Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 8

His certainty in his libido was sound.

  His certainty in his father? Less so. And even though he knew Cricket had the wrong end of the stick here, he was worried that one piece of it might be true.

  He had enough of a hard time with his old man without having to believe he’d been unfaithful to his mother.

  “Get in the truck,” he said. “I’m not repeating myself again.”

  They marched out to the truck, and he jerked the passenger side door open for her.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “No problem.”

  He started the truck and pulled out of the driveway much faster than necessary. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me right away when you had a suspicion?”

  “Because. Because I knew that… It doesn’t bother me to think about my mom cheating on my dad. I wouldn’t blame her. I think she loved your dad, and she made a terrible mistake. And I can see how… When someone gets under your skin, Jackson, it’s not that easy to get rid of them. I can understand that.”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes,” she said, filled with fury. “I can. I don’t judge my mom. Except… Except on behalf of yours. Because I know how much you love your mom. And she was a lovely woman from what I remember. And she’s gone, and I just didn’t want to… I wanted to get to know you better first. I wanted to figure out the whole situation.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask Creed?”

  “I’m not even that close with Wren and Emerson. I’d like to be closer. But… That’s the thing. We’re not a normal family, and we never have been. They’re close with each other because they’re close in age. Because they had more in common in their upbringing. I’m different. I always have been. So I’m not just magically close with Creed because he married my sister. I’m not even magically close to my sister.”

  “What? You thought you’d become magically close to me?”

  She made a sputtering sound. “I’ve always… I… I don’t know. Forget it.”

  He thought back to how she’d trailed after him. Like a damn puppy when she’d been young. Had she thought he was her brother even then? No, she’d said that it only occurred to her recently. And all his thoughts, all his intentions toward buying her ranch, everything…just kind of faded away.

  Because handling this was what mattered.

  Settling it was what mattered.

  He pulled up to the winery and saw that there was still a light on in the tasting room. He was sure that his dad was still in there.

  “Come on.”

  “Okay,” she said, clearly filled with trepidation.

  He gripped her arm, and propelled her forward.

  “Can you not touch me?” she said, jerking her arm out of his hold. She was as disgusted by the whole thing as he was.

  Except.

  Except, the problem was his body wasn’t all that disgusted.

  His blood was on fire from that kiss. And while there had been a momentary dampening caused by the shock of what she’d said, it had not created in him an instant disgust.

  They needed to get this settled.

  He needed her to be as sure as he was that there wasn’t any truth to her suspicions at all.

  Fact was, he was sure he had more experience than Cricket when it came to sex. So maybe she was naive enough to think they could be related, but he was not confused about connections, chemistry and attraction.

  And he knew what was happening here.

  None of it was familial.

  He opened the door to the tasting room and walked in. Cash Cooper was standing at the back of the room, examining the stock.

  “Dad,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  His father turned, shock registering on his face when he saw Cricket standing there. “What can I do for you?”

  “Oh…” Cricket started to fidget. “I just had a question to ask.”

  “What’s that, young lady?”

  “Well, I kind of need to know if I’m… If I’m your daughter.”

  * * *

  It had happened. It had happened.

  She was standing there in front of Cash Cooper, and she was asking him if she was his daughter. Except now… She hoped that it wasn’t true.

  Because Jackson was in her blood. And she…she wanted him. And she had been so sure she could overcome that. That she could put all these feelings in their proper place, but she hadn’t managed to do it. She didn’t know if she ever could. She just didn’t know. She had tried. She had tried, and it had ended with her kissing him on the floor of her kitchen.

  Everything was a disaster. It was an absolute and total disaster. But then it had been from moment one, hadn’t it? Because there were only two scenarios here.

  One, she was hopelessly and utterly attracted to Jackson Cooper who was unobtainable in every way, who would never want her, and who would never keep her even if he enjoyed kissing her, and she was just out of place in her family because she was.

  Or the second one, which was that she was unforgivably, irrevocably attracted to her half brother.

  No, she couldn’t win.

  “What made you think that, young lady?” Cash asked.

  And he was so kind, it made her heart ache. It made her chest feel like it was being cracked in two, because James certainly wouldn’t have been this nice. She wanted Cash to be her father, but she did not want Jackson to be her brother, and she didn’t think that there was…

  There was just nothing.

  “My mother told me. She told me she was in love with you. She told me that she married James Maxfield and it was the wrong choice. And I’ve just never felt like I belonged. I’ve never felt like I fit. When she said that it all made a lot of sense. That… That maybe I’m not a Maxfield, and that’s why I don’t fit. That maybe I was supposed to be here the whole time. Because I want to be a rancher. I don’t want to spend my life in a stuffy winery. Because I want different things and I look different and I act different and I… I just thought maybe that was why.”

  “Cricket,” Cash said, and his voice was so kind and gentle she thought she might break apart. “I’m not your father.”

