The Bull Rider's Secret

Chapter Three

Seven days at the ranch, and nothing had changed.

Mackenzie still didn’t want him here. And Jace still refused to go.

Though he was starting to doubt his decision. Kenzie’s disdain for him was beginning to seep into the cracks of his confidence.

Should he give in and quit? Crash on his mom’s couch for the next weeks or months, instead of his room at the ranch? Go absolutely crazy from boredom and live suffocated by the fear that he’d never heal and return to his career?

He just couldn’t function that way. No matter how much he’d like to not torment Mackenzie. Besides, he liked it here. Liked leading trail rides, the weather, the views, the wrangler competitions they entertained the guests with at night. Guest ranch life was busy—so full of people and staff and horses that his mind hadn’t gotten bogged down with what-ifs about his injuries and the future.

Definitely not the worst job he’d had.

Except for the woman who hated him.

Oh, hate might be too big of a word for how Mackenzie felt about him. He was a pebble in her boot. An annoyance that she planned to ignore.

And then she approached the table where he was eating lunch with guests and other staffers and did exactly that.

She asked the guests how their day was going. She made sure to acknowledge each of the staff. And then she left the dining room. Didn’t she realize that completely ignoring him was more noticeable than treating him like she did everyone else?

Jace popped up, cleared his dishes and then chased after her. He caught sight of her in the lodge living room—an inviting place with high ceilings, comfortable furniture and a massive fireplace that begged for snowstorms and cold winter nights.

Mackenzie’s hair was down today—long and wild, and bringing him back to high school and the memory of what it had felt like to thread his fingers through those waves and kiss that mouth that had once been receptive to his.

Even in her jeans and a simple Wilder polo, the woman could cause a freeway pileup. She had on turquoise boots today—the third different pair he’d seen her wear since he’d arrived at the ranch. Mackenzie had hated shopping back in high school. Her only girlie addiction had been boots. Apparently that infatuation had continued.

No guests occupied the lobby at the moment, so Jace called out to her, “Kenzie Rae.”

She turned to face him, upset heating her cheeks. At his presence or the use of her nickname?

Either way she’d have to adjust.

He stopped in front of her, ignoring her obvious irritation at his interruption. “What do you need me to do tonight?”

Being that this was his first week, he was still learning the schedule. Mackenzie might not want him here, but while he was, he planned to do a good job of whatever they asked him to do.

The glint in her eyes was quick as a bullet and disappeared just as fast. “The square dance is tonight.”

Huh. He wouldn’t be much of a help with that.

“Why don’t you lead it?”

Jace snorted. “Ha. Very funny.” She didn’t laugh, didn’t join in. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“Why not? Luc seems to think you’re so qualified to be working here. Not that anyone asked me. So, if that’s the case, you can be in charge tonight.”

“So that’s how you’re going to play it? I don’t have any idea how to square-dance. You know I’m a pathetic dancer.” The only real rhythm he’d ever had was on a bull. When he’d competed on the weekends in high school, Mackenzie had always come to watch him ride when she hadn’t been working herself. After, there’d often been a dance, a band, a crowd. A few times they’d attempted the steps, but never with much success. Once or twice he’d just held her. Held on as if his life had depended on it. On her. He supposed it had in a way. She’d been everything to him. The future he’d denied himself when he’d chased Evan’s dreams.

“I haven’t seen you in seven years, so I know nothing of the sort.”

Silent accusations brimmed, and Jace understood them. Had she wondered what he was up to over the years? If he was dating anyone? Because he’d wondered those things about her. It would have destroyed him to find out she was in a relationship or married, even though he didn’t have any right to her anymore.

“I didn’t take you to be vindictive, Kenzie Rae.” He dropped the name on purpose now, goading, a little of her anger seeping over to him.

“Really? Maybe you don’t know me at all anymore. I’m not sure you knew me then either.”

