Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (38 page)

"Like I said, you sprinkle some kind of magic dust on men and they want you."

"Not Sam," Justine said. "We've barely spoken two words."

"Sam's a man, and he's going through hell with his wife, and he's frustrated because she's getting it on with another man, and he's having a long dry spell in bed."

"He told you Susan was sleeping with someone?" Justine asked. She already had a low opinion of Susan Hansen, but she didn't think Susan would cheat on a man like Sam. But she also didn't think Sam would look at another woman. She found the idea of him watching her troubling. She didn't want Sam to look at her that way. She didn't want any man to look at her that way. Only Brad.

"She's sleeping with her fitness instructor," Brad said. "Sam's ready to beat the crap out of the guy and take back his wife."

"Then he still loves her?" Justine asked, wondering why any man would want a woman who cheated on him. The one thing Justine prided herself with was that she'd never cheated on any of the men she'd been sleeping with. That didn't make things right, but it made them less wrong.

"Yeah," Brad said. "And don't worry. Sam doesn't have his sights on you. He made it clear to me, not because I'd pissed a circle around you, but because he was being truthful. He admires your beauty but that's all. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes though. It's a nasty road to travel once divorce proceedings start."

"Then Sam thinks you and I are..." Justine paused, because she didn't know how to complete the sentence because she had no idea what she and Brad were. Lovers? His mistress? A little fling while he was renting a cabin?

"Sam knows what's going on with us," Brad said.

"Good. Then maybe he can fill me in because I don't."

"Well, right now we're Mr. and Mrs. Brad Meecham, and we have a daughter, and we're going to have a night of hot sex. We won't think beyond that."

"Will we ever?" Justine asked, wondering why Brad talked about having hot sex, but didn't bring up contraception, unless he wanted her to get pregnant for the same reason she did—to get trapped in a marriage that would keep her from returning to Seattle, and provide him with a mother for Sophie, not the perfect mother, but one who had already captured Sophie's heart.

Brad shrugged. "There's a lot of unfinished business right now. I have to get Sophie settled and ready for school before I can think beyond that, and you have a career to put together."

Justine knew Brad had just given her his answer. Again. She was someone he felt affection for, and who he cared enough about to want her to get her head on straight and stay out of men's beds, yet who expected her to have really good sex with him tonight, and the reality was, she intended to do just that. Stay in the fairy tale a little longer.

As Sam and Ricky approached, Sam pulled his horse to a halt and dismounted, and said, "A fax came from your attorney." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded paper and handed it to Brad.

In the fax, Brad learned that his attorney filed a restraining order that would effectively stop Patel from taking Sophie for a little longer, based on information Brad's attorney received from Brad's PI. It seemed Patel never contributed to Sophie's care, even though he had the money to do so, and he'd never contested Yvette putting Brad's name on the birth certificate. But Brad's attorney also said Patel had a solid case for putting a claim on a child who was conceived by his wife while she was married to him, and that Patel was claiming he'd slept with Yvette during the time she would have conceived. The fax ended with the attorney saying that Hayden Russell, Brad's PI, told him he might have some break-through information on Patel soon.

After reading the fax, Brad said,               "I'd better go back to the ranch and make a few calls."

Justine wanted to ask Brad if they could put it aside for one more night and let the fairy tale continue, but knew there was no point. The castle in the sky started crumbling when Brad read the fax.

"Before we start down the mountain, we'll have lunch," Sam said. "Grace was worried you hadn't been eating right and sent along fried chicken and the works." He began unfastening a container strapped to the back of the horse.

"Holy shit," Brad said. "My prayer was answered."

"You pray?" Sam asked, looking at him curiously.

"Yeah," Brad replied. "I started doing it about the fifth time we had oatmeal."

Sam laughed. "Prayers answered." He handed the container to Brad. "Ricky and I will eat with you, then we'll have to pack up and start back."

Ricky hoisted his leg over the horse's rear and slid to the ground, then said to Sophie, "I have to tie up my horse."

Sophie stood staring at Ricky, hands clasped behind her back, body twisting back and forth, as she said, "He's really big."

"Yeah, but I can handle him," Ricky said, in a confident voice.

"Can I come with you to tie him up?" Sophie asked, dropping her chin and looking up at Ricky through her long lashes, while continuing to sashay back and forth.

"No!" Brad barked. "You need to wash for dinner."

"But Daddy—"

"Inside!" Brad said, pointing a stiff finger at the cabin.

