Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (24 page)

But he'd never told Yvette about his guilt.

Justine looked steadily at him and said, "Do you have any regrets?"

"The older you get the more regrets you have to look back on," he said, "so yeah, I have regrets." It came to him as he said the words that he wanted to share his guilt with Justine. Why her, he didn't know, only that he wanted to talk about what had really been haunting him. The bodies on the hooks were only part of it.

"What kind of regrets?' she asked.

"The bodies," he said, the images beginning to emerge again. But he had to go on. He'd held the guilt inside too long. It was beginning to eat at his gut. It would eventually. Stress and guilt caused ulcers.

"What about the bodies?" Justine asked in a voice that told him she wanted to understand because she cared. Someone gave a shit about Brad Meecham's damn guilt.

"I should have cut them down," he found himself saying. "I left them hanging there when the mortar fire started, the little girl with the hook through her neck, and the castrated boy, and the pregnant woman. I should have cut them down before I left, and I should have covered their bodies with something, but I left them hanging there because a soldier said to get out." The images in his mind sharpened and he started shaking even though he'd thought he could get through it. He folded his arms across his chest to stop the trembling, but he could feel things closing in around him... his heart pounding hard against his forearms... the vise gripping his gut... bodies on hooks... needing to be cut down... mortar fire... and still the bodies hung...

Justine moved beside him on the rock ledge and put her arms around him and rubbed his back, and held him against her until the trembling began to subside, like Yvette had done. But he wouldn't let it go to where it had with Yvette. Four days of torrid sex while trying to shove back images that had happened years before, yet still kept coming.

And then life cut in—Yvette called back to Washington, D.C, his trying to suppress a scene that kept playing over and over in his mind by writing novels. He never saw Yvette after that. He gave her his address but she never contacted him, and he never went after her, but he never forgot her either. Then his first book was a blockbuster, followed by others...

Until the dark memories began surfacing again.

Now Justine was picking up where Yvette left off, but without the hot sex. But hot sex was on his mind now, and he was about a nanosecond away from sinking himself inside Justine.

Abruptly he pulled her arms from around him, and said, "You need to go back to the other side of the pool."

"Then you're okay?"

"Below the waist, no. In my head, yes. It made a difference, talking about leaving the bodies hanging. I never told anyone."

"Not even Yvette?" Justine asked.

Brad shook his head. "Didn't know her that long."

"You've only known me four days, yet you told me. Why?"

Brad shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's being here in the spring. Maybe it's like Jack said. It drives away the evil spirits. Maybe because I'm sitting here with a beautiful naked woman and won't touch her because she deserves better and doesn't know it yet."

"Keep saying things like that and I might start believing it," Justine said.

"That's the plan." Brad looked beyond the entrance to the cavern and saw that the snow had started again, but this time it was coming down hard and moving at a sharp angle. "We need to get back." Bracing his hands on the rock floor surrounding the pool, he pushed himself out of the water and stood."

"Help me out," Justine said. She offered her hand and he pulled her out. For a few moments they stood staring at each other, Brad watching the water glistening over Justine's breasts, Justine's eyes moving down his body. He could have her right where they stood. She wanted him. He knew from her intense dark eyes, and in the heavy pulse that throbbed in her throat...

I trust you with her... don't let me down...

A heavy burden to bear. But Jack Hansen was a man who trusted him, and he wouldn't let Hansen down. He handed the towel to Justine. "You dry first," he said, then turned his back to her, but as she dried herself he could hear the towel brushing over her body, and rasping across her back and shoulders as she held each end and moved it back and forth.

Heightened senses were also a curse after seeing the bodies. The touch of an unexpected hand made him jump. Sounds seemed amplified. Smells, more intense. He could smell Justine now, a faint female scent he didn’t want to know about, but couldn't escape. The scent of a woman who wanted a man, and she'd admitted she'd never wanted any of the men in her life before, but she wanted him, and he wanted her, and because of Jack Hansen, there wasn't a damn thing he intended to do about it.

"Here's the towel," she announced to his back, clearly not wanting to startle him again.

He turned to take it from her and was relieved to see she had her back to him, but the thong underwear was a teaser, and the fact that she was putting on a shirt and not wearing a bra made him angry. "If you want to be more like your sister you need to wear a bra," he said. "It's a come-on for a man... wearing thong underwear and no bra."

"Thongs are all I have," Justine said, "and I don't need a bra, but Grace needs a double D cup. I don't know why men never went after her. She has what they want. All men want with me is... well you know. But I don't want to talk sex. It's disturbing being with you like this. It makes me want things I know aren't good for me. It makes me want you."

"We need to get going," Brad said, steering her away from her admission. It made him uncomfortable, her admitting she wanted him. She didn't even know him. She'd tapped into his psyche in his book but she was jumping right out of the Elliot fire into the Meecham frying pan, and it was taking all his willpower to keep from taking what she was offering. But before he was through with her, he would give her back her self-respect. Somehow it made him feel like that would help drive off his mind demons.

By the time they returned to the ranch, the snow was another couple inches deep and falling heavily. In the distance, Brad saw lights though the windows of the lodge and smoke rising from the huge chimney. He hadn't really noticed the place until now, but even with the snow blowing at an angle, and the wind frigid against his face, and the cold bringing tears to bite his eyes, there was something about the lodge with its massive logs and giant stone chimney that, for the first time since he'd arrived, he found inviting.

As they approached the stable, he heard voices. Agitated voices. Jack and Grace Hansen having an argument, which surprised him. It was Grace Hansen's voice that rose now...

