Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (58 page)

"How about we go to my house?" Sam said. "Rick's not there, and square dancing won't start again for another twenty minutes, and we'd have the house all to ourselves."

"That still won't work," Jayne replied. "I have to get Becca from Grace's. If it's any consolation, I feel as desperate as you."

Sam turned, and holding her hand, pulled her across the barn and out the door. Masked in shadow, he took her in his arms and kissed her long and hard, and Jayne returned the kiss with a passion that surprised Sam, after everything that had happened. But when the kiss was over, he said, "This is totally inadequate," then pulled her into a tack room off the back of the barn and shut the door. But through a small window, and by the glow from the overhead utility lights outside, he could see her, just as she could see him.

"We have twenty minutes," he said, "but honey I'm literally going mad, and you said you wanted a ring on your finger before making love, and I still have the ring—" he reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring with a diamond that caught the light "—and I'm going to put it on your finger now, and make love to you, and afterwards you can either keep it on your finger and marry me, or take it off and give it back until we make love again and—"

"Sam," she cut him off, "just put the ring on my finger. We're running out of time."

Sam slipped it on her finger, then grabbed a folded horse blanket off the shelf above them, shook it out, sending it billowing against the floor, and tugged her down to the blanket.

"You'll be laying on a hard floor, and I'm going to kiss off all your make up, and your face is going to be flushed when we finish, and—"

"Hush," Jayne said. She grabbed the lapels of his shirt and yanked the snaps apart, and said, "I've been wanting to do this all evening. And this." She kissed her way across his chest. But before she could go further, he stripped off his clothes and hers, and said, "I want to give you what you want, honey. How much time do you need?"

"I don't need any," Jayne said. "All I need is you."

Sam moved over her and in one fluid movement, joined his body with hers in a union that was heated, and intense, and brought them climaxing in a harmonizing rhythm that left them both breathless. But before they moved apart, Jayne said, in all sincerity, "Do you think there's something special about us that we peak at the same time, or does it happen with other couples?"

"It's us," Sam said. "We're wired for love making together, like we're operating on the same frequency. If we did a little research we'd probably find an explanation."

Jayne kissed him one last time, and said, "We need to get back to the dance. Eventually someone's going to look around and notice that the square dance caller and his guest ranch manager have been missing for a while, and come looking for us."

"I suppose," Sam said, with resolve.

But before they left the tack room, Jayne removed the ring and handed it to Sam, and said, "You'd better keep it. I loved having it on my finger, but now we're back to reality."

"For how long?" Sam asked. "I want the ring on your finger permanently, maybe not starting tonight, but soon. We can work out the problems with the kids. Couples blend families all the time. Half my friends have done it."

"Reality doesn't go away," Jayne said, "and the issues keeping us apart seem to be increasing. I have no idea what's going on with Becca, but if there are problems at school I'm not going to make her face them. If necessary, I'll move to a neighborhood close to her old school so she can go there. According to her adoptive grandmother, Becca was doing well there and had lots of friends. They all knew about her mother, and she had a support group of kids and teachers. She needs that now."

Sam wanted to argue every point he could think.

It's a new school, she'll adjust... if we were married she'd have two parents to help her...
Ricky's a good kid, he'll come around... the ranch is a good place to raise kids...

He could go on and on, but the reality for Jayne was, Becca came above all else because Jayne owed it to the daughter she'd been forced to give up for adoption, and had regretted ever since, and was given a second chance to make things right. He had no argument for that.

CHAPTER 11

Jayne sat in the lodge with Justine Meecham, while watching Sophie and Becca interacting. Sam had gone to pick up Ricky, who was with Susan, and Jayne hoped they wouldn't be back for a while since she wanted the girls to have time together before Ricky would take Sophie off somewhere. Sophie and Ricky had been friends since they were five and six, and they were inseparable whenever Justine and Brad came to the ranch.

Sam also told Jayne about Justine's checkered past and how, after meeting Brad, she made a complete turnabout and was a model mother to Sophie, who knew nothing about her stepmother's past. Jayne couldn't help thinking that Justine had to live in fear that one day Sophie would find out and be totally disillusioned, but Jayne refused to live in fear with Becca, and it took Lauren Hansen, a woman who'd killed her baby, to finally set her free.

At the moment, the girls were looking at a book on human physiology for children that Ricky left in the lodge. The book had plastic overlay pages with diagrams that layered the parts of the body, starting with the innards and working out. The girls had been quietly studying the pictures, but now they were giggling, and Jayne glanced over and saw that they were looking at the overlay of a boy, complete with all the male parts.

Although the girls had their heads together and were talking quietly, Jayne could still make out the words, when Sophie said to Becca, "Do you have a brother?"

Becca shook her head. "No. Do you?"

"No. Have you ever seen a boy there?" Sophie said in a voice that was almost a whisper, her finger touching the penis in the diagram.

"No," Becca replied.

