Hang Tough (6 page)

Tobin pushed away from the counter. “A schedule for what?”

“When GG plans to eat with you and me, but she isn't dining with us at the same time at all, nor is she letting us dine together.”

“This is just plain damn ridiculous.”

“Maybe if you hadn't been so argumentative and antagonistic since the moment I arrived, things would be different.”

“I'm taking the high road and ignoring that comment, which is also proof that I can follow the rules. But I'll forgive you for your rules breach if you stay and help me frost these damn cupcakes.”

She smiled. “You wish.”

“Not fair to deny me a taste.”

Her focus went straight to his mouth and she managed, “What?”

“You must've had a taste, because you have batter on your face.” Tobin's hand slid beneath her hair and he pressed his fingers against her neck, letting the rough pad of his thumb glide across her jawbone.

Jade didn't move; she couldn't breathe as he gently rubbed on the spot. The heat from his body hit hers as if she'd opened the oven door.

“I got it off,” he said, his deep voice gruffer than normal.

“Ah. Thank you.”

He dropped his hand and stepped back. Then he jammed his hand through his hair. “So, uh, yeah. I'll . . . ah . . . be back in an hour.”

Then he was gone, leaving Jade to wonder what had just happened.

Tobin was fucked.

Seriously fucked.

And not because he'd almost fucking
kissed
Jade in the kitchen two hours ago.

Goddammit. He'd immediately gotten hard when he'd touched her smooth skin and her hair had brushed his knuckles like the finest silk. When she'd parted her lips and a sexy sigh had escaped, just a quick hitch in her breath that sounded like an invitation . . . he'd forced himself—and his cock—to stand down.

He oughta get a cupcake for not devouring her.

Focus, man.

Keeping in mind Jade's comment about not embarrassing Miz G with, oh, just plain old sprinkles on the cupcakes, he'd actually attempted to be creative. Using the banana-shaped candy and two of the orange-shaped hard candies, he'd tried to make a bird with a curved beak.

So his first tray of cupcakes looked like an erect dick and balls.

Fucking awesome.

He hadn't fared much better on tray two. He'd nestled two gumdrops
side by side, placing a dot of icing on the center of each gumdrop to make them look like a pair of eyes.

Except . . . they looked like a pair of tits.

That's when he grabbed a beer out of the fridge. Miz G would blow a gasket when she saw the X-rated decorations that he'd constructed.

He powered through with tray three when he found a cookie mold and pressed the shape into the frosting, which allowed him to outline with icing. Then he filled it in with colored sugar and sprinkles so they resembled flowers.

Tray four—and beer two—he fashioned the pi symbol out of the hard candies on each one. Hey, educators always claimed kids never had enough math.

He was on a motherfucking
roll
for the last tray. Slicing the licorice whips in random lengths and poking them into the cupcakes so it resembled a porcupine or something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Add in some rainbow sprinkles . . . and ta-fucking-da. Done.

Jade pushed through the swinging doors. “Oh. You're still decorating?”

The woman had the worst poker face ever; he didn't believe for a second she wasn't checking up on him. “I just finished.”

“Mind if I have a look?”

“Knock yourself out.”

She smiled at the flower tray. Laughed at the pi tray and said, “Pi on cake. Clever, cowboy.”

Tobin shrugged, but he was pleased.

She laughed again at the porcupine tray. “These are awesome. Kids will go crazy for them.”

And then . . . she reached the other two trays. She shifted her stance a couple of times before her gaze sought his. “So what happened here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You
know
what I mean.”

He manufactured a confused frown. “They look fine to me.”

“Really? Because they are completely inappropriate.”

“How so?”

“You cannot send cupcakes decorated like breasts and a dick and balls to a school carnival, Tobin.”

“They're not that bad.” Belligerently, he folded his arms on his chest. “Maybe you just have a dirty mind.”

Jade stared at him. “There is a phallic-shaped piece of fruit sticking up between two oranges—not a huge leap to see an erect cock and balls. And your gumdrops have nipples.”

“Huh. Well, the adults will get a charge out of them.”

“No, they will charge GG with indecency.”

“Shit. You're right.”

She inhaled a deep breath. “What were you trying to make?”

“With which one?”

