Dreamless

“This thing’s hot, all right,” the carpenter called back. He casually flipped it with the stick, and sparks flew.

The man’s fearlessness with the arching wire snapped a red flag in Cassie’s mind, but she was too distracted by Tom’s condition to puzzle its meaning.

Why the hell was that wire hot? It wasn’t like her electrician to make a mistake and switch the temporary with the main power.

“Somebody go kill that damn power,” she ordered.

A gangly young man hollered, “Yes, ma’am!” and sprinted away.

“Somebody go down to the site trailer and get the big first-aid kit.”

Again Cassie’s order was obeyed with a “Yes, ma’am!”

Jake Coffey had dropped to one knee on the other side of Tom and was pressing two fingers against the victim’s neck. “His pulse is okay,” he said quietly.

Cassie fumbled around in the bib of her overalls, pulled out her cell phone and punched 9-1-1. Electric shock was a worry, but she was more concerned about the effects of the fall. She told the dispatcher the problem quickly, while Darrell scurried over the stones toward them.

“No,” Cassie shouted into the phone. “There’s a shortcut, a private gravel road—” she looked pointedly at Jake Coffey “—through Cottonwood Ranch.” Jake nodded. His dark brown eyes were alert, concerned. His mouth looked grim.

“How far is the turnoff from Highway 86?” She searched Jake’s face imploringly while the dispatcher held.

“Let me.” He took the cell phone from her. “It’s two-tenths of a mile. Hard to see. I’ll phone someone at the ranch and tell them to park one of our red trucks out there and flag the paramedics.”

He handed Cassie the phone. “They want us to stay on the line.”

She nodded, pressed the phone to her ear and looked down at Tom.

“Think he broke his neck?” she heard Darrell calling to Jake Coffey, who was sprinting toward his pickup.

“We’d better not move him, just in case,” Jake called back. Cassie looked up and saw him pull out his cell phone. She turned her full attention back to Tom.

The men stood in a circle of stunned silence, watching as Jake, Darrell and Cassie covered Tom with emergency blankets, then padded the man’s limbs against the sharp rocks as best as they could. They bandaged his burned hand, and then there was nothing to do but wait on the ambulance.

In the distance the rock crushers resumed their methodical work, the operators oblivious of the tragedy up on the hill. The sound filled Cassie with a mixture of guilt and nausea. She wanted the noise—that aggressive sound of progress—to stop. She knew there was no rational reason for work all over the development to halt. Still, her ambitious concerns of only moments ago seemed utterly callow now.

Please let him be okay, she prayed as she studied Tom’s unconscious face. “Hold on,” she told him gently. “Help is on the way.”

She kept up this litany of silent prayer and verbal reassurance while they waited for the medics.

Time stretched taut, and she glanced up once to find Jake Coffey, wearing his sunglasses again, obviously studying her. When he caught her glance, he removed the shades, poked them into his breast pocket and squatted down on his haunches next to her.

As their eyes met in mutual concern, her fear mysteriously seemed to abate and a strange lightness overcame her.

“Is there anything else I can do?” Jake said quietly.

His face, the face she’d viewed as an angry opponent’s only moments before, was the face of a compassionate ally now. She looked away because she felt the sting of tears and she didn’t want to cry in front of the men…or in front of Jake Coffey. She shook her head and turned to stroke Tom’s unburned hand.

Jake stood up again. “Fellas.” He addressed the men gathered around. “We’d better move all these pickups out of the way.” The circle of Levi’s and boots disappeared from Cassie’s view, and then she heard engines roaring to life. She only glanced up from Tom’s face one other time, to see the vehicles pulling away from the cul-de-sac. At the same time, she caught sight of men jogging down the hill from the other building sites.

None of them could do anything to help Tom, she knew, but she felt a wave of gratitude for the caliber of the subcontractors and workmen she employed. These men were the finest of craftsmen, and they knew the meaning of teamwork and cooperation. They were always on schedule, always fair, always professional and honest, and not one of them would let a man lay fallen without rushing to his side.

She heard the sirens then. “Here comes help, Tom,” she reassured the young man and squeezed his hand.

ONCE TOM WAS STRAPPED into a neck brace and safely loaded into the ambulance, Cassie turned to find the men still grouped around the cul-de-sac. An air of helpless frustration was setting in.

