Texas Pride (15 page)

“I
needed matches,” she said and moved slowly into the room, never taking her eyes off Dylan. His expression was rigid, his jaw like granite as he watched her approach.

Jared was the first to move. “Jess, let me explain—”

“I want Dylan to explain,” she said flatly. “Every little detail, Mr. Grant, starting with how you know my brothers.”

A muscle jumped in Dylan's temple. He never let go of her gaze. “Jared and I met in South America on an oil project where I was the structural engineer.”

South America. She should have known. It had been right in front of her all the time.
Idiot.
She was such a fool.

Pride held her chin up and kept her legs from folding under her as she stood in front of Dylan. She wouldn't let him see her pain. He didn't deserve to see it. “South America is hardly the next block. You must be pretty good friends for you to come all the way to the States and baby-sit me.”

Jake rose from his chair. “Jessie, it wasn't—”

“Be quiet, Jake,” Jessica said quietly, and the cold precision of her words stopped him. He sat back down and sighed. She folded her arms. “Go on, Dylan.”

Dylan's mouth thinned. “Jared and Jake were worried about you. They didn't think it was safe for you out here alone.”

“So Jared called you,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “A big strong trustworthy man. Someone they could count on to keep an eye on me and file weekly reports. I'd love to know what you included in those reports, Mr. Grant. I'm sure they'd be fascinating reading.”

His eyes darkened with anger, but she didn't care. She was quickly shifting from a state of numbness to slow-burning fury.

“My God, this is so funny.” She forced a dry laugh. “Jared's performance when I introduced you was worthy of an Academy Award. And Jake inviting you to his house, pretending to interrogate you because he
cared
about me. And you, Dylan, all that nonsense about room and board when you knew you'd take the job, anyway.”

“Jessie,” Jared said, “don't be mad at Dylan. He was just doing me a favor.”

“A favor?” Her eyes sharpened as she stared furiously at her brothers. “Making a fool of me, interfering in my life,
lying
to me, that's a
favor?
”

Jared stared at the floor, while Jake twirled his Stetson in his hand. Neither one would look at her. Except for Dylan. His gaze nearly burned a hole through her.

She put her hands on her hips and moved closer to him. “And wasn't it a hoot when I accused you of being afraid of my brothers?”

Jared glanced up. “Why would you accuse him of that?”

She smiled. “Yes, Dylan. Why would I?”

His eyes narrowed. “Jessica,” he said tightly, “let me talk to you alone.”

“Alone?” She threw her arms out. “Whyever would we need to be alone? Surely anything you have to say you can say in front of my brothers. There're no secrets between you guys.”

Dylan had known this was going to be difficult, but he'd never even come close to realizing
how
difficult. In spite of Jessica's cool demeanor, he saw the hurt in her eyes, the anger. He didn't blame her. She'd told him once how much she hated lies, and now she'd caught him sitting smack-dab in the middle of one.

He shot a look at Jared, who nodded in understanding, then stood and faced his sister. “Jess, we can talk later and sort through this. Jake and I will go on down to the church. You and Dylan can join us after you've chewed this for a while.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again.

Jake jammed his hat on his head, hesitated, then shuffled out the back door when Jessica glared at him. Jared cast one long worried look at Dylan, then sighed deeply and followed his brother.

When she turned back to him with her arms folded protectively in front of her, Dylan felt his insides twist. He watched her square her shoulders and look him in the eye.

“I trusted you,” she said without emotion.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“Stop agreeing with me, dammit!”

She swung around, pacing away, then back again. “I asked myself why a man with your qualifications would want a job for such low pay. I even questioned your little slipup when you mentioned Venezuela. But what should really have tipped me off was the fact that Jared and Jake weren't coming around here like I'd expected. They didn't need to. They already had an undercover agent doing their dirty work. I doubt they know exactly
how
undercover you got, do they?”

His control slipped. He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “What happened between you and me is nobody's business but ours. It has nothing to do with your brothers.”