“The gumdrop nipples. What's the small dot halfway down? Because it looks like a belly button, which really makes those look like boobs.”

Tobin rubbed the skin between his eyebrows. “It was just a mark to know where to put the licorice smile.”

“Adding that in might fix it.”

“Except I used all the licorice.”

“Awesome.” She leaned over the other tray. “I can't wait to hear your explanation on this one.”

“An attempt to re-create Gonzo from
The Muppet Show
.”

“While you get points for creativity, I think Gonzo's eyes are blue.”

“Yeah. And that would've been so much better. Blue balls
and
a banana dick nose.”

Jade laughed.

God. She was even prettier when she laughed.

She'd look even better with swollen lips after he kissed the daylights out of her.

“Good luck figuring out a way to fix them,” she said.

He shook his head to clear it. “They're done. I'm not a creative guy on my best days. Today was grueling, moving livestock with one less helper than usual, and I'm fried. I get to get up at five thirty and do it all again.”

Jade slipped her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Was any of the livestock you moved yours?”

Strange question. “I don't own cattle. I'm just a hired hand.”

She studied him. “Somehow . . . I don't believe that.”

That hadn't sounded antagonistic, just curious.

When Jade realized she'd been staring at him, she backed up. “Anyway, see you tomorrow.”

“Did you get what you came for?” he asked when she'd almost reached the door.

“Pardon?”

“You're in the kitchen. You haven't grabbed a snack or a drink. So I have to ask, Little Miss Rule Follower, why you came in here when you knew us inhabiting the same space is against the rules?”

Jade blinked innocently—but couldn't quite pull it off. “I thought you would've finished long ago.”

“Wrong. You knew I'd be struggling with this, didn't you?”

“I suspected you'd exaggerated your skills. So . . . maybe I came down here to peek at your cupcakes so I could secretly snicker at them and feel superior.”

He hadn't expected that much honesty from her. “And the verdict?

“Split decision. Those three pans? Very clever and unique. No snickering. However the boobs and dick ones? I'm totally feeling—”

“Superior?” he supplied.

“More like bad for you. Because dude. Those seriously suck.” Her eyes lit up. “Can I snap a picture of them and post them online as a Pinterest fail?”

“I have no idea what that even is, so I'm gonna say no.”

“I'd let you do a Pinterest fail on me if the situations were reversed.”

All Tobin heard from that was
do me
.

Yeah, baby, I'd do you in a fucking heartbeat.

Wrapping that silky black hair around my hands as I ate at that sassy mouth. Feeling your legs clamped around my hips as I powered my cock into you slowly, making you wait to get off because you like it fast and hard.

Whoa. What the hell was wrong with him? He shouldn't be fantasizing about fucking Jade; he oughta be fantasizing about her fucking
leaving
. He didn't even like her.

Actually you don't even know her.

“Tobin?”

He offered her a hangdog smile. “Sorry. It's late and I zoned out there for a moment.”

“I said thanks for helping out with the cupcake emergency tonight.”

Her hair had fallen in front of her face, giving him a glimpse of the shyness Miz G had spoken of. “You're welcome. And don't worry, tiger, I won't tell Miz G about how blatantly you broke the rules tonight since I know how worried you are about disappointing her.”

“The ‘rule' is pretty absurd. But if you know my grandmother as well as you claim to, you also understand the more times we tell her how ridiculous or unenforceable her rule is, the more stubborn she'll get about it. If she thinks we're going behind her back and purposely breaking it? She will be a hard-core pain about it. We'll never hear the end of it.”

Tobin laughed. “That's true. So what are you suggesting?”

“Nothing. This conversation never happened.” She flashed him a grin and left the kitchen.

Tobin thought everyone was sleeping early the next morning when he walked out the front door, heading to work.

He'd only reached the top porch step when he heard, “Tobin Hale. I need a word with you. Right now.”

He faced Miz G and bit back a groan. She hadn't bothered to take out her curlers or change out of her flannel pajamas and fuzzy flippers. “I'm running late. Can't it wait?”

“No. Kitchen. Now. And don't dawdle, sonny.”

Shit. She'd already seen the titty and dick cupcakes. He hadn't figured out a way to fix them last night, so he'd just left them and gone to bed.