Justine glared at Brad. "I'll carry that in," she said, taking the food container from Brad. She looked at Sophie, who had a pout on her lips, and said, "Come on honey, you can help set the table." She turned from Brad and started up the steps to the front porch. Sophie stomped up the stairs behind and followed Justine inside.

Sam looked at Brad, and said, "Wasn't that a little harsh?"

"Maybe," Brad said, "but I don't want her to end up like—" He stopped short.

"I guess you can't start too young," Sam said, eyes fixed on the closed door to the cabin. "How are things going here, with you and Justine?"

"If you mean, am I sleeping with her, yes. It's pretty damn hard not to since the cabin has only one bed, and it's in a bedroom with a lock. But we started out in separate sleeping bags the first night. It was all over by morning."

"Pretty lively in bed, was she?" Sam asked.

Brad eyed Sam with irritation. He liked the man, but he didn't like the insinuation. Justine
was
lively in bed, but only with him, and the other things she did, intimate things, he knew she'd never done with any other man. Even cuddling close during the night, with her head against his shoulder and her hand over his heart, hadn't been part of her other relationships.

"I don't intend to talk about it," he said. "That's between Justine and me."

"Sorry," Sam replied. "It wasn't any of my business. Justine's changed, we've all noticed it. You've been good for her. I hope it works out."

"It won't," Brad said. "When we come down off this mountain it'll be over. We both know it. I just wish we could stay another night. She's a remarkable woman, and I'm not just talking in bed. She's good with Sophie, and Sophie's bonded with her. She's even calling Justine Mommy. It's going to kill Sophie when she finds out Justine's leaving next week."

Sam clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Don't give her up too quickly."

"That coming from a man who should—" Brad stopped again. Telling Sam he should pull his head out of the sand and give up his cheating wife would be as unwelcome as Sam's snide comment about Justine being lively in bed. Some things needed to stay unsaid.

"I'm working on it," Sam said. "I'm rethinking the PI thing. We'll leave it at that."

And both of them knew the male bonding had come to an end, because the reality was looking them both in the eye. For different reasons, they each had women who no longer belonged in their lives, so there was no more advice to give.

CHAPTER 14

After they gathered around a table that displayed a platter of fried chicken, bowls of pasta salad, a loaf of fresh baked bread and a container of homemade cookies, Ricky was about to grab a drumstick, when Sophie said, "You can't eat till we pray." She looked at Justine and waited.

While Justine said a short prayer, Brad looked across the table and saw that her eyes were closed, and her head was bowed, then he looked at Sophie beside her, who also sat with her eyes tightly shut, hands folded. He didn't know whether Justine meant what she was saying to God about watching over them and keeping them safe, but it seemed right, and honest.

Then he caught Sam's eye, and knew he wasn't buying it. To him, Justine was putting on an act for Sophie. A harmless deception, introducing a child to a higher power to which she'd be accountable. But that was fine with him. If that's what it would take to instill high morals in Sophie, then that's the way it would be, but in church, he'd make sure Sophie listened to the sermon and didn't draw pictures on the church bulletin.

As soon as they were finished eating, Brad washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, while Justine packed their bags for the ride back, but while Sam was saddling the horses and tying the bags onto the backs, and Sophie and Ricky were building domino castles on the floor in front of the fireplace, Brad went into the bedroom and shut the door and fastened the hook and eye latch, then turned to Justine, who was sweeping the floor, and said, "This isn't the way I wanted the day to end."

"Neither did I," Justine replied, "I expected to have at least another day. I like it here, even messing with the wood stove and wash basin and having to use the outhouse and all the other inconveniences. Leaving now is too sudden."

Brad took the broom from her and pulled her into his arms, and she slipped her hands around his waist and rested her head on his chest and just stood silently holding him. After a while, when Justine said nothing, and made no attempt to leave the circle of his arms, Brad said, "Are you okay?"

Justine nodded against his chest. "I'm enjoying you holding me like this. It's never happened before."

Brad looked at her, perplexed. "No man has just held you?"

"No. Mostly because it wasn't what I wanted, but it's nice when it's you. It feels nice."

"Maybe it'll raise the bar on your expectations," Brad said. "You don't need to settle for less."

"I don't intend to settle at all," Justine replied. "I can, in fact, go through life without a man."

"I wish things could be different."

"I know you do, and so do I, but it's okay, I understand. What we have... what we had, has been life changing for me. Grace will be happy to know that her big sister has finally gotten her head screwed on straight, and I feel good about myself for the first time since I lost my virginity. You've opened my eyes. I'm not the person I was when I first met you."