“It's just so hysterical.” She tried to pull away, but he held her tight. “I mean, your coming here to protect me, and you end up in my bed. ‘Course, there was protection there, too, so you really have nothing to feel guilty about, Dylan. You did your job.”

“Dammit, Jessica. Don't minimize or make light of our making love.”

Anger ruled her words now. Anger and hurt. She might regret them later, but there was so much she'd regret, what was one more thing? “Is that what you call it? Making love?” She stared defiantly at him. “There are other expressions more appropriate, you know.”

His hands tightened painfully on her shoulders. “Stop it. You're special to me. You know that. You have to know that.”

“I don't know anything,” she said. “Like how you could do this to me.”

“Jessica—” he softened his hold “—I never meant to hurt you. I tried my damnedest to keep my hands off you.”

“That's what all that guilt was about,” she said, wondering how she could stand here and face him when her heart was shattering into a thousand pieces. “Breaking my brothers' trust. It had nothing to do with caring about me.”

He pulled her closer. “That's not true. You know it's not.”

She hated the moisture she felt burn her eyes. But not as much as she hated the reaction her body still had to his closeness.
A lie. Everything had been one big lie.
“Why couldn't you have been honest before things went too far?”

“And what would you have done if I'd told you?”

“Exactly what I'm going to do now.” She pulled out of his grasp, then lifted her chin and looked him in the eyes. “You're fired.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about Makeshift? You can't let the project fall apart because I lied to you.”

She was the only thing falling apart at the moment. But she wouldn't let him know that. “The church is finished, and enough of the hotel is done for the review committee to get a clear picture of what I want to do here. We'll proceed as before, as soon as I find another foreman to take your place.” She'd intended her words to be a verbal blow, and from the murderous expression on Dylan's face, she'd succeeded. Strange, she thought, but she felt no satisfaction, only an empty black feeling inside her chest.

He started to move toward her again, but she put up a hand and stepped back. “I mean it, Dylan. I can't work with someone I don't trust. I'm going to join my family now, and I'd appreciate it if you were gone by the time I got back.”

His eyes were like black ice as he stared at her, then he turned and stalked out of the room. She blinked, refusing to give in to tears now. Everyone was waiting for her at the church, and she still needed what strength she could muster to face her brothers. She'd have the time and the privacy later to give in to the pain slicing through her.

She drew a slow fortifying breath and swallowed hard. It was Christmas, after all. The most special day of the year.

* * *

“How could you—either of you—do such a thing?”

Savannah stood over Jake, her eyes narrowed as she frowned at her husband. Holding the same posture, Annie stood over Jared. The men shifted uncomfortably in the church pew, their expressions repentant. Jessica sat in the pew in front of them, refusing even to look at her siblings.

“She's twenty-seven years old,” Savannah said. “An intelligent, responsible, resourceful woman who is capable of handling her own affairs.”

Jessica flinched at Savannah's choice of words, but kept her back stiffly to her brothers. The candles on the altar had been lit, and the room glowed with a warm soft light. The fingers she'd laced in her lap were ice-cold.

At least she'd managed to get rid of Myrna before the fireworks had begun, Jessica thought. She'd asked her stepmother to go back for more candles and to check on Carlton. Emma needed to use the bathroom and had gone along.

“It was for Jessie's own good,” Jared protested. “You both know what happened to Jake and me. Someone out there wants Stone Creek and is willing to do anything to get it.”

“Nobody likes to be lied to,” Savannah said. “I seem to recall a misunderstanding at our first meeting. You were furious I lied about being Emma's mother, instead of her aunt.”

“This is different.” Jake folded his arms.

“Different?”
Jessica had been quiet long enough. She turned and faced her brothers. “How like a man to arrange the rules to suit himself,” she said angrily. “A favor, I believe you called it. One friend doing a good deed for another.”

“He
is
a friend,” Jared declared.

