River's Escape (River's End Series, #2) (3 page)

“For a repair on the main barn’s roof. The south side needs to be redone before winter.”

His voice was low and steady, without any annoyance toward her. He made no comment on how rude she was to him. She let out a long sigh, feeling properly chagrinned. “I’m sorry I snapped. I’m… I don’t know, feeling trapped. But that’s not your fault.”

He didn’t prod her with a “trapped about what?” comment, but kept his eyes on the dirt, one-laned road before him. From her trailer to the ranch was a dirt road of two miles with winding turns through pine trees and lonely, mostly deserted hunting cabins. There were a few rare houses and trailers whose occupants lived there full time. Directly above the valley, were the Gunderson Hills, which was about as far off the beaten track as anyone could tolerate. The resident cars were always covered in layers of dust. And unfortunately to Kailynn; she was a resident.

She stared out at the endless pines and sage filling the landscape now. “I just want so much more than this.”

Ian didn’t ask, “more than this, how?” His silence left her feeling like she was confessing to a priest. It was almost like he wasn’t there, and she could say anything. But she felt she needed to desperately speak. “I was accepted for winter term at the University of Washington. I just found out.”

He swiftly peeked at her through the corners of his eyes, and then back at the twisting road. After two more turns, he said, “I didn’t know you were leaving.”

She snorted. “I’m not. That’s the point. I’ll never leave here. I can’t afford to. Even with all the financial aid in the world. I can’t do it. I can’t leave my dad. I can’t even really leave my brothers. There’s no way. I shouldn’t have applied in the first place. It was a waste of money I don’t have. I just… wanted to see if I could get in. Besides, it’s been too long. I’m too old to be a freshman. I don’t even know why I ever applied.”

He tapped a lone finger on the leather steering wheel, and a minute ticked by. Two. Three. Still the finger tapped. Was he counting the seconds? Or just waiting for his blissful return to total silence?

“You can leave your family. I’m sure they can survive without you.”

She shifted in her seat, pulling at the seat belt. He actually spoke. Biting her lip to keep in the snarky comment that so wanted to pop from her lips, she wondered,
who waits so long to respond? And says barely two sentences? That’s all he had in him?

“No, I can’t. And there is no money.”

“If you were so sure, why
did
you apply?”

She shook her head, and tears filled her eyes. She pushed at her eyelids to try and suck them back in. She didn’t want Ian seeing her tearing up over something so contrite. “It’s all I ever wanted. There’s just no way for me to go. You wouldn’t understand that.”

His jaw clenched as she peeked up at him through her wet lashes. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. Oops, she must’ve pissed him off.

“How would I not understand? Just because I’m a rancher doesn’t make me stupid.”

She jerked her spine to attention. She never meant to imply that. It shocked her that he would even say that. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

He shook his head and turned the button on for more air. “You think this town, and everyone in it, is stupid. Me included.”

Her mouth dropped in a giant “O.” How did he know that? She didn’t think he would notice her if she danced around naked, let alone, comment about it. Or care what she thought.

“Where are you getting that? Just because I want to get out of here, because I’m not a privileged rancher like you… that doesn’t mean I think you’re stupid.”

He shrugged. “Whatever, Kailynn. If you need to get out of here so bad, just get out. Quit hating everyone who doesn’t want to join you.”

When did he stop calling her Lynnie? Everyone called her Lynnie. It had been her name longer than Kailynn, and for her entire life. “You don’t wash everyone else’s underwear, including yours, I might add, and refill their coffee cups. You wear the nice, basic, white underwear, while Shane and Joey wear the black, sometimes red ones, and Jack? Well, he prefers boxers. You try doing that day in and day out for a month, and then we can talk,” she said, the unmasked sarcasm dripping off her tongue. She crossed her arms under her breasts, which she hated because they were too large. They were also annoying as they strained against the button of the blouse.

“You’re mad because you know what kind of underwear I wear?”

She clenched her biceps with her fingernails. “Oh my gosh. I’m mad because I wanted to go to college. I wanted to be anything but a housekeeper/maid in a town where everyone knows everything about me. I want to be something important. To do something. And experience something new. I don’t want to end up forever washing you and your brothers’ underwear. I am nothing and going nowhere. I am poor, white trash; and what’s more, that’s all I can ever be. You don’t have a clue what that’s like. You’re a Rydell. You own the valley, Ian. All of you Rydells do. You’re not fresh from the Gunderson Hills, like I am.”

