“You’ve stayed there before with them,” he reminded her.
“But Sam was still there then. Now she’s married and living with Nash on his ranch.” She drew her knees up, hugging them to her chest. “She’s at the Double-Cross almost every day, but it’s just not the same. I feel as if I don’t belong there anymore, that I’m a burden to everyone, though they assure me I’m not.”
They were spoiling her again, John Lee decided. He’d grown up with the McCloud sisters and had witnessed firsthand how both Mandy and Sam coddled their little sister. They were probably so busy hovering over Merideth, smothering her with attention, that they didn’t realize that they were only making things worse for her.
Merideth didn’t need spoiling. What she needed—in his mind, at least—was a swift kick in the butt to get her up and running again. As her friend, he figured it his duty to give her that kick.
“So why don’t you move out?” he challenged her. “You’re a big girl.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Move out? But where would I go? What would I do?”
That she would even ask him those questions convinced John Lee that he was right. Merideth needed help, and fast. A distraction, he decided. That’s what she needed. Something to take her mind off her loss, her problems.
And he had just the distraction she needed.
He braced a forearm over the saddle horn and leaned down. “How about dinner tonight? My place. I’ll throw a couple of steaks on the grill, ice down a few beers and we’ll talk about your options. Whaddya say, Merideth?”
“I don’t know, John Lee,” she murmured, resting her chin on the tops of her knees. “I’m not very good company right now.”
“So when were you ever?” He chuckled when her chin came up, her blue eyes sparking fire. Yep, he could still get a rise out of her. Not all was lost...yet.
“Seven sharp,” he told her. “Be ready.” He wheeled his horse around and loped away before she could refuse his invitation.
Merideth sat before her mirror, studying her reflection. Her eyes were dull, her face pale—in spite of the hours she’d spent sunbathing—and her cheeks hollow, a result of the weight she’d lost.
Grief was not a pretty sight.
With the hand of an artist she applied makeup, shading some areas of her face, adding color to others, until she’d created the mask she needed—one that her sisters would never see beyond.
But could she fool John Lee?
When he’d caught her sunbathing nude earlier that afternoon, her body wasn’t all she’d unintentionally bared to him. She’d bared her soul as well.
But not tonight. Not ever again. Merideth McCloud never displayed her weaknesses or her desires. She’d learned early in life that doing so gave people power over her...and no one would ever control her again.
With a defiant shake of her head, she pulled the band from her hair and combed her fingers through the thick blond locks, lifting and adding height and volume.
Rising she took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for the upcoming performance, the same one she’d given every day since she’d arrived at the ranch to keep her sisters from worrying about her, from guessing the depth of her grief, the extent of her financial problems.
As she did when she took on any role, she closed her eyes and focused inwardly, emptying her mind of every thought, her heart of every emotion, until she was hollow, a vessel waiting to be filled, a mound of clay waiting to be shaped.
Merideth McCloud. The most difficult role she’d ever taken on. The youngest of Lucas McCloud’s three daughters. The one without a care in the world but her own wants and desires. The one with the attitude.
Slowly she felt the tension ease from her shoulders and the energy begin to surge through her. She opened her eyes, one eyebrow arching a little higher than the other, her lips already curving into the sultry pout she was known for. She winked and the reflection winked back.
She’d found her, the old Merideth, and she’d be her...at least for the moment.
“Does she know?”
Mandy shook her head, but kept dusting, nerves making her movements jerky. “I don’t think so. If she did, surely she would have said something.”
“Should we tell her?”
Mandy stopped her dusting and turned to Sam, who had, as each of them did when one of the three was in need, responded to Mandy’s call for help. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried it. “If we do, I’m afraid she won’t go and I really think this might be good for her. She thinks she’s fooling us with this front she’s putting up, but I know she’s hurting inside. She needs to get out more and be around other people. Moping around here all day certainly isn’t helping.”
“Yeah, but is going to John Lee’s the answer?”
Mandy wrapped the dust cloth around her fingers and nervously twisted. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” Merideth asked as she strolled into the room. Dressed in a gauzy calf-length dress, she trailed a light, seductive scent in her wake.
Mandy shared a quick worried look with Sam. Frantically, she searched for a response, anything but the truth. “I don’t know where all this dust comes from,” she said with a sudden inspiration, quickly turning to push the cloth along the mantel once again.
Merideth raised her arms above her head and stretched catlike. “I don’t know why you even bother,” she said, stifling a bored yawn. “The furniture will just be covered again tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Mandy agreed, “but there’ll be one less layer of dust.”
Merideth shifted her gaze to Sam. “What are you doing here this late?”
“Making a vet call.” The lie came easily to Sam, because it could have so easily been the truth. She was often called to tend to a sick animal on the Double-Cross. She gave Merideth the once-over, pretending she didn’t already know her younger sister’s plans. “What are you all gussied up for?”
With a resigned sigh, Merideth sank onto the sofa next to her. “I’m going to John Lee’s for dinner. I saw him while I was out sunbathing at Cypress Pond. He caught me—well, off guard,” she said with a flutter of her hand that sent the gold bangles at her wrist clinking together musically. “When he offered the invitation, I didn’t have my wits enough about me to refuse before he rode off.”
“You don’t want to go?” Sam asked.
“Heavens, no!”
“Sure you do,” Mandy insisted as she ran the dust cloth over the mantel one last time. “It’ll be good for you to get out and have a little fun for a change.”
Merideth angled her chin to peer at Mandy from beneath a neatly arched brow. “With a playboy like John Lee?” She snorted. “I seriously doubt an evening with him will be fun.” She fanned her fingers in front of her face, checking her nail polish for any nicks. “Exhausting, maybe,” she added thoughtfully, “but definitely not fun.”
“Exhausting?”
“Yes, from dodging all his passes.”
Mandy laughed and dropped down on the sofa, squeezing in between her two sisters. “You make John Lee sound like some sex-crazed maniac.”
“He is.”
“He is not!”
Merideth turned to her. “How many girls in high school claimed that they’d slept with him?”
Mandy