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“A spring fling? So now we went from a one-night stand to a spring fling?” He snorted. “Wow, Libby Lou, I’m honored.”
She jerked away from him. “Please don’t act like you thought it was more. You’re too terrified to make any kind of commitment and we both know it.”
“And you’re not? How many men have you been in a serious relationship with? Just one name.”
“At least I can commit to something. You can’t even commit to a place to live.” She used her hands to bracket a headline. ‘Jesse Cates, Billionaire World Traveler!’” She lowered her hands. “More like ‘Jesse Cates, Lying Loser.’”
Even in the dark, she could see the anger flare in his eyes. “Let’s talk about lying, shall we? Why didn’t you tell me about what you did to Corbin?”
“What I did to Corbin? It was a high school crush. Nothing ever happened between us.”
“I wouldn’t say agreeing to a date and then sending your sister in your stead is nothing.”
Her eyes widened. “I never sent Belle in my stead.”
“That’s not what Corbin told me. He said Belle pretended like she was you.”
“Belly wouldn’t do that. Corbin must be confused. All I asked her to do was tell him that I was sick.”
“Were you sick?”
“No, but what difference does that make?” She stared at him as the truth dawned. “That’s why he’s taking the ranch? He’s pissed at me because I pretended to be sick and went out with another guy? I was all of seventeen, for God’s sake.” She turned for the door. “I’ll be happy to apologize if that’s what it takes.”
Jesse caught her arm. “He doesn’t want an apology. He wants the ranch.”
She looked back at him. “But why?”
He sighed. “Because he wants to give Sunny the home she never had.”
“Then let him choose another home. I’m sure the Cates family has enough money to buy him whatever he and Sunny want.”
“He doesn’t want another home. He wants the Holiday Ranch.”
“So stop him. You’re not only his business partner. You’re his brother. Stop him.”
A resigned look came over his face. “I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
He stared back at her for a long moment before he spoke. “I won’t.”
She’d come there hoping to get Jesse to fight for her. To fight for them. With just two words, that hope had been crushed like his truck tires crushed sagebrush. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t. She understood exactly what he was thinking. He was fighting for his family . . . just like she would fight for hers.
“Then I guess the battle lines have been drawn.” She turned and walked away.
Chapter Eighteen
Jesse woke with one helluva hangover. It didn’t help that there were no curtains and blinding sunlight burned his retinas as soon as he opened his eyes.
As he sat up and blinked the dismal room into focus, all the whiskey he’d consumed the night before sloshed around in his belly and he wished like hell he had gotten a hotel room with blackout curtains and a working bathroom . . . and maybe windows with actual glass panes. Or he should have just headed home to Bramble. Of course, he’d been too drunk to drive. Which was why he had ended up here. Stumbling down the street to Mrs. Fields’s boardinghouse had been safer than getting behind the wheel. His truck was still parked at the Hellhole. He didn’t relish the thought of walking down the street to get it.
But it was time to leave Wilder.
There was no reason for him to stay.
The thought had pain slicing through his chest, adding to the throbbing in his head and the rolling of his stomach. He jumped out of bed and barely made it to one of the paneless windows before he threw up. After he’d emptied his entire stomach on the overgrown bushes beneath the window, he felt better but still like death warmed over.
“I wanted to get to know you, but seeing my new brother’s naked behind wasn’t what I had in mind.”
