Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (26 page)

"And after the aunt leaves?" Grace started in again. "What do you intend to do with the child? You can't just feed and water her like she's a cat or dog, not that you've had any experience with pets either."

"I don't know," Justine said. "This is new to me too."

"Everything's new to you," Grace said. "You've known the child's father less than a week and you've already crawled into his bed to comfort him, as you call it, and you got naked with him in the hot springs, and now you think you can play mother to his daughter. You know nothing about the man beyond what you got from him in bed."

"I know everything about him," Justine argued. "I got into his head in his book."

Grace sucked in an exasperated breath, and said, "Well, while you're delving into his mind he'll have you in his bed getting you pregnant too. You're not too old, and I doubt you arrived here with something to prevent it."

Justine shrugged. "I'm never without it."

Grace stared at Justine and said nothing, because there was nothing more to say. After years of denying it, the truth was out, and the truth was, Justine Page was always prepared because she used sex to get where she wanted to go, and a child would keep her from going there. It was a sobering thought, even to Justine, seeing the disillusionment in Grace's eyes.

Until this visit, Grace thought her big sister just made poor choices in men, then allowed them to use her. Now she knew it went both ways. A tit for a tat. Justine's tit, for any man's tat, if it got her where she wanted to go. But the truth of it was, she didn't want to go back to where she'd been. She was tired of the Sean Elliots in her life. Tired of it all. But she had nowhere else to go but back to the corporate carnage and back stabbing.

But it bothered her that Grace was disheartened with her. "Honey, I know you're disappointed in me," she said to Grace. "I'm trying to change, and Brad's helping me, and we haven't had sex, and even though we were naked in the hot springs pool, nothing happened. It could have but Brad wouldn't let it. He's trying to help me change. He even gets after me to stop wearing thongs and start wearing a bra."

"You should have done that years ago," Grace said. "No decent man wants a woman who has no sense of modesty, at least until they're married. I've wondered why you don't wear a bra but never asked because it wasn't my place, but why don't you?"

"They're uncomfortable and I don't need one," Justine said. "Like I told Brad, I'm all angles and a couple of tits and not much else."

"But you have a beautiful figure," Grace said. "I've been jealous of it for years. You can put on anything and look like you just stepped out of Vogue, but look at me. All rounded hips, and not such a trim waist anymore, and huge breasts."

"And Jack's been complaining?" Justine said, with irony. "Too much to handle?"

"Of course not," Grace said, blushing. "Jack's different. He says he likes substance on a woman and that I give him lots of substance. Unfortunately, I give him a little more substance with each pregnancy, but he doesn't seem to care and that's because Jack truly loves me."

"That's obvious, and I am trying to change, but change doesn't happen overnight so I'm still being responsible by taking birth control pills."

Grace eyed her with annoyance. "Would you advise an alcoholic to carry around a bottle of booze, just in case, or a drug addict to keep a little heroine in his pocket, just in case?" she said, driving her point home. "If you want to change, Justine, get off the birth control pills and stay out of men's beds, including Brad's." She waited, a perturbed look on her face, then said, "You can't do it, can you? You're afraid if you can't use sex to move up, you'll never get to the top, but after you finally smash that glass ceiling you'll find yourself at the pinnacle of a very cold, lonely place. Well, I'd rather curl up in bed with my Jack every night of my life, than be with you and your bed buddies and your birth control pills, because that's all you'll have." She turned and went to join Jack, who was wearing a Santa hat and passing out gifts to the kids sitting around the tree. When she walked up to him, Jack gave Grace's arm a little squeeze and winked at her, and Grace touched Jack's face and smiled at him—little expressions of deep, abiding love and affection.

Something Justine knew she'd never find if she went back to what she'd had.

When she got to her room, she found Brad leaning against the wall, arms folded, looking on as Elsa sat on the bed rubbing Sophie's back. Sophie was curled up in bed, with a stuffed white teddy bear in the crook of her arm and a threadbare pink blanket pressed to her face.

