Rachel blinked. That was some effed-up logic. She was afraid to ask the next question that came to mind, but she did anyway. “My first time doing what?”
“First time doing IT. Duh. You lost your virginity to Vaughn, am I right?”
Rachel turned to face her sister head-on. Still, she had to open and close her mouth several times before any words would come out. “What you said is so wrong in so many ways, I don’t know where to start.”
“Are you saying you and Vaughn Cooper aren’t having a not-so-secret affair?”
Rachel folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not telling you anything until you tell me where you got your information.”
Jenna took a deep breath. “When I was at the Diamond Diva Salon getting a manicure, Linda Klauss was there, and I overheard her dishing with Nancy Tobarro while they got their hair done.”
She paused and looked at Rachel like she’d just provided irrefutable evidence to a trial jury on one of those courthouse television shows.
“Keep going,” Rachel prompted with a sweeping wave of her hand.
“Linda Klauss was one of the nurses who admitted you to the emergency room after the shooting, and she said Vaughn carried you in.”
Rachel thought back to the haze of that morning. She remembered him carrying her, but couldn’t collect enough details from her memory to know if it happened in the Parillas Valley or the hospital, or both. “Maybe. But I was injured, and woozy from shock. What’s the big deal? Linda’s reading an awful lot into things if something that inconsequential got her tongue wagging.”
Jenna’s expression turned solemn. “She said he fretted over you like a scared husband. She said he didn’t let go of your hand for more than an hour.”
Her mouth went dry. He did that for me?
Pushing away the wild elation stirring inside her, she shrugged. “I don’t remember any of that. Everything about that day is pretty foggy. I had no control over what Vaughn did or didn’t do. That’s his business anyhow, not mine.”
Jenna pressed her lips together like she did when Tommy was feeding her a line. “Mm-hmm. Except that, as it turned out, that day in the hospital wasn’t the only time folks had spotted you two together around town.”
“We weren’t together around town, like on a date or something. I got shot. I was in the hospital. He was investigating. Sounds to me like folks are working awfully hard to squeeze water out of a rock.”
Jenna ignored her valid point. “So after Linda told her story, Nancy piped up. She saw you get in Vaughn’s truck a couple months ago out back of John Justin’s. Late at night.”
Shit.
“And then Marti, while she was doing my nails, she was listening too. She saw you and Vaughn leave Smithy’s Bar together last month.”
Ha! She had this one covered. “I never left Smithy’s with him.” That was the honest truth. Even if they did have the occasional well-timed exit.
“She said she saw you two making eyes at each other across the room, before getting up and leaving one right after the other.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
She plowed ahead. “Maybe it wouldn’t have, except that Gloria, the bartender at Smithy’s, is friends with Marti and she said the sheriff paid your tab. Marti had asked her about it because the night it happened, when she went out front of the bar for a smoke, she recognized Vaughn’s truck in the parking lot, but you were both gone.”
She’d never been the subject of gossip before, and it felt like she’d been dropped in the middle of a rodeo arena full of bulls. “Well, goddamn, if no one in this town has anything better to do than gossip. No wonder the New Mexico economy’s suffering.”
“You want to hear the rest of it?”
She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “There’s more?”
“Charlene Delgado lives down the street from Vaughn, and she can count at least a half dozen times over the past two years that—”
“Stop. Enough. I can’t listen to this anymore.” She stormed through the living room and pushed out the door, worming her hand into her jeans pocket for the fresh roll of antacids she’d snagged that morning.
Behind her, the screen squeaked as it opened. She stole a glance over her shoulder to see Jenna hot on her heels. Knowing Jenna would never let the conversation go now that the dam had broken, she flopped onto a rock to give in to the inevitable.
“Well?” Jenna prompted, standing over Rachel with her hands on her hips.
She picked open the paper wrapper of the antacids and popped one in her mouth. “What do you want me to say?”
“I’m right, aren’t I? You lost your virginity to Vaughn.”
She pushed the antacid between her teeth and cheek. “Jenna, I haven’t been a virgin since I was seventeen.”
Jenna dropped onto the rock next to her. “What? Who? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because when I was seventeen, you were eight. Plus, it’s none of your business.”
“And . . . and . . . there’ve been men in your life since then? Boyfriends and such?”
Rachel shrugged. “I’ve been on plenty of dates, but not with anyone I ever cared to call my boyfriend, not even many I’d consider my, uh, lover.” Good grief, that was a clunky word. Tripped off her tongue as smooth as a lump of peanut butter. “I’m no prude, as you and Amy have so much fun believing.”
“Why am I only now hearing about this?”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to clear my every romantic relationship with you.”
“Who are these guys? Certainly no one around town or someone would’ve heard tell. And where do you find them? You never leave the farm.”
Rachel yanked a blade of wild alfalfa from a clump growing at the base of the rock and twisted it around her finger. “I leave the farm all the time. I go to a lot of livestock auctions and supply stores, and I used to deliver alfalfa to ranches all over the county. I’ve been surrounded by men every day of my life.” She paused, shaking her head. “Why am I telling you this?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m spellbound. Tell me more. I want details. Lots of details.”
Good grief. “I think you and I are better off never confessing our sexual histories to each other, Jen. I don’t want to know who and what you’ve done, and I’m sure as hell not going to give you details about who and what I’ve done.” She unwound the grass from her finger and snapped it in half, wincing as a new possibility hit her. “Did you share any of the rumors about me with anyone, like Amy?”
