Jesse: Merry Christmas, Cowboy

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The doors slid open, finally, to reveal a compartment packed with people, adults overlapping at the shoulders and children fitted into the spaces below waist level. The process of emptying seemed endless.

A crowd of equal size followed Janie into the elevator. Pressed against the back wall between Jesse and Mark, she couldn’t continue their discussion with so many listeners.

The last person didn’t get off until the thirty-ninth floor.

When the panels parted on forty, Janie started running. The closed door to the suite brought her up short. She waited on tiptoe for Serena to answer her knock.

Just as she heard the lock release, big hands gripped her shoulders and forced her to turn around.

Behind her in the doorway, Serena said, “Miss Janie?” Inside the room, Abby moaned and sobbed.

Standing in front of her, Jesse shook his head. “You can’t go in there, Janie. Not right now.”

Mark came up beside them, pulled back his arm and knocked Jesse sideways with a punch to the shoulder.

“Mind your own business, Cody,” he growled. “And get your hands off my sister.”

Chapter Four

Jesse bounced off the wall and came back with his own punch ready.

Janie stepped in front of him. “Don’t you dare.”

He stopped, stared at her for a moment, then shook his head like a dog shaking off water. His hand fell to his side.

“You’re right. Sorry.” He flashed a furious glance over her shoulder to Mark. “I only meant that you should take the time to calm down and pull yourself together, be fore you went in to see your mom. But…” He looked around the circle of shocked faces—Nicki and Serena were watching, in addition to Janie and Mark. “But I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

His boot heels thudded through the thick carpet as Jesse strode quickly down the hallway. The door to the Cody suite shut behind him with an impact just short of a slam.

Taking a deep breath, Janie turned and stepped past Serena into her mother’s room. When Mark moved to follow, Janie stopped but didn’t face him. “You’ve thrown your weight around enough for one night. Just stay with Nicki. I’ll call you if we need you.”

“What is your—”

He didn’t get to finish because Serena closed the door in his face.

Janie looked at the older woman over her shoulder. “I knew I liked you.” Then she peeled off her jacket, dropped it with her purse on the floor and went to sit beside her mother on the bed.

“I’m here, Mom,” she crooned. “Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s fine.”

Sure, Janie thought, remembering Jesse’s face. Everything’s just great.

JESSE HAD SET UP SOME practice time for Wednesday morning, on a ranch owned by a friend of his about a hundred miles out of Vegas into Utah. After spending half the night lying awake, thinking about Janie before and after her brother’s intrusion, he sure as hell didn’t want to think anymore.

So he set his music for a rowdy playlist—no love songs like the ones last night—and turned the volume high. All he wanted to do this morning was ride bulls and get as dirty as he possibly could.

The bulls were happy to oblige. He stuck five rides until the buzzer, but hit the sand early on three more.

“Those last three are my best.” Chick Grady, the ranch owner, leaned on the arena fence as Jesse dusted himself off after that last fall. “Ain’t nobody ever rode ol’ Hoggy to the buzzer.”

“Good to hear.” Jesse climbed the fence and dropped down on the outside. “But I should have made it, if I plan to win.”

“Stiff competition,” Chick agreed. He stood five feet tall in his boots and displayed about a century’s worth of wrinkles under the shade of his hat brim. “I have to say, yer not lookin’ yer best this mornin’.”

Removing the baseball cap he’d worn, Jesse bent over and dunked his head in a nearby horse trough to rinse the dirt off his face and cool down. Even in December, the sun shone strong in the Utah hill country. “Didn’t get much sleep.”

Chick snorted a laugh. “Gotta leave those ladies in Vegas to somebody else.”

“I hear that.” He caught the rag Chick threw him and wiped off his face and neck. “Easier said than done, sometimes.”

“Decide what you really want.” Chick spat a stream of tobacco into the dirt. “Then go get it.”

“Right. Thanks, Chick. See you tomorrow.”

Stripping off his filthy shirt, Jesse climbed into the truck in his T-shirt and aimed the windshield toward Las Vegas. He felt better for getting some fresh air and sunshine, for pitting his strength against an animal’s and winning, more often than not. That was the fun part of bull riding, the part he enjoyed.

He whistled as he walked through the hotel’s mid-afternoon horde and only grinned when the two women who joined him in the elevator stepped as far away from his dirt as they could manage. The hallway on the fortieth floor was empty, and he sauntered to the suite in a better mood than he could remember for quite some time. Certainly since Mark Hansen had decided to complicate his life.

Then he unlocked the door and stepped inside to find a crowd of faces—worried, upset and downright angry—staring straight at him.

For some reason, the first person he focused on was Janie. She stood near the window, looking defiant and furious and apologetic, all at once.

“Well, it’s about time.” His dad’s voice made itself heard over several others. “Where the hell have you been?”

Like a balloon floating up against a prickly pear cactus, Jesse’s mood deflated in that instant. He pulled off his baseball cap and rubbed a hand over his hair. “You know, I am really tired of hearing that question. Remember the good, old-fashioned word we use to greet somebody…what was it? Oh, yeah—hello.”

“Hello, Jesse,” his mother said. “We were surprised you weren’t here when we arrived.”

“I went over to Chick Grady’s ranch. He let me ride a few of his bulls.”

“How’d it go?” his dad barked.

Aware of Mark and Nicki sitting on the couch, Jesse shrugged. “Okay. I’ll be going back tomorrow, get a little more loosened up.” He surveyed the room, nodding to his brother Dex and his new wife, Josie, who were also part of the group. “Where’s the rest of the family? I haven’t seen Elly or Dusty or Walker since I got here. Not to mention the nephews.” Dusty’s son Matthew and Clay, Walker’s wife’s little boy, were two of his favorite people in the world.

“Dusty and Walker took the youngsters to the indoor pool,” Josie told him. “Elly’s working her horse and Maryanne went shopping at Cowboy Christmas.”

His next questions would, no doubt, start up the fireworks. “Why didn’t everybody go?” His gaze fell on Janie again as he asked the question, though she was the only one who didn’t try to give an answer.

“Janie’s talking about going home,” he heard Mark say. “We’ve been trying to change her mind.”

“That’s her decision,” J.W. declared. “She knows what’s best.” Trust his dad to take the easiest way out, for him, anyway. Having his ex-mistress down the hall would have to be awkward, even if his wife was being a saint about the whole situation.

“Don’t you think Abby was better this morning?” Nicki appealed to Mark and then to Janie. “She seemed calmer at breakfast.”

“Who knows what might happen in the next ten days?” J.W. pushed himself out of his chair and crossed the room to stand beside Jesse. “You don’t have time to fly back, but we can hire a pilot.”

No wonder Janie looked so stressed.

Jesse noticed that his mother hadn’t contributed to the argument one way or the other. She sat without moving, staring down at her hands, folded in her lap.

As J.W. opened his mouth to make yet another ill-considered comment, Jesse held up a hand. Somewhat to his surprise, the room fell silent. Even J.W. paused.

“Seems to me,” Jesse said carefully, “that Janie is capable of deciding what’s best for her mother and herself without being harassed by folks with their own agendas.” He glanced at Mark, to be sure he got that message, and saw the other man flush. “So why don’t we all just let her have the time and space to consider her options? We can work out what needs to happen when she’s made up her mind.”

No one seemed to understand what he meant, because they just sat or stood where they were, staring at him. “That means you should all go back to your own rooms.” He nodded at Nicki, and then at Josie and Dex. “Or go shopping. Whatever. Mom and Dad, you probably need to put your feet up for a while before dinner. After your long drive, that is.”