Jared shook his head. “She knows the score. She’s leaving in a few days, anyway.”
Royce reached into the back of the pickup truck and retrieved his duffel bag. “How’s Stephanie holding up?”
“Too cheerful,” said Jared. “You just know she’s going to crack.”
“Maybe going up to the cemetery isn’t such a good idea this year. Gramps’s grave is awfully fresh.”
“Go ahead and suggest we skip,” said Jared as the two men headed for the house. Quite frankly, Jared would rather avoid the cemetery. He wanted to pay tribute to his grandfather, but the anger at his parents hadn’t abated one bit. His whole life, he’d admired and respected them both, never doubting their morals and integrity. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. He wanted to yell at them, not lay flowers beside their headstones.
But he couldn’t let on. Bad enough that he knew the truth. He couldn’t drag Royce, and certainly not Stephanie, into the nightmare. At the moment, he wished his grandfather had taken the knowledge to his grave.
“She’d never go for it,” said Royce, yanking Jared back to the present.
“Of course not,” Jared agreed as they crossed the porch. Stephanie considered herself tough. She’d never admit how much visiting the cemetery hurt her.
“I hear there’s a debate over Sierra Benito.” Royce tossed his duffel on a low bench in Stephanie’s foyer.
“There is. You’re the deciding vote.”
“You going to try talking me out of the project?”
“I am. I don’t want another death on my conscience.” An image of Jared’s father sprang to his mind. There was no excuse. No excuse in the world for what his father had done.
Royce paused and peered at his brother. “
“Slip of the tongue,” said Jared, turning away to move into the great room. “I don’t want anyone to die on a Ryder project.”
He also didn’t want to keep lying to his brother, about his parents, about Melissa, about
Eight
Under the small light above the cottage’s kitchen table, Melissa typed furiously on her laptop. She’d composed and discarded at least five openings to her article. She knew if she could get the beginning right, the rest would flow. It was always that way.
But she needed to capture Jared’s essence. No small feat. Every time she thought she had him pegged he’d show her another side of himself, and she’d have to rethink the package.
Maybe it would be easier if they hadn’t made love. Maybe if she hadn’t seen him naked, or gazed into the depths of his eyes, or felt the strength and tenderness of his caress.
She drew a frustrated sigh as the words on the screen blurred in front of her. Unless she wanted to sell the article to a tabloid, she was going to have to nix that train of thought.
Someone tapped lightly on her front door.
The sigh turned into a frown. It was Sunday night, and the two young women staying next door had invited her over for drinks. The two had seemed very friendly, but Melissa had begged off. Between her ranch chores and allowing for time to fly back to Chicago, she only had two more evenings to pull the article together. There wasn’t any time for socializing.
The knock came again.
With the light on, there was no sense in pretending she was asleep. Besides, they would have seen her through the window on their way up the stairs.
She pushed back from the table and crossed to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she began as she tugged it open. “But I really can’t-”
“Sorry to bother you,” came Jared’s voice.
His broad shoulders filled the doorway. His head was bare, and he still wore his business suit from the cemetery visit earlier. He wore a crisp, white shirt and a dark, red-striped tie. There was a frown on his face and worry in his eyes. “Jared.”
“I was out walking and I saw your light,” he apologized.
Even if she had been inclined to give up a chance to get more information, his expression would have melted the hardest heart. She knew he’d been up to the cemetery with his sister and brother this afternoon, and it had obviously been tough.
“How did it go?” she asked, stepping back to invite him in.
He shrugged as he walked inside. “About how I’d expected.” His voice was hollow. “We all miss Gramps.”
Melissa nodded, closing the door behind him. “This is probably the worst year,” she ventured.
“I suppose.” His gaze focused on something, and she realized he was staring at her laptop. “You travel with a computer?”
Panic spurred her forward. She closed the lid, hoping she’d saved recently. “It’s compact,” she answered. “Very light.”
“I guess. Did I interrupt-” he paused “-work?”
“I’m writing a letter,” she quickly improvised. “Can I offer you something? Coffee?” She gestured to the small living-room grouping, taking his attention away from the table and her computer. “Or there’s a bottle of wine…”
“I’m fine.” He eased down into the worn arm chair.
Melissa curled into one corner of the sofa, sitting at right angles to him. “How’s Stephanie doing?”
“She’s asleep now.”
Melissa nodded. She was starting to feel close to Stephanie. The woman was fun-loving and generous. She wasn’t exactly worldly wise, but she was perfectly intelligent and worked harder than anyone Melissa had ever met.
“I wish there was something I could do to help.”
Jared gazed at her without speaking, an indefinable expression on his face. It was guarded, yet intimate, aloof, yet intense.
“Tell me what you were writing,” he finally said.
Melissa could feel the blood drain from her face. The air suddenly left the room, and an oppressive heat wafted over her entire body.
“A letter,” she rasped.
“To who?” he asked.
“My brother,” she improvised, dreading what Jared must know, hoping against hope for a miracle. “Which one?”
She waited for his eyes to flare with anger, but they stayed frighteningly calm.
“Adam.” She swallowed. “I promised…I promised him…that I’d, uh, be careful.”
Jared nodded. “And have you? Been careful.”
“Yes.”
He raked both hands through his short hair. “Oh, God, Melissa. I don’t want to do this.”
She jumped up from her chair, too nervous to sit still, sweat popping out of her pores. “Do what?”
“It’s so unfair to you.”
What was he talking about? What was he planning to do to her? She found herself inching toward the door, wondering if the women next door were still awake. Would they hear her if she screamed?
“I didn’t know where else to go.” His voice was suddenly thick with emotion.
The tone made Melissa pause. “What do you mean?”
Was he going to yell at her? Toss her out of the cottage? Throw her off the property?
She was starting to wish he’d just get it over with. Should she try to grab the laptop?
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
Never mind?
He came to his feet, and she struggled not to shrink away.