"Me neither," Sophie said. "My mom says we shouldn't look at a boy there till we get married." Sophie moved her finger aside so the diagram was uncovered, but she continued to stare, and there was a look of prurient interest on her face that would have worried Jayne, had Sophie been her daughter.

Justine must have picked up on it, because she said, while looking at Sophie, "I think you girls have been looking at books long enough." She took the book and closed it, and set it on the mantel. "Why don't you play Monopoly?"

Becca stood and said to Sophie, "Do you want to. I have a game in my room?"

"Sure." The girls headed down the hallway.

After they were gone, Justine said to Jayne, "Raising a daughter is challenging. You have to monitor where they go and who they're with, and with all the emphasis on sex in the movies, and on TV, and on the covers of magazines at the grocery, kids grow up thinking life is all about having sex as soon as they're old enough. Even Ricky's book is provocative for a couple of little girls who've never seen a naked boy."

"At least with a book they can satisfy their curiosity with pictures instead of wanting to see the real thing," Jayne said, thinking Justine was wrong in taking the book away, that it might be better to talk to the girls about the anatomy of a boy so they wouldn't be as curious.

"That's why Brad and I are sending Sophie to an all-girl's school," Justine said, "so she won't see the real thing, and we don't let her have Barbie and Ken dolls."

Jayne thought, at first, Justine was overreacting, since the girls were only eight and ten. But then maybe Justine was just being a conscientious mother, who was trying to keep her daughter from following in her footsteps. Jayne knew only too well the temptation a boy could bring to a relationship when he thinks he's a man because his body reacts like a man's, while his brain is still operating at teenage level. She also knew how easily a girl could rationalize things to accommodate her guy when he wanted her to prove her love.

"Maybe you're right about the Kens and Barbies," she mused. "I had them too, and I admit, I was more fascinated with Ken than Barbie, even if he was missing something."

Justine laughed. "Actually Brad's worse than I am when it comes to Sophie, but Sophie doesn't make a fuss. We're lucky, I guess."

For the next hour, Jayne and Justine exchanged ideas on raising girls. Since it was Saturday, and they were in between guests at the ranch, Jayne had time to relax, and she enjoyed Justine's company. Justine and Grace were about as different as sisters could be, and Jayne found that she could relate to Justine better, since they both had pasts they wanted to forget, even though they hadn't acknowledged that to each other.

The girls had just come back into the great room after finishing their game, when Ricky came bursting through the front door and rushed up to Sophie, and said, in an excited voice, "You want to hike to the spring?"

Sophie immediately left Becca's side, like she didn't exist, and said to Ricky, "Yeah." The two turned and headed toward the front door, when Brad appeared in the doorway.

Planting himself in their paths, Brad said to Sophie, "Where do you think you're going?"

Sophie looked up at her father, and replied, "Ricky and I are going to the spring."

"Not by yourselves, you're not," Brad said.

"Why not?" Sophie asked. "Ricky goes there all the time."

Brad eyed Justine, who said to him, "How about if Becca went along too?"

Becca looked at Jayne for approval. "It's okay," Jayne said. "You go and have a good time."

Just after the kids left, Sam walked into the lodge, and said to Jayne, "There's a carload of people who want to look around the ranch with the idea of staying for a few days. You'd better take care of this since you know what's available."

Jayne wasn't ready for drop-ins, but the ranch needed the business, so she grudgingly left, and Justine excused herself so she could spend time with Grace, leaving Sam and Brad alone.

After filling a mug with coffee from the espresso machine, Sam stood looking out the front window of the lodge. While watching Jayne, who was talking to the people outside, he said to Brad, "What time is your book signing?"

"Not until four this afternoon," Brad said. "Lots of time to relax here."

While Sam continued to stare out the window at Jayne, who was smiling and gesturing and talking to the people, Brad filled a mug with coffee and walked over to stand beside him. "So, how are things going with you and Jayne?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "I gave her a ring."

"I didn't notice it on her finger," Brad said. "I guess congratulations are in order."

"No," Sam replied, "she gave it back. Earlier, she claimed she needed a ring on her finger before making love so I got the ring, but not because it was a requirement to have her in my bed, but because I wanted to marry her. So I put it on her finger and we made love, then afterwards she gave it back and said for me to keep it until the next time, which doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me, kind of like wearing a condom to prevent pregnancy, only in my case it's to prevent having to make a long-term commitment. Ring on, we can have sex. Ring off, we're boss and employee. I feel like a toy boy."

"Go figure women," Brad said. "Did you find out why she'd been turned off to men?"

Sam wasn't sure he wanted to get into the whole prison thing with Brad, because he'd about had his fill of advice from everyone about what an idiot he was, but he also realized Brad would be the closest person of anyone around to understand what it was like to love a woman with a questionable past. "Yeah, I found out," he said. "Jayne was in prison for five years, had her daughter while she was there, and swore off men after she came out."

"Umm, maybe you'd better fill me in," Brad said.

