Bad News Cowboy

CHAPTER TWO

“I COME BEARING FISH! And chips. Well, French fries. But you knew that.” Kate pushed her way through the front door of Connor’s house holding two large white takeout containers. One held the fried fish fillets, and the other the fried potatoes.

“I’m starving.” Kate rounded the corner and saw her sister-in-law, Liss, standing in the center of the dining area with her hand on her rounded stomach.

“You’re eating for two,” Kate said. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Liss screwed up her face. “That would make sense. If I knew I was gestating a ravenous wolverine rather than a human child.”

Kate laughed and walked over to the table and set the cartons down. The only other thing on the scarred wooden surface was the big green Oregon Ducks ice bucket her brother put his beer in. Well, beer and soda now, since Liss was pregnant and Connor barely drank anymore.

“Although, if it isn’t a wolverine, it just means that I lack restraint.” Liss groaned. “I can’t pass Rona’s without going in for a milkshake. And I can’t pass The Grind without getting an onion cheese bagel. I’m a cliché without the pickles.”

Connor leaned in and kissed his wife on the cheek. “You’re having a baby. You can be a cliché if you damn well please.”

Kate’s heart squeezed tight as she watched the exchange between Connor and Liss. Connor’s first wife, Jessie, had been an influential figure in Kate’s life. The two had gotten married when Kate was only nine, and seeing as she didn’t have a mother, Jessie was as close as she’d gotten to a female influence.

Jessie’s loss had been devastating for everyone. Though she knew it had been the worst for Connor. Considering that, him falling for and marrying Liss was only good in Kate’s eyes. And Liss had always been a fixture around their house, seeing as she’d been best friends with Connor since they were in high school.

Having her as a sister was a bonus that Kate quite enjoyed.

“Ugh. Can I be a cliché eating French fries?” she asked, sitting down at the table and digging a Coke out of the ice bucket.

“I’ll get you a plate.” Connor turned and walked back into the kitchen just as they heard a pounding on the door.

“Who even knocks?” Liss mused.

She had a point. Jack, Eli and Sadie never knocked. “I’ll go see.” Kate walked back out to the entryway and jerked the front door open, freezing when she saw Jack standing there holding a stack of four pastry boxes. Her heart did that weird thing it did sometimes when she was caught off guard by Jack. That thing where it dramatically threw itself at her breastbone and knocked against it with the force of a punch. “Were you kicking the door?”

“I couldn’t open it. Not without setting all of these down.”

Kate looked up, studying his expression. He was so very tall. And he always made her feel...little. Sure, Connor and Eli were tall, too, but they didn’t fill up space the way Jack did. He was in every corner of every room he inhabited. From the spicy aftershave he wore to his laugh, low and rough like thunder, rumbling beneath every conversation.

Kate stepped to the side and held the door. “What do you have?”

“Pies. From Alison’s.”

“Four pies?”

He sighed heavily and walked past her into the dining room. She shut the door and followed after him. “Yes.” He placed the boxes on the table next to the fish and chips. “Four pies.”

Liss’s eyes widened. “What kind?”

“I’m not sure. I just bought pies.”

There was something about all of this that made her feel weird. A little bit weak, a little bit shaky. He’d done this for Alison, which was...touching. Definitely touching. And nice. Beyond nice of him. And a little bit curious. Because he was Jack, and he had a tendency to be kind of a self-centered asshole. So when he did things for other people, it was notable.

And strange.

And it made her throat a little bit dry. And her face a little bit hot.

“Is that going to be your solution for her?” Kate asked. “Going on a four-pie-a-day diet?”

“Obviously not,” he said, sitting down at the table and snagging a beer out of the bucket.

“What solution are we talking about?” Liss asked, crunching on a French fry.

Connor returned then, setting a plate in front of Liss before setting places in front of the rest of the chairs, then taking his seat next to his wife. “Hey, Jack,” he said.

“Hey,” Jack replied, putting a handful of French fries on his plate.

