Just as Stubborn Read online

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  JUST AS STUBBORN

  A Novel

  Jeanne Arnold

  Just as Stubborn is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, brands and dialogues in this book are either of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Jeanne Arnold

  www.jeannearnoldbooks.com

  Cover design by Jeanne Arnold

  First Edition

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Produced in the United States of America

  Dedicated to my loving husband.

  Just as Stubborn is the second novel in the Stubborn series. For the first novel, Stubborn, visit www.jeannearnoldbooks.com.

  One

  I finally got my chance at freedom and I was going to die.

  I pictured myself taking a nosedive into a meadow of yellow canola crops. There were plenty of fields where I was headed, more open pastures than anywhere else in the country. Possibly I would impale myself on an oil derrick. The thought made me shudder.

  My purple fingernails bent back as I dug into the vinyl headrest in front of me and held on for dear life. My shoulder slammed the man’s arm beside me as I nearly landed in his lap. I no longer fought against the awkwardness of brushing up against a stranger. I fought to keep my heart in my chest and my stomach contents contained. I truly believed I was going to crash. The bile rising from my belly told me so.

  The jet cut through choppy air like a sideways jackhammer. Turbulence wasn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy. The bumpier the air pockets, the more difficult it was to convince myself the plane wasn’t going to spin out of control and plunge. I was prepared to spill my drink into my shoe or have the storage compartments spew their innards through the cabin. I wasn’t prepared to die.

  Handling the snickers and stares that were clearly directed at me seemed like a cakewalk compared to accepting my imminent landing. I had plenty of experience causing jaws to unhinge on my last journey, traveling with an urban thesaurus scribbled across my face. At best, I hid those obscenities with a clever haircut.

  This was different.

  I could no longer tolerate the burning itch on my broken leg as it sent me down a manic, spiraling path into certain psychosis. The guy sitting across the aisle couldn’t contain his amusement when I lost two pencils trying to quiet the irritation inside my cast. There was nothing remotely humorous about my situation except that it happened to be a well-timed distraction.

  A man up front, the only one not wearing a Halden-Remington cap, boasted he could land a B-52 sideways in a crosswind. I couldn’t spare my voice to remind him we weren’t in a B-52 and he wasn’t the pilot. We flew above the expansive prairies in a prop job—a contraption my Aunt Meggie, an ex-Air Force pilot, once warned would be the death of everyone. I was going to end up mangled in the oilfields of North Dakotaland accompanied by an all-male troupe of jokers.

  I needed to see Gabriel J. Halden as much as I needed oxygen. It took me two months to save up enough cash to book a flight to Williston. I wanted to do it on my own. I left during the first break of my senior year, without telling anyone at home where I was heading. Waiting another day wasn’t going to happen, whether I dragged a leg cast along with me or not.

  Not surprisingly, the image of Gabe’s face in my mind’s eye was enough to keep me from hyperventilating as the plane came in really fast without the wing flaps down. The packs of grabby men didn’t ruffle me one bit as I hobbled through the airport in Dickinson, North Dakota. A sense of invincibility came along with the relief that I was alive, yet my entire nervous system took some time to recover from the jarring landing.

  It was almost time.

  Lane Halden arranged to pick me up and drive me north to see his baby brother for the first time in two agonizingly long months. Two of the best and worst months of my entire life. I knew Lane was waiting, and I knew the sooner I found him—the sooner I saw those familial hazel eyes—the sooner I’d be in Williston looking into the eyes of the brother I truly loved. I had to laugh at the absurdity of my situation. I practically died trying to get to Williston, unlike months earlier when I wanted to jump in front of a train in Chicago and end my enforced vacation out west. Had anything back home wrenched my plans this time, I would have stolen a car or hitchhiked from Syracuse. It excited me to think I was in the same state as Gabe. I was on a mission to show him how much I missed him and to tell him my news in person.

  As I entered the concourse, I noticed the confident stance, the broad shoulders, at first glance. My heart spasmed in my chest, and for a fleeting second, I experienced pure joy. He sure looked like Gabe Halden from the back, but I could tell by the way he lifted his arm to reach up and tip his cowboy hat that he wasn’t. I was convinced once he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and leaned into the wall with a pose.

  My heart crushed a little anyways. I wasn’t going to last another hour without seeing the real Gabe.

  I narrowed in on a low-cut top and painted-on jeans, bending to scoop up her bag and toss her hair extensions over her shoulder. I quickly realized her hair wasn’t the only thing phony about her. She caught my eye, and we held our stare. My limp became slower and slower, and the itch worsened as I dragged my carry-on closer to her. That’s when he turned to see what was pulling her attention from him.

  He wasn’t even the phony Gabe I thought he was going to be.

  “Howdy, legs,” Caleb Halden said.

  I wasn’t prepared to see Caleb or to sit in a pickup truck with him and his roaming eyes for more than three hours of caravanning, oil industry traffic.

  Where was Lane? I had a hundred million questions prepared about his supposed girlfriend, Molly Taylor, and her pregnancy and what happened with HalRem and Gabe and their father’s heavy-handed manipulation.