Sweet mercy. The woman’s punches were fast and furious and vicious and deserved. Jace rubbed a hand over his certain-to-be-gaping chest wound before that same traitorous hand snaked out and latched onto her arm.

The heat between their skin sizzled as much as their rising irritation. “I knew everything about you back then and vice versa.”

“The Jace I knew would never have left like you did.”

There would be no closing the wound today. Not with Mackenzie hitting the same spot over and over again. “I tried to tell you.” His voice dropped low, aching with remorse. “So many times. But the words always got stuck.” He swallowed. “And when I did manage to get some of it out, you didn’t listen.”

For a split second she’d softened during his speech. Those mesmerizing eyes had notched down from bitter to curious, tell me why shooting from them. But at his you didn’t listen, everything in her hardened and lit like fireworks.

“I’m not doing this.” She shook his hand loose as if he were nothing more than dirt—or worse—hitching a ride on her boots. “This is exactly why I was so mad that Luc hired you. Wilder Ranch is my family business, Hawke. My life. And you’re not in it anymore. As far as I’m concerned, your time here is strictly about work. I don’t want to hear any of this. It’s too late to make apologies...if that’s even what you’re doing. It’s too late to try to blame me for what you did. So if you want to be here, figure out how to lead the square dance, because as your boss, that’s what I’m directing you to do.”

Before Mackenzie could take off or Jace could process his jumbled thoughts enough to respond, the screen door to the lodge opened and Emma walked inside. Thankfully it was her and not a guest. She was all sunshine in a yellow shirt, jeans and rain boots as she paused to study them—probably taking in their irritated body language or analyzing whatever she’d just overheard.

Emma bravely continued in their direction. “Everything okay in here?” A faint curve of her lips attempted to diffuse the negative energy that surely radiated from them.

Kenzie’s gaze slit and slid from him to her sister. “We’re great.” Fake perkiness punctuated her answer. “Jace and I were just discussing his duties for tonight. And he was expressing how excited he is about them. I mean—” her sarcasm ramped up “—since this is the perfect place for him to work, and Luc seems to think he’s so qualified, I thought I’d give him some more responsibility.”

Vicious woman. Jace willed himself not to find her attractive in the middle of her feisty little speech.

It didn’t work.

If Emma wasn’t watching them like a spectator at a UFC fight, Jace would seriously toy with the thought of kissing Mackenzie just to get her to stop spewing venom. An action that might very well leave him as messed up as stomping through a field of rattlesnakes.

“Of course. I’m happy to do anything I’m assigned.” Square dance? Fine. He’d figure it out. Somehow. There had to be another staffer who had a clue about what to do.

Mackenzie’s determination to boot him out of here only increased his resolve to stay. She should know better than to challenge him, to turn this into a competition. His whole livelihood depended on him besting a two-thousand-pound bull.

Emma’s strangled sigh was filled with exasperation, and a tinge of remorse lit in Jace. He shouldn’t have engaged with Mackenzie at all. Certainly not in the lodge lobby, where guests could walk through at any second of the day.

“Feel like you two could use a mediator. Or some workplace counseling. Is that a thing?” Emma beamed, finding her own joke amusing. Jace’s lips twitched, because the idea of Mackenzie and him sitting on a couch, trying to figure out how to work together when she couldn’t stand the sight of him, was funny, but he couldn’t let Mackenzie win the third-grade angry-staring contest they’d somehow begun.

“Um, so...listen.” Emma was made of velvet—a stark contrast to Mackenzie’s most recent tone. “I need people to get along. I can’t handle all of this.” Her nose wrinkled, and she waved a hand, encompassing them. “What can I do to help you guys? Because I get the past mattering and all that. Trust me—I understand how much that affects things. But you two have to figure out how to work together and not do this—” another hand motion “—anywhere guests or staff can see you.”

She was right, of course. But Jace had been trying. For the most part.

“Maybe we could schedule in special argument time after everyone else has signed off for the night. Or get up early and duke things out.” Jace let the retort slip, hoping it might earn the faintest shadow of humor—like the old Mackenzie would have offered up.