Elsa looked up at Brad, and said, "Tomorrow morning it's going to be tough for her when I leave. I've had her since Yvette was killed and she thinks I'm keeping her. I've tried to explain, but she doesn't listen, she just says it's okay until Mommy comes back." She shrugged. "It hasn't sunk in yet."

Brad walked over to the bed and stared down at his daughter, then touched her cheek, letting his finger linger. More than a token gesture, Justine knew. He was touching the cheek of a child born of a woman he'd never forgotten and always intended to find. "We'll figure out something," he said.

Elsa nodded. Then she reached for a small cardboard box, with its top flaps tucked together, and offered it to Brad. "Some of Yvette's things are in here—photos of her with her parents, a little jewelry, things I thought Sophie would want someday."

Brad took the box. "I'll put it away for a while," he said. He touched Sophie's face again, looked at her long and hard, then turned and left the room.

Justine watched Brad walk off with the box tucked under his arm and felt a stab of jealousy. Brad would go through Yvette's things and slip back into the past with her, and now he had their daughter, and there was no place in his life for a woman who knew nothing about kids, who'd only just begun to figure out what unconditional love was.

Elsa looked at Justine, curiously, and said, "You were in Brad's cabin when we arrived. Are you involved with him?"

"I don't know, maybe," Justine said. "He saw a hook in the stable and had one of his flashbacks. It was disturbing for me. He needed someone to hold onto. I know it's post-traumatic stress, but that's all I know."

"Then you must know about his wife."

"He's married?" Justine said, feeling like she'd just taken a punch to the stomach.

"No, he was married when he went to Iraq. After his assignment was over he came home to find his wife with another man. He was pretty devastated. He'd needed her to help him get through the thing in Iraq, and when he had no one, he buried the memory. He was on assignment in Macedonia when he started having flashbacks. Yvette was his translator and she found him in his hotel room, shaking all over, and stayed with him."

"You haven't told Brad everything, have you," Justine said.

Elsa looked at Justine with a start. "I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do," Justine said. "When Brad questioned why Yvette didn't contact him when she found out she was pregnant, you evaded the answer."

"I don't believe I did," Elsa said. "I just didn't have an answer. Like I said, my sister and I led separate lives. With me in the military, we weren't together much."

Justine still thought the woman was holding something back, but it was clear she had no intention of revealing what it was. "Are you sure there's no one else to take Sophie?"

Again that hesitation. Then Elsa shook her head, and said, "There's no one. Sophie's a real sweet kid normally, but she's having a rough go of it right now."

Justine looked down at the child and wondered if she could ever adjust to having Sophie in her life permanently. Or Brad in her life either. It was odd thinking in terms of permanence. Whenever she'd been in a relationship it was always in terms of months or maybe a year, but permanence had never been a consideration. It was all about moving to the next level. But with Brad, there was no moving up. There was nothing. He'd bring to this relationship his flashbacks and a troubled daughter, and she wasn't sure she could live with either. But then, the idea of Brad
not
being in her life was also troubling.

***

Brad held Sophie, who was kicking and screaming inconsolably while reaching for Elsa, as the car pulled away. "I want Mommy," Sophie wailed. "I want Mommy... nooooo... come back... I want to go too... I want Mooommmyyyy." She kicked and screamed and struggled against Brad's hold, but he held fast.

Justine watched the outburst and had no idea what Brad would do with the child. Nor did she. It would take all of her strength just to hold Sophie if she wanted to get away. When she caught Brad's eye, she said, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the wailing child, "Take her to your cabin so she won't disturb the other guests. I'll stay in the other bedroom with her. If you have any flashbacks, I'll take her outside."

Brad said nothing, just trudged through the snow to the cabin while holding Sophie, who was sobbing and wailing and struggling and talking incoherently. But once inside, Brad said, against the side of Sophie's head, "You have to stop crying before I can let you go."

Sophie continued struggling for a few more minutes, but it was useless against Brad's strong hold, and finally her sobs subsided, and she stopped fighting him.

