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“Too early, it seems,” he said, his tone bordering on venomous.
A tight knot formed in Ava’s stomach. But she understood his anger, and tried once again for polite conversation. “Jared, listen, I—”
“By the way, Rita,” he interrupted, ignoring Ava. “Congratulations on your wedding.”
Rita smiled halfheartedly, her gaze flickering toward her sister. “Thanks.”
“I’d like to get you and your fiancé something, but—”
“We would’ve invited you, Jared, I just didn’t think you’d be in town,” Rita explained awkwardly. “But now that you’re back, you’re more than welcome to come.”
Ava felt her mouth drop open. This wasn’t happening. She’d been so careful with her plans in coming here.
“I appreciate the thought,” he said. “But I don’t think so.” His gaze was intense—and back on Ava.
“Sakir and I would love it,” Rita insisted.
He shook his head. “Thanks, but I can’t do it. I have a desk full of work and a client flying in that night.”
“It’ll be just a few hours.”
Ava clamped a hand down on her sister’s shoulder. “If he doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t want to come. Don’t force the issue.”
The humidity was barely noticeable when compared to the weight of sentiment that passed between her and Jared. His eyes had turned from fuming black to watchful cool steel and Ava felt that familiar stirring deep in her belly. The one she’d hoped she’d feel again, but prayed she wouldn’t.
He could rile her from a hundred paces with that look, always would.
“What time did you say the ceremony was?” he asked Rita, though his gaze remained on Ava.
“Two o’clock,” Rita offered.
He nodded. “Maybe I will stop by.”
Clasping her hands together, Rita looked from one to the other. “Well, you could drop by the house and pick up an invitation if you want.”
Ava’s throat went bone dry. What was her sister playing at? Jared couldn’t come by the house. Her gaze flickered to his. “You can just send it to him, little sister. I’m sure it won’t get lost in the mail.” She took a breath and added, “If you send it out today it will get there—”
“I’ll come by and get it,” Jared stated firmly.
The clang of Mrs. Benton’s ancient cash register sounded. “Give me just one more minute, girls,” she called from the other room.
Ava didn’t have any more minutes left. “I have to go,” she said firmly. A few years ago, she would’ve just remained until the very bitter end of this torture. A few years ago she’d been an idiot. But not today. She’d been through way too much in the past four years to allow these three people to tear apart her small sense of confidence. “I’ll see you back at the house, Rita.” Without looking at Jared, she stepped down from the pedestal, grabbed her purse and headed out of the curtained room just as Mrs. Benton was heading in.
“But the dress…” Mrs. Benton called after her, but Ava didn’t listen, she needed air, she needed—
So intent was she on escape, she actually gasped when she heard the deep baritone from behind her say, “Running away again?”
Halfway to the front door, halfway to safety, she froze. That voice now filled with cold sarcasm had once told her how beautiful she was.
“You always were good at running, Ava.”
She slowly turned around and faced him. “You didn’t say one word to me in there. I didn’t think you’d care if I left—or notice for that matter.”
His eyes darkened and a muscle in his jaw twitched violently. “I noticed.”
She wasn’t exactly sure if they were talking about the dressing room or the past four years. “What can I do for you, Jared?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Then I’ll be going.”
“Your husband here for the wedding?”
Her pulse skittered in her blood as she was reminded of the lie she’d been forced to tell before leaving Paradise. “We’re not together anymore,” she said quietly.
“You walk out on him, too?”
Ava took a deep breath. Jared had a right to be angry with her, but she wasn’t going to accept barb after barb. Living in New York, having a child and a high paying interior design job had really changed her. No longer was she a pushover to her father, to Jared—to anyone.
She took a step toward him. “I understand that you’re angry with me, but that’s no reason to be downright cruel.”
“I’m not angry at you, Ava.” His dark eyes bore into her. “You have to really care about someone to be angry with them.”
She felt her throat tighten as tears threatened. She realized with a start that she’d actually formed a fantasy over the years about seeing him again. And this was so drastically far from that fantasy it was almost comical. She and Jared would never be together again. He despised her, and she imagined that even a full explanation and an apology wouldn’t make much of a difference. The man had turned cold and hard.
But it wasn’t just her feelings, her heart anymore. She had more to protect now. She straightened her shoulders. “Look, you obviously don’t want to see me or talk to me. Let’s just pretend this never happened, pretend we never had this encounter and try to steer clear of each other. I’ll only be here a couple weeks. So that shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Are you telling me not to go to your sister’s wedding?”
She swallowed hard. “Not telling. Just asking.”
He nodded stiffly. “Then I won’t be there.”
Ava hesitated for a moment, then turned to leave. But he was right behind her, his large hand covering hers on the knob. Her breath caught at the feel of him, at his closeness. The scent of leather and heat and pure maleness emanated from him, heightening her awareness. For a moment, it was as if time had never passed. He felt familiar and wonderful, his scent intoxicating. She glanced down at his tanned fingers practically interlaced with her own.
“Ava?” he said, removing his hand from hers.
