Forever a Maverick Page 2

  If she were still interested in men—which she most certainly was not—she’d note how well he filled out his jeans and T-shirt. How his forearms were as heavily muscled as the rest of him, which might make a lesser woman swoon. Or how the dent in the middle of his chin was begging for her tongue to run across it.

  But she wasn’t interested in men anymore, so all that passed her by.

  “You’re a Gries,” he said suddenly. Almost as if he was angry about it. Ash couldn’t throw his arms around anger right, not like she could. He ought to stop trying.

  “Yeah. It’s in the name, you know.” What a weirdo, to come all this way to tell her her own last name. “I’ve been a Gries for twenty-four years now—did you think I didn’t know?”

  He was giving her the look again. Juniper’s grandpa had taken up minerals and rocks in his retirement, and some of her favorites had been his pieces of tiger’s-eye. She’d spent hours turning the polished pieces over in her hands, watching as the light slid over the surface and got tangled in the variations of color beneath. Ash’s hazel eyes reminded her of those rocks.

  “No.” Ash set the cap back on his head.

  Juniper waited for him to say more, to give her something besides that look that made her teeth tingle.

  He didn’t.

  She didn’t have time for this—whatever it was. “Okay, well,” she said, jerking her thumb behind her, “Owen’s inside, and I can’t leave—”

  “Your boy needs a father.”

  The loose curl of her fingers tightened into a fist as an unholy rage rose within her. “He has one. And what he needs is for that father to buck up and act like one. Also, he has a name.”

  Okay, she’d been wrong. Ash’s looks had been as judgy as those of every other asshole in this town. But at least most people kept their crap opinions to themselves instead of driving out to her freaking house to deliver them.

  Juniper stepped back, ready to slam the door in his face.

  Only, Ash actually looked abashed, like he hadn’t meant to piss her off. “I know he has a name. It’s Owen. He likes chickens.”

  “How do you know that?” Juniper studied him from under her brows. “Not his name—the chicken thing.”

  Owen never talked to strangers. Even people he’d known for years sometimes had a hard time getting two words out of him.

  Ash took a deep breath, his heavy shoulders rising and falling, straining his shirt. “I saw him at the store one day, looking at the egg cartons. He said he wanted one to hatch so he could have a pet chicken. I told him about my chickens. Then you called from the next aisle and he ran back to you.”

  “He never told me.” She knew Owen loved chickens since he brought it up every time he saw eggs. But Juniper would swear Owen hadn’t even told his grandma that. “I can’t believe he talked to you.”

  “Well, I told him I had chickens. That might have inspired him.”

  Juniper squinted at Ash, so big and so awkward as he stood on her steps. Corn-fed was what people might call him, with his work-built body and deep tan. He didn’t strike her as the type to chat with little kids in the grocery aisles. He could hardly even talk to adults, as this conversation was proving. She barked at people to keep them and their judgments away, but Ash’s awkwardness was deeper than a reflex.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. The story about the chickens and Owen was cute but not exactly “drive out to her house” worthy.

  “I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  “What?” Juniper’s mouth fell open. She’d never had a proposal before—definitely not from the too-handsome deadbeat father of her son, although it would have been the decent thing to do. Not that Evan had ever done the decent thing.

  Ash wasn’t doing any kind of decent thing here. She had no idea what kind of thing he was trying to do.

  “I was going to ask you to—”

  She held up a hand. “No, I got it the first time. I just can’t believe it.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest, her ribs feeling too tight. She backed away, her arm tensing as she prepared to slam the door in his face. She’d never before thought Ash was a total weirdo, but clearly he was.

  “Why?” she asked, her horrified curiosity getting the better of her. “You’ve never even talked to me before.”

  Maybe he’d carried a torch for her. Maybe that was what those looks were all about. God, if that was true, it’d be awful. She definitely did not have deeper feelings for Ash Warner—or any feelings at all.

  He went awkward and fidgety, his thighs tensing beneath his jeans. “I need your water rights.”

  What the hell? Juniper’s lip curled with confusion. “My water rights? Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I pay the water company the same as everyone else. There’s no well here.” She cocked her head and studied his expression. His eyes weren’t glassy, and his pupils looked normal. “Did you hit your head recently? Have any dizzy spells? Or blackouts?”

  He crossed his arms. Holy heck, he had some biceps on him. “How do you not know about your water rights? You’re a Gries—you own the same parcel of land your family’s held since they came to Cabrillo. You have riparian and appropriative rights.”

  “Ripari… What? I…” She shook her head. She’d have to take his word for it since she didn’t know what that meant. “I guess. But I’m not a farmer.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ve inherited those rights.”

  Juniper had inherited the color of her eyes, her argumentative nature, and her grandmother’s china from her dad. But water rights? Why hadn’t her mother said anything?

  Probably because Mom was too busy remarrying, starting a new family, and building her career as the terror of the local school board. Things would have been different if her dad hadn’t died so early, but he had.

  “So I have water rights.” Apparently. Whatever that meant. “What’s your point?”

  “I need them.”

  “Couldn’t you… drill a well or something?” They had wells out here, not that Juniper had personal experience with it. And people did not get married to get water to their house.

  “I’ve tried. There’s no water.” The stark cut of his mouth told her exactly how bad that was for him. No water, no plants. No plants, no farm. She might not be a farmer, but she knew that much.

  “Okay.” Juniper lifted her hands, the better to ward off his idea of marriage. “You don’t have water, and I… do. I’m still not marrying you. Why would I possibly want to?”

  He was a good-looking man, but Juniper had fallen for good-looking once, and look where it had gotten her. And clearly Ash was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs with this proposal of his.

  “Well…” He gestured to her house. “You could come live with me. Or I’d… pay you.”