She stopped talking. She never spoke to anyone like that. No one. Not her brothers. Not even her father. Not the many acquaintances she had in the valley. Why did she tell Ian? He’d merely laugh at her pipe dream.

Taking in a deep breath, she finished, “Forget I said anything. It’s stupid.”

Another mile drifted by. “It’s not stupid. I had no idea you felt that way.”

Why should he? It’s not like they ever had a heart-to-heart talk. She closed her eyes and leaned her head into the window. Why did she say anything?

Slowing the truck, Ian pulled in front of the café. Kailynn inhaled a shuddering breath. She could not face him. She started for the door handle when she felt his hand on her arm. She stopped dead. Ian never touched her before, but she looked at him finally.

“You can’t be nowhere, if you’re right here. And nobody else but you can make you feel like nothing.”

Her mouth dropped and she wrinkled her brow in confusion. Ian? Ian Rydell just said that to her? From him, it sounded like poetry. It was encouraging, and… shocking. She dropped her head in a shake. “I just want more in life. And I don’t know how to get it.” She shook her head and rolled her shoulders, finally smiling, as she added, “But I do know how to work, so I guess I have to start there.”

IAN TRACKED KAILYNN WITH his eyes as she swiftly crossed the small front patio and opened the door before disappearing behind it. He stared after her.
What the hell was that?

Shifting his truck into reverse, he pulled out and stopped at the tack store. Drew was there behind the counter and waved at Ian before swaggering over.

“What up, Rydell?

“Nothing. Just getting some supplies.” Like he needed this moron helping him. He felt his hand twitching, and clenched it to keep from knuckling Drew on the head. Drew nearly forced himself on Kailynn the previous night, and Ian was only a minute away from vaulting over the driveway and dragging Drew’s sorry ass from his former glory car. Drew manhandled her, and Ian sure as shit didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

Who cared what his reasoning was behind it?

Why would Kailynn attach herself to such a loser as that? Talk about a hick from the hills, Drew Nichols was definitely it. He grew pot as a hobby at his family’s compound, which was way up in the mountains. He was a born outlaw, just waiting to get arrested. If Kailynn wanted so much more, how could she think that scum could get it for her?

He paid before taking his purchases off the counter. He was at the door when he turned back over his shoulder and said, “Keep your hands off Kailynn. If I hear about you ignoring her again when she says no, your body will never be found by anyone. Got me?”

Drew’s head whipped up from the counter where he’d been scratching something on a pad with his pen. His jaw dropped. “Ah, what?”

Ian was a Rydell. Kailynn was right in that respect; and he did have power. “She said no, and you didn’t listen to her. If she sees you again, and why the fuck she would is beyond me, but if she does, you better keep your hands to yourself. Don’t doubt my threat,” he said softly.

Drew swallowed. “Yeah, sure. Okay, man. I was just…”

Ian shut the door before Drew could finish. He dumped the supplies in his truck and rolled his shoulders before slamming the truck’s door. At least, Drew was too chicken-shit to doubt him. Of that he was sure.

Ian had known Kailynn his entire life and watched her grow up. They used to spend every holiday with her family when his parents were still alive. That was before her dad got hurt and decided it was too much effort to get out of bed. Before then, his dad, Henry, was best friends with Kailynn’s dad, Chuck. After his parents died, her old man often didn’t get up, not even to celebrate the holidays.

Caleb and Jordan, Kailynn’s brothers, were worthless ne’er-do-wells. They didn’t even try to be cowboys, much less, pickers in the orchards. They preferred not to work altogether. All the ambition in the family seemed to have settled on Kailynn. Shane was best friends with her brothers since kindergarten. Consequently, Ian spent much of his life picking up after the three youths, who often engaged in stupid pranks and other shit. After their parents died, Jack and he were left to take care of Jack’s sons, the ranch, and the brothers. That was how they “inherited” Kailynn.

She was like a little, pesky sister for most of his life, until, suddenly she wasn’t. He wasn’t sure when it happened, or how. One day, she was just Kailynn, showing up to do the laundry, start some dinner, and maybe help Charlie with his homework. Suddenly, however, it became more interesting when Kailynn was there, and he didn’t know what to do about that. He suddenly hated having her make his bed, dust his room, or wipe up the bathroom he used. He didn’t like seeing her rush out after she set the table and made his dinner. He didn’t like her serving him either. He did like, however, seeing her. Especially, on a daily basis.