She looked up at him. “Yes?” He was so close she could feel the solid wall of his chest grazing her shoulder. She could feel his heat, his overwhelming strength. A combination that had branded her many times before.
His gaze traveled from her neck to her mouth, then up to her eyes. “Let go of the door.” He raised a brow. “This time I’m going to be the one walking out first.”
Jared drove his truck down the dirt road like a madman. Well, that’s what he was, wasn’t he? He’d just come face-to-face with the one woman he couldn’t forget—the woman who’d betrayed him.
The wild beauty, he’d called her back then. And at twenty-six, she hadn’t changed much—only filled out in all the right places. High breasts and curved hips with that slender white neck that had always driven him nuts. Those tiny freckles that were sprinkled about the bridge of her nose were still visible, but had faded somewhat. Her honey-blond hair was longer and more lustrous than he remembered, but it still held the fresh scent of daybreak.
Damned if it hadn’t taken everything in him not to run his hands through it when he’d stood beside her at the bridal shop door.
He knew that she’d be here for her sister’s wedding, but the idea of Ava Thompson returning to Paradise was just something he hadn’t wanted to think about—couldn’t ever think about—if he expected to survive his days and nights.
The first year she’d been gone had been hell, he recalled, as the dull ache in his chest turned razor-sharp like the spines of the cactus that lined the road outside the truck’s window. He could still remember that morning like it was yesterday. That morning when Ben Thompson had met him out in the south pasture and told him that he knew about Jared and Ava. Ben had told him that his daughter had left for New York to marry another man, someone her equal, and wasn’t coming back. Jared had been just twenty-four then. A poor ranch hand who was working his way up in the numbers business and wanted nothing more than Ava, a few hundred acres of his own and a future in finance. But no matter how much he’d wanted to go and find her, fight for her, he hadn’t.
She’d wanted another man.
She hadn’t wanted Jared.
And neither had her father, Jared had quickly learned. Ben had booted Jared and his grandmother off of the ranch just one week later.
On an oath, he cut his truck right and skidded into his long driveway, barely clearing the iron gates. Well, he had everything now. With the help of one incredibly loyal client who had believed in Jared’s talent, he’d become successful and highly respected in a short amount of time. The rich and famous came to him when they wanted to see and protect their financial future. Yes, he had it all.
Well, almost.
With his horrendous romantic history and intense work schedule, he didn’t get involved with many women. But the ones he did understood that a few nights of enjoying each other’s company was all he was willing to offer.
He was wealthy beyond his wildest imaginings, while Ben Thompson was now struggling to keep his ranch alive. That thought always made Jared smile.
The house that stood before Jared, however, made him frown. His three-story spread on four hundred acres sure as hell might be the symbol of his worth and how far he’d come, but every time he entered the gates and flew down the gravel road where his house loomed up before him, he was reminded of Ava. He’d had the house painted the color of her eyes—that soft, pale green. Lord, she had the kind of eyes a man could get lost in for days.
Jared ground his teeth, staring up at the place. When she’d left him four years ago, part of him had died. But the other part had remained alive to work. He’d worked his backside off night and day and dawn to get her out of his mind. Then later, to keep her out.
He’d created this place to look cheery and homey. And perhaps to his grandmother it was, but it sure wasn’t to him. It was as though he’d built this house as an ode to Ava—in hopes that she’d come back, come home to him some day. But he’d been a fool, and the house had become just a place to rest his head at night.
He slammed on his brakes, skidding to a dust-cloud stop. He stared at the house, its white and Ava-green trim mocking him in the late afternoon sunlight. All he could think, see, was her. He cursed. All those years ago, Ben Thompson had made it clear that his daughters were off-limits to the ranch hands. Why the hell hadn’t he listened?
Ben Thompson.
If it were the last thing Jared did it would be to get his revenge on that man. And if rumors of a financially troubled ranch were true, that looked to be soon enough.
“Are you going to get out of that truck?”
Jared glanced up at the porch where his elderly grandmother, Muna, sat at a small table surrounded by the things she loved. Tea, books, herbs of every kind and her spirit cards. She was his mother’s mother and all he had left of a family. She was a true Cheyenne with salt and pepper braids stretching to her waist. She was thin, but far from frail. Eighty-four and sharp as a tack, she looked a bit wrinkled, a bit like a weathered apple—sweet but tart when she had a mind to be.
He remembered the stories she would tell him when he was a child. She’d been the shaman of her tribe, the one the people would go to for answers about dreams, visions and the future. She was called a “Teller” by some and a “Seer” by others.
Right now, Jared noticed, she was something else altogether. Apprehensive. She stood up and started to sweep the porch with long, swift stokes. “What happened in town, Jared?”
Inside his truck—which was growing warmer by the moment—Jared scrubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t want to answer her question, so he chose a route more traveled: avoidance. “Why are you sweeping? We have a housekeeper.”
“I didn’t ask for her.” It was her usual reply in her usual indignant tone.