Jenna huffed. “Nah. You’re my sister. I’d never gossip about you to anyone except Amy, and right now she’s too busy with the restaurant and her wedding plans to think of anything but her own happiness.”
Thank God for small favors.
“Vaughn’s totally hot, by the way,” Jenna added. “I’m not into the whole cowboy lawman vibe he’s got going on, but he’s still drool worthy.”
A smile tugged at Rachel’s lips. “Yes, he is.”
Jenna picked her own blade of wild alfalfa and tied it in a knot. “After Dad died, there were a few times when I stopped by the main house and Vaughn’s patrol car was parked out front, but neither he nor you could be found. With so much going on at the time, I forgot about it until I heard Linda and Nancy gabbing at the salon. Is that when it started, this thing between you two?”
“He and I had been circling each other for a while, but after Dad died is when it finally happened.”
“He was at the hospital when Mom died.”
Rachel knew where this railroad track led, knew she no longer had the luxury to hide behind her cowardliness. Admitting her affair with Vaughn meant confessing to her deepest, most painful sin. She pulled another blade of alfalfa from the ground and cinched it around her finger until the pool of blood in her fingertip throbbed.
How could she say it? How could she explain to Jenna how their mom’s death was her fault? How did one find the words to admit to the negligent homicide of a parent? She had to try, though. Her throat constricted. “Yeah, he was.”
“And he was at the hospital the night mom tried to kill herself.”
How did Jenna do it? Blew Rachel’s mind the way she could get to the heart of the matter so intuitively. Rachel ground her fist into her stomach to quell the burning. “How did you know that?”
“I went to my car looking for my cell phone and saw you two talking in the parking garage. I figured he was interviewing you in an official capacity about what happened. But that’s not why he was there, was it?”
“No.” She shoved off from the rock and paced to the decorative picket fence she’d constructed for Jenna around her orange tree so Tulip couldn’t get at it, swallowing a bunch of times to ease the tightness in her throat. “Jenna, I owe you an apology. I owe you more than that, but it’s all I have to give. That and my vow to you and Tommy and Amy that I’ll never let anything like that happen again.”
“I’m confused. I thought we were talking about you sleeping with Vaughn.”
“If I’m going to tell you about my private life, and the mistakes I’ve made, I’m going to start at the beginning.” She pushed another antacid from the roll onto her tongue. “You remember the day of Dad’s funeral, the day the bank called?”
That was the day she and Jenna discovered their parents had been flat broke, their land mortgaged to the hilt, their retirement funds empty, and their bank accounts overdrawn. Amy had been off preparing to film a cooking competition TV show, and though she’d come home immediately on learning of Dad’s death, she’d had to rush back to the show as soon as the funeral ended. Mom spent the day in her room, heavily sedated under doctor’s orders.
“That was a rough day,” Jenna said.
“To say the least. After you went home to put Tommy down for the night, I was too agitated to be indoors. You know how I get.”
Jenna offered a melancholy smile. “You got that from Dad.”
“One of many things. So anyway, I snagged a six-pack of his beer from the fridge and headed to the porch. Two beers later, the sheriff—” She winced. Old habits died hard. “Vaughn showed up.”
She stopped talking, lost in memory. He’d parked his patrol car next to her work truck. She’d never forget the sound of his boots crunching on the gravel driveway, nor the look on his face when he got close enough for her to see it in the light of the full moon. For the first time, he didn’t look at her like she was troublemaker Jenna Sorentino’s older sister, or a grieving daughter, or a member of his voting constituency.
She’d never before seen desire burning in a man’s eyes like it had in his that night. Hunger and need darkened his expression, making his body tense, his movements sharp.
How did he know?, had been her first thought. How did he know she’d wanted him that same way for years?
“I was so angry at Dad, for the finances and for dying on us like he did. And I had a beer buzz going. I couldn’t help myself. Vaughn, he—” Damn, she couldn’t say it. Besides, what had happened next wasn’t any of Jenna’s business.
Right there on the porch of her parents’ house, while her mom slept off her drugs, she and Vaughn had done wicked, wonderful things to each other. He was everything she needed, the escape she’d been longing for. It was such a relief to let her guard down, to give up control and surrender to baser feelings. To not think at all.
He was so damn skilled at what he did. And she’d wanted him for so damn long.
“You don’t need to rationalize it,” Jenna said quietly. “Grief does funny things to us all. A man wanted you and you wanted him, and that’s really all it takes, isn’t it? Nothing complicated about that.”
Rachel squeezed her eyes closed, jarring loose the tears that had been pooling in her eyes. “But it was complicated. Because Mom was sick and I wasn’t around. I had responsibilities to her. And I turned my back on her for a few fleeting moments of pleasure.”
“I still don’t understand what you have to apologize for.”
Rachel’s legs grew unbearably restless. Pushing away from the fence, she stalked up to Jenna, swiping at the tears on her cheek. “Because the night Mom tried to kill herself, I was at Vaughn’s house. I wasn’t home when she needed me. I left her alone in the middle of a bipolar meltdown so I could screw the town sheriff. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
Jenna was crying silent tears, same as Rachel. But she didn’t look angry. Not in the least. She hugged her knees up to her chest and sniffed.
“Do you hear what I’m saying?” Rachel said more loudly, her voice cracking. “It’s. My. Fault.” She choked on a sob.
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