New Mackenzie released a growl/wounded-animal screech of frustration. “Actually, Emma, the best scenario would be for Jace to realize he’s not welcome at Wilder Ranch and leave.”

Emma’s mouth formed an O shape as Mackenzie made a U-turn and strode toward the front office, her boots pounding as strong and fierce as she was.

Attraction swallowed Jace up. Confounded woman.

“That is not true.” Emma’s light brown ponytail and silver hoop earrings bobbed back and forth with her shaking head. “Of course you’re welcome here. You always have been. I’m sorry for her—”

“You don’t need to apologize for Mackenzie. I’m not surprised. And I deserve everything she’s throwing my way.”

The woman only seemed to reserve direct hits for him. Jace had learned that the Wilders had extended the paycheck advance to the girl asking for it. They were gracious like that. Even Mackenzie was. Just not with him.

“Oh, Jace.” Emma softened. “It has been a long time. I was never sure exactly what happened between you two, but I didn’t believe things ended well, like Mackenzie tried to spin it.”

Mackenzie had kept the way he’d left under wraps? Sounded like something she would do. The woman was too tough for her own good. She needed to let people in. But then again she’d let him in, and he’d bailed on her.

“Over the years I kept thinking you’d contact her. Make things right.”

“But I never did.” He scraped his noncasted hand along the hair at the nape of his neck. “It wasn’t like I didn’t want to. I just didn’t know what to say. How to say it.”

Emma offered him an understanding smile. At least she didn’t consider him a varmint. But then he hadn’t left her high and dry. And Emma had always been homemade apple crisp with ice cream melting into the nooks and crannies, while Mackenzie was the kind of spicy dish that tore up your taste buds and still managed to leave a person wanting more.

If only a little of Emma’s sugary demeanor would rub off on Mackenzie. Maybe then she’d actually hear him out. But Jace couldn’t deny that the challenge of Mackenzie was exactly what had attracted him to her in the first place.

Which could turn out to be quite the problem this summer. Since he planned to go back to riding. Since he was an invalid, with all of these sidelining injuries. And since no matter what he did, Jace couldn’t tame his attraction to the woman who wanted nothing to do with him. All because he refused to leave like she wanted him to... All because, the first time around, he’d left when she hadn’t wanted him to.

But Kenzie Rae wasn’t the only one who had issues and wants and demands. Jace had a few of his own. And if he didn’t occupy himself with something useful this summer—like working at the ranch would provide for him—then he’d lose his mind even more than he already had when it had been demolished by the Widow Maker ride.

He’d worked hard this week to make himself useful, to stay busy, to help things run as smoothly as he could from his limited knowledge of the ranch. And Mackenzie refused to recognize that. All she could see was the trail of dust he’d left behind seven years ago.

Emma was studying the front office door Mackenzie had disappeared through, and Jace couldn’t help wanting to ease the turmoil creasing her face. She wasn’t in charge of fixing his and Mackenzie’s past or current issues.

“I heard a rumor that the reason I haven’t seen much of you is that you keep running off to spend time with your fiancé.”

Just like that, her demeanor flipped and she turned all sparkling Emma, hands racing to cover pink cheeks. “It’s true. I’m crazy about him. Can’t seem to get enough. Thankfully, Mackenzie and Luc have been turning the other way when I keep sneaking off to meet him.” Her lyrical laugh bubbled up. “That makes it sound so untoward. But it’s not! I’m just...”

“Crazy in love.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m happy for you, Emma. If anyone deserves to be noticed and appreciated and cherished, it’s you. Love looks good on you.”

“Aw.” She playfully shoved his arm. “You always were a sweet-talker.” Her attention bounced over to Kenzie’s wake again. “She’s probably going to lose her mind if she comes back out here to find me consorting with the enemy.” Her hand paused on his arm. “Be gentle with her, Jace. After you left...” She faltered and grew silent, her head shaking. “Did you know Luc left, too, shortly after you did?”

