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Jesse shook his head.
Sighing, Will turned back to the woman who was saying, “What else would it be?”
“A favor,” Will said. “To me.”
She laughed, and even in this weird situation, Jesse’s insides responded to that low, throaty chuckle. He shifted uncomfortably.
“You want a favor. From me.” Disbelief rang loudly in her tone.
“Absolutely.” Will laid his hands on his thighs and leaned toward her. “The bastard—excuse me.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard worse and I think we can agree whoever the man was, pretending to be you, he deserves that description and more.”
Jesse admired that. She had her pride, but she was also willing to look at a situation and see it for what it was, not what she’d like it to be.
“Well,” Will said, “my mom would have a fit if she heard me cussing in front of a lady, so excuse me anyway.”
She nodded.
“As I was saying, the man who stole my identity stole more than my name. He took my reputation, too, and ran it into the ground.”
Jesse scowled, seeing the look of frustration on his brother’s features. He knew Will was having a hard time with all of this, but he hated seeing evidence of it.
“You didn’t do anything to me,” Jillian said softly.
“I know that, but as I said, it was done in my name and I’m going to feel terrible about that unless you help me out.”
A second or two passed before Jillian shook her head and smiled wryly. “Oh, you’re good at this, aren’t you? Getting people to do what you want, I mean.”
“Used to be,” Will admitted.
“Still are,” Jesse said quietly.
Jillian turned her head to look at him, and their eyes locked. Even on opposite sides of the room, there was a thread of connection that snapped and crackled between them. And Jesse saw by the flash of acknowledgment in her eyes that she felt it, too. Not that he cared.
“My big brother over there knows how hard-headed I am,” Will said and Jillian shifted her gaze back to him. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s important to me to rebuild my good name. So let me help. If I’m worried about you and your daughter, it’ll take time away from me getting back to my own life.”
Jesse watched for her reaction and he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t buying it. That was the only reason he spoke up when he did. “He’s not lying.”
She turned her head to look at him again and that electrical pulse between them erupted. Her gaze fixed on his and Jesse could have sworn even the air between them burned. He wasn’t interested in this. Had no time for the distraction of a woman—and this woman would be the Queen of all distractions. So he pushed away any sense of attraction he was feeling and focused on making his point known. “Will’s got a lot going on right now.”
She laughed shortly, but her eyes remained cool and flat. “Yeah. I know.”
“Then you should know he’s not going to rest until you and your daughter are taken care of.”
“I’m not a problem to be solved and neither is my daughter.”
“He didn’t mean—” Will said.
“That’s not what I said,” Jesse interrupted, cutting his brother off. “And I think you know it. So don’t go looking to be offended when there’s no intent.”
Will fired a hard look at him that Jesse ignored. He never took his gaze off Jillian, so he recognized when she accepted his words.
She nodded briefly. “Okay, you’re right. I was doing that.”
“I’m also right about you letting Will off the hook—”
“He’s not on a hook,” Jillian snapped. “I just said so.”
“I never thought I was—”
Jesse cut Will off again. “There you go. Offense where none’s meant. I’m trying to tell you that if you don’t let Will do what he thinks is fair and right here, you’re going to punish him for something that wasn’t his fault.”
“Jesse, why don’t you let me—”
“I told him it’s not his fault,” Jillian argued, and this time she cut Will off.
“He won’t believe you,” Jesse said.
“Yes, I would.”
“Well, he should,” Jillian said.
“He won’t.” Jesse waved one hand at his brother. “He’ll wallow in guilt or some other nonsense if you don’t let him help.”
“I don’t wallow,” Will pointed out.
“And if I let him help,” Jillian countered, “then I feel guilty for taking advantage of a man who owes me nothing.”
“No, you won’t,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “You’re too smart for that. You’re a mother. You have your kid to think of. So you’ll do the smart thing and take a helping hand when it’s offered.”
She tipped her head to study him. “Oh, will I?”
Her long, blond ponytail swung forward to lie over her shoulder and across her breast. His hands itched to do the same. Hell. He was jealous of her hair. How sad was that?
“Yeah,” Jesse said, his gaze locked with hers. “You will.”
“You two just let me know when it’s my turn to talk,” Will muttered.
“He’s not going to let this go until you let him help,” Jesse said.
“He’s right about that anyway,” Will broke in, grabbing his chance to get a few words in.
“Why do you care what I do or don’t?” Jillian asked, but the question was for Jesse, not Will.
Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely sure why her welfare mattered to him one way or the other. He shrugged. “Maybe it’s because my mom was a single mother when she married Will’s daddy. Because I remember how hard it was for her before we came to live here at the ranch.”
Her gaze lowered briefly before she looked at him again. In her eyes, he saw acceptance. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod before looking at Will. “Okay, then. I’ll take your help and thank you for it.”
Will smiled. “You don’t have to thank me. Like my brother said, you’re helping me out of a sea of guilt just by saying yes.”
Jesse watched her and knew she was still a little uneasy with her decision, but for her daughter’s sake, she was clearly willing to swallow a bit of her pride.
“You were living and working in Vegas,” Will said. “Is that right?”
Jillian’s shoulders squared and her spine snapped straight as a plank. As if just the word Vegas invited judgment that she was prepared to defend herself against. “That’s right.”
“I can send you back there,” Will was saying, “You probably gave up your apartment when you came to Texas, so I could help you get a new one, if you like. Or if you prefer, I’ll find you a nice place here in Royal.”
She chewed at her bottom lip and Jesse’s groin went rock-hard in a flash of heat. Damn.
“I’d rather stay here in Royal,” Jillian finally said, then added, “if you don’t mind any gossip that might spring up. People will know why I came here—thinking you were Mackenzie’s father and all.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Will assured her. “There’s always gossip about one thing or another and it’ll fade. But this is up to you. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go home?”