“I brought fish,” Kate said. “It’s healthy. And you people are eating French fries.”

“Don’t worry, Kate,” Jack said. “We’ll get around to eating your healthy battered fried fish in a minute.”

“Solution?” Liss prompted, her eyebrow arched.

“Alison stopped by the Farm and Garden today,” Kate said. “She had brochures for her bakery. And she mentioned that she’s hired on a couple of other women who just got out of circumstances similar to hers. But of course, it’s a new business, and she has a lot more overhead now since she’s renting out store space. Anyway, Jack and I were talking earlier about how we wish there was more we could do.”

“So Jack was also at the Farm and Garden?” Connor asked.

“I had to order a carburetor.” He ran a large hand over his jaw. His very square jaw. And she heard it. The brush of his palm over his dark five o’clock shadow. She swore she could feel the friction, deep and low in her stomach. And it wrapped itself around the general feeling of edginess firing through her veins.

For some reason the line of conversation was irritating to Kate. Possibly because it was preventing her from figuring out just what Jack’s motives were where Alison was concerned. And even more irritating was the fact that she cared at all.

For some reason a lot of little details about Jack’s life sometimes ended up getting magnified in her mind. And she overthought them. She more than overthought them; she turned them over to death. She couldn’t much explain it. Any more than she could make it stop.

“So you obviously stopped by the bakery and bought pies,” Kate said, trying to speed things along.

“Obviously,” Jack said, sweeping his hand in a broad gesture, indicating the still-stacked boxes of pie.

“It was nice of you.” She was pushing now.

“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” he said, shrugging his shoulder before pushing his fingers back through his dark hair. “But you know I was raised by a single mom who couldn’t get a lick of help out of her deadbeat ex. Stuff like this... I don’t like hearing about men mistreating the people they’re supposed to care for. It sticks with me.”

Kate felt as though a valve had been released in her chest and some of the pressure eased. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense, I guess.”

Jack arched a black brow, his blue eyes glittering. “I know you don’t think I make sense very often, Katie. But there’s usually a method to my madness.”

“Don’t call her that,” Connor said. “She hates that.”

“Thank you, Connor,” Kate said, feeling exasperated now. “But I’m perfectly capable of fighting my own battles. Especially against Monaghan. He’s not the most formidable opponent.”

“I’m wounded, Katie.”

He’d said it again. That nickname that nobody else but Connor ever called her. But when Connor said it, it rubbed the wrong way, made her feel as if he was talking down to her. Like he was still thinking of her as a kid.

When Jack said it, her skin felt as though it had been brushed with velvet, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. It made her feel warm, made it hard to breathe. So basically the same as being rubbed the wrong way. Pretty much.

Either way, she didn’t like it.

“You’re a slow learner, Monaghan.”

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, crossing his forearms over his broad chest. “There are quite a few women who would beg to differ.”

Her cheeks caught fire. “Shut. Up. You are so gross,” she said, picking up her plate with shaking fingers and serving herself a heaping portion of fish. No fries. Ungrateful bastards not eating her fish.

She heard the door open again, and then Eli’s and Sadie’s voices. Now the gang was all here. And she could focus on playing cards, which was really what she wanted.

Sadie led the charge into the dining room, holding her now-traditional orange-and-black candy bowl in front of her, a wide grin on her face. Eli was a step behind her looking slightly abashed. Probably because his fiancée was breaking sacred football laws by bringing the colors of an opposing team onto hallowed ground.

But she did so every week. And every week, Connor made a show of not eating the candy in the bowl. Eli didn’t eat it either but didn’t make a big deal out of it. While Jack ate half of it without giving a crap what anyone thought. Which summed them all up, really.

Kate always ate the candy, too. If only because she didn’t see the point in politicizing sugar.

“Fish and chips!” Sadie exclaimed. “That makes a nice change from pizza. And pie!”