After Sam brought Brad up to date, Brad said, "Do you want some advice?"

Sam shrugged. "Not unless you have something different to offer. I'm the family idiot right now, with my brain between my legs according to Jack, and my reasoning ability shot to hell according to my mother, and a whole lot of sympathy from Grace, who hopes I'll come to my senses soon and find another woman. Even Jayne says I have my head stuck in the sand if I think it could work with us. She's planning on leaving as soon as Becca's out of school because she claims as long as Lauren lives in the community, she could never get away from her past, which is true. So go on. What do you have to add?"

"That's a tough one," Brad said. "Let me ask you this. Do you love her enough to give up everything here and go somewhere else where her past wouldn't matter?"

"Yeah, I love her enough to do that," Sam said. "If it was only me, I'd do it in an instant, but I can't take Ricky away from his school and the ranch and Susan, even with all the crap going on with her." He glanced out the window just as the people who'd been talking to Jayne were driving off. Jayne turned and headed back to the lodge.

Once inside, Jayne said, to Sam, "They're going to town for dinner, but they're coming back afterwards. They took the cabin on the end for the week."

Sam looked at her soberly. "Why didn't you send them to the hotel? I was hoping to keep that cabin clear."

Jayne held Sam's gaze. "You hired me to get this place running again, so that's what I'm doing, and you never said anything to me about going to the cabin."

Brad clapped Sam on the back. "That's what happens when you get involved with a competent woman. I know firsthand. They have a way of bringing hell and orderliness to your life at the same time."

Jayne smiled, taking it as a compliment, and said to Sam, "We could meet at the spring. Speaking of which, shouldn't we check on the kids? They've been gone a while."

Before Sam could respond, the door opened, and Becca stepped inside.

Jayne walked over to her, and said, "Did you hear the voices in the cave, honey?"

Becca shook her head. "They wouldn't let me in because I didn't know the secret word. They said only people who knew the secret word could come in or else the spirits would leave and never come back, and no one would ever hear the voices again."

"Where are they now?" Brad asked.

Becca looked at Brad, her face worried, and said, "I think maybe still there."

"Not for long," Brad said. He turned and rushed out.

"I think I'd better go too," Sam said, heading after Brad.

Once the men had left, Jayne said to Becca, "Did Ricky say you couldn't go in?"

Becca shook her head. "It was Sophie. Ricky was already in the cave. Sophie said I had to wait outside and for me to go sit by the tree, which I did."

"Is that all that happened?" Jayne asked, sensing from the worried look on Becca's face that there was more than she was passing on. "It's okay to tell me anything, honey. I'm your mother, and that's what I'm here for, to listen when you're worried about something. So, what happened after that? Did you stay sitting by the tree?"

Becca shook her head. "After a while I went over to see what they were doing, and they were being really bad."

"Really bad, how?" Jayne asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She already had a fairly good idea what being really bad at that age could be.

"Sophie told Ricky she wanted to see what a boy looked like, and that if he showed her his pee, she'd show him hers, so Ricky pulled down his pants and showed her, then Sophie said she changed her mind and he couldn't see her, but Ricky said it wasn't fair, so Sophie pulled down her pants and showed him."

"Did he touch her?" Jayne asked, trying to sound calm, even though she knew Brad and Justine would be mortified when she told them.

Becca shook her head. "No, he just looked. Then Sophie said she didn't want him looking at her there anymore and pulled her pants back up. But then I made a noise, and Ricky saw me and Sophie started crying and said if her parents knew they'd kill her, and she'd never done anything like that before, and she only showed Ricky because he was going to be a doctor, and Ricky told me if I said anything I'd be sorry because he knew things about you he'd tell the kids at school."

Jayne froze. So Ricky knew. He'd probably heard Susan and Lauren talking.

"Could Ricky say something bad about you?" Becca asked.

Jayne shook her head. "No, he was just saying that because you saw what they were doing and he was mad. And you did right by telling me."

Becca still looked worried.

"Is there something else bothering you, honey?"

Becca nodded." I was just getting to be friends with Sophie and now she'll hate me for spying on them."

"No she won't. You didn't mean to spy. And I'm sure Sophie will want to be your friend again when she realizes you didn't do anything wrong."

"She won't if you say something to her mother," Becca said.

Jayne couldn't argue with that. Still, Justine and Brad and Sam had to know what happened so they could monitor the kids more closely. "I have to tell Sophie's mother, honey, but she doesn't need to let Sophie know it came from you. Sophie's mother will talk to her about the importance of being modest so she won't do anything like that again and everything will be okay. Why don't you go in my room and watch a DVD and I'll see if Sophie might want to watch it with you."

"She won't. She hates me." Becca turned and rushed down the hallway, and moments later, Jayne heard the door to Becca's bedroom slam.

It wasn't any time before Sam came into the lodge, his face grim. "I don't know what to do with that kid," he said.

"Were they still at the spring?"