So many women in the world and he had to fall in love with the one woman he couldn’t have. The only way to get over it was to stay away from Jenny. And he planned to do just that.
* * *
QUINCY OPENED THE gate in the old chain-link fence and walked up the steps of the white-board house his grandfather had built for his wife many years ago. It had been redone over the years and held many memories.
Mutt, Grandpa’s dog, wasn’t on the front porch to greet him. Quincy couldn’t remember how old the dog was, but he now had arthritis and didn’t leave the yard. He was an outdoor dog and only came inside when it was cold. And he didn’t like it then. He had a bed on the front porch and the back.
Opening the front door, he heard the TV. Loud. Grandpa was losing some of his hearing. He sat in his recliner, Mutt on his lap, watching an old Western.
Grandpa, with thinning gray hair, stooped shoulders and bowlegs, was about the orneriest character you’d ever want to meet. But he was fiercely loyal and devoted to his grandsons, as they were to him.
“What’s wrong with Mutt?”
Grandpa stroked the small black-and-white mixed breed dog. “I guess he’s just lonely.”
Quincy felt a tug on his heart, for he knew that was Grandpa’s way of saying he was lonely. He usually spent time with them on the ranch, but today he’d been absent. Maybe Grandpa was feeling bad.
“Are you okay?”
“Healthy as a horse,” Grandpa replied. “I knew you’d be tired so I put baked potatoes in the oven and there’s steaks in the sink you can do on the grill.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a shower first. I’m sweaty and I’ve got hay all over me.”
“Suit yourself. Where’s Elias?”
“He’s on his way.”
“He better hurry up. Those potatoes’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
Grandpa was in an unusual mood this evening. It wasn’t like him to plan supper. On second thought, Quincy went into the kitchen to check on things. The potatoes, wrapped in aluminum foil, were sitting on top of the stove. Quincy shook his head, placed them inside and turned on the oven. The steaks were thawing in the sink. That was good.
After taking a shower and changing clothes, he seasoned the steaks and placed them in the refrigerator and then went outside to the back porch to clean the grill.
He kept waiting for Elias to show up, but as usual, Elias was dragging his heels. Quincy sat in the living room with his grandfather watching the Western. Suddenly, Grandpa turned off the TV.
“What do you think about Paxton?” Grandpa asked.
Not again. Why was everyone asking him that question?
He rubbed his hands together. “None of my business.”
Grandpa pointed a finger at him. “You need to find yourself a woman.”
Quincy groaned. This was Grandpa’s standard lecture to his grandsons. Find a woman, get married, have babies and be happy. Sometimes it just didn’t happen like that.
“And not Jenny Walker,” Grandpa added for effect, and he had Quincy’s attention.
He didn’t know, did he? He couldn’t.
His eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”
“She’s over here all the time and it’s not to see Paxton, because he’s not here. She comes to see you.”
“She likes the paints and she’s good with them. I don’t have a problem with that because I’m busy on the ranch.”
“Not all the time, so don’t fool yourself, boy. I’ve seen the way you look at her, and that’s just asking for trouble. You’re a Rebel and you never cross that line. There’s a lot of lines us Rebels have crossed, but we don’t go after our brothers’ girlfriends. Not even if they’re an ex.”
Elias stomped in, preventing Quincy from answering, and he was grateful for that small act. For the first time, he didn’t know how to respond to his grandfather. He thought he’d kept his secret hidden. If his grandfather could gauge his feelings about Jenny, how many other family members had?
Did they all know he loved Jenny Walker?
Jenny sat on the back stoop watching a cow stick her head through the barbed-wire fence to reach the green grass in the yard that Jenny had watered. The grass was always greener on the other side. That was how Paxton felt. He’d found someone better than Jenny and she had to bite the bullet and accept it.
The back door opened and her sister, Lindsay, sat down beside her. “What are you doing out here? It’s hot.”
Jenny was so upset, she hadn’t even noticed her skin felt as if she’d taken a bath in honey. Sticky. All she was aware of was the hollow ache in her stomach. “Thinking.”
“Come on, Jenny. You have to have seen this coming. You haven’t heard from Paxton in months.”
“Seven weeks. That’s how long it took him to fall in love with someone else.”
“You have to get past this. There are a lot of guys out there who would be more than eager to go out with you.”
“I’ve spent half my life waiting for Paxton and now I just feel like a horse without a bridle. I’m free, but I don’t know which way to turn without Paxton.”
“This isn’t like you. What else is going on?”
The cow pushed on the barbed wire and Jenny was afraid the fence would break. She got up to shoo her away. When something around the ranch broke, Jenny and Lindsay were the ones to fix it. Their dad had had a tractor accident some years ago and now had a gimpy leg and walked with a cane. He still had cattle, but some things were hard for him to do, and having no sons, his daughters picked up the slack.
She and Lindsay were both nurses and worked in a hospital in Temple. Lindsay was director of nursing and didn’t work on the floor anymore. Her job was stressful and she spent a lot of hours at the hospital, including weekends if there was a problem.
Jenny was a pre-op nurse, the one who prepared a patient for surgery, took vitals, dealt with consent forms, started an IV, calmed nerves and answered questions. Working three twelve-hour days was a challenge, but it gave her a lot of free time at home with her dad. Sometimes she was called back for extra duty. Since Lindsay was in charge, that didn’t happen too often.
She resumed her seat by her sister.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Jenny shrugged. “I forgot what it was.”
“You’re really down about something other than Paxton. What is it?”
They were four years apart and very close, and Jenny knew she could talk about anything with Lindsay. But her sister tended to be bossy and sometimes that grated on Jenny’s nerves. She needed to talk, though. She wiped the palms of her hands down her jeans. “I went over to talk to Quincy to see if he knew anything about Paxton and the engagement.”
“And?”
Jenny swallowed. “He was rude to me.”
“What?” She poked Jenny in the shoulder. “Get out of here. That doesn’t sound like Quincy. You probably were just upset and misunderstood him.”
“No. It was very clear what he said.”
“And what would that be?”
“He said that Paxton’s fiancée was going to be staying for a while and it would