"Okay, I'll let you go now," Brad said, "but no more screaming."

Justine wasn't sure this was the right approach, but Sophie stopped crying and struggling. But the moment Brad released her, Sophie grabbed her bear and blanket, raced for the door, yanked it open, and rushed into the snow. Brad raced after her and scooped her up and carried her back inside, while she cried, and struggled, and kicked her feet, but this time, after Brad closed the door, he sat on the couch and held her firmly until her struggles ceased and she sat in his arms, whimpering. He looked over her head at Justine, and his face looked drained.

Tears filled Justine's eyes and she didn't know why, other than she felt what Brad was feeling—complete hopelessness with the situation. It was two days before Christmas, and in the lodge guests were laughing and singing carols and drinking hot spiced wine, and children were roasting marshmallows on long sticks in the big fireplace, or sitting on the floor near a tree glimmering with edible ornaments, or playing with toys and board games they'd received the night before from a man wearing a Santa hat. But inside a cabin devoid of holiday cheer, a little girl, clutching a ragged bear and a worn blanket, had lost her mother, and her aunt abandoned her in an unfamiliar place with a woman who couldn't relate to children and a stranger she was told was her father.

Abruptly, Sophie shoved away from Brad, scrambled off his lap, and clasping her bear and blanket, scooted under the kitchen table and sat, silently glaring at them.

Brad started to get up, but Justine put her hand on his arm, and said, "Give her a chance to adjust. She can watch us from there and come out when she's ready."

Brad reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table by the couch, then tossed them back down and sat with his elbows braced on his knees, hands draped between his legs. "Will you stay here with us?" he asked, in a hushed voice.

Justine nodded. "For a while," she replied, "but I can't stay indefinitely. I have to decide what to do with my life. I did have a career at one time. And you have to figure out what to do with yours. I guess we're a couple of lost sheep right now."

"Three lost sheep," Brad said, looking soberly at Sophie, "and I don't know shit about raising a kid. What in hell am I going to do?"

"Change your vocabulary for starters," Justine said.

One corner of Brad's mouth tipped up. "You're starting to sound like your sister," he said. "Wear a bra and get rid of the thong underwear and men will start to treat you like her."

"Will you?" Justine asked, looking at him intently.

Brad's smile faded.

And Justine realized then that Brad's willingness, his motivation to help her regain her self-respect, was now driven by a desire to keep her away from him. Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam avoiding temptation, because now Adam had a child, and Eve didn't have a clue what to do with her.

CHAPTER 5

Brad wandered out of his bedroom the next morning to find Justine standing in the kitchenette, dumping scoops of ground coffee into the French press, her slender body clad in nothing but a white tee shirt that reached to just above her knees, with a whole lot of long bare leg below. Like the rest of her, her feet and legs were model perfect—toenails the color of the inside of a sea shell, no trace of veins on her smooth arches, shapely calves and good-looking knees with just enough structure for a man to clamp a leg around—and when she bent over to pick up an oven mitt she'd dropped on the floor, he could see the outline of a black vee above the crack in her butt. He wanted to ask what the purpose of wearing a thong was, other than to make a man horny by drawing attention to what it covered, which wasn't a hell of a lot.

Justine poured boiling water into the glass reservoir of the French press, then glanced over her shoulder at him, and said, "Sophie's still sleeping so I thought I'd get the coffee started. I take it from what's putrefying in the bottom of a half-dozen unwashed mugs around here that you like it black and strong and the consistency of sludge." She settled the mesh press over the glass container to let it steep then turned to face him.

"That, and a jigger of whisky," Brad replied, eyes focused on the dark circles straining against the front of Justine's shirt. Her breasts were full enough to raise the shirt in front, exposing a couple of inches of thigh he'd like to wrap his palm around.

"Are you serious about the whisky?" she asked, eyeing him with concern.

He raised his gaze. "Straight sludge is fine," he assured her.

The frown withered and she smiled. Then she turned around slowly, in a full circle, and came to a halt, facing him again, and said, "So, what do you think?"