Jared shook his head. All he wanted was for his grandmother to live the rest of her days in comfort. She and his mother had struggled all their lives, worked at any job that was willing to pay them a fair wage, just to put food on the table. And when his mother had died, it had been Muna who’d taken care of him. He’d just turned eight and he was a hellcat looking for trouble. But Muna had set him right, fed him, read to him—forced him to look past the cutting remarks and see that even a poor mixed blood could be someone. She’d been in her seventies while they’d lived on the Thompson’s land and still found the energy to wash floors, cook meals and sweep porches.
Now, in her eighties, all she had to do was sit back, relax and enjoy life. But that wasn’t her way.
“Jared,” she called from the porch, her voice calm but laced with strength. “You better tell me what happened in town.”
“I ran into an old…friend. Nothing to worry about.”
She shook her head, unconvinced. “I felt something, but the cards were most secretive this morning. They didn’t tell me about this old friend.”
“Even the spirits of your animals couldn’t have predicted this,” he called, not moving from his truck.
She shrugged. “Maybe not. Or perhaps they wanted things revealed in their own time.”
Four years was a helluva long time to wait for things to be revealed, Jared thought. Too long.
His only contact with Ava in all that time had been one phone call shortly after she’d left. But he hadn’t wanted to hear her excuses—hadn’t wanted to hear how she’d chosen another man over him.
He twisted the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. Those days—those weak feelings—were gone. He wasn’t going to let any more time pass. Something buried deep in his gut wouldn’t allow him to just walk away like she had four years ago, like he’d done in the bridal shop today. It would’ve been different if he’d never seen her again. But he had. She owed him an explanation and once he had it, he could walk away free. He could finally forget.
“I’ll be back,” he called to Muna as he shoved the truck into Reverse. “I’ve got to see that old friend one last time.”
Jared barely heard the two-word utterance from his grandmother that followed him on the breeze down the gravel driveway. But he sure felt it—like a bullet in the chest.
“Ava Thompson.”
Two
In the dusky-blue guest bedroom of the modest house her sister rented, Ava stared out the window at her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Lily, who was laughing and playing in the backyard with the lively elderly woman from next door and her two granddaughters. The three little girls were side by side, playing in the green plastic box Rita had filled with sand the day after they’d gotten there.
Ava felt her heart tug as she looked at her daughter. Lily loved the outdoors, loved to romp and play and make friends. But New York City wasn’t built to accommodate a little girl with wide open spaces and a truckload of animals on her mind. Nor was it the best place to make friends.
In playgroup and out, her daughter had had a hard time of it. She was different, strong minded and passionate. Someday soon, those wonderful characteristics would have her wondering who her daddy was—and where he was.
A fact which scared Ava, but she knew such a need was inevitable and that her daughter deserved to know the truth.
Lily’s cheeks glowed with health and happiness as she played. Long auburn hair, almond-shaped eyes and a sweet face with an upturned nose and a sprinkling of freckles. In many ways she was a miniature version of her mother. But there was her father in her, too: dark-gray eyes that looked straight through to your soul, long legs and a fiery temper when she was frustrated.
On a weary sigh, Ava turned away from the window and grabbed the phone book off the top of the little white shabby-chic dresser. She needed to find a different place to stay—somewhere where there wasn’t even the most remote possibility of Jared Redwolf stopping by.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
Ava glanced up to see her sister walk into the room, balancing a box of cookies under one arm and two glasses of milk in either hand. A still-shot flashed through her mind of a ten-year-old Rita bringing her cookies and milk on one of their mother’s antique trays. As they grew up, Rita never tired of attempting to raise Ava’s spirits when something went wrong, no matter if it was as minute as a put-down from their father, or as enormous as the horror in junior year when busty Tina White had flirted her way into the part of Laurie in their high school’s production of Oklahoma!
What was especially amusing—and endearing—to Ava was that Rita still believed that cookies and milk were a cure-all for the blues.
Where Rita was the dreamer, impulsive and romantic, Ava mused, smiling. She was the responsible one—practical and cautious. To their mother’s delight they were truly characters.
Ava had always loved to hear the story about her and Rita’s names. Their mother, Olivia Thompson, had been a stand-in for actresses Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth during a brief stint in Hollywood. One summer, she met Ben Thompson at a convention in Las Vegas, fell head over heels in love with him and had left all the glamour and her friends behind. But for her mother, those days had never been never far away. While she’d dress Rita and Ava up in old costumes and powder their little noses, Olivia would tell them how much she missed the Hollywood life and all the exciting people.
It was only a few years later that her mother had died.
“So, who are you calling?” Rita asked, tugging Ava back from the past.
“I’m calling all the motels in town.”
Rita gasped. “You’re not going to abandon me in my hour of wedding need, are you? Besides, there’s only one motel in town now, and it’s full up with rodeo folk.” She set the milk and cookies on the bedside table. “’Course, there’s Carolyn’s Bed and Breakfast. But Carolyn’s not renting any rooms right now because of the flood.”
Ava’s brow furrowed. “Her rooms are on the top floor.”