“Let’s get back to work!” Darrell Brown bellowed at the assembly. He waved a beefy paw, and slowly, as if unfreezing from a carved tableau, the men responded.

“Ms. McClean, I’m so sorry this happened.” A deep voice spoke quietly from behind Cassie. She turned. She hadn’t noticed Jake Coffey still standing there.

She tilted her face up to him and tried to speak, but could only give her head a forlorn shake. He studied her, and his eyes were sad. They were also very kind, as if the earlier animosity between them had never existed.

He sighed. “What a terrible thing to happen.”

“I can’t believe it,” Cassie admitted, and looked away.

Their sudden bonding over the accident came as a surprise to Cassie. And those few seconds of eye contact also brought another completely unexpected sensation. A thrill of attraction pulsed through her middle as she realized again that Jake Coffey was undeniably good-looking.

Cassie, who spent her days solely in the company of men, was seldom genuinely attracted to one. She often wondered if living in the world of construction had left her abnormally inured to male magnetism. But her honesty—her most valued trait—prevented her from feigning attraction when there simply was none. Even so, she secretly worried about herself: at age twenty-seven, she remained stubbornly alone.

And yet, she enjoyed men—enjoyed their world, their ways. She just couldn’t seem to develop an intimate relationship with one. And ordinarily she wouldn’t even behave normally around a guy this attractive, but for some reason she wasn’t acting like an awkward schoolgirl now. She supposed she was too shocked to be anything but totally raw, totally natural.

This man standing beside her was certainly handsome. But there was something else about him. She glanced up again to find him still looking at her, with the tiniest frown line of compassion forming between his brows. She decided it was that protective, caring look that was definitely causing a physical stir deep inside of her. The realization gave her a spark of sheer wonder, of amazement. Of all things. She might actually have enjoyed discovering these new sensations if she weren’t so worried about Tom. She couldn’t let herself feel such things—she shouldn’t even acknowledge such things—at a time like this.

She looked away, toward the ambulance now winding its way down the hill. Darrell Brown punched numbers into his cell phone as he paced the ground where the ambulance had briefly stopped. Contacting Tom’s family, Cassie supposed.

She glanced up at Jake Coffey. “I’ve got to get to the hospital,” she mumbled. The hospital. Would Tom even make it that far? She had never seen a body look so limp. Imagining the possibilities, she started to tremble and clutched her arms at her waist. She felt like she was going to cry. “Excuse me,” she said as she moved around Jake Coffey.

He gave a hoarse whisper. “Of course.” And he stepped aside.

She glanced back and saw that he was still studying her with that look of concern. She stopped in her tracks and drew a great shuddering breath.

His lips opened and he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something important but wasn’t sure how. Then he simply said, “I hope the young man will be okay.”

“Me, too.” Cassie’s tears threatened to spill over and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Jake stepped forward and wrapped warm fingers above her elbow. “Are you okay?”

Cassie nodded, then shook her head as the tears came. She swiped at them and glanced up at the rooftop, where the wirey young carpenter who’d handled the hot wire was standing, braced at the edge, staring down at the two of them. She turned her face away from the house so the men couldn’t see, and Jake pulled her around in front of him, shielding her from view with his huge shoulders.

Cassie dropped her eyes, ashamed of her unprofessional behavior, but he said, “It’s okay to cry.”

She shook her head. “It’s just that so many things have been going wrong lately. One little thing after another. And now this.” She swiped at her eyes again.

To her astonishment, he produced a clean red bandana from his back pocket. “Here.”

She took it and swabbed her cheeks. “Thanks.” She handed it back.

He stuffed it back into his jeans. “Accidents happen, Ms. McClean, especially on construction sites.”

Cassie sniffed. “I know that. But ever since I started this development, it seems like it’s been one calamity after another. I admit I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’ve planned and saved and dreamed about this project for so long…but I’m beginning to think my dream is turning into a nightmare.”

“Look, I don’t want to add to your stress today,” he offered gently. “We can finish our business another time.”