Brad's eyes fixed on her puckered nipples, begging for his touch, and said, "I think you need to wear a bra. It'll keep you from getting horny."

"I'm not horny," she snapped.

"Hell if you aren't."

"I'm talking about my hair," Justine said. "I cut it."

Brad looked up and saw that she had, and it bothered him that she was trying to be the kind of woman men took home for reasons other than screwing the hell out of her. The last thing he needed was to start thinking everlasting, at least not with Justine, who knew squat about kids. "Why did you do that?" he asked, hoping it was just a whim. Justine was definitely a person who acted on impulse, a
your place or mine kind
of woman. But that's how it was in the circles Justine ran with. Sex for success.

Justine threaded the fingers of both hands into her shortened hair, combing it from her face before letting it fall back to frame it again, and said, "It's more ordinary this way. I told you, I want to be like Grace. I want men to treat me differently. I want you to treat me differently."

Brad knew for a fact that he didn't want to treat Justine like he would her sister, but he did want other men to treat her that way, and that made her dangerous to him, a step closer to everlasting. "That's what you keep telling me," he said, "but you're still not wearing a bra and I can through that thing you're wearing." He wondered why it bothered him now that she didn't wear a bra. When he saw her at the lodge that first day, he pegged her for what she was, but he still enjoyed the package. He still did, but he didn't want other men to see what he wanted, which was everything beneath her oversized tee shirt, and everything it didn't cover.

"I just got out of bed," she said. "I don’t even wear this when I sleep. I only wore it last night because of Sophie." She tugged on the shirt, again drawing Brad's eyes to the two dark circles flattened against the white cotton tee.

He glared at her. "You're still doing it, Justine. You drive men crazy."

"I'm not doing anything but telling you one simple fact about me." Justine turned her back to him, and said, while slowly pushing in the plunger on the French press, "I sleep nude because I don't like getting tangled up in night clothes every time I roll over. Sometimes I even turn up the heat in the bedroom and throw off the covers."

"There you go again," Brad said. "What's running through my mind is you sprawled across your bed on your back and me not doing a damn thing because you're trying to be more like your sister. And Jack Hansen trusts me, and I'd feel like crap if I did what I want to do right now."

He took a long, slow sip of coffee, wishing the hot liquid would run all the way through him and hit him where it mattered. He needed something to temper what was happening down there. The woman kept him in a constant state of arousal with her provocative presence and frank confessions about her sexual experiences with men, making him want to right the wrongs men had done to her. Making him think everlasting, when nothing about Justine Page was everlasting.
             

Justine poured a mug of coffee and handed it to him, and said, "You'd better think about what you're going to do with Sophie when she wakes up. She didn't eat yesterday and she wouldn't talk last night. When I tried to rub her back, she shook my hands off and curled up with her bear and blanket. She doesn't even cry. I thought at least she'd cry and I could hug her or something. And she doesn't want you anywhere near her."

She disappeared into the bedroom, and when she came out she was wearing the clothes she'd worn the day before. "We need Grace and Jack," she said. "We're not getting anywhere with Sophie on our own. I'm going to get them to come here and help us some." Without waiting for his response, she left the cabin, pulling the door closed as she did.

Brad wasn't sure he liked the sound of the
us
and the
we're
and the
our
in regards to Sophie. Justine was anything but maternal, but for the short term, he needed her help until he could think of something else. He could have managed a son. Give him a few trucks and a shovel and a pile of dirt and get on with life, but a daughter...

Fifteen minutes later, Justine returned with Grace and Jack. Grace sat on the couch beside Justine, but Jack stood with his arms folded, like he wasn't into dealing with this the day before Christmas when he had a ranch to run and a lodge full of guests.

Justine got right to the point by saying to Grace, "Sophie didn't eat yesterday, and she won't talk. She just sits under the table holding her bear and blanket and rocking back and forth and glaring at us, and she won't let either of us touch her."