"For heaven's sake Jack, what were you thinking, leaving them alone at a hot springs pool? Of course the man will be hitting on Justine. And she won't stop him. She made a beeline out of the lodge the moment she saw him leave his cabin. It's not the snowstorm that's keeping them there. Justine's doing her thing. I'm disgusted with her."

"Put that aside for now," Jack said. "I need to saddle up and go after them. The trail's covered by now and they won't know the way home. The horses do, but Brad could steer them the wrong way."

"Well, you'd better put your blinders on when you get there," Grace snapped.

"I trust the man," Jack said. "He won't take advantage of Justine."

"He doesn't have to take advantage of her," Grace said, "Justine's ripe for getting involved again. That Elliot guy messed her up and she wants someone to love her, but she doesn't know how to get a good man. She never did."

"Honey, you're getting all worked up," Jack said. "Justine's a grown woman. She has to find her own way, and Brad Meecham's a decent man. I talked to him some. He has issues with something that happened in Iraq when he was a war correspondent, and Justine has issues with men. They're good for each other. The spring's a place to clear the mind."

"That's not what we do when we're there," Grace said, in a low sultry voice.

"Yeah, I know," Jack replied. "I wish we were there now. Meanwhile I'm worried about them so I'd better get going."

"You don't need to worry," Justine said, walking in, leading her horse. "We're fine."

Brad moved to stand beside her, and said to Jack, "You were right. It is a good place to think." He looked at Justine. "And talk."

Justine eyed Grace, who was waiting for an explanation, and said to her, "To answer your unasked question, yes, we stripped naked and sat in the pool, and no, we didn't have sex. We talked about things we wouldn't have talked about anywhere else. It was therapeutic."

"I hope you're right," Grace said, "because you don't need another man fooling around with your emotions. You let men take advantage of you, even though you think you're using them to get where you want to go. I can't let it happen while you're here at the ranch."

Justine walked up to Grace and kissed her on the cheek. "I swear, little sister, I've been a good girl this afternoon," she said, "but thank you for caring." She turned to Jack, and added, "And thank you for taking us to the spring. I even liked riding the horse."

"Then you'll come on the sleigh ride tomorrow night?" Jack asked.

"Umm, ask me again tomorrow," Justine replied. "I'll probably stay at the lodge and read." She glanced at Brad, and added, "I still haven't gotten to the end of your book."

"You know how it ends," Brad said. "But it's all wrong."

"How so?"

"The daughter should have become a surgeon, and when her father got testicular cancer she was the one to cut off his balls. He hadn't been a very good father. He never went back to find her mother."

"Maybe the mother wasn't worth finding," Justine replied. But as she said the words, she realized Brad was talking about Yvette, the woman he'd known for only four days and never went back to find. The thought was troubling, and from the look on Brad's face, he found it troubling too. He loved the woman then and loved her still. A bittersweet ending.

Disturbed by the idea of Brad loving someone that way, she handed the reins to Jack and left. Grace was right. She didn't need a man in her life right now, fooling around with her emotions. She needed to get her head on straight.

***

As he did every year at the ranch, Jack took the guests in the horse-drawn sleigh to select a tree, and they dragged it back to the lodge. Justine felt a little twinge of regret that she hadn't gone along, because when the guests returned, laughing and joking and fussing with putting up the tree, she stood on the sidelines and watched. But now her hands were sticky with multi-colored icings from decorating dozens of stars, and Santas, and gingerbread boys that Grace had baked in the double ovens of the big lodge kitchen. The women had an assembly line going, some decorating cookies, others wrapping the edible ornaments in plastic, and others tying them with narrow red ribbon to hang on the huge lodge tree, while the guests' kids sat on the floor stringing popcorn garlands and forming popcorn balls to decorate the tree.

After they'd finished with the ornaments, and while the guests were in the great room singing Christmas carols, Justine went to the back of the room and looked out the window. The light was on in Brad's cabin and the curtains were drawn, but she could see his shadow moving back and forth past the window and knew he was restless, just as she was. She got the feeling he'd been avoiding her. He had a kitchenette in the cabin and she'd noticed canned food on the shelves when she was there, but Grace said he came to the lodge for meals too, and she wondered why he hadn't been there over the past two days... unless he didn't want to see her.

She'd also finished the book. It had been disturbing right up to the end. If she'd never met Brad, she still might have been disturbed by the subject matter, but knowing there was a lot of himself in the book made her want to reach out to him, and have him respond like he had at the spring. The fact was, she wanted a reason to be with him, but not while he was fighting his demons. But without the day terrors he had no need to hold her, other than for sex like any other man, so she had no cause to go to him.

"Justine?"

She turned to find Grace standing behind her, looking over her shoulder at Brad's cabin. "You really need to stop fantasizing about him. I know that's what you're doing. You've just gotten out of a really bad relationship and you need time to get your priorities in order. I've noticed over the years that as soon as you're out of one relationship, you're right back in another, yet the men are all A-type, ambitious, alpha male, over-achievers who don't care about anything but themselves."

"I know all that," Justine said, "but Brad's different, and he's different with me. He's not trying to get me in bed he's trying to keep me out of it, at least out of other men's beds. In the hot springs he had every chance to do anything he wanted, but he didn't."

"That's because he wants you to himself. You'll see. After he has you trusting him, he'll be just like the others, and he's a best-selling author. He'll be leaving here and going back to San Francisco, and he won't give you another thought because he probably has women there waiting for him. I just don't want you to get hurt again. You keep leaving yourself wide open for that."

"I know, Gracie, and I know you mean well, but this time you're wrong."

Grace shrugged. "Well, I don't have anything more to say. You'll keep doing what you've been doing most of your life, but you'll never find a good man that way."