No, Justin didn’t resent Ben. He simply felt useless.
“Where’s my bride?” Ben asked, going straight to the cabinet to pour a cup of coffee for himself.
“Ran off with the milk man,” Justin drawled, sipping carefully at the hot brew in his mug.
“Neat trick.” Ben grinned as he strolled to the table. “As we don’t even have a milk man.”
Justin waved a hand in dismissal. “Minor point.”
“You rang, Your Lordship?” Karla emerged from the pantry to favor her husband with a smile. “Was there something you wanted from me?”
Ben flashed a wicked grin. “Yeah, but this isn’t the time or place. The boss is watching.” He jerked his head at the plate she was carrying. “I’ll settle for some of those cookies you’ve got there.”
Their affectionate banter created a hollow sensation in Justin’s midsection. Telling himself it had nothing to do with one Hannah Deturk and the bantering, laughter and tender moments they had shared, he attempted to fill the hollow place with cookies. His ploy didn’t work.
Through the long, seemingly endless days that followed, nothing worked. Including Justin. Leaving the majority of the ranch responsibilities to Ben, Justin brooded and prowled the house like a hungry mountain lion.
Hungry was the key word, and it had nothing to do with his stomach. How often had he reached for the phone, to place a long-distance call to Philadelphia? Justin couldn’t remember, but he knew damn well why he had never actually lifted the telephone receiver.
What could he say to Hannah? I miss you, and I’m hard as hell? Yeah, he derided himself. That ought to turn any woman’s mind and will to molten lava. And Hannah wasn’t just any woman. Oh, no. Sweet Hannah was her own woman, a fact she had made abundantly clear to him from the beginning.
Sure, she had agreed to spend a few days of mutual pleasure with him, Justin conceded. And the pleasure had been mutual, of that he had no doubt. For a man who had not so much as stayed a full night with a woman since his marriage ended, the pleasure had been intense, teeth-clenching ecstasy. As for Hannah, well Justin felt certain that not even the most skilled of actresses could have faked the depth of her response.
Still, their shared desire, and compatibility out of bed, had not kept her from leaving when she said she would.
Without saying it aloud, she had made it abundantly clear that she had a life back east and she wasn’t about to change it. Her determination to leave was unshakable. Despite his murmured plea for her to stay a while longer and the implied enticement of his last kiss, she had whispered a farewell, slid behind the wheel of her rental vehicle and driven away without looking back.
Unaware of heaving a heavy sigh, Justin stared out the window. The blizzard had long since blown itself out, but the temperature had not risen above the twenties since then. The snow remained, the unrelenting wind driving it into five-foot and higher snowbanks.
Damn, other than the inconvenience of getting back and forth from the house to the stables, Justin had never minded the snow before. What in hell was wrong with him?
“Why don’t you take a vacation?” Ben’s voice broke through Justin’s thoughts. “Someplace where the sun’s shining and the temp’s in the eighties. Find yourself a woman. You’re workin’ on my nerves, and you’re starting to worry Karla.”
“I’m working on your nerves and making Karla edgy?” Justin said in a soft, tightly controlled voice to keep from snarling at the man. “Maybe you and Karla are the ones needing a sun-filled vacation.”
“Not us,” Ben denied. “Karla and I are happy here, sunshine or not.”
Justin lifted an eyebrow. “And you think I’m not?”
“Oh, gimme a break, Justin. I’ve known you a long time, remember?” Ben shook his head. “In all that time I have never seen you like this, stalking about the house, staring out the window, sighing every couple minutes, not even when Angie took off with that smooth creep.”
“I sigh every couple of minutes?” Justin drawled in feigned amusement, feeling a twinge of alarm and ignoring the reference to his ex, because that wasn’t important. The strange sensation was. “I’ll think about it,” he said, ending the conversation by turning back to the window.
“Okay, I can take a hint,” Ben said with a short laugh of resignation. “I’ll mind my own business.”
“I appreciate it.”
Justin only vaguely heard Ben’s chuckle as he left the room. Staring out, he didn’t see the barren scene of winter white on the other side of the window. An image had formed in his mind, an image Hannah had drawn for him with her description of Pennsylvania. The verbal picture she had given him was of a different landscape, a vision of rolling countryside, lush and green, bathed in sparkling spring sunlight.
Blinking, he frowned, then turned and strode to his bedroom. Going to his desk he opened his personal laptop, and went onto the Net. He had some research to do.
Several hours later Justin shut down the computer and picked up the phone to call the company pilot in charge of the ranch’s helicopter. After asking the pilot to pick him up at the pad a short distance from the house, he pulled a bag from the closet and dumped enough clothes into it to last him a couple of days.
Following the near ennui he had been experiencing since he had returned from Deadwood, the rush of anticipation he was feeling was invigorating.
Justin placed another call before striding briskly from his room. He had what he figured was an interesting and potentially very profitable idea he needed to discuss with his brother, Adam.
His battery recharged, Justin gave a brief explanation to Ben as he drove him to the landing pad. The chopper was already there, blades slicing through the frigid air.
“Not to worry,” Ben assured him. “I’ll take good care of the horses.”
“I know you will.” With a wave goodbye, Justin headed for the helicopter.
“By the way,” Ben yelled over the roar of the spinning blades. “You look and sound like your old self again.”
Near the end of the second week of February, Hannah faced up to the suspicions she had been mentally dodging for close to a week, suspicions induced by the vague feeling of queasiness she had in the morning, the slight tenderness in her breasts. Needing more proof than just symptoms, she stopped by a pharmacy on her way home from work.
The strip from the particular home pregnancy kit she had purchased turned the positive color. Not an altogether complete confirmation, Hannah knew. There had been cases where the strip results had proved wrong, but…it definitely required a visit to her doctor.
How could it have happened? Not even in their most heated, impromptu and wild love play, had Justin forgotten to use protection.
Of course, no one ever claimed the protective sheaths were infallible, Hannah mused as she studied the inside of her freezer, trying to decide what to have for dinner.
Having heated in the microwave the frozen meal she’d chosen Hannah sat in front of it, considering the options available to her should her doctor’s examination prove conclusive.
Sliding the plate aside, Hannah laid her fork on the place mat and picked up the cup of green tea she had brewed for her dinner beverage, instead of her usual coffee.
Coffee. She sighed. She loved coffee, especially in the morning, all morning…several cups of coffee, regular, not decaf.
Hannah knew she would have to forgo her favorite drink if she decided to-
Oh, hell. Hannah took another sip of the tea. It wasn’t bad tasting. It wasn’t coffee, but actually was rather good as far as substitutes went.
That is, unless she chose an alternative. The thought set a wave of nausea roiling in her stomach. She gulped the tea in hopes of quelling the sensation.