Her gaze was wary when she turned back to face me, but when she pursed her lips, I knew she was considering. Strategizing.
My sister, the evil genius.
Half-sister. Whatever.
“So?” I asked.
She gave her head a little shake. “Not here.”
Her glance moved toward the house meaningfully. Daddy. Whatever she was up to with Vivien, she didn’t want Daddy to hear. “Just…” She sighed, glancing from the house and back to me again. “Just hang in there, okay?”
My brows came down. We may have been on the same side a little more lately, but pep talks were still well outside our sisterly wheelhouse.
“Hang in there? What is that supposed to mean?”
“With Daddy. With Brandon and Amber and all that’s going on, just… hang in there. I’m working on something. But I need you to trust me, okay?”
A chill swept through me and made me shiver, but this time it wasn’t out of fear. It was excitement. Anticipation. And I had no idea why. But I nodded anyway. Did I trust Tess? I wasn’t totally sure. But after Pinedale and since we’d been home, I was starting to think maybe she wasn’t as under Daddy’s thumb as I’d once thought.
For years now, he’d pitted us against each other. She and I had always been trying to earn his approval, to gain some power of our own, to free ourselves from his controlling grasp, and now…
Now I was starting to think Tess was actually going to do it. Or at least, she was going to try.
Holding her gaze, I nodded. “I’ll trust you. For now. But at some point…” I glanced toward the door. Later. When we were anywhere else. “I need to know what’s going on.”
She gave a short nod.
We both stood, clearing the plates as servants who’d been watching from inside the house came out to help us. Just before they reached us, she mumbled, “It wasn’t me.”
I turned to look at her as I reached for an empty glass. “What?”
“I didn’t tell him about Jack.”
I eyed her for a long moment, and she met my gaze evenly. I sighed. “Okay.”
She nodded, turning back to her task, but I could have sworn her shoulders sank with relief that I believed her.
But I did. Not just because she’d said so but because now that I wasn’t in the middle of being yelled at, I could think clearly, and I didn’t think she would do that to me. For all her faults—for all my faults—we had forged some sort of bond in Pinedale.
Maybe we’d even learned to trust each other. And I didn’t want to see all that ruined now that we were back. I glanced toward the house where Daddy was no doubt working.
I didn’t want him to pit us against each other. Not again.
“Tess?” I paused just outside the door to the house as Maria took some dishes from my hands.
Tess arched her brows, and we both waited until the servants went in before I finished. “Whatever you’re up to. Whatever this is…” I nodded toward the table where she’d been whispering with Vivien. “I want in.”
Four
Jack
I was in hell. It was official. The sun was so bright it burned my eyes, and the air was hotter than Hades even though it was November.
I brought up a hand and squinted as I got out of the cab at the address Amber had sent me when I’d finally gotten her to respond. She’d been a long time coming with the information and hadn’t offered up anything about herself or where she’d run off to. But at least she’d answered my SOS about how to track down my best friend.
Heaven forbid Brandon quit his silent treatment long enough to text me back when I tell him I’m coming to California to make amends.
Nope, I have to hear from Amber that he was starting to shoot the new version of his dad’s old show this week and he’d be on location on a site just south of the city. The location was teeming with trailers and equipment and trucks and people…
So. Many. People.
Like I’d said—hell. I wasn’t much on crowds in the best of circumstances, and after two planes and a miserably long cab ride, I was not in the mood for the laughter and the loud talking that surrounded me as I made my way past what looked to be a makeshift outdoor cafeteria and a long line of burly guys having a smoke.
“Hey, cowboy, you lost?” someone called out. I squinted and then blinked rapidly at the sight before me. A girl wearing short denim shorts and a plaid shirt tied just under her breasts. Her hair was parted in braids on either side of her face like she was some porno version of Daisy from The Dukes of Hazzard.
And then she took a couple steps closer and I squinted in disbelief. “Amber?”
“Good to see you too, Jack.” She moved toward me with slinky, sexy movements like she was putting on a show. For whom? I had no idea, but her arms twined around my neck, and her barely covered top was pressing up against me and—
Who the hell was this? It was Amber, but not. And not just in looks. It was her smile, her sultry gaze… It was everything about her.
“Okay, what is happening here?” I gently pried her off of me, and with one more laughing look to someone in the distance, she turned back to me with a smile that was much more in keeping with the Amber I’d grown up with.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my brain finally catching up with my senses.
Her eyes widened and her gaze flicked over my face like she was trying to read me. “Didn’t Brandon tell you?”
I frowned. “You know he hasn’t spoken to me in weeks.” More like a month and five days, but who was counting?
“Yeah, well, I figured by now you’d have learned about… everything.”
My eyes narrowed as hers widened further. “About what, exactly?”
She glanced over my shoulder again. “You know what? I’d really better go. I’ll tell Brandon you’re here and looking for him.”
I opened my mouth to call her back because… I had questions. So many freakin’ questions. “Hey, what did you mean—”
“Do me a favor, ‘kay?” She spun around on one of her spiky heels, and my mouth gaped. Seriously. Who ever heard of cowboy boots with heels?
“What’s that?” I called back.
“After you’ve talked to Brandon…” She hesitated, her sexy saunter faltering for a second as she licked her lips, her amusement fading. “Don’t hate me forever, all right?”
“Hate you for—” I shook my head because she was already heading around a corner. Off to find Brandon, I supposed.
My attention was caught by the most ridiculous scene I’d ever witnessed. And no one was even filming. A young shirtless guy with a six-pack and oiled up skin was attempting to wrangle a horse, and he was failing. Miserably.
My squint turned to a grimace as I watched the scene unfold because… holy crap, someone was going to get hurt. The guy clearly had no idea what he was doing, and his eyes were nearly as wide and panicked as the poor horse’s.
I looked around to see if anyone was going to step in, but when the mare started kicking, I moved in, jumping over the fence that kept this horse and a few others penned in and walking up to the shirtless moron who was trying to hang on to the reins for dear life. “Can I give you a hand here?”