Sure enough, Miz G stood by the counter, her arms crossed over her bony chest, the bunny head on her slipper flopping side to side as she tapped her foot impatiently. She'd peeled back the aluminum foil halfway on each pan. “Care to explain these?”

Tobin had decided to claim he was drunk—sad when that lie was better than the truth. So when he saw the pans she was pointing to, he did a double take. The dick cupcakes looked like pinwheels with the banana-shaped candies pressed into the frosting. And the titty cupcakes were flowers—flattened pieces of gumdrops shaped to resemble sugared rose petals, arranged around a hole in the center of the cupcake that was filled with strawberry-champagne preserves.

Jade. That little sneak. She'd come back down here last night and saved his bacon.

Totally unexpected.

Totally sweet.

He laughed with relief and delight because once again, Jade had shocked the hell out of him—in a good way.

Then Miz G's bony finger was drilling him in the chest. “I don't find this funny in the least. Dadgummit, boy, why didn't you tell me you had a flair for cake decorating?”

Flair
? Oh hell no. He had to nip this in the bud ASAP. “It was a fluke.”

“Horse puckey. Tell me the truth.”

It wouldn't be fair to drag Jade into this so he said, “I used to make cupcakes with my grandma.”

A beat of silence passed.

“And after she passed on . . . you couldn't do it without thinking of her. Gol-durn it boy, I thought you were getting teary-eyed looking at the frosting last night, but I figured it might've been from fear that you'd gotten in over your head.” Her chin wobbled. “I'm sorry. It'll be our secret.”

He hadn't lied, but she'd gone a little farther with the half-truth than he'd expected. “I'd appreciate it.”

She patted his cheek. “Have a good day at work, dear.”

A
fter tossing and turning in bed for an hour, Jade got up and slipped her clothes on.

She opened her bedroom door slowly, unsure if it creaked. Not that she thought it'd wake GG, tucked away in her bedroom on the main floor.

The hallway light had been turned off. Two plug-in night-lights sent a bluish glow across the wood floor. She closed the door behind her, noticing Tobin's door was shut.

As she passed the sitting room, she debated on playing a few hands of solitaire to wind down. She'd had that itchy need-to-do-something feeling from the moment she'd woken up. It hadn't helped that GG left her to her own devices again, all day, so she'd cleaned the house, scrubbing bathrooms, vacuuming everything, dusting and mopping floors. After lunch she'd talked to her parents and that had been a fruitless endeavor, attempting to explain her continued restlessness. Their advice? To relax.

Relax. Right. She'd never mastered that particular skill. And people telling her to chill out when she
knew
she couldn't only increased her feeling of inadequacy. What was wrong with her that she couldn't even take a nap in the afternoon? Instead she'd practiced her violin for two hours. Then she'd watered the flowers, cleaned off the porch and by that time GG had
returned home. Even a heavy meal and several glasses of champagne didn't flip the switch to shut off her brain when she crawled between the sheets.

So here she was . . . wandering around at midnight.

Jade stopped in front of the liquor cabinet. Whiskey might lull her to sleep, but she didn't see herself swiping the bottle of Jameson and sneaking it back to her room. There was something pathetic and dangerous about drinking alone in this kind of mood; it could easily become a habit.

Get some fresh air. Clear your head.

On her way outside, she snagged an afghan off the back of the couch.

The front door wasn't locked—a fun thing to bring up with her grandmother tomorrow since she'd promised they'd spend the afternoon together.

Jade quietly closed the screen door after she stepped onto the porch.

The night air did smell sweeter here. She leaned against the porch pillar and tried to check out the stars, but the overhang blocked the sky. To get the full view, she'd have to stand at the bottom of the steps, and that seemed like too much effort.

Great. Now she was restless and lazy.

“Couldn't sleep?” A voice came from the corner of the porch.

Jade whirled around.

Tobin sat on the chaise, kicked back and holding a beer.

She pressed her hand to her heart. “You scared me. Good thing I'm not a screamer.”

His immediate flash of teeth in the darkness told her the dirty direction of his thoughts.

Or maybe
she
was projecting. Tobin's grin was far more wicked than innocent. “What are you doing out here?”