"Well, for whatever it's worth, if it weren't for Sophie, I'd ask you to marry me."

"I know, and if it weren't for Sophie, I'd accept."

Thirty minutes later they headed down the mountain in a long string, Sam leading the procession with Sophie in the saddle in front of him, Ricky right behind them, Justine next, and Brad bringing up the rear. It was another sunny day, and more snow had melted, so by the time they reached the narrow trail that cut off the main trail to the hot springs, the ground was clear of snow, except for patches in some of the shaded areas.

Sam pulled his horse to a halt, and when the others caught up, he said to Brad, "I'll take Sophie and Ricky and go on ahead and the kids can watch TV and you and Justine can check out the hot springs. There's a towel in my saddle bag." When neither Brad nor Justine responded, Sam said, "Your time at the cabin was cut short. You can make it up at the spring."

"That's an interesting way of putting it," Justine said. Then she turned to Brad and added, "It's up to you. Don't you have to make your calls?"

"Yeah," Brad replied, "but since I know Patel can't take Sophie, the calls can wait." Turning to Sam, he said, "Thanks for giving us this time."

Sam smiled. "Just keep it quiet in there. Sound travels down the ravine." He turned his horse and motioned for Ricky to follow, and they continued down the trail to the ranch.

Brad and Justine tethered their horses and started up the path to Whispering Springs. Once inside, they stripped off their clothes, but before they'd stepped in the pool, it was like in the stable—a fast, lustful, encounter. But in the aftermath, Brad said, "I didn't want it to happen that way again, but I knew it was coming."

"Well, now that it has, we can concentrate on sitting in the pool and listening to the sounds," Justine said. "It will be cleansing to the mind and body."

She lowered herself into the pool and Brad climbed in and sat opposite her and they closed their eyes. Before long, eerie, wailing sounds began drifting down, strange, unnatural sounds that should have been frightening, but weren't. Gradually, as the sounds funneled down from inside the mountain, Justine felt her body relax, and her mind open, and she was filled with a desire to unload a whole, seamy episode in her life.

When she'd talked about cleansing the soul and body earlier, she hadn't planned on telling Brad about what happened in college, but by the time the sounds had faded and died, the idea of cleansing her soul took hold. She'd never told anyone, and after eleven years she felt a need to step down from her pedestal and square things away with the college. It was long past time that Justine Page come clean. The thought of facing the College Board, and seeing her parent's disappointment, and Grace's too, sent a shiver of dread through her.

Brad looked across the pool, and said, "You're supposed to relax in here and set aside all your problems, but you're frowning."

"I need to talk," Justine said, opening the door for him to question.

"Talk about what?" Brad asked.

"Something not so good," Justine replied.

"Us?" Brad asked.

"No, something that happened a long time ago. But after I tell you what it was, things will be different. You'll be disappointed in me, but I'll feel better about myself."

"Honey, it's where you go from here that's important," Brad said. "What's in your past doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned you can put it all behind."

"You won't be able to put this behind," Justine assured him, priming him for the worst. She'd been living a lie for eleven years, and she'd allowed someone to get away with a pretense that should have long since been exposed.

"Come here," Brad said, offering his hand.

Justine shook her head. "I need to sit here when I tell you," she said. She didn't want to feel Brad pull away from her when he learned what she'd done, and he would pull away.

"Tell me whatever you want," Brad said. "It will be okay." The look of acceptance on his face should have made her back down so she wouldn't see the disappointment she knew would be there afterwards, but an inner strength she never knew she had wouldn't let her. "I was valedictorian of my college graduating class," she said, opening the lid to Pandora's Box, allowing the first slimy creature to crawl out.

"I know, Sam mentioned it," Brad replied. "He's impressed, and so am I, but I'm not surprised. Like I told Sam, you're a remarkable woman."

"No, I'm not," Justine said. "I'm a fraud."

"You've done things you aren't proud of," Brad said, "but you're not a fraud. From what you've told me, you were up front with any relationship you ever entered into."

"That's not what I'm talking about. It was before then, when I was in college. That's where I got my first lesson in learning how beneficial sex could be to get me where I wanted to go. Before then, sex was just a means of satisfying my guy." Another slimy creature crawled out.

Brad looked at her, uncertainly. "You were young, you made bad decisions," he said, giving her an opening to offer the excuses she'd perfected over the years.

She was a woman in a man's world. What she did was just leveling the playing field.