  “I’ve been waiting over a dang hour for you to land. And what the devil happened to you? Can’t be calling you legs now, can I?”

  Obviously he and his brother didn’t talk much. I smiled and shook my head at his Texan drawl. I missed it. But not from him.

  “Why are you here? I thought Lane was coming.”

  “You know you’re not disappointed.” He feigned a frown. “Hot pink? Hot damn, Avery. Did it hurt?”

  My breath blew out hard. I was going to have to address the plaster eyesore. “Yeah, it hurt. Do you like it?”

  “C’mere. Lemme see. Can I sign it?” he asked.

  I lifted my cast a few inches off the ground to show him what was visible below my rolled jeans, and he grabbed onto my shoulder instead and pulled me into a tight hug.

  He smelled really good.

  The girl grunted and snapped her gum. She took off for the vending machines when he lifted me off the ground and swung me around in a full circle.

  “Okay, okay,” I said in a giggle. “I missed you, too, Caleb. That’s enough.”

  “Well, you better have missed me.”

  “Your friend didn’t say goodbye,” I pointed out.

  “Don’t mind her. She’s a Vegas transplant. I’ll catch her later at the bar. I got the whole week off, l
egs. Now tell me how you got this ugly-ass plaster sock.”

  “Basketball. I was supposed to have it off yesterday, but the roads were iced and I missed the appointment. It’s healed. I had the final X-ray and everything.”

  Caleb stepped back and tipped his head sideways. “No worries. I know how to get that thing off. I got a chainsaw in my truck.”

  * * *

  The waitress set a bowl of ice cream down in front of Caleb as I straightened after wedging a straw in my cast, trying to reach the dreadful itch. His blazing eyes didn’t leave my face to appraise his dessert as he plunged his spoon into the bowl and lifted it to his mouth. The diner rattled in the wind. He claimed he needed to eat before he could take me to Williston.

  “My dad’s been all shouty for a while. Somebody rammed a boot up his butthole. Meggie says he’s just worried about the baby coming. But I know something more is going on. It’s big, whatever it is,” he said.

  I wanted to grab the keys and tear out of the diner. I needed to see Gabe before I lost my mind or Caleb dragged the meal into Christmas. I had a difficult time looking at him looking like Gabe. The two-year age difference was hardly noticeable.

  “Why did he change his mind about you and Gabe overseeing your own outfit on his oil wells? I don’t get why he called Gabe back to work. He’s supposed to find a place to live in Syracuse and start school in January, not work in the oilfields. It’s so unfair that your father threatened to pull the plug on college after he got him in. Gabe already took a year off from school.”

  Caleb ran his hand down his face in an expression of exasperation while I caught my breath.

  “The Lieutenant Colonel gets whatever he wants, legs. He don’t want Gabe in New York or having a girl take him away from the oil. What pothole have you been hiding in? Meggie probably coaxed him into getting Gabe into college, and then he went and changed his tune when it suited him. He just decided one day to hand over Dakota operations to Lane. I shot from roustabout to operations manager quicker than I could spit. I don’t even come home dirty no more, for all it’s worth. I think Meggie gave him a lobotomy.”

  I dropped my gaze as he winked and scooped up the last of his ice cream. His hand slinked across the table to touch mine and then lifted to reveal his credit card. He let his finger graze my wrist before he withdrew. I held my breath. He still had a way of messing with me.

  “Meal’s on me. I’m rolling in it. One good thing about the old guy being out of our hair up here. Lane pays us what we’re worth. About time too ’cause I got needs. Plus, I’m gonna be an uncle.”

  “Or a daddy,” I replied before I could tell my brain to shut up. I slid the handle of a spoon inside my cast and avoided his eye. The Benadryl I’d taken at four in the morning had worn off during my two changeovers and one nail-biting commuter flight. “Are you and Lane good?”

  “Yeah. I don’t give a flip that Molly played us. What’s done—done happened, you know? I’m taking bets she got it on with that old dude from the Lakota tribe she was working with at the pharmacy. I won’t be surprised if the baby doesn’t have green eyes when he pops out. Let’s split.”

  I called after him as he shot to the door. Wind blew through the lobby as I hobbled closer. “The last I heard from Molly she was going to finish out her semester and move to Minnesota to live with her grandmother. Don’t you care if it is your baby?”

  He spun around and set his hands on my shoulders. “Now what am I gonna do if it is mine? I don’t know nothing about raising a kid. Lane, he’s a lovesick fool, just like my little brother’s become over you. Lane went and chased after her, but she wasn’t at school and her family won’t help him find her. He’s looking for her in Minnesota now. Anyhow, she said she doesn’t want Haldens involved. She has her own life.”

  * * *

  I didn’t recognize Meggie’s farmhouse when Caleb pulled onto the property. I hadn’t noticed the paved driveway until I got to the back porch and did a double take at the blacktop. I was amazed at the transformation. The house and the boarding house she ran, affectionately known as the coop, each had a fresh coat of paint and new shutters. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember seeing shutters during my last visit. Gabe never even hinted about renovations.

  The backdoor didn’t creak, and the worn steps were stained a deep red. I was blown away when I entered the kitchen. Gone were the outdated appliances, and in their places stood shiny stainless pieces of art. I seriously questioned how Meggie allowed the makeover to happen.