So she resented it? He was sorry about that but she was the highlight of his day so how could he hate it? At age twenty, Kailynn suddenly changed. Or perhaps, he just noticed. He really couldn’t pinpoint the day she became the only woman he ever noticed.

Her dark brunette hair was a thick mass down to the middle of her back. Sometimes, she pulled it back into a clip; and others, she let it tumble over her face and kept pushing and pulling at it to keep it out of her eyes, which were a bright violet hue. They were unusual and startling. She had a dusting of freckles over her cheeks, and was a tall woman, standing five-foot-nine. She suddenly developed into a woman. She wasn’t skinny at all, but curvy and lush. She usually hunched her shoulders over, and Ian wondered if it was to make her not appear so tall, or to detract from her large, round, billowy breasts. Unlike most girls, they seemed to pose a huge problem for her.

She was always waiting for Shane to notice her. Ian glared out the windshield. Why Shane? And why didn’t Shane notice? Shane screwed nearly every girl who allowed him. He couldn’t miss Kailynn’s not-so-subtle crush on him. Why hadn’t he taken advantage of her yet? Shane wasn’t known for his chivalry, but to date, his brother treated her only like a sister. Ian just prayed that continued, because his stomach clenched at the thought of Shane’s fingers touching Kailynn.

Yet, what could he do about it? He would bite his tongue before ever telling Shane how he felt. If she hooked up with Shane, that would surely end it. No way could he take his brother’s leftovers. Jack and Joey managed to do that with Erin, but he could never do it. Jack’s girlfriend, Erin Polletti, showed up on the ranch, intending to stay with her brother, who was then a ranch hand. She was hot in a way that said, “Do me” to every man she looked at with her wide, sad, vulnerable eyes. Joey saw her first, so of course, Joey had her first. Ian might have, and Shane most certainly would have, if Joey hadn’t gotten there first. But then, quite unexpectedly, Jack fell in love with her, despite Joey, and all the previous drama. Ian was glad they worked it out. But he was not like Jack and Joey, who had an odd, pseudo father/son relationship. Shane, meanwhile, was just his annoying, little brother; and Ian would never have shared the same girl with him.

He arrived at the ranch and swung into the driveway. The long, winding drive featured rustic scenes of horses grazing, and acres of alfalfa that stretched far into the distance. The ranch house came into view. He parked his truck around the back, by the side of the main barn where he needed to work. Jack, who was inside, came sauntering forward with a wave of his hand.

“Hey, you get everything?”

Ian threw him the bag from the back seat. “Yup.”

Jack stood with his hands on his hips. “What took so long?”

“Had to go get Shane. He forgot another appointment, and was up at the Hayes. Took Lynnie to work since I was already heading to town.”

Jack frowned and shook his head. “I wish Dad were here to kick some sense into Shane. Or just some common respect. God damn him.”

Ian nodded to show he agreed; but there was no dad, and no one Shane felt accountable too. So Shane did as he pleased, despite knowing that Ian and Jack saw it as an embarrassment to their highly guarded and cherished reputations.

“God damn who?”

Erin strutted from the barn. Okay, she didn’t strut. She was just so damn hot, no matter what she did, it looked like an invitation. Thing was, it wasn’t. Not anymore.

“Shane forgot about another customer.”

Erin threw her head back and laughed. “Who was he with this time?”

“Up at the Hayes. I don’t know how he keeps that business running.”

Erin shrugged. “He doesn’t care. That’s the point. If it goes under, he just takes off. It would simply relieve him of his meager duties.”

Shane ran his own mechanic shop on the ranch. He could fix anything, from cars to all the various types of old farm equipment. He did pretty well. Problem was: he didn’t care about it. He often took off on his Harley for destinations unknown, with no length of time predicted or even considered.

Ian started unloading the lumber and roofing materials he needed to fix the barn, and Jack helped him. Erin talked for several moments about what she’d done with the horses before waving and changing clothes for her shift at work. She recently started working later shifts so that she could help care for the horses in the mornings. Jack watched her until she disappeared into her trailer. Ian found unending amusement that she insisted on living in the old trailer, of which she’d taken possession when she first arrived at the ranch. However, it bugged Jack no end.