“Waiting for my fence to pick up this pillowcase full of silver frames, candlesticks and silverware I've secretly stashed under my chair,” he said without his usual humor.

“Now that you mentioned it . . . I thought it looked like a few forks were missing earlier.”

“I wouldn't know since I wasn't allowed to dine with y'all.”

She called him on his crappy attitude. “Bad day on the range, cowboy?”

“Shitty day all around, thanks for askin'.” He paused. “Sorry. I'm still in a lousy mood.”

“That makes two of us. My day wasn't rainbows and butterflies either.”

“Speaking of . . . thanks for fixing my cupcakes, cupcake. That was the last bright spot in my week.”

Jade smiled. “You're welcome. GG said they were a big hit. So what made your day lousy?”

“Besides getting kicked, stomped on, yelled at, equipment breaking down and running out of supplies?”

“Yes, besides that.”

“There is nothin' besides that.”

“You win. Your day was worse than mine.”

Tobin grunted. “Why're you out here?”

She tugged the afghan around her shoulders. “It's too quiet. I couldn't sleep. I'm used to constant noise.”

“Now that would drive me bat-shit crazy.”

“You get used to it. Or in my case, I grew up with it.”

“Did Miz G visit you often in the big city?”

“Never as often as I wanted, but at least four times a year.”

“So you didn't spend time hanging out with her here during summer vacation?”

“She'd come to us. Then we'd go to the Jersey Shore or the Catskills or some other place.”

“I find that odd. Wouldn't you think your dad would want to come back home once in a while?”

Jade frowned at him. “My dad didn't grow up in this part of Wyoming.”

His beer bottle stopped in front of his mouth. “Really? I thought Garnet was local.”

“Maybe in her childhood, but not during the years she was married
to my grandfather and raising my dad. They lived outside of Jackson Hole—I never visited there either. GG sold the house my dad grew up in after my grandpa died. Then she bought this place.”

“Huh. That's news to me.”

So he didn't know everything about her grandma. “My dad said this wasn't his home. His home didn't exist anymore and he had no reason to ever waste time here.”

Tobin sipped his beer. “Well, except for the tiny fact his mother lives here.”

Given his mood, she'd ignore his digs. “What about you? Are you local?”

“Depends on how you define local. My family's ranch is near Saratoga. South of here about an hour and a half.”

“How often do you go home?”

“Almost never.” He pointed his bottle at her. “Wipe that smirk off your face. It's not the same thing. I've never been close to my family.”

“I'd hate that,” she said softly. “I'm close to both of my parents.”

“I was always closer to my mom than my dad.” He swigged his beer. “That makes me wonder . . . are your dad and Miz G close?”

“Like do they talk on the phone every day? I don't believe so.”

“They send each other jokes via e-mail because they have similar tastes in humor?”

“I'm not sure. Why?”

“Tryin' to get a handle on the Evans family dynamic. Does Miz G tell him about all the things she does with the Mud Lilies? Does he brag to her about the cases he wins?”

Jade suspected she wouldn't like whatever he was building up to. “Why are you grilling me on this out of the blue?”

He snorted. “It's not out of the blue. We've been goin' round and round with this since the second you stepped out of your car.”

“
I
didn't bring it up tonight; you did. But since you're in a lousy
mood—by your own admission—by all means, please take it out on me and let's just keep arguing the same points over and over.”

Evidently Tobin missed the sarcasm because he lit into her anyway. “You're here, acting on your dad's behalf because he thinks he knows what's best for his mother. And I'd argue the point that he doesn't know her at all.”

“But you do?” she retorted.

“I've got a helluva lot better perspective on Garnet than her own son does—I guarantee that.”

“This superior perspective happened before you moved in with her? Or after?” He'd pushed her; now she'd push back. “Tell me, Tobin. Will you continue this fantastically close friendship with her after you bail out of Muddy Gap?”

His look of surprise indicated he hadn't known that she knew about his future plans.

“Will you talk to her on the phone every day? Will you be her e-mail buddy? Or once you've gotten whatever it is you want from her, then it's
buh-bye
? Out of sight, out of mind?”

“You're still assuming I want something from her. That I'm a taker and that's all I care about—making sure Miz G can do something for me. Not everyone is like that.” He shook his head. “Christ. Why am I even bothering tryin' to reason with you?”