Oh. That wound opened up again. “I did not know that.”

“He moved to Denver and came back eventually, but between the two of you, I wasn’t sure what to do with Mackenzie.”

Jace had so many questions. Like whether Emma thought Mackenzie would ever forgive him. Not to restart their relationship. He really couldn’t do that when he planned to leave again. But he wouldn’t mind getting along with the girl he’d once thought he’d marry.

“I really can’t say more.” Emma’s hand squeezed his but dropped away. “Hang in there. If I know my sister, you’re in for a fight if you plan to stick around.”

Fight, he could do. And Mackenzie was worth it. Even if Jace was only here to right the wrong of their past. She deserved the truth from him—whenever she’d finally let him say it. His earlier doubts vanished. While his arm—and the rest of him—healed, he didn’t have anywhere else to be.

* * *

Emma dropped into the chair across from Mackenzie’s desk. The front office was surprisingly empty this afternoon, with everyone out with the guests, and Mackenzie had hoped to buckle down and get some work done—especially now that she didn’t have Jace trailing her every move.

She’d only managed to train him Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and then she’d cut him loose. It wasn’t enough. Of course, she should have done more for the sake of a well-run guest ranch.

But Mackenzie couldn’t bring herself to continue.

She just kept hoping and praying that Jace would give up on his outrageous idea to work here for the summer and leave already. Preferably yesterday.

“How’re you holding up?” Emma’s question was soft and caring, but Mackenzie wasn’t willing to go anywhere near the meaning behind it.

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Really? You might be able to get away with that attitude with the staff or a stranger, but I’m your sister. I know that Jace being here is killing you slowly.”

“I can’t... I just...don’t want to talk about it. Him.” Mackenzie didn’t want to deal with the thought of Jace at all. That had been her plan for the week, and for the most part it was working.

Except she was exhausted.

Not being affected by Jace took all of her energy. Not letting the man crawl under her skin and set up camp was hard work. Not yelling at him for the way he’d left was, too.

Not caring about any of it like she’d hoped? Utterly impossible.

“You want me to beat him up for you?”

A laugh escaped. “Kinda, yeah. I’d like to see that.”

“Hey, I can be tough when I need to be.”

“I have no doubt about that, sister. So...what’s going on with you?” Mackenzie motioned to Emma, desperate to change the subject. “I heard you come home late last night. I don’t know how you’re functioning on so little sleep, heading over to Gage’s whenever you can.”

“Nice conversation turn.” Emma raised an eyebrow.

Mackenzie waited her out. Emma wouldn’t push too much on Jace. She was too sympathetic and patient and understanding—qualities Mackenzie only possessed in small amounts.

“All right. I give. But I’m here if you need to talk to someone. Or vent. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.” She might take Emma up on that offer if she had any idea how to deal with the jumbled, frustrating emotions Jace created in her.

“In answer to your question about me...I’m tired. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how this summer is going to work. I miss Gage and Hudson so much already and this is only our first week. And on top of that, Hudson is sick.”

Gratefulness at the turn in topic swelled, but then concern for Hudson took its place. “What kind of sick? Is he okay?” Emma’s fiancé had become a guardian to the one-year-old boy recently, and Emma already loved the tyke as if he were her own.

“Nothing serious. At least I don’t think so. Just a nasty cold. He’s congested and has a runny nose. He’s miserable and I didn’t want to leave him or Gage to come home last night.” A grin surfaced. “No offense.”

“Ouch. You want to see your fiancé more than your sister? I’m wounded.”

Humor tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It’s just so hard not being there. Gage is doing his best, but he’s drained. I am, too, from going back and forth. From trying to find a couple of minutes in the day or evening to sneak over there and see them. And then just when I get there it feels like I have to come home. And with Hudson sick, I’d like to be there to help. He was clinging to me last night.” Her hands formed a self-hug, rubbing along the skin of her arms. “That’s why I got home so late.”