“Okay,” Cassie said. But she was so upset that she couldn’t even recall what business, exactly, they had been discussing. Dynamite. Oh, damn. She had pitched that word out like a lit stick of the stuff. And she hadn’t remained civil like she’d planned, not at all. And now she’d started to shake and cry like a fool because one of her men got hurt. Jake Coffey had certainly seen her at her worst, and now, she’d have to face this man—this handsome, intimidating man—in civil court, the day after tomorrow.

Seeing him again felt like the last thing she needed. And yet, as she watched him walk away, it felt like the only thing she wanted.

CHAPTER TWO

JAKE COFFEY STEERED THROUGH THE LABYRINTH of streets in The Heights, fighting down a strange mixture of low arousal and high confusion. Since the day the sign went up announcing The Heights, he and architect and home builder C. J. McClean had been on a collision course. He’d spoken to her on the phone several times. But nothing in her smooth, confident, businesslike and occasionally caustic voice had indicated that Ms. McClean was so young…and so very beautiful.

What a face! Even without a speck of makeup, it was a face so fresh—so beguiling—that no healthy, normal man with two eyes in his head was likely to forget it.

Her eyes, he’d noticed the instant she removed the sunglasses, were deep set, blue as a cloudless Oklahoma sky, full of intelligence and fire. And when they’d filled with tears, he’d had to fight the urge to cradle her in his arms.

She sported the kind of thick, bushy blond ponytail that he was a sucker for—a wild, unselfconscious mane that broadcast vitality. That straight, little, barely freckled nose enhanced her look…and to top it all off, she had those full, ripe lips. She was his all-American type, all right. The kind of lively doll he’d tried to impress at high school football games and rodeo championships ever since he was a randy kid.

His type. Complete with that fit, curvy little body. Even those ridiculous overalls couldn’t disguise her curvy bust, especially after she’d stripped off that baggy shirt to help the injured man. With only a thermal undershirt hugging her torso, it was easy to see that Cassie McClean had the goods. What was a woman like that doing sashaying around among construction crews all day long? Breaking lots of hearts, he bet. He’d done enough checking to know she wasn’t married, but he wondered if she had a steady boyfriend.

What the heck was he doing, thinking about her in this vein? He didn’t know a thing about C. J. McClean, except that she had the kind of rare good looks he’d once been a complete sucker for. And behind that pretty face, she had a mean-as-a-junkyard-dog business style.

Cowboy, he reminded himself sternly, for the foreseeable future, you’ve taken yourself out of circulation.

He’d sworn off dating as long as he had Jayden and Dad and the horses to worry over. And besides, since his divorce, he’d discovered that it was damn crazy out there in singleland. Scary, in fact. Cute little numbers wrapped in spandex could turn into a sane man’s nightmare after only a couple of casual dates.

The last sweet young thing in his life had, in fact, ended up being a genuine stalker. Sitting outside the ranch gates in her darkened car. Calling late at night and scaring Jayden with her whispery questions: “Where’s your daddy tonight, honey?”

After he’d finally gotten rid of that weirdo, he decided he would live without women for a while. At least until Jayden’s life was more stable. Truth was, being single wasn’t an impossible lifestyle—if a man kept himself real, real busy.

Your life might not be fun— he recited his familiar self-lecture —but it’s sane. It’s healthy. It’s simple. Well, okay, maybe not simple. He gripped the steering wheel and gritted his teeth as he drove past the rock crushers. They banged so loudly they made his truck windows vibrate. It took enormous self-control not to flip the bird at the cussed things.

What was this business about dynamite?

He grabbed the cell phone off the seat and dialed his attorney.

Yes, Edward Hughes reported, they’d just now received a fax from C. J. McClean’s lawyer. She’d filed a countermotion to force open the road and she’d apparently beaten them to the draw on the noise injunction by planning to bring forth evidence that the noise was not excessive.

“Not excessive!” Jake hollered into the phone. “Listen to this!”

He rolled the truck window down to give Edward the full benefit of the crushers. “And apparently,” he said as he rolled it up again, “she plans to do some blasting with dynamite to finish the job.”

“I know. I know,” Edward Hughes groaned. “But my guess is they’ve got enough crap in this motion that the judge will be forced to conduct a trial. And there is no way the court can hold a trial before a week from now, because Jewett is in the middle of a big criminal case.”

