
“You’ve learned a lot about women along the way, Zach Rainer.”
“I’d like to learn more about you.”
She sobered. “You’ve got about two hours.”
He drew her closer. “Two hours. And that’s it?”
“That’s it.” She’d been absent from the ranch far too much since the election. It wasn’t fair to Travis. And for the next week, they were also helping to take care of the Terrell place next to theirs while Caleb and Reed were on their honeymoons with Mandy and Katrina. She couldn’t afford even one more day in Denver.
Back in Houston, two hours after his plane had landed, Zach sat across the boardroom table from Alex.
“You’re serious,” Alex stated unnecessarily.
“You don’t think I’ve come at this from every possible angle?”
Alex drummed his fingers rhythmically on the tabletop. “And you trust her?”
“What’s not to trust? There’s nothing in this for her.”
“It gets you to Lyndon.”
“I don’t think she wants me in Lyndon.” Zach could get bigheaded about this and decide that Abigail had some interest in him beyond their brief fling. But he was realistic. Her goodbye this morning had been final.
Not that he blamed her. He’d forced her to go against her family. And if he knew anything about Abby, it was that she was loyal to the core. Though their lovemaking was explosive, it was temporary and in some ways selfish. She wasn’t going to let herself do that again.
Alex leaned back in his chair, twirling a silver pen between his fingers. “Then I guess we get the legal department assembled this afternoon.”
“And Accounting,” said Zach. “Relocating is going to be expensive. We’ll have to break our lease. I can’t imagine what it’ll do to our taxes. And we should offer employees some kind of moving allowance.”
“Are there even enough houses for everybody in Lyndon, Colorado?”
Zach realized it was a good question. “I wonder if we could stage it out, maybe plan the bulk of the move for next summer. That way, people with kids wouldn’t be so inconvenienced.”
“You think people will quit?”
“Some might,” Zach reasoned. “But at least they’ll have the option.”
Alex’s frown deepened. “You are absolutely sure there’s no other way?”
“I am absolutely sure.” He’d had three of their lawyers look over the moratorium and Abigail’s suggestion. They proclaimed her a genius and told Zach they’d hire her as a researcher in a heartbeat.
“There is a bright side,” said Alex.
“Yeah?”
“I’m starting to think Stephanie might have been bluffing.”
“Will you take her back?” Zach was often baffled by his friend’s relationship with his girlfriend Stephanie. It seemed to cause him a whole lot more angst than happiness.
When she wasn’t angry, she was pouting. She demanded nearly all his attention. If he was half an hour late leaving the office, she was on the phone. And when he traveled on business, she was always convinced he was going to spend time with other women.
“I don’t want her back,” said Alex. “But she does have her ways. I figure it’s safer if I leave the state. I’ll go be the advance man in Colorado. Keep me away from temptation.”
“I don’t understand how you can possibly be tempted.”
“That’s because you’ve never been in love.”
Zach might not have ever been in love, but he couldn’t imagine love was anything like Alex and Stephanie’s relationship. If a guy was going to go to all the trouble to be with one woman, she should at least make him happy. A vision of Abigail flashed through his mind. Okay, he wouldn’t exactly call every moment with her happy. Exhilarating, yes. Exciting, absolutely. And the highs were very, very high. But the lows sure sucked.
Then again, the lows were mostly when she left him.
“It’s not all laughs and sunshine,” Alex put in.
“Apparently not.”