  She wanted to cry. In despair, with relief.

  Jackson wasn’t her brother.

  He wasn’t her brother. So that was… There was that.

  Beside her, she heard him let out a huge sigh of relief. And that brought a skeptical look from Cash, but he didn’t say anything. Then he looked back at Cricket. “I did love your mother.” Then he turned to Jackson. “I… That was the problem, Jackson,” he said. “I loved Lucinda. And I never quite got over it. You know… You know that your mother and I got married because she was pregnant with you. I acted rashly because I was heartbroken. She and I both paid for it for years. We tried. And we love you kids. With everything. I cared for her. I cared for her a whole hell of a lot. But you know what makes me the most sorry? That I could never be the husband she needed. That she died being with someone who always had feelings for someone else. That’s what kills me.”

  Cricket felt guilty. Standing there listening to this.

  It was clearly a private conversation, one that needed to happen without her presence. But here she was.

  All because she had been…

  Because she had been so desperate to fix this thing inside of her.

  What was wrong with her? Something was wrong with her. And there always had been something wrong, and this was just further evidence of it.

  A tear slid down her cheek and she felt horrified. Horrified to be displaying this kind of emotion in front of not just Jackson but Cash. This man who wasn’t her father, who should feel nothing for her at all.

  “You look like your mother,” he said softly.

  She hadn’t expected that. It was like an arrow to the heart.

  “No, I don’t,�
� Cricket said. “My mom is elegant. And pretty. And her hair never…does this,” she said, gesturing to her curls.

  “She used to be like you, Cricket. And she was my first love. Just like I was hers. But love wasn’t enough. Not for her. That’s fine.”

  “It wasn’t fine though, was it? She was miserable. She was absolutely miserable being married to him. I hope you weren’t miserable.”

  “I wasn’t miserable,” he said. “I think I might’ve made my wife miserable. But I wasn’t. Still, I have a lot of regrets.”

  “My father doesn’t have any. His only regret is that he’s lost everything. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone else. When I say everything, I don’t mean us. James Maxfield never cared about a damn thing. And he’s…he’s my father.”

  Sadness settled deep in her stomach. Because for just a little while she had hoped. She had really, genuinely hoped…

  “Did you ever cheat on Mom?” Jackson’s voice was granite.

  “No,” Cash said, addressing his son. “I swear it. I swear to you I never did.”

  “Well then. I guess that answers all those questions.”

  “I’m not sure if I should apologize or not,” Cash said.

  Cricket shook her head. “I should. I assumed something about you that wasn’t fair. And I did it because I… I’m not happy with my family. I’m not happy with my place in it. But that’s just the way it is. There’s no answer for it. So… So. That’s it.”

  Then, she turned and ran out of the tasting room, back to the truck. She leaned against the door, breathing hard.

  She was doing so much running.

  And all she could think was—what a mess she’d made out of everything. She’d revealed to Jackson that she was interested in him, revealed that she had suspected he was her half brother… Every single thing that she’d been so bound and determined to have control over, she had gone and just made a huge mess of. He was never supposed to know that she was attracted to him. And she was supposed to time this whole thing…better. But did it even matter?

  He came out a few moments later, looking like thunder. And she knew that the truth didn’t matter. She had managed to absolutely and totally… She felt stupid. And small. And wrong.

  Every bad thing she had ever felt, it was magnified now.

  “I can walk…”

  “You cannot walk. Get in the damn truck.”

  She didn’t even argue, because she felt too guilty. Too bad. So she got into the truck, and they made the drive back to the ranch in total silence.

  She was going to send him away. Send him back to his place, because there was just no… There was no point in anything. She wasn’t a rancher. It wasn’t in her blood. She had spun herself all manner of fantasies about Jackson Cooper when she was a girl, when she didn’t know anything about anything. And then, when her family had imploded, she had spun different fantasies altogether. She had watched her beautiful, elegant sisters win over handsome cowboys, and Cricket had realized that her own darkest, most cherished secret—the thing that she had lied about for years—would never come true. Because Wren had gotten the interest of Creed, and Wren was…well, she was beautiful.

  Elegant and sophisticated and refined and everything Cricket could never be.

  And not only was Cricket too young for Jackson to ever evince an interest in, she was also just… She was just her. And so yes, it had been convenient to weave a new fantasy. About all the reasons why she might feel wrong. All the reasons why she might have felt connected to Jackson, ways that explained away the feelings that she had, but that would still mean he mattered.

  She stumbled out of the truck when they got to the house.

  “Jackson…”

  He rounded the front of the truck quickly, his eyes filled with liquid fire. “First things first,” he said.

  And before she could react, before she could open her mouth or say anything, his lips were on hers. And he was kissing her again. Deep and hard and longer than the first time. There was rage in this kiss. An intensity that she had never known a kiss could possess.

  Wrong.

  Small.

  Ugly.