“Can’t some other judge do it?”

“No. The district court is one judge short. Judge Baker is recovering from a heart attack.”

Jake sighed into the phone. He was headed for a heart attack if he didn’t get a grip. “A week from now, none of this will matter. If she starts dynamiting, my mares all will have lost their foals by then.”

“I expect she’ll have succeeded in getting her rock out of there in a week and the whole thing’ll be moot. Pretty sharp maneuvering. Is that McClean woman a total hellcat or what? Chip off the old block, I say.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s Boss McClean’s daughter.”

“That name rings a bell.”

“The old man went to prison a few years back for insurance fraud…and there was something else. I can’t recall. But he was the same way. Anybody who got in Boss’s way paid for it.”

Jake did recall a trial, years ago. “His daughter sure seems to want her way about everything, and pronto,” Jake confirmed.

“Yeah. As in, yesterday,” Edward agreed dryly. “The court appearance has been set for the day after tomorrow. That they managed to schedule a hearing on Judge Jewett’s docket so fast is amazing. Must have some pull.”

“Figures. Apparently, she doesn’t intend to lose a single day getting her damn fancy houses built. Says she has to beat the first freeze.”

“You talked to her again?”

“I’m just now driving back from a little jaunt up to The Heights.” The last two words were soaked in sarcasm.

“Well, then, did you explain the value, the rarity, of an Andalusian foal? And did you tell her the amount of money you’ll lose if your thoroughbred quarter horses foal before January first? The risks?”

“Didn’t get a chance. She was too busy explaining to me that I could simply move my horses. I said maybe I’d have to get the sheriff out there and she was telling me to meet her in court, when all of a sudden one of her men got hurt.”

“Somebody got hurt? Was it serious?”

“Some guy grabbed the business end of a hot wire. The fella survived the shock, but he took a real nasty fall. Can’t say how that’ll turn out.”

“Hmm,” the attorney mused. “That’s awful. In the meantime, maybe we can get the judge to give us another temporary restraining order—at least on the dynamite. That’ll buy you some time. If we can hold off for a couple of weeks, you might not actually lose a foal, even if one does come early. I hate to say it, but maybe Miss McClean will be so distracted by this accident that she won’t show up, and the judge’ll favor us.”

“Oh, she’ll show up. She’s one of those tiny, determined types that likes to make a man sweat.”

“Nevertheless, you don’t have to be present. If you’re too busy with the mares, I’ll get the noise stopped one way or another.”

That’s what Jake liked about having Edward Hughes in his corner. Nobody had to tell Edward what to do. Without Edward, Lana and her daddy would have pounded Jake into the ground by now, and where would that leave Jayden?

“I’ll show up,” Jake assured his family friend and longtime attorney. “I want Ms. McClean to understand that this is as vital to me as it is to her and that I won’t back down any more than she will.”

And the truth was, he was itching to see C. J. McClean again. Hell, just admitting that to himself made him realize he was in more than one kind of trouble with this woman already.

WHEN JAKE DROVE HIS TRUCK under the iron gates at the head of the long driveway leading to the ranch house, he immediately spotted a whole other kind of trouble.

Lana Largeant’s champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator was parked up by the house, sparkling in the sun, looking like one of her daddy’s men had just given it a fresh wax job. He eased his dusty truck past the showy vehicle and saw that it was deserted, meaning Dad had let Lana into the house, despite Jake’s instructions not to.

He suppressed the familiar irritation at his father. The poor old man couldn’t remember what day it was, much less keep the complications of Jake’s relationship with his ex-wife straight. Lana treated Dad like a dear old pet, and his confused mind lapped up her attention.

At least Jayden was at school. This time Lana wouldn’t be able to work her manipulative magic on their daughter.

Another reason not to get involved with some cute little number, he reminded himself as he jerked the parking brake. Relationships brought all kinds of entanglements—like unplanned pregnancies that could complicate your life for good.

Not that he regretted having Jayden. Oh, no. That child was the only joyous thing about his life these days. Besides the horses.

