The Truth About Tate

He raised both hands palm out to show that they were greasy, and she lowered her hand to her side. “Who exactly are you, Jordan?”

He looked at J.T., then uncomfortably replied, “I’m—I’m Tate’s son.”

Tate, she knew from her sketchy information, was the elder of the two Rawlins sons. They both lived and worked on the ranch with their mother, and both were single. J.T. had a habit of picking up speeding tickets, and he and his brother had landed in the county jail for a few youthful offenses involving too much booze, pretty women and hostile competition for the ladies’ affection. They owned the ranch outright, though occasionally they had to take out a mortgage to get through a tough season, and they were both good credit risks, Tate more so than J.T., though they were never going to get rich from ranching. That was about the extent of what she’d learned before leaving Montgomery.

“Do I get to put any conditions on this agreement?” she asked J.T. as he finally came close enough to hand the tool box to Jordan.

“Sure. You can take it…or leave it.”

“My, you’re so generous.” She smiled in spite of the sarcasm underlying her words. “I’ll take it, of course. I’ve already checked into a motel in Dixon. I need to pick up my stuff.”

“Any reason why Jordan can’t get it?”

She gave the same sugar-atop-sarcasm smile. “You mean, did I leave anything of an intimate nature lying about? Files? Drafts of the book? Notes of the senator’s comments about you?”

“You and I obviously have different definitions of ‘intimate nature,’” J.T. said.

With a faint flush warming her cheeks, she tried to remember what she’d done with the clothing—including a black lace bra with matching bikini panties—she’d taken off the night before. She’d been tired when she’d checked into the motel, and she’d changed into her pajamas and fallen into bed…but not before stuffing the clothes into a mesh laundry bag.

Removing the motel key from her key ring, she offered it to the boy. “If you’d save me forty more miles on the road after yesterday’s trip, Jordan, I would be ever so grateful. There are a couple of suitcases, a laundry bag, some papers on the table…oh, and the stuff on the bathroom counter.”

Jordan accepted the key, then, at a nod from his uncle, he grabbed his T-shirt and headed for the house.

“So…would you prefer that I call you J.T., Joshua or Josh?”

“I’d prefer that you call me long-distance.”

“A sense of humor. None of the other Chaney kids have one.”

That earned her a scowl and a hostile response. “I’m not one of the Chaney kids. Don’t call me that.” He circled the truck, then came back with a chambray shirt. She watched as he thrust his arms into the shirtsleeves, then started fastening the buttons. It was a simple task, one she’d seen done a million times, but he made it look…easy. Fluid. Sexy.

And that wasn’t something she should be thinking about the subject of her most important interview ever.

He finished up, not bothering to tuck the wrinkled tails into his jeans—a sight she would have paid money to see. Instead he simply stood there, waiting for her to say something, and finally she did. “J.T., Joshua or Josh?”

There was a certain reluctance to his voice when he answered. “J.T. will do.”

“Then shall we get started, J.T.?”

Chapter Two

If Tate had given it any thought, he would have expected Natalie Grant to be…hell, he didn’t know. Older. Stuffier. More the type to be interested in the affairs, both governmental and personal, of an old man. He would have imagined her as shorter, stockier, grayer and wearing sensible clothes.

The woman walking beside him toward the house was none of those things. She was beautiful. Leggy. Wearing a summery-looking dress that was short and sleeveless and clung from shoulder to midthigh. And she was a redhead.

When he’d come around the corner from the barn and seen that, his breath had caught in his chest, robbing his groan of any sound. Red hair came fourth on his list of weaknesses—right after Jordan, Lucinda and Josh—especially that particular shade of shiny-new-penny red. And long legs ranked right up there, too, along with sultry Southern accents.

Not only was he going to hell, but God was going to see to it that he suffered here on earth first.

“Interesting layout.”

He glanced at her and saw her gesture toward the house. “Mother-in-law troubles.”

“Whose?”

“The man who built the place sixty years ago. His wife insisted on her mother living with them. Unfortunately, the old lady’s only purpose in life was to make him miserable, so he built this house, but instead of putting the porch across the back, he stuck it between the two halves. The mother-in-law lived in the north half, while he and his wife lived in the south half. Now Mom lives in the north half.”

“And you, Tate and Jordan live in the other half?”

Tate swallowed convulsively. When he’d agreed to impersonate his brother, he’d realized he was going to have to answer to Josh’s name—though he was glad she’d offered him the chance to use J.T. instead. He’d actually been called that, off and on in his life, so it didn’t feel totally foreign.

But somehow he hadn’t realized that he was also going to wind up talking about himself as if he were someone else. Listening to Jordan admit to being Tate’s son, hearing her refer to Tate just now…it was too strange an experience.

“Actually, I have…my own place, but I’m…staying here while Tate’s gone.”

“He doesn’t trust Jordan to be alone,” she said with a knowing nod.

His anger flared. “He trusts Jordan completely. He’s a good kid.”

“I’m sure he is. But teenagers, no matter how good, are trouble waiting to happen.”

No one knew that better than Tate. He’d been sixteen and planning on going to college and having a career, instead of a backbreaking job on a ranch, when he’d met Stefani Blake, and he was seventeen and devastated when she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d offered to marry her, but she wasn’t interested. She’d had her future planned, like him, and there was no place in it for him or his kid. Two weeks after his eighteenth birthday, she’d given birth to Jordan, signed away all her rights and they’d never seen her again.

Tate had forgotten about college, a career elsewhere and everything else, and had put all his energy into being a father and making a go of the ranch. He’d changed diapers, fixed bottles and learned to bathe and dress a wriggly, squirmy kid, and he and Jordan had done a bit of growing up together.

He had no doubt Stefani had given him the better deal. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, it couldn’t be as satisfying as his life.

“This is a nice place. Have you always lived here?”

“Pretty much.”

“Do you have any employees?”

“We hire on help when we need it, but usually it’s just us.”

“And what do you raise?”

“We’re a cow-calf operation.” At her blank look, he explained, “We have a dozen bulls we breed with our cows. We sell the little boy calves, keep the little girls and let them be girlfriends with the bulls when they’re old enough.”

She gave him a chastising look. “I don’t need the explanations quite that simple.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t. Digging in his pocket for his keys, he led the way up the steps and across the deck to the side door of Lucinda’s quarters, then inside. The door opened into a broad room that doubled as a mudroom and laundry room. Off the connecting hallway, there was a bathroom on one side, a closet on the other, then a small dining room and kitchen straight ahead. From the kitchen a doorway opened into the living room, and from there another hallway led to the three bedrooms and the bathroom they shared.

The house was about twenty degrees cooler than outside, and was dimly lit, the blinds having been tightly closed against the sun. It smelled of furniture polish and mulberry, his mother’s favorite scent in the world, and it felt strangely empty.

Natalie gave a soft sigh as she closed the door behind her. “I don’t care what anyone says. Dry heat is not more comfortable than humid heat. At least you can breathe when there’s moisture in the air.”

“Have you always lived in Alabama?”