  All the words that she felt inside—all the words she had used to describe herself—slowly began to fall away, each pass of his mouth over hers stripping them back. Creating something new inside of her. Something different. Something she had never experienced before. Like an avalanche. One of need and desire and hope.

  It was the hope that stunned her. Suddenly that yawning, cavernous thing in her chest was filled with light. Suddenly it was lifting her, propelling her forward. Up on her toes and more firmly into his arms.

  He angled his head, his tongue passing over hers.

  And she felt right.

  Because this had been the feeling all along. That first connection that she’d felt to him. When she had first known what it meant that she would be a woman some day, and that she would want to be in the arms of a man, and that she was certain that man was Jackson Cooper. In that one blinding moment he had taken everything that felt wrong and turned it around.

  Because he had kissed her.

  She wasn’t wrong about that. He was kissing her, and he was doing it with just as much passion as she felt inside of her for him. And if he felt that, then she wasn’t wrong.

  She hadn’t been wrong.

  Life had been wrong.

  And she had altered her expectations, changed what she felt to make it easier to digest. She had been trying to create a story that was easier to live with.

  One where her father didn’t love her because she wasn’t his.

  One where her mother found her difficult because Cricket was a reminder of sins.

  One where she was so different from her sisters because they were only half of each other.

  And one where Jackson mattered not because she had an unobtainable crush, but because he was her long-lost brother.

  One where she wanted to be a rancher because she came from a family of them, not just because she did.

  But this was proof.

  That she had her own dreams just because.

  That she was herself, wholly and singularly, for better or for worse. That she wanted him, maybe because—like ranching—he was too big, too unobtainable and too impossible to have.

  Maybe that’s who she was.

  A pioneer. A person who saw what was possible and asked for that little bit more.

  A person who looked around and said this doesn’t have to be just enough, I can have more, I can have better.

  Maybe that was who she was.

  It was a revelation. Just like his arms, just like his mouth.

  But then, just as suddenly as he kissed her, he was pulling away.

  “That had to happen. Because I had to… I couldn’t leave it at that last one. Not with what you said.”

  Cricket launched herself back into his arms. Because she didn’t want to be anywhere else. Because she wanted to feel. All these things that he and he alone had made her feel for all these years.

  It was done. That was the beauty of it. The beauty of having made such a damn fool of herself already. There was no going back. There was nothing to protect.

  The crushing reality was that James Maxfield might be her father. Or he might not be. But the one thing that mattered most was that Jackson wasn’t her brother.

  Her long-held crush had no doubt been revealed by her earlier actions, but that was freedom in many ways. She had wanted him—she had wanted this—for so long, and there was no reason to not simply…take it now. None at all.

  So she did. She drank deeply from his mouth like she was a dying woman and he was the source of life-giving water.

  His whiskers were rough beneath her palms, where she grabbed hold of his face and stretched up as hard as she could, on her toes, kissing him with al
l the breath she had in her.

  “What exactly do you want?” he said, large hands grabbing her hips and setting her back on the ground. “Because you’ve got to know, little Cricket, that you’re playing with fire here. I don’t want you to get burned.”

  She scoffed. “I’m not afraid of fire.”

  “You’re not?”

  She tilted her face upward. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “You’re trembling.”

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes, when a woman is turned on, didn’t you know?” She spoke with a bravado she didn’t necessarily feel.

  “You might have to educate me on the subject.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything, do you know why? Because… I already can’t have the approval of my family. And you know, I was really scared of what it meant that I wanted you, suspecting what I did. I was really scared to look foolish, but you know what? I did. I do. So where is there to go from here? I guess I could fear for my own physical safety, but I don’t. Not when you hold me. I spent my whole life wanting things I couldn’t have. Wanting my parents to care about me in a way that they didn’t. Wanting to fit in a way that I couldn’t. Wanting to be part of a family that I wasn’t.” She felt like it was the better part of valor to maybe not mention that wanting him was part of what she’d been denied for all this time. She might not have a whole lot of pride, but she had a little, and she was going to protect it.

  “I’m tired of that. No, I’m not afraid of this. I’m not afraid of you. I’m just afraid of living more of the same.”

  “Marriage is not for me,” he said. “Just right up front. Relationships aren’t for me.”

  “That’s real flattering, cowboy, but did I propose?”

  “I’m just getting that out there, Cricket, because I can’t ignore the fact that you had a hell of a day, and from the sounds of things, a hell of a few weeks. On top of that, you are younger than me. And I just need to make sure that we are both completely aware of what this is.”

  “I want you. I’m very tired of not having the things I want.”

  “Seems fair.”

  It was deeper than that. But it wasn’t really his business. She had a feeling, though, that Jackson Cooper was a mountain she had to climb if she was ever going to figure out what lay on the other side of him. On the other side of this. Because honestly, the weirdness of the last few months was all bound up in him, and before that, years of a crush that had quite overtaken her life.