"I was twenty-two," Justine said, "and I knew exactly what I was doing." It felt good, opening the lid a little further and letting it all ooze out. Good, but degrading. Brad would never look at her the same afterwards. But the box would be empty.

"Did you do something illegal?" Brad asked, his voice uneasy, the first sign of disillusionment on his face.

"No, just completely unethical," Justine replied. "All I saw at the time was the means to an end, and the end was becoming valedictorian of my graduating class."

"Human nature," Brad said. "Some temptations are too hard to pass up. I had an affair with a married woman and got her pregnant. Her husband left her."

"You didn't know she was married."

"I didn't try to find out."

"She was the one deceiving you," Justine insisted, not allowing Brad to justify what he hadn't yet heard from her and close the lid on the truth. He would hear the whole thing.

"Okay then, tell me what you did," Brad said, with resolve, "but it won't change my opinion of you. I have too much faith in you now. You've changed."

Justine shrugged, and opened Pandora's lid wide.

"By my senior year in college I had a four-point average. I rarely dated, and that was fine. I was away from high school and I'd pretty much sworn off men, but in the last semester of my senior year I started falling behind in one class because I didn't like it and hadn't done the homework, and I was getting an F. The professor was young, and I'd noticed him looking at me, so when I realized there wouldn't be enough time to make up the work, which would end my chance of becoming valedictorian, I went to him after class and asked if I could meet with him to talk about my grade. He suggested I come to his office after class, and I said I couldn't, but that maybe he could stop by my place later for a few minutes. He did, and I was ready for him. I got him horny, and I got my ‘A’, and all I had to do was spread my legs. That was a whole lot easier than doing the homework."

"A professor screwing a student," Brad said. "He was the unethical one."

"No," Justine said. "The student definitely screwed the professor, and because of that, a student who'd come by straight ‘A’s honestly got screwed out of being valedictorian."

"Would you do it again, if you could go back?" Brad asked.

"Of course not," Justine replied.

"Then put it behind you. It's all in your past now," Brad said.

"Except that I still have the glory of being valedictorian of my class when someone else deserves it," Justine said. "I intend to fix it though."

Brad gave her a guarded look. "Fix it how?"

"By telling the College Board what happened. The professor could still be trading grades for sex. I was subtle about getting him horny—letting my eyes focus on his crotch, licking my lips followed by a knowing smile, the top few of buttons on my shirt undone, twirling my finger between my breasts while holding his gaze. But he was the one who laid down the rules.

"I can fix that grade for you, Justine," he said, while unbuttoning my shirt. "A few checks in my homework ledger and your assignments are done." He shoved my shirt open and tugged down my bra and I pretended I was enjoying what he was doing because I needed that A."

"You ever had sex with a professor?" he asked, while pulling my jogging shorts down my legs. I was wearing my first pair of thongs, part of the plan...

"No," I told him. "You're the first." He pulled the thong aside and started touching me there, and I tried not to show that I was disturbed with what he was doing. Then I put my hand on his to stop him, and said, "How do I know I'll get my A?"

"You'll get your A," he assured me, while pulling off my thong.

"An A for my silence," I said to him, a subtle threat, but I was making my first sex for success contract, and it had to be sound.

By then he had his pants unzipped. "I noticed you the first day you came to class," he said. "I wanted you then."

I laughed, and replied, "I noticed you too." But when he started to shove the thing between my legs I felt sick. He could have been married, probably was. I stopped him and said, "You need to wear a condom. Did you bring one?"

He slipped one out of his pocket. "I hate the things," he said, "but a professor needs to be responsible." He was laughing when he said it. I also knew he'd come prepared, and I wondered if other female students had raised their grades this way.

He finished the job, and I got my A. My parents and Grace were there to hear me give the valedictorian speech, and afterwards, everyone commended me on what an inspiring speech I'd given, and the dean congratulated me and told my parents how much he admired me, and my parents were proud. And of course, being valedictorian led to job offers. When I started my first job out of college, I already knew how to make my way up the corporate ladder. It worked until I got to Sean Elliot. It never occurred to me that he'd threaten to frame me if I didn't step down. It's like the old adage goes. The higher the climb, the farther the fall."

At last, Pandora's Box was empty. It felt good. No slithery, slimy, creepy, crawly creatures left inside. She waited for Brad's reaction. There was none at first. His face looked stony, and she knew he was as disillusioned as she'd expected him to be. She'd even described what happened in graphic detail, wanting him to be as disgusted with what she'd done as she was with herself.