“The feast is indeed bountiful tonight,” Liss said, eyeing the pie. “We have Kate to thank for that.”

“Excuse me,” Jack said. “I brought the pie. I will have you all know that Katie has a lemon meringue pie hidden back in her cabin. And she did not bring it to share with you.”

Kate lifted her hand to smack Jack on the shoulder, and he caught her wrist. Her heart hit the back of her breastbone so hard she was afraid it might have exploded on contact. His hand was so big his fingers wrapped all the way around her arm, holding her tight, a rash of heat breaking out from that point of contact outward.

Her eyes clashed with his, and the sharp remark she’d been about to spit out evaporated on her lips.

She tugged her wrist out of his hold, fighting the urge to rub away the impression of his touch with her other hand. “I didn’t bring it because I don’t want to share my pie with you,” she said, looking at Jack.

“Selfish pie hoarder,” he said, grinning at her in that easy manner of his.

And her annoyance tripled. Because him grabbing her wrist was a whole event for her body. And he was completely unaffected. That touch had been like grabbing ahold of an electric fence. On her end. Obviously, it hadn’t been the same for him.

Why would it be? It shouldn’t be that way for you.

Yeah, no shit.

“I am not.” And she cursed her hot cheeks and her lack of snappy remark.

“I might have to side with Jack on this one,” Liss said, her tone apologetic. “Or maybe I’m just on the side of pie.”

“Traitor,” Kate mumbled.

“Though, on the subject of pies,” Jack said, turning his focus to Sadie, “we were trying to figure out if there was something that could be done to help bolster Alison’s business.”

“Hmm.” Sadie piled food on her plate and sat down, Eli taking a seat beside her. “I’ll have to scheme on that for a while.”

“You have to watch her. She’s a champion schemer,” Eli said.

“The championest.” Sadie smiled broadly.

“Scheme away,” Jack said.

“You don’t have to tell her to scheme,” Eli said. “She can’t stop scheming. This is how I ended up with an annual Fourth of July barbecue on my property.”

“I’m delightful.” Sadie nodded, the expression on her face comically serious.

“She is,” Eli agreed.

“Are we going to play cards?” Kate asked.

“So impatient to lose all of your money,” Jack said.

This was a little more normal. A more typical level of Jack harassing her.

“To me,” Sadie said, her grin turning feral. Sadie, it turned out, was a very good poker player for all her wide-blue-eyed protestations to the contrary when she first joined their weekly games.

Kate opted to stay silent, continuing on that way while the cards were dealt. And she was dealt a very good hand. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her expression steady. Sadie was cocky. Jack was cockier. And she was going to take their money.

By the end of the night Kate had earned several profane nicknames and the contents of everyone’s wallets. She leaned back in her chair, pulling the coins toward her. “Listen to that. I’m going back home, dumping all this on the floor and swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.”

“No diving in headfirst. That’s a sure way to spinal trauma. It isn’t that deep of a pool,” Connor said.

“Deeper than what you have. I have all your monies.” She added a fake cackle for a little bit of dramatics.

“Then I will keep all the pie,” Liss said.

“That’s my pie,” Jack said.

“You have to stay in fighting form, Monaghan. Your bar hookups won’t be so easy if you lose your six-pack,” Liss said cheerfully.

“I do enough work on the ranch every day to live on pies and still keep my six-pack, thank you very much.”

“You aren’t getting any younger,” Sadie said.

The conversation was going into uncomfortable territory as far as Kate was concerned. Really, on all fronts it was getting to an awkward place. Jack and sex. Jack’s abs. Yikes.

“I would return volley,” Jack said, “but I’m too much of a gentleman to comment on a lady’s age.”

“Gentleman, huh?” Eli asked. “Of all the things you’ve been accused of being, I doubt that’s one of them.”

Jack squinted and held up his hand, pretending to count on his fingers. “Yeah, no. There have been a lot of things, but not that one.”

“Anyway,” she said, unable to help herself, “you comment on my age all the time.”