  Caleb was mistaken. Mr. Halden must have been the one giving the lobotomy.

  The only thing recognizable was the timeworn telephone on the wall. The one Gabe used to call me from every other night because he was too stubborn to buy a phone and join the twenty-first century. The one with the spiral cord that stretched so far he could hide in the hall closet and talk dirty to me if he was in that kind of mood. Lately, he had been.

  Thinking about seeing him in person and touching him made my scalp prickle with excitement. According to his brother, Gabe was due back by dark. My anticipation grew, causing an ache in my stomach like a five year old waiting for Christmas morning. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would’ve called a cab and hunted him down at his site near Epping. I could’ve asked Caleb to drive me, but he kept trying to touch me during the ride to Williston. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to encourage him with another favor and have to owe him something in exchange. So I let him add his John Hancock to my cast along with all of the other graffiti, before he took off for town, promising he’d cut it off when he got back.

  Somehow, I believed him.

  My cousin Josh was nowhere to be found, nor did he answer his phone. Meggie was due to give birth in a week with no sign of labor. Mr. Halden made her an appointment with a specialist in Texas and insisted she drive more than a thousand miles to appease him, even though nothing was wrong. She didn’t actually drive. He sent a limo with a certified nurse-midwife to boot. Caleb claimed his father was trying to get her to Texas so she’d get stuck having his baby there and maybe finally marry him.

  With time to kill, I headed outside to look around. None of Meggie’s borders were home from their shifts. Compared to back home, the autumn weather was mild. Yellow leaves from the cottonwood tree scattered in the wind. I decided to relax on the new hammock. The reality of my shaky flight was starting to set in.

  The poking woke me. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep, but I woke up quickly. The setting sun crept toward the wheat field as I squinted at the attic window. My old window. The window from where I first laid eyes on Gabriel Halden. I kept my arms curled over my chest, inside my sweatshirt. A snowflake hit my eye. And then another.

  The poking continued.

  “Caleb Halden,” I huffed. “Get out from under the hammock. How old are you?”

  His red HalRem hat sat beside my sneaker on the ground.

  “Leave me alone. I’m napping. I almost died in a plane crash.”

  He poked a little lower on my back. I wasn’t going to give him any more satisfaction. I tried to ignore his childish play while I resisted sitting up to itch my leg. Why did he have to come back?

  He poked the pocket of my jeans and tugged on my belt loop. I got chills when his fingers grazed the skin at my hip inside my waistband, and then he pinched me. I bit my lips closed, and the hammock swung high to one side and almost tipped, but I pushed my arms through my sleeves and hung on. A hand grabbed my cast and flipped the netting so fast it caused me to pop out and land on top of him. I lifted my face from his chest and gasped.

  “Now do I really look like Caleb?”

  My hands slid off his shoulders and into the damp grass so I could push up. The smirk on Gabe’s face was priceless. I just had to kiss it. But before I let my lips ravage his smile, he grabbed my face and held me back.

  I was breathless. He was gorgeous.

  “Lemme look at you, Av’ry Ross. Dang, I missed your pretty face,” he drawled into the noisy wind. “You’re nut
s coming out here again. What about a plane crash?”

  His hazel eyes gleamed. His hair looked longer, tussled. Sexabulous, as my best friend, Janie, put it when she first met him and turned into a blubbering idiot. My stomach did a summersault all the way to Montana as I lost myself in his eyes.

  But I desperately needed to kiss those lips.

  “I missed you so much, Gabe. I hate that you left me in New York.”

  “I hate that I missed your birthday,” he whispered into my ear and tickled my skin with his breath. “I saved your present. It’s ready.”

  “I have something to tell you first.” I couldn’t take it another second, so I plunged my lips into his smirky grin and kissed him a hello like he never saw coming. His lips were waiting, all warm and soft and sweet. He’d been sucking on Mentos. I could taste them.

  Angels screamed the most heavenly sound in my ears. Or maybe it was the whistling wind. I didn’t care. I was with Gabe again. My life was perfect.

  Gabe slid his hands down my back and squeezed me into his embrace, grasping me inside the sweatshirt. Before I knew it, we rolled over and he trapped me under all of his weight. The harder he kissed me into the grass, the more my lips hurt with wanting.

  I kept my eyes closed, fearful I would wake from a dream.

  “Well, howdy, Av’ry,” he moaned into my tender mouth and pulled a leaf out of my hair. “I’m not letting you go. I got big plans for you and me. Just you wait.”

  Gabe ended the reunion and dragged me inside when a freak squall of snow flurries blew through.

  The touchless faucet ran like magic in Meggie’s sink. “You must be fixing for an outright war with the folks,” Gabe said as he leaned into the counter and drank from the stream. I studied him head to toe, absorbing the details, slowing my eyes on the way down. When he spun around and swiped his mouth with his flannel sleeve, my heart fluttered. I’d never seen him in cold weather clothes. His name was embroidered on his open shirt under the HalRem Texas flag logo. The way his tight undershirt hugged his waist made my bones shake. He wore a scuffed up pair of cowboy boots.