“You started this, so don't act like
I'm
being unreasonable by asking you the same questions that you're demanding answers for from me.”

Tobin considered her. Then he pushed to his feet.

She expected him to storm off.

Instead, he moved to lean against the porch pillar opposite her. “I'm sorry. I'm bein' a dick.”

“Yeah, maybe you are a little bit.”

He brooded at the darkness.

She let him. But she kept sneaking looks at him.

Finally, he said, “You've asked me why I'm here. I'm tired of the bullshit between us, Jade, so I'll level with you.”

Her stomach knotted but she forced herself to take the four steps separating them so she could look into his eyes.

“But I don't expect you to believe me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It'll sound staged. A little too coincidental.”

“Try me.”

Eventually Tobin gathered his thoughts enough to speak. “My grandma Hale lived close by when I was growing up. My brothers never gave her much thought—behavior they learned from our dad. Bein' a ranch kid meant after-school chores. Since my brothers had it under control at our place, I went to Grandma's twice a week to help her out.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight? Ten maybe? Somewhere in that age range. I split logs and filled her wood boxes. Shoveled snow. Dragged in any supplies she needed.” He smiled. “She always fed me. Man, that woman could cook. Course, I never let my brothers know.”

She laughed softly. “Didn't want to share?”

“Nope. She taught me how to play cribbage. She let me poke around in my granddad's tackle boxes. She told me stories of her growing-up years as a kid and then as a newlywed. She gave me advice on everything from buying the right fishing bait to showing me how to sew on a button.”

A funny tickle started in Jade's belly. “I take it this story doesn't have a happy ending?”

Tobin blinked and shook himself out of the memory. “No. When I was thirteen, Dad decided she couldn't take care of herself anymore and sent her to an old-folks' home.”

That tickle in her belly twisted into a knot.

“When I found out, I asked my dad how he thought
he
knew so much
about Grandma's ability to live on her own when he never spent any time around her.”

Now it made sense why Tobin had asked her about GG's relationship with her son.

“Dad said he didn't answer to a snot-nosed kid who could be bribed to look past the truth with a couple dozen cookies.” Tobin scratched his cheek with the beer bottle. “Maybe he had a point. But when I asked why Grandma didn't just live with us, Dad said he wouldn't put that burden on Mom.”

Jade had wondered the same thing, even knowing her mom struggled with her own elderly mother's care. “What did your grandma do? Did she fight it?”

Tobin shot her an odd look. “How could she? First of all, stuff like that wasn't done by ladies her age. Hiring a lawyer would've taken a bite out of her meager savings. When I told her I'd go to court and ask to be declared an adult so I could take care of her . . . that was the first time I'd ever seen her cry.” He knocked back another drink of beer.

“Did that change anything?”

“Nope. The next time I saw her she lived in Sunny Acres Rest Home. She had one room, which served as her bedroom and her sitting room. At the ranch, she'd used a walker to get around her house. Within four months of living there, she'd become wheelchair-bound.”

His icy tone had her pulling the afghan more securely around herself.

“I assumed she was easier to take care of if the workers could just plop her in a wheelchair and push her wherever
they
wanted her to go. Even within the first month, she wasn't the same chatty woman who'd ask about my day at school, which would lead her into a story about her childhood. She'd pat my leg and say, ‘That's nice, dear,' and return to watching TV. It got so I couldn't visit her anymore. It never occurred to me, until years later, that maybe I was the only one who visited her besides my mom. After I stopped . . .” He drained his beer. “She only lasted a year in that place before she died.”

“I'm . . . sorry.”

Tobin looked at Jade. “Is that really what you want for your grandma? To die alone? With only her TV for company? Because the thought of that rips my fucking guts out.” He set his bottle on the railing and bounded down the steps.

The weight of this decision about her grandma's future sat in the pit of her stomach like a stone.

After a few minutes, Jade followed him.

He stood next to the water pump, his hands propped on his hips, staring into the dark night.

“We're not on opposite sides, Tobin. We both want what's best for GG. Your experience with your grandmother is heartbreaking, but it's also skewed from the perspective of a young boy.”