“And I'm just your sister, right?” she said quietly.

Both Jake and Jared stared at their feet.

Jessica felt as if she were being turned inside out. She'd thought that Dylan cared for her, she'd even hoped that...

She squeezed her eyes shut. It didn't matter now what she'd hoped.

“Look, Jess,” Jake said, “let's all go back to the hotel and straighten this out. You know the truth now and there's no harm done. Just talk to Dylan.”

No harm done?
A bubble of hysteria threatened to burst inside her. No harm done? She'd fallen in love with a lie, and the betrayal was like a knife in her heart.

“There's nothing to go back and talk about,” she said, suddenly exhausted. “I fired him and asked him to leave.”

Jared shook his head. “Aw, Jess, you can't—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don't tell me what I can't, Jared Stone. Any foreman should be able to read Dylan's blueprints. I'm going to put an ad in the paper tomorrow and find another man right away.”

Even as she said the words she felt the ache in her chest sharpen. There'd never be another man like Dylan.

“Jess,” Jared said softly, and leaned closer to his sister. “Please don't be mad. Jake and I couldn't let you come out here by yourself. What if something happened to you? How would we get along without you?”

His words were spoken with such tenderness, such sincerity, that Jessica's anger eased. She couldn't imagine anything happening to one of them, either. She'd been through that pain after Jonathan's and her parents' deaths. The thought of ever going through that again was more than she could bear.

“We love you, Jessie,” Jake said, coming closer. “I'm sorry if we hurt you.”

They were her brothers. They would always be there for her, as she would always be there for them. No matter what.

A tear slipped down her cheek. She sighed heavily, then slowly reached her hands out to them. Jared took one hand, Jake the other. “I love you, too,” she said softly. “I don't forgive either one of you yet, but I do love you.”

And as she listened to the sound of Dylan's motorcycle tear out of town, her heart tightened painfully and she silently said goodbye.

* * *

“Don't cry, Meggie,” Lucas said gently. “He'll be back.”

Meggie's shoulders trembled as she held her hands to her face. “Oh, Lucas, how could he leave like that?”

“Well, she did throw him out,” Lucas said.

Meggie looked up indignantly. “But she loves him. Why doesn't he understand that?”

Lucas thought it best not to explain that men rarely understood women. “Perhaps a little time will help clear his mind, and Jessica's, too. She was a little emotional tonight.”

“She was not,” Meggie defended Jessica. “She's hurt, that's all. If he had told her sooner, instead of her finding out that way, she never would have told him to leave.”

“Perhaps.” When it came to women, speculation was a dangerous thing. “We shall see.”

“What if he doesn't come back?” Meggie asked. “What will happen to Jessica and Makeshift? What will happen to us?”

He'd had the same concern. Since Dylan had left, both he and Meggie had dimmed, and the tactile ability they'd developed had disappeared. “We'll be fine, my love,” he reassured her. “We've been here for one hundred and twenty years. Nothing is going to change now.”

But even as he spoke the words, Lucas knew they weren't true. Something was changing. It was almost as if a huge magnet were pulling him in another direction, and he was being drawn away from Meggie. Since Dylan had left, the pull had intensified twofold. He knew that it was nearly time, and that he'd be leaving Makeshift soon.

And the thought of leaving here, without Meggie, terrified him beyond words.

* * *

“Thank you, Mr. Green.” Jessica smiled stiffly at the pale reed-thin man sitting across from her in the Bronco Diner. “I'll give you a call as soon as I've made my decision.”

The man's Adam's apple bobbed as he grinned and shook her hand vigorously, nearly rattling her teeth. She sighed heavily when he left, then sank back into the booth. Her fourth applicant that morning, and still no luck.

What did she expect? Every man that walked in here she compared to Dylan.

I'm hiring the next man that sits across from me,
she vowed. She didn't care if he couldn't put Lincoln logs together. She couldn't keep going through this.