They worked in compatible silence until the truck was nearly empty. Finally, Jack sighed as he sat on the edge of the truck bed and wiped the back of his forehead with his glove. “Do you think I’ll ever convince her to abandon that trailer and just move in with me?”

Ian took his work gloves off and sat next to his brother. “Doubt it.”

Jack sighed and shook his head. “What does that mean? You could just explain yourself without the usual, cryptic statements.”

Jack grumbled at him, much as Kailynn had earlier. “It means, she needs time to work out her own issues. You don’t get to decide her timeline. That, and she doesn’t want to move into our house, Lily’s house, and your kids’ house, because she doesn’t yet feel that she has the right.”

“But how much more can I do to try to convince her?”

“You can’t. She has to be ready. She’s not ready.”

“What? So I simply remain patient?”

Ian’s smile was slow, as if to say,
Bingo, idiot!
“Yup. You already know that though. You don’t get to boss her around.”

“How can a five-foot nothing control my entire life so completely?” he grumbled. “What I really want to make her do is quit that damn job.”

He slapped his brother’s back, adding, “Don’t worry; she’s worth it. And that’s the last thing you should do. She needs that job right now. More than you want her to quit.”

“I know,” he mumbled, “I hate it though.”

Erin’s job was serving coffee in her bikini, and it drove Jack insane with jealousy, no matter how much he managed to stay silent. For reasons complicated enough to keep Jack in line, Erin was committed to her job. Being illiterate, and lacking a high school diploma, it was all she believed she could do. And she claimed to need the independence. Ian respected her for that. He also realized it was time to address the issues that Jack seemed so unsure of what to do about.

Silence descended between them. Ian started to get up before grabbing another board. Jack followed suit without a word. They always worked in sync like that.

“Lynnie ever mention to you that she wanted to go to college?”

Jack paused, his eyebrows shooting up, as his hands stilled on a plank of wood. “No, never. Why?”

“She mentioned it, is all. I’ve never heard her talk about it either.”

“Doubt she can afford it. What with her old man, and her brothers, the only one with any ambition is her. So no, it doesn’t surprise me. Too bad, though. She’s a smart, focused, capable girl.”

Ian straightened his spine and took off his leather gloves, slapping them against his thigh as he said, “She isn’t a girl. She’s twenty-three years old. She thinks she’s too old to go back to school.”

Jack nodded. “She’ll always be a little girl to me. But sure, I could see her doing well just by getting away from here.”

Jack turned, grabbing one of the large ladders and carrying it under his arm toward the back side of the barn. Ian lifted some planks and followed him. As Jack set the ladder up, steadying the base, he said, “We should help her.”

Jack stopped moving and slowly turned towards Ian. His mouth was open with surprise. “Help her?”

Ian ignored Jack’s visible shock. Turning, he grabbed another load and dumped it near Jack’s feet. Then he stood with his hands on his hips, and his elbows out. “Yeah, help her. You know, get out of here. Let her do the college thing she wants so badly.”

Jack’s face scrunched up into a puzzled scowl. “Why would we do that?”

Ian shrugged. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t. It’s really no big deal. It isn’t like she doesn’t deserve it. She works so hard. And it isn’t like her old man can ever provide anything for her.”

“I don’t think that’s our responsibility, Ian.”

“You’d do it for Erin.”

Jack rose up from where he’d been squatting to grab a board and his expression showed complete puzzlement. “Well, yeah, I would. She’s my girlfriend. She’s… well, I hope someday she’ll be my wife. So, of course. I would do it for
her
. Are you just being mean? Sarcastic because she can’t read? Or are you trying to tell me something about Kailynn?”

Ian shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to make fun of Erin. Jesus. I would never make fun of her problems with reading. I just meant, we could help her out, so why not help her out?”

Jack squinted and slowly started to smile.
“I
would pay for Erin to go to college, not you or Shane or Joey. And you don’t just casually send someone to college. You’re talking a house payment. You’re also talking completely inappropriate. Good luck, if
you
want to do that.”

Ian sighed. “I guess I see your point. You realize, however, it isn’t so easy to calculate whose money belongs to whom. I mean, it’s all here; and therefore, accessible to any and all of us. How’s that going to work when Ben goes to college? Or if I choose to buy something you don’t think I should?”

Jack nodded as he slid a hammer into his tool belt and lifted the plank that Ian was now holding the other end of. “I realize that. It’s never been much of a problem because Joey was too young, and Shane always had his own stuff. But you and I…”