“I said I never commented on a lady’s age, Katie.”

She snorted. “I am a lady, asswipe.”

“I don’t know how I missed it,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his grin turning wicked.

For some reason that comment was the last straw. “Okay, hate to cut this short, but I have an early morning tomorrow.” That was not strictly true. It was an optional early morning since she intended to get up and spend some time with Roo. “And I will be stopping by The Grind to buy a very expensive coffee with the money I won from you.”

Jack stood, putting his hands behind his head and stretching. “I’ll walk you out. I have an early morning, too, so I better get going.”

Dammit. He didn’t seem to understand that she was beating a hasty retreat in part to get away from him. Because the Weird Jack Stuff was a little more elevated today than normal. It had something to do with overexposure to him. She needed to go home, be by herself, scrub him off her skin in a hot shower so she could hit the reset button on her interactions with him.

She felt as if she had to do that more often lately than she had ever had to do in the past.

The thing was, she liked Jack. In that way you could like a guy who was basically an extra obnoxious older brother who didn’t share genetic material with you. She liked it when he came to poker night. She liked it when he came into the store. But at the end of it she was always left feeling...agitated.

And it had created this very strange cycle. Hoping she would see Jack, seeing Jack, being pissed that she had seen Jack. And on and on it went.

“Bye,” she said.

She picked up her newly filled change bag and started to edge out of the room. She heard heavy footsteps behind her, and without looking she knew it was Jack. Well, she knew it was Jack partly because he had said he would walk her out.

And partly because the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. That was another weird Jack thing.

She opened the front door and shut it behind her, not waiting for Jack. Which was petty and weird. She heard the door open behind her and shut again.

“Did I do something?”

She turned around, trying to erase the scowl from her face. Trying to think of one thing he had actually done that was out of line, or out of the ordinary, at least. “No,” she said, begrudgingly.

“Then why are you acting like I dipped your pigtails in ink?” he asked, taking the stairs two at a time, making uncomfortable eye contact with her in the low evening light.

She looked down. “I’m not.”

“I seem to piss you off all the time lately,” he said, closing the distance between them while her throat closed itself up tight.

“You don’t. It’s just...teasing stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

Jack kept looking at her, pausing for a moment. She felt awkward standing there but also unable to break away. “Okay. Hey, I was thinking...”

“Uh-oh. That never ends well,” she said, trying to force a smile.

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve heard the stories Connor and Eli tell. Any time you think of something, it ends in...well, sometimes broken bones.”

“Sure,” he said, chuckling and leaning against the side of his truck. “But not this time. Well, maybe this time since it centers around the rodeo.”

“You don’t ride anymore,” she said, feeling stupid for pointing out something he already knew.

“Well, I might. I was sort of thinking of working with the association to add an extra day onto the rodeo when they pass through. A charity day. Half-price tickets. Maybe some amateur events. And all the proceeds going to...well, to a fund for women who are starting over. A certain amount should go to Alison’s bakery. She’s helping people get jobs. Get hope. I wish there had been something like that for us when I was a kid.”

Kate didn’t know anything about Jack’s dad. As long as she’d known him, he hadn’t had one. And he never talked about it.

But she got the sense that whatever the situation, it hadn’t been a happy one.

And now mixed in with all the annoyance and her desire to avoid him was a strange tightening in her chest.

“Life can be a bitch,” she said, hating the strident tone that laced its way through her voice.

“I’ve never much liked that characterization. In my estimation life is a lot more like a pissed-off bull. You hang on as long as you can, even though the ride is uncomfortable. No matter how bad it is on, you sure as hell don’t want to get bucked off.”

“Yeah, that sounds about like you.”

“Profound?”

“Like a guy who’s been kicked in the head a few times.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, what do you think about the charity?”

Warmth bloomed in her stomach. “Honestly? I think it’s a great idea.” She couldn’t even give him a hard time about this, because it was just so damn nice. “We only have a couple of months until the rodeo, though. Do you think we can pull it off?”

