Twin Cowboys for Tamara (37 page)

“If you’re going to blame anyone, Tamara, blame me,” Jeremiah said from behind her.

Tamara turned as he shut the door and took several steps across the carpeted floor until he stood within a few feet of her. She looked from him to his sons and thought how earnest well-meaning men surrounded her. She knew this, but their lies still hurt, and she needed to know why they had done it. “Why, Jeremiah? Why would you all do this? If I’d known what was going on, that he was dying I would have—”

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“Acted differently around him? Made him self-conscious with your pity?” Jeremiah shook his head as if he already knew her answer.

“Bailey didn’t want that.”

“Why was it okay for all of you to know, be trusted with the information, and not me?” When no one answered after a moment, Tamara just shook her head, disgusted. “Typical, male chauvinist behavior to the end.”

“Tam, it wasn’t like that,” Jess said, speaking up for the first time since she entered the room.

She turned on him, heated. “Oh no? Then what was it like? Why don’t you tell me?”

Jeremiah caught her by the arms and turned her to him. “Don’t be angry at the boys. They only did what I asked them to—what Bailey wanted. And they only just found out about Bailey’s condition recently.”

“How recently?”

Before Jeremiah could answer, Jess stepped forward and put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to protect us. We went into this with our eyes open.” He turned to Tamara as Jeremiah released her. “We didn’t find out until after you’d arrived. Jax stumbled onto the information when he took me to the hospital after my fall. Bailey asked him not to say anything to anyone, but Jax told me. It was our decision to continue to keep things hush-hush. We thought we did the best thing.”

“For who?” Tamara paced back and forth, mind reeling.

Jess had been thrown by that horse a good couple of weeks before her dad’s death. Two weeks she could have spent with her father not arguing, making his life easier and less painful…

Pitying him.

Jeremiah’s words rang in her ears, and she knew he erred on the side of good sense and loyalty. She knew her father—too stubborn and proud to the end.

“Tamara…”

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Twin Cowboys for Tamara

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She glanced up to see the tears in Jeremiah’s blue eyes—so beautiful and evocative like his sons—and her heart clenched in her chest.

“Bailey was my friend. I loved the old coot like a brother, and I would have done anythin’ for him.”

Tamara shook her head, tears filling her own eyes. “But what about me, Jeremiah? How could you keep that from
me?
”

Erroneously, she made the situation about her. Her father had been the one dying. He had been the sick one, and he’d made a choice to tell who he wanted to tell—his loved ones, the ones who had been there for him the last eighteen years.

She realized she wasn’t angry with Jeremiah, Jess or Jax for keeping her father’s secret. She was hurt and disappointed, most assuredly, but mostly angry with herself. “I wasted so much time arguing with him. Fighting…”

Jeremiah wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, crying in earnest now. He hadn’t cried at the funeral, had been strong through all the arrangements, the wake and everything leading up to this moment—the strong man, the solid friend, the rock.

“I’m so sorry, Jeremiah. I had no reason to blame you or the boys.

It was me. All me…” Tamara sobbed and felt Jeremiah’s hand rubbing and patting her back in a comforting, hypnotic way that actually made her feel like less of a selfish heel. “I know you loved him, and you were there for him—more than I had been.”

“It wasn’t a contest, gal. He loved you too. He just lost his way, forgot how to show how he felt about you, even once you arrived. He knew he erred in shuttin’ you out, and I reckon that made it even harder for him to show you how much you meant to him.”

Tamara didn’t think Jeremiah had said so much in one sitting since she’d known him. She smiled at the thought, at how much things had changed since she’d left—at how much things had remained the same.

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“Never meant to hurt you, gal.” Jeremiah pulled away to look at her, thumbing stray tears away from her eyes. “That was the last thing I wanted to do. But there’s somethin’ else I have to tell you that might not sit right with you…”

Someone knocked on the door, and before anyone could answer, it opened.

The black woman who Jeremiah had greeted earlier came into the study trailing the two younger women. Tamara had a bad feeling about why they all seemed familiar outside of having seen them earlier. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Jeremiah. I’m just so anxious to meet—” She cut herself off when her gaze landed on Tamara then covered her mouth, eyes widening.

In that moment, Tamara knew.

How could she not? The woman looked like an older, mirror image of herself. And the younger women with her must be Tamara’s…sisters?

She stumbled back at the realizations, shaking her head. She didn’t think she could take any more shocking revelations today.

“Tam?”

If the woman expected a warm family reunion, she had another thing coming.

Tamara shook her head again, unable to verbalize what she wanted to say for several moments before “I can’t. I can’t!” finally flew out of her mouth, and she pushed passed the three startled women to sprint out of the room.

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Jax already made it to the door by the time Pop’s forceful voice rang out behind him.

“Don’t boy.”

Everything in him rebelling against the command, Jax turned to his dad. “She needs someone right now.”

“She needs to be alone right now.”

“Maybe if I talk to her,” Jasmine suggested, more timid than Jax would have ever expected. From all the stories he’d ever heard about her, he’d thought she’d be more of a fire-breathing dragon. But the woman before him appeared to be just an older version of Tamara—

darker with a chocolate-brown complexion, beautiful, poised, and everything about her screaming class.

Of course, Tam had gotten back her cowgirl edges since she’d been back the last few weeks, but Jax didn’t miss the poise and class under the hoyden, rough-and-ready gear.

“Pardon my sayin’, Jasmine, but I think you’re the last person she wants to talk to right now,” Pop said.

She frowned, but nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. She does have a lot to deal with.”