What he resented was the tie Jayden had formed to Lana. As he climbed out of the truck, that fact coiled up in his gut, mean as a sidewinder. Over the past year or so, he had succeeded in setting aside his resentment of Lana for Jayden’s sake, and, thanks to some long, honest talks with his brother Aaron, he had found a measure of peace about the whole deal. But Lana still found clever ways to disrupt that peace, keeping him lightly tethered, silently bound, through Jayden.

He always ended up asking himself the same circular question. How could he raise a daughter without giving the child the benefit of some kind of mother? Wasn’t any mother—even a seriously flawed one—better than no mother?

But last year he’d sworn that if Lana called Jayden one more time when she’d been drinking, he’d order Edward Hughes to find a way to terminate the woman’s parental rights. And, true to form, that’s exactly when Lana had stopped her boozing. Just dried out. Like she’d read his mind or something.

But, sober or not, Jake didn’t trust the woman. As far as he could tell, Lana’s life always revolved around Lana, what she wanted, how things affected her—and to hell with everyone else. The woods seemed full of those self-centered types these days. What he wouldn’t give for one sensible, honest, decent, unselfish…sexy woman.

The screen door banged and Lana stepped out onto the porch, into the morning sun. The newel posts and white siding on the east-facing house glowed around her slim silhouette. Lana’s sleek blond hair and svelte form—wrapped in some kind of clingy high-fashion dress that was printed to look like army jungle fatigues—created a sharp contrast to the simple homey setting. She jutted a bony hip against a newel post and shaded her eyes.

“Well, hello!” she called brightly, as if she were surprised to see Jake walking up to his own home at ten o’clock in the morning.

Instead of returning her chipper greeting, he sighed and planted a boot on the bottom step. “Lana, what are you doing here?”

She immediately adopted a stunned expression. “Don’t be like that,” she sighed. “Just when Dad and I were having so much fun, remembering when Jayden got up on Arrestado and rode him all the way down to the river. Remember that? When she was only six?”

Jake narrowed his eyes at the woman. She had a lot of nerve, persisting in calling his father “Dad” a full two years after the divorce. And she had a lot more nerve, bringing up the memory of the time she’d been so drunk she hadn’t even noticed that their daughter had run off on the back of a dangerously high-spirited animal—commiserating about it with his addled father as if it were something cute, instead of the most terrifying day of Jake’s life. Nothing pissed him off more than when Lana tried to rewrite history this way.

“Lana, look. This is not a good time.”

“That Jayden!” Mack Coffey exclaimed from beyond the screen door. Poor Dad had always had a way of falling right into Lana’s hands, even before the Alzheimer’s had eaten away at his good sense. “That child always was a real cutter, even as a baby!”

Even with the shadow of the screen over his dad’s face, Jake could see that Mack was overexcited—his cheeks flushed, his eyes unnaturally bright. Lana didn’t give a thought to getting him all worked up like this, the same way she never gave a thought to feeding Jayden too many sweets.

Jake turned his attention away from the task of getting rid of Lana. “Dad, you look tired. Where’s Donna?”

Before the old man could get his mind around the question, Lana answered. “I sent her to the store, Jake.” She moved down the steps, closer to him. “I hope you don’t mind. Y’all never have any of those cookies Jayden likes. And Dad and I need a pack of smokes.”

“Dad—” Jake tried not to grit his teeth, but he was losing what little patience he had left over from the confrontation up on The Heights “—does not smoke anymore.”

“Now see here, sonny.” The screen door creaked and Mack Coffey tottered forward. “I can have a smoke if I want to. I don’t recall ever giving up that particular pleasure. That’s your notion.”

You don’t recall anything, Jake thought, then hated himself for being mean-spirited. It was wearisome, caring for someone so fragile, someone who could be contrary and combative and confused all at once.

“Dad, it’s chilly out here.” Jake angled up the steps past Lana and clamped a friendly hand on his dad’s arm. He had learned how to finesse his father without hurting Mack’s pride. “Let’s go inside.”

Lana, naturally, followed Jake right through the door.

Jake steered Mack to his familiar rocking recliner by the window, then turned a level gaze on Lana. He was not about to give the woman an inch. “Okay, Lana, tell me what you want. I’ve got some skittish mares down at the barn that I need to tend to. I’ve already wasted half the day as it is.”

Her eyes widened. “Nothing’s wrong with the Andalusians, I hope!”