Samara cleared her throat, reaching for Jane’s cap, eyes narrowed. “Send Jane in, would you?”
He stepped outside, taking a deep gulp of fresh, clean air, and trying to get his head around what had just happened: Lars Lindstrom, one of the biggest playboys in the Yellowstone area, had just turned down the advances of supermodel Samara, because he couldn’t get Jane, who’d rejected him, out of his head.
“I’m going to start drinking,” he muttered, putting his hands on his hips and staring up at heaven.
“Champagne?”
He turned to find Jane standing behind him, likely referring to Samara’s intended rendezvous. She knew Samara’s plan for him to come over tonight and drink champagne? Of course she did. She wanted him to be free to do what he needed to do, right? God, this whole situation is so fucked up.
“No, Jane. I have to work tonight.” His words were clipped, curt and angry.
But something inside of him softened instantly as he heard her soft intake of breath in a surprised gasp.
“You…said no?” she whispered.
He watched her cheeks flush pink with an unguarded, pleased expression that widened her eyes and turned up her lips in the slightest smile. The afternoon breeze moved her curls, and he wanted to reach over and wrap one around his finger. Amazement continued to play out over her face as her brows knitted in wonder or confusion, and she held his eyes, her lips still and soft.
Suddenly, touching a curl wouldn’t be enough; his heart hammered with emotion as he stared into her eyes. He wanted to grab her, seize her lips with his punishingly, unforgivably. It felt like a million years since being in her bed Monday night and he was angry that he still wanted her so much. Angry that he had just turned down guaranteed sex with a supermodel because he didn’t feel about Samara the way he felt about Jane. He was angry with her for making him feel discarded and he was especially angry…
…because as he gazed into her eyes, he felt hope that they could still work out. And he hated himself for hoping.
“She suggested tomorrow instead,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed on his like lasers, blazing and hot, and as he stared at her, a smile spread across his face and he sucked in a satisfied breath. Despite all the work she’d put into making him think it was over for them, her eyes told him everything he needed to know; everything he’d been longing to know for two long days as she ignored him.
No woman looked that way at a man she didn’t want.
He exhaled in a bemused chuckle, and raised his eyebrows, nodding, holding her eyes.
“Well, well. Look at you, Minx. “On ice,” my ass.”
Then he sauntered away, his body hotter and more excited for Jane than it had ever been for any woman, at any time, ever before.
Thank God he had turned down Samara.
He wasn’t giving up on Jane, after all.
***
Jane watched him walk away, feeling confused and bewildered. She couldn’t remember any man ever turning down a night with her cousin. Men moved heaven and earth for a moment alone with Sara.
My God, Jane thought, feeling a nervous giggle bubble up from deep inside, how did Sara take it? Did she just stand there, dumbstruck by his refusal? Jane didn’t recall scratch marks on Lars’s face, so maybe her cousin had been too stunned to react. She shook her head. Good Lord, the rest of the afternoon is sure to be unpleasant now!
But somehow that didn’t matter. A grin spread across her face as Jane’s heart thumped wildly, desperate to believe that Lars could be the exception, as he’d claimed. More than anything—anything at all in the whole world—Jane wanted to believe that it was possible for someone to want her, someone who she wouldn’t lose, someone who would belong to her. So that she could finally, after seventeen long years, feel like she belonged to someone once again.
After losing her parents she was frightened to hope. Losing Ben didn’t help either. Her tender heart barely dared to feel, and she had resigned herself to a life full of work. But, now, here was Lars. Who may or may not have a date with Samara tomorrow night, but had turned down a date with her today.
She remembered the facts laid out in her freshman statistics class: Consider an experiment that can only yield one result. The probability of the result is 99.9 percent, but there was always 0.1 percent existing for chance, for anomaly, for the possibility of random phenomena.
A random phenomenon. Could Lars Lindstrom be the 0.1 percent? Could he have meant it when he told her I’m not that guy? Could he actually be—
“JANE!”
Jarred from her thoughts by the melody of Sara’s dulcet, loving voice, she truncated her thoughts, shook her head and stepped inside. Sara was sitting at her vanity in purple underwear, a cigarette hanging from her lips as she wielded Margot’s heavy silver cutting scissors, which flashed like lightning in the dim light of the trailer.
Jane stepped closer, her eyes widening in horror as she realized what her cousin was doing.
“What are you—NO! No, Sara! Stop! Please! Stop!” Jane ripped the scissors away, throwing them across the trailer. Whimpering in pain, she gathered up the cut-up scraps of faded, beat-up canvas from her cousin’s lap and clutched them to her chest. Tears of outrage burned her eyes and a desperate cry of sorrow escaped from her throat. “How could you? How could you, Sara?”
Tears trailed down Jane’s cheeks as she stared at her cousin in disbelief. She felt the jagged-cut edges of the old fabric against her fingertips as she cradled the pieces of the beloved cap in her hands.
The old baseball cap had been Jane’s version of a security blanket, a tangible reminder of summer Saturdays enjoying a baseball game with her dad at Candlestick Park before she was forced to move from San Francisco to Boston as an orphan.
It reminded her of happy times, of feeling warm and loved; it didn’t smell like her father’s head anymore, and it didn’t look as it did when he wore it. It had faded and frayed from so much use and handling, but she loved it—it was her most treasured thing, and now it lay broken in her hands, in pieces.
“You unbelievable fucking bitch,” Jane murmured, shaking her head back and forth and backing away from Sara.
And just like that, the third of those threads snapped inside, untethering Jane even further from her hateful cousin.
Sara had the decency to look sheepish.
Maybe she knew she had overplayed this hand. She shrugged as she stubbed out her cigarette, speaking gently. “C’mon, Janie. I was sick of that dirty old thing lying around. It was…distracting. I’ll buy you a new hat. Any hat you want.”
“I don’t want a new hat…” Jane leaned against the door, examining the pieces in her hand. Sara had severed the brim from the cap, and then cut the cap in three large pieces, but the front piece that held the red, once-fuzzy B was still intact. Jane took the other three pieces, and gently lowered them into the garbage, then put the B into her back pocket. When she looked back up at Sara, her eyes were cold.
“I should quit right now and leave you here by yourself.”
Sara’s eyes widened in panic. “Now, Jane. Don’t be rash. I’m sorry I hurt your little hat—”
“I’m not going with you to Jackson Hole this weekend,” Jane growled, low and furious.
Sara looked surprised, then tilted her head to the side, trying to be charming, cajoling. “Janie, come on…”