More Than a Rancher. Claire McEwen
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not?” This was all so mysterious. Clearly she wasn’t going to win this argument, and she wanted to understand why.
He must have seen it in her face, because the steel in him softened just a little. “Because I can see down the road for Paul and it isn’t pretty. I wanted to cook and my family and my friends gave me nonstop grief for being different. I handled it, but it made me a lonely, angry kid. Eventually it made me a runaway. I don’t want that for my little brother.”
Jenna studied the stern lines of his face, new sympathy filtering through the irritation and frustration. Sandro might be misguided, but his motives were pure—he was protecting the brother he loved.
But poor Paul was going to have some long, bitter teenage years ahead if he wasn’t allowed to dance until he left home. She couldn’t do much more for him, but she had to try. “I’m sorry that happened to you, and I admire you for wanting to protect your brother. But don’t you think that if you forbid it, he’ll just want it more?”
There was a bag of groceries on the floor and Sandro was nudging it with his foot. Fidgeting, but possibly listening.
Jenna played her last card. “Maybe you should just let him try it. Dance training is hard. It’s difficult, repetitive and sometimes even boring. Most people end up quitting. Paul will probably lose interest when he gets to know the reality of it.” It was true that most people quit, but Jenna was pretty sure Paul wouldn’t. She could recognize a fellow fanatic when she saw one. Paul would make dancing his life—but Sandro didn’t need to know that right now.
He was watching her speculatively. For an instant she thought he’d say yes, but the moment passed and the wall was back between them. “I think I know what’s best.”
“Maybe.” Anger rose again. Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be. “I suggest you think a little more carefully before you squash his dreams.” She turned on her heel and left the room, sad for Paul and, oddly, sad for Sandro, too.
“WHAT DO YOU mean you’ll be in San Francisco?” Joe shoved the fence post deeper into the hole they’d just dug and gave it a kick with his work boot to make sure it was solid. Sandro glanced at his brother, all six-plus solid feet of him. Joe was a year younger than Sandro, but people always assumed he was older. With his light brown hair and broad face, he took after their father in more ways than just looks. Joe loved the ranch, had never questioned that his future lay there. He was the oldest son in every way but birthright.
Sandro poured the quick-setting cement into the battered wheelbarrow. Paul brought the hose over and let the water spurt over the dry powder. Grabbing a shovel, Sandro started mixing. “I’m teaching classes at a cooking school. It’s a great gig. It’ll pretty much pay for all the new appliances in the restaurant.”
“Oh, yeah. The restaurant.” Joe said the word as though it tasted bad in his mouth. “It’s a big weekend, Sandro. Pops wants all hands on deck to move the sheep.”
“Well, Joe, Pops has to understand that the sheep aren’t my first priority. I’m trying to help out with the ranch as much as possible, but I came back here to start my own business.”
“Okay,” Joe said reluctantly. “I get it.” He bent down with a level to straighten the post. “But why take Paul with you?”
Sandro started shoveling the concrete into the hole and Paul picked up his shovel to help. They were careful not to look at each other. “I’ll need extra help. My class is completely full. If I don’t have an assistant, there’s no way I can pull it off.” He glared at Paul, silently cursing his brother’s endless arguing, two weeks of it, that had finally worn him down.
He hated to admit it, but Jenna had been right. The more he’d said no, the more Paul had insisted he had to take her dance classes. Sandro could only hope she was right about the other part, that Paul would change his tune once he realized how hard the training really was. He jabbed Paul in the ribs with his elbow. “Besides, he’s a whippersnapper. Not much use to you out there anyways.”
Paul stood up at this and punched Sandro in the shoulder.
“Easy there, little brother.” Sandro grinned. “You don’t want to mess with the big guns.” He set aside his shovel and flexed his biceps a few times while Paul cracked up.
“Will you two stop clowning around so we can get this done?” Joe grumbled. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we have a truckload of these to set in the next couple days. Besides—” he held out his own arm, enormous muscles bulging “—I wouldn’t go showing off those biceps around here, Sandro. You may be the oldest but you’re a scrawny bastard. Comes from spending your life in a kitchen instead of doing man’s work.”
“Well, it’s a pity we can’t all be muscle-bound meatheads like you, Joe. But given the choice, I’ll take my brains over your muscle any day.” He ducked as Joe’s giant fist came at him in a mock swing. “So it’s a done deal. I’m taking Paul to San Francisco and the rest of you mindless country boys can follow the sheep up the hills.”
The truth was, Sandro liked moving the sheep. Riding into the mountains on horseback, making sure the flock got up to the summer meadows, was a hell of a lot more relaxing than teaching a bunch of pretentious San Francisco foodies how to make a decent paella. And the route to the pastures was beautiful, too. But the cash he’d make from these classes was way too tempting. And if it meant that Paul would finally stop making his life miserable and get a dose of reality to cool his dancing obsession, that would compensate for missing the ride. Hell, he’d missed it for the past decade anyway—what was one more year?
Sandro gave Paul a wink to acknowledge the success of their ruse and picked up his tools to head to the next posthole. As his spade hit the rocky ground, he used all the force he could to tame his unruly mind. Because all week his mind had been on Jenna Stevens.
And he had no business thinking about her. His life was in Benson now, not with some woman from the city. She was everything he needed to avoid—gorgeous, funny and flirty. Distracting. He’d made a choice to leave women like her behind in New York and he wasn’t going to choose differently, no matter how much he might want to.
So far work had been his solution. When thoughts of Jenna’s bright blue eyes heated his mind, he worked. When haunted by the vision of her stalking away after dinner that night, all righteous and fiery, he worked even harder. Since he’d been thinking of her almost nonstop, it had been a very productive couple of weeks.
But the endless work didn’t get rid of the shame he felt, and it irritated him. Jenna was kind, and he’d been hostile to her when all she’d been doing was trying to help Paul. Sure, he didn’t want Paul to dance, but that was no reason to be rude to her about it. There was only one logical explanation for his behavior—one which Sandro was loath to admit. When he’d walked into the kitchen and seen Jenna dancing in his brother’s arms, he’d been jealous. Jealous of the fun his brother was having with her, making her laugh as she turned so easily across the floor. He’d been jealous of a fifteen-year-old kid, and that was downright pathetic.
Even more pathetic, he’d spilled his guts to Jenna about his past. And he never talked about that. Outside of his family and a few folks in Benson, no one knew he’d run away from home. He wasn’t even sure how he’d ended up telling her. She’d seemed to genuinely want to know why he didn’t want Paul to dance. And her compassion had somehow gotten him talking about his crappy teen years and how he’d run off. She must think he was a pretty sorry case. He wished he didn’t care so much about what she thought.
He was just like Paul, he realized, as he jammed the posthole digger farther into the earth. Wanting something simply because he couldn’t have it. Maybe he should just try to sleep with Jenna and get her out of his system. His stomach coiled at the thought, some uneasy combination of lust and anxiety. That was certainly what he would have done a few months ago.
But that was just one more