Brad studied the sisters, who were sitting together on the couch, opposites in every way. Grace was the personification of motherhood—hair soft around her face, gently rounded figure, loving nature, oversized breasts, and a desire to have more kids because she loved them and knew intuitively how to handle them. But Justine was everything opposite. Callous nature, pat answers and glibness, all angles like she'd said, and not a clue what to do with kids.

Grace looked at Justine with trepidation. "When you wake her up, put your arms around her and press her head to your chest. I do it with my boys all the time when they're angry or frightened or frustrated. They hear my heartbeat and don't know what's happening, but before long they settle down and their little worlds are right again. When a woman's upset a man takes her in his arms and she presses her face to his chest and she hears his heartbeat, though she's not aware of it, and when a man's upset the woman holds his head to her breasts and does the same. Sophie needs to be held. She's wanting the only person who can help her right now, and that person's dead."

"Brad tried," Justine said. "He had Sophie on his lap and was holding her, but as soon as he let up, she shoved away from him and ran under the table."

Grace looked at Justine, brows drawn, and said, "Have you ever comforted a child, Justine? Have you ever even held one in your arms?"

Justine shrugged. "Well, no. I never had an occasion to."

Jack unfolded his arms and moved from his stance against the wall, and said to Brad, "It's easy to keep things bottled up. I did for three years after I saw my son dead in his crib and found out my ex-wife smothered him. It was too damn painful to talk about. You know it too. Your daughter's going through her own private hell and she needs you to carry her out. Justine's only temporary in her life, like the woman who brought her here, but you're the one your daughter needs to bond with. You're the one who'll be with her for the duration."

Justine saw Brad eyeing Jack with a look of something she could only describe as new hope. Or maybe new responsibility. And she knew Brad was coming to terms with this new chapter in his life and would be there for his daughter...

Justine's temporary in her life...

Jack was right about that too, Justine realized. When, and if Brad decided to replace Sophie's mother, the woman would have to be someone like Grace, with maternal instincts, not a woman who was trying to be someone a man could love after all the beauty had faded.

"We've got to get back," Grace said. "We have gifts to wrap, and Santa stuff hidden around the house, and we left Flo with the kids—" she stopped short and looked at Brad, and said, "You need to put up a tree and have Santa gifts under it in the morning. I have extra toys and books we can wrap. I also knitted caps and mittens for all the kids, including Ricky. I'll give Sophie Ricky's set. He won't know. And Ryan won't miss his stuffed clown doll." Turning to Jack, she said, "Sweetheart, maybe you could go to the Christmas tree grove and cut a small tree that they can decorate with ornaments from the tree at the lodge. Sophie will know it's Christmas and it will help bring her out of her shell."

Justine knew Grace meant well, but she hadn't seen the look of desolation on Sophie's face. A few gifts under a tree wouldn't heal the wound. It was too fresh. But then, the absence of a tree and gifts would make the wound grow wider.

After Grace and Jack left, Brad said, "Sophie won't let me near her, but do you think you could do what your sister said and hold Sophie against you."

"I don't do too well with that kind of closeness," Justine said.

Brad filled his mug with coffee, took a slow sip, then looked at her broodingly, and said, "At some point you need to find a man who'll make sure you like what he's doing so you'll be aroused by it. It'll prepare you for sex and I'll be willing to bet you'll have an orgasm."

Justine thought about that, and about all the times she'd acted like something was happening when it wasn't. Holding Brad's gaze, she said, "Will you show me what I've been missing?"

"Hell, Justine, you can't keep screwing men while trying to find what you're searching for. You need to get all the men out of your life, and you need to get your head on straight and wait until the right man comes along, but when he does, you need to be wearing a bra and Mary Poppins briefs or he'll never respect you."

Justine said nothing because there was no way of convincing Brad that she thought he was the right man for her, and that sex with him would be different because she'd never felt for any other man what she was beginning to feel for him. But the reality was, to Brad, she was just a temporary person in his life who didn't have a maternal bone in her body, and Sophie needed a fulltime mother.