“We?”

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah. I think it’s a good idea. And I would like to contribute in any way I can. Even if it just means helping the pros tack up or something.”

“When are you going to turn pro, Katie?”

She gritted her teeth, and it had nothing to do with his unwanted nickname for her. “When I’m ready. I’m not going to waste a whole bunch of money traveling all over the country, entering all kinds of events and paying for association cards when I don’t have a hope in hell of winning.”

“Who says you don’t have a hope in hell of winning?” he asked, frowning. “I’ve seen you ride. You’re good.”

The compliment flowed through her like cool water on parched earth. She cleared her throat, not sure where to look or what to say. “Roo is young. She has another year or so before she’s mature. I probably do, too.”

He reached out and wrapped his hand around her braid, tugging gently. “You’re closer than you think.”

Something about his look, about that touch that should have irritated her if it did anything, sent her stomach tumbling down to her toes.

Then he turned away from her and walked around to the other side of his pickup truck, opened the driver-side door, got inside and slammed it shut. He started the truck engine and she felt icy spots on her face. She released her breath in a rush, a wave of dizziness washing over her.

You’d have thought she’d been staring down a predator and not one of her family’s oldest and dearest friends.

Freaking Jack and all the weirdness that followed him around like a thunderclap.

She walked over to her pickup and climbed in, then started the engine and threw it into Reverse without bothering to buckle. She was just driving down the narrow dirt road that led from Connor’s house to her little cabin.

The road narrowed as the trees thickened, pine branches whipping against the doors to her old truck as she approached her house. She’d moved into the cabin on her eighteenth birthday, gaining a little bit of distance and independence from her brothers without being too far away. Of course, it wasn’t as if she’d really done much with the independence.

She worked, played cards with her brothers and rode horses. That was about the extent of her life. But it filled her life, every little corner of it. And she wasn’t unhappy with that.

She walked up the front steps, threw open the front door that she never bothered to lock and stepped inside. She flipped on the light switch, bathing the small space in a yellow glow.

The kitchen and living room were one, a little woodstove built into a brick wall responsible for all the heating in the entire house. The kitchen was small with wood planks for walls that she’d painted white when she’d moved in. A distressed counter-height table divided the little seating area from where she prepared food, and served as both infrequently used dining table and kitchen island.

She had one bathroom and one bedroom. The house was small, but it fit her life just fine. In fact, she was happy with a small house because it reminded her to get outside, where things were endless and vast, rather than spend too much time hiding away from the world.

Kate would always rather be out in it.

She kicked her boots off and swept them to the side, letting out a sigh as she dropped her big leather shoulder bag onto the floor. The little lace curtains—curtains that predated Kate’s tenure in the house—were shut tight, so she tugged her top up over her head and stripped off the rest of her clothes as she made her way to the shower.

She turned the handles and braced herself for the long wait for hot water. Everything, including the hot-water heater, in her little house was old-fashioned. Sort of like her, she supposed.

She snorted into the empty room, the sound echoing in the small space. Jack certainly thought she was old-fashioned. All that hyperconcern over her not owning a computer.

Steam started to rise up and fill the air and she stepped beneath the hot spray, her thoughts lingering on her interaction with Jack at the Farm and Garden. And how obnoxious he was. And how his lips curved up into that wicked smile when he teased her, blue eyes glittering with all the smart-ass things he’d left unsaid.

She picked up the bar of Ivory soap from the little ledge of the tub and twirled it in her palms as she held it beneath the water, working up a lather. She took a breath, trying to ease some of the tension that was rioting through her.

She turned, pressing the soap against her chest, sliding it over her collarbone.

Yeah, Jack was a pain.

Still, she was picturing that look he got on his face. Just before he said something mouthy. She slid the bar of soap over her breasts just as she remembered her thwarted retaliation for his teasing tonight. The way his fingers had wrapped around her wrist, his hold firm...