“So why don’t you stay?”

“Ah, that’s not really an option, as you know.”

Mackenzie snorted. “Not like that. I mean, are you ever going to change your mind about marrying Gage?”

Emma’s head shook slowly. “No. Of course not.”

“You don’t have any doubts about him or Hudson.” Mackenzie didn’t say it like a question, because it wasn’t. She already knew what Emma’s response would be.

“No doubts about either of them. Of course not.”

“So get married.”

Confusion flickered. “We’re planning to.”

“I know you were thinking fall.” Gage and Emma had tossed that idea around because both ranches slowed down and the schedule switched at Wilder Ranch. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t change their plans. They didn’t have to follow some wedding protocol. “I’m saying get married sooner. What are you waiting for?”

Emma’s mouth hung open wide enough that Mackenzie could toss a popcorn kernel into it without a problem—a game they’d played often as kids. One Mackenzie had always been the reigning champ of, much to Luc’s frustration.

“Wait... What?”

“You want to be with Gage. That way you could be. After you’re done with work, you’d go home and stay.”

“Oh.” Emma’s eyes pooled with tears. “I want that.”

“So get it. What do you really need to make a wedding happen?”

“Dress, pastor, flowers, food, people, place.” Emma ticked items off on her fingers. “Mom and Dad. Gage’s parents and his sister.”

“You already have your dress picked out, right?”

She nodded, worrying her lip.

Of course, Emma had her dress picked out. The girl had probably been planning her wedding since she was five. Just like she probably had a Pinterest page filled with rustic, shabby-chic wedding ideas, like candles in mason jars and string lights, and the perfect shade of bridesmaid dresses. If anyone could pull a wedding together fast, it would be her.

“So, the biggest thing is family. And Pastor Higgin. Or you can always find another pastor to stand in if you need to—like the new assistant pastor at church.”

“Actually...now that you mention it, Gage’s parents are already coming at the end of July. I wonder if Mom and Dad could come, too. And his sister.”

“That’s a great idea. You could do a Saturday-evening wedding. The staff would rally to take care of things and complete the turnover for guests arriving Sunday. And you have so many friends you’ve helped over the years. You’ve been there for everyone. Let them be there for you. Mrs. Higgin could probably be convinced to make the cake. She’s a fantastic baker. And you can ask for help with flowers and decorations. The only issue would be where.”

She lit up. “I always imagined getting married here. Setting up chairs and a trellis in the grassy open space behind the lodge, with the mountains in the background. Casual and pretty.”

“That makes it even easier if you don’t have to find a venue.”

“True.” Emma bolted out of the chair and enveloped Mackenzie in a tight hug. “You’re so right. This is the best idea you’ve ever had. Seriously, the best. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She let go and stood in a burst of energy. “I need to call Gage.” And then she was off, with her phone in her hands. Mackenzie listened to the excited timbre of her voice for a few seconds before it faded away.

Emma had always been a bundle of cheerfulness. But Gage made her absolutely glow. Mackenzie didn’t want to lose her sister, but she loved seeing her even happier than normal.

And really, shouldn’t one of them be? Because ever since Jace had marched back into her world, Mackenzie wasn’t confident she remembered how to get back to that feeling.

Probably wouldn’t until he left again.

She’d been waiting all week for the man to hurry up and fail. For him to flounder. But he hadn’t. So yeah, she’d thrown the square dancing at him as sabotage. If Jace couldn’t figure it out, if he couldn’t catch on, then he’d just have to leave.

And unlike the first time, that was exactly what Mackenzie wanted him to do.

Chapter Four

Mackenzie stood on a platform that towered above the forest floor. Gorgeous blue Colorado sky stretched above her. Bright green foliage spread out before her. It was a perfect day. Just the right temperature of warm but not too hot. Just the right everything.

She relaxed her legs and pushed off, her zip-line harness holding her as she flew through the path in the trees. Wind whipped by as she attempted to capture everything around her.