The six of them stood around shuffling their feet for a moment before Jeremiah said, “I reckon introductions are in order.” He indicated Jess and Jax with a nod of his head. “These are my boys, Jesse and Jackson.”

One of the young women burst out laughing and the other one elbowed her in the ribs.

“What?” the chuckler asked. “I’m sorry, but it’s funny.”

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Jeremiah smiled. “It was either that, or Martin and Luther, but their mother and me liked the sounds of the J names a lot better.”

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.”

Jax interjected, proffering his hand to the young woman. “Just call me Jax. That’s with an x at the end.”

She shook his hand and smiled. “Maia Jensen. Tamara’s half-sister. Call me Maia.”

“Ma’am.” Jax tipped an imaginary hat and Maia giggled. He pegged her as the youngest sister, maybe about his and Jess’s age, definitely not older, and sensed a kindred spirit, at least as it concerned her outlook on life. She seemed like the fun-loving type.

Her sister elbowed her again. “Don’t mind her. She’s enamored by this entire experience. She’s never met a real live cowboy before, unless you count the Naked Cowboy on 42nd Street.”

Jax chuckled and offered his hand to the second woman. “And you, ma’am? Is this your first time?”

“I’m sorry?” she spluttered.

“Meeting a cowboy.”

“Oh, um, uh, why yes, it is.”

“She’s just too cool to admit that her hormones have been on overload from the moment we set foot on the ranch and caught sight of all the hunky male pulchritude,” Maia teased.

“
Anyway,
I’m Desiree Jensen. Tamara’s other half-sister.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Jax shook her hand.

Jess stepped forward and shook each woman’s hand, then waited as their dad introduced the young women’s mother who needed no introduction.

“This is Tamara’s mama, Jasmine…”

“Jensen.” She stepped forward and shook Jax and Jess’ hand in turn. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

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With the introductions out of the way, Jax didn’t know what to do next. He still was of a mind to chase after Tamara, and he could see that Jess wanted to do the same.

Maia, the more frank and outgoing of the sisters, hooked an arm through Jax’s. “Why don’t you take me on a tour of the ranch while you’re waiting for Tamara to come around?”

“Maia,”
Desiree ground through her teeth. “They just put their loved-one to rest. They’re in
mourning.
”

“Ain’t a problem, ma’am. I don’t think the deceased would object.” Jax patted Maia’s hand on his biceps, looking forward to getting to know Tamara’s baby sister. Even though they hadn’t been raised together, and didn’t even know each other to his knowledge, he thought maybe he could get a little insight. At least it would take him away from the house for a spell. And he needed the space, same as Tamara. Maybe by the time he came back, she’d be ready to talk…or forgive him for his part in keeping Bailey’s condition a secret.

Jax excused himself and led Maia from the study, toward the kitchen, surveying the crowd the entire way for any sign of Tamara.

He finally gave up and figured she had gone upstairs and locked herself in her room.

He took Maia through the kitchen and out the back door of the main house, greeted by a burst of afternoon sunshine and the smell of blooming aspens in the air.

“It’s really beautiful country out here,” Maia commented.

“I agree.” He almost added that he wouldn’t live anywhere else but wondered if he could be as happy here in this country now without Tamara in it.

Jax paused and looked down at her, adjusting to the difference in height. She stood more than a few inches shorter than Tamara, maybe five-three, but not much more. “What part of the country you from?”

“East Coast. New York to be exact.”

Jax nodded, thinking that geographically it wasn’t really a big state, not nearly as big as Colorado and several other states in the Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.

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West and Southwest. He wondered, what the odds that Maia or Desiree had ever come across their sister and never even known it?

“Seems pretty quiet for a working ranch. I guess everything’s shut down for the funeral?” Maia asked.

“Not quite.” Comparatively it proved quiet for a normal work day but only because most of the ranch’s guests remained out on a cattle drive with several cowboys. Bailey had made Jeremiah swear he wouldn’t shut things down, that he would keep things business as usual for the most part, and Pop had done his best not to disrupt ranch operations.

They walked away in silence before coming up on an outcropping of rocks near the pond where Maia didn’t waste a minute hitching up her skirt to take a seat.

Jax took a seat beside her, liking her earthiness and hoping she and her sister would be staying a while, hoping that Tamara could come to terms and reconcile with her Mom.

“You’re not a talkative type, are you?” Maia asked after a while.

Jax grinned. “You don’t know me very well.”

She chuckled. “I take it you’re the rabble-rouser between you and your brother?”

“I’ve been called that a time or two.”

“Same here.”

“Your sister does seem a little on the—”

“Stick-up-her-ass, stuck-up side?”

Jax winced but grinned when he saw Maia’s smile. She was definitely a firebrand and woe to the man who couldn’t deal with her sense of humor. “I wasn’t going to say anything nearly as—”

“Insensitive? Trust me, it’s said in love. I’ve tried to get her to loosen up, but haven’t been successful yet. I’m hoping all the fresh air and fresh cowboys will help with that.”

Jax chuckled, liking this sister a lot. They were two of a kind.

“So, what’s the scoop with you boys and my sister?”

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Were they that obvious or was Maia just that perceptive? Or maybe she had spoken to someone at the house before she’d even been introduced to him and Jess?

Jax didn’t put much credence into the former. The Double R had its share of gossips and did its share of gossiping, but except for that day at the waterfall, he thought he and Jess and Tamara had been pretty discreet. Besides, no one on the ranch would be inclined to talk about the personal business of ranch denizens to a couple of strangers who had just arrived.

Maia nudged his arm with hers. “I’m a big girl. You can trust me.

Besides, I may only have known her two minutes, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens to her.”