Now a sad smile briefly curved her wide, fantastic mouth. “Vegas was never home. Just a place to live and work. I came here for a fresh start. For Mac and for me. I’d still like that.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Will said, and walked back around to the chair behind the desk. “We own a lot of property in Royal. I’m sure we’ve got an apartment—”
“It doesn’t have to be anything big. Or fancy,” Jillian added quickly. “Just clean and safe. Somewhere we can be until I find a job and get a place of my own.”
“But—”
Will was going to argue, but Jesse knew what the woman meant. She was willing to take help but didn’t want to feel beholden as she would if Will tried to give her some extravagant apartment.
“There’s a place off Main.” Both Will and Jillian looked at him. “Good building. Safe. Clean. They’re studio apartments, but big enough for you and a baby.”
Relief shone in her eyes and she nodded even as Will sputtered, “We can do better than a studio. A place with more room. A yard, maybe—”
“No.” Jillian shook her head, looked at Will and said, “This one sounds perfect. We’ll take it.” Then she turned her gaze back to Jesse. She looked at him for a long moment, then said simply, “Thank you.”
Those eyes of hers met his steadily, and he felt that swift tug of something hot again. He didn’t let her know that, though. “You’re welcome.”
* * *
“How’d it go?”
Jillian walked into the large, plush living room of Lucy Navarro Bradshaw’s suite at the Ace In the Hole ranch. The room was huge and airy, with floor-to-ceiling windows along the front wall, displaying a wide view of the ranch the Sanders family called home. The furniture was feminine without being frilly. Overstuffed couches and chairs covered in cream fabric splashed with blue and yellow flowers. Heavy, pale oak tables held stacks of books and brass lamps with amber shades. Rugs in pale, subtle colors dotted the gleaming wood floors and to make it all seem less like a photo shoot layout, toys, trucks and coloring books were scattered everywhere.
Ordinarily, Jillian would have felt completely out of place in such an elegant, old-money kind of home. But Lucy made the difference here.
At five feet six inches, Lucy was much shorter than Jillian’s five foot ten. She had layered brown hair, big blue eyes and a friendly smile that had welcomed Jillian from the first. Thanks to Lucy, even with everything that had been going on for the last two weeks, Jillian hadn’t felt so alone in Royal.
She didn’t know why Lucy had befriended her, but she was grateful. Jillian had left behind everything she’d ever known when she came to Royal, Texas, hoping for some sort of settlement from the estate of the man she’d thought was her baby girl’s father. Will Sanders. It wasn’t until the service for Will, when the man himself had walked through the door, that Jillian had realized she’d been duped. A damn impostor, posing as the rich, successful Will Sanders, had gotten past Jillian’s defenses and left her pregnant. Now she had no home, no job, very little money and a daughter to provide for.
Thinking of her little girl had Jillian’s gaze sliding to Baby Mac, playing with Lucy’s son, Brody. The tiny girl had soft blond hair, big hazel eyes and a dimple in her right cheek that never failed to tug at Jillian’s heart. Mackenzie Norris, closing in on two years old, and the light of her mommy’s life.
There was nothing Jillian wouldn’t do for her daughter.
“Jillian?” Lucy asked. “Earth to Jillian...”
“What?” She gave herself a shake and smiled a little. “Sorry. Mental wandering.”
“Don’t worry. Happens to me all the time,” Lucy assured her.
“Mommy!” Mac’s face lit up. “I color.”
“I can see that,” Jillian said, taking a spot on the floor beside Lucy and her son, the small, sandy-haired boy with eyes the color of root beer.
Brody, in his four-year-old wisdom, tried to whisper, “She goes outside the lines.”
Lucy laughed and skimmed one hand down her son’s head. “She’s still little.”
Yes, that was the reason, Jillian thought, but a part of her hoped that Mac always went outside the lines. She wanted her little girl to push envelopes, to reach for stars and every other heartwarming cliché on the books.
“Why don’t you take Mac to your room and show her your books,” Lucy suggested.
“Okay.” Brody stood up and held one hand down to the toddler already scrambling to go with him.
When the kids were out of the room, Lucy gathered up the crayons and tucked them into a wide, plastic box. “So,” she asked, slanting Jillian a look. “How’d it go?”
Jillian gathered up the coloring books, stacked them neatly, then laid them down beside the box of colors. “Pretty well, all things considered.”
“That’s called answering without answering,” Lucy chided. “My mom used to do it all the time to us. Now I do it to Brody.”
Jillian laughed a little. “You’re right. Sorry.”
“What did Will have to say?”
“Everything,” she said after a second or two. Jillian thought back over their meeting and couldn’t fault the man at all. He’d been kind, understanding and generous, considering that Jillian and Mac weren’t his problem to deal with at all. Sighing, she leaned back against the closest chair and stretched her legs out in front of her. “He’s a really nice man. Much nicer than the ‘Will’ I knew.”
Lucy reached out and took her hand, giving it a squeeze of solidarity. “He’s a good guy.”
“Yeah,” Jillian agreed. “He is. He offered to pay our way home to Vegas and set us up in a new apartment.”
“Oh.” One word of disappointment.
She glanced at Lucy and the other woman shrugged.
“I was sort of hoping you’d stay here in Texas,” Lucy said. “I mean, I don’t have that many close friends and, well, we just clicked, you know? So I’d miss you.”
Surprised as much by Lucy as she had been by the woman’s brother, Jillian asked, “Why?”
A short laugh shot from Lucy’s throat. “Well, come on. Do you have so many friends that you wouldn’t miss one if they moved away?”
“No,” Jillian said after a moment or two. “I don’t. I’d miss you, too.”
“Glad to hear it,” Lucy admitted.