  Okay, her house was not that bad. It was clean, well insulated, and the roof didn’t leak. She and Owen were perfectly fine here even if it wasn’t newly built with a swing set in the backyard, all of it sitting on a cul-de-sac.

  Ash could take his proposal and his judgment and get lost.

  “Have you thought any of this through?” she asked.

  Ash blinked. Several times. But he didn’t try to defend himself.

  “Of course not, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing this.” She shook her head. If the idea weren’t so harebrained—and she wasn’t in such a bad mood and her head wasn’t pounding—it might have been funny. “The answer’s no. Now get out.”

  “But your boy. Doesn’t he deserve better?”

  Mama Bear came growling out in her next words. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare ever suggest that I don’t love that kid with all my heart. That I don’t do my absolute best for him.” She shoved her finger right into Ash’s sternum and pushed, although he didn’t budge, not even a millimeter.

  “I never…” His expression turned grim. Or rather, it shifted back into its usual grim lines. “I never said that.”

  “But you did when you said my boy deserved better.
I’m the one who decides what’s best for him, not you or any other person in this town. And Owen definitely deserves better than my marrying a man who wants me for my water rights. And you know what? So do I.” She swung her finger to his truck, pointing him to it. “Now go. Before I call the sheriff.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked utterly baffled at her reaction, and she almost felt some sympathy for him. Almost.

  “Prove it by getting off my property.”

  He nodded as he went down the steps, looking like a whipped dog even though he was built like a linebacker. Juniper swallowed hard at the sight. But better to slap him away than to give him false hope.

  Her jaw tightened. And she couldn’t forget what he’d said about Owen deserving better. Maybe that was true, but she didn’t need some taciturn farmer to tell her that while trying to guilt her into marrying him. He wasn’t any better than the other folks who sneered at her.

  They could all take a flying leap but especially Ash and his wack-a-doo marriage proposal.

  When she went back inside, Owen’s little head was poking above his blanket, the light catching in the highlights of his brown hair, his eyes wide.

  “The Chicken Man,” he said reverently. “Did he bring me a chicken?”

  What the heck? Owen remembered Ash? “The Chicken Man?”

  “Yep.” Owen scrambled off the sofa and went to retrieve his apple. “He has chickens.”

  “And of course you remember because you’re obsessed with chickens,” Juniper muttered under her breath.

  “Did he have a chicken?” Owen asked, as if it were perfectly natural for a strange man to come by their house to give them a chicken.

  “No.” But he did have a turkey of a proposal.

  Juniper turned toward the kitchen, then paused. He’d also said she had senior water rights. Which sounded very valuable.

  No way, no how was Juniper getting married, but maybe she could do something with those. Maybe she could sell them. Get a nice little nest egg and finally move away from Cabrillo.

  “Mommy?”

  Juniper snapped out of her reverie. “Yeah?”

  “You looked funny.”

  “Oh, I’m just thinking. I’ll make dinner now.”

  As she went through the motions of making pasta—again—she turned the notion of these amazing new water rights of hers over and over in her mind. And how she might use them to her and Owen’s advantage.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Juniper tossed the mail onto the kitchen counter and rubbed a hand across her forehead. That headache from yesterday still hadn’t gone away. Probably because she was tired—Owen was at preschool, and this was when she usually caught a few hours’ sleep—but also because she couldn’t stop thinking about what Ash had said.

  She had water rights. Valuable water rights. Maybe valuable enough to pay for a move somewhere else.

  If only she could figure out how to leverage them. That was the sticking point.

  If she could sell them somehow, she and Owen could leave Cabrillo and go someplace where they could have a house in the suburbs, where Owen could have friends and ride his bike and have a dog. Somewhere Juniper could get a better job with only a GED, somewhere no one knew them or their history. A place where her mother hadn’t pissed off half the town.

  Knowing her luck, there was probably nothing she could do with those water rights. But maybe Owen would become a farmer and he could use them. She could at least do that for him, small though it was.

  That was probably why she couldn’t get Ash’s proposition out of her mind. Not because she was seriously considering it, but because whatever she could get for her son, she would. She was doing her best, dammit, but sometimes she still felt like they were going under even though she was swimming as hard as she could.

  Juniper crossed her arms on the counter and laid her head on them. She ought to go to bed, but she was too damn exhausted to even do that. This marriage thing wouldn’t leave her brain.

  Being married to Ash would be a disaster. They hardly even knew each other. He was so quiet and so big, with those hands that looked as if he crushed boulders with them. And his gaze was so intense. That gaze was like a blast of heat from an oven going full bore, enough to blow back her hair and put a lasting flush into her cheeks.

  His mouth was soft-looking though, with a sharp cupid’s bow up top and a full curve below. That was a mouth made for kissing, not that she’d ever find out.

  Well, maybe she would in her dreams since she was already half-asleep and thinking about his mouth on hers. Unfortunately, she hadn’t sworn off men in her dreams, and Ash and his mouth had made an appearance last night. And a few nights before that.

  She sighed and lifted her head. This wasn’t the place to fall asleep, and she couldn’t waste any more of her precious rest time, not if she wanted to get rid of this headache.

  As she passed her purse on the dining table, her phone began to ring from inside.

  Crap. Please don’t let that be the preschool. But when she pulled the phone out, it wasn’t a number she recognized. Juniper went to put the phone back since she didn’t answer unknown numbers, but some weird twitch in her fingers had her hitting the Accept button.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Hello. Could I speak with Juniper Gries?”

  She didn’t recognize the caller, but it wasn’t a robocall. “That’s me,” she said, slow and cautious.

  “This is Melanie from the credit union. I’m calling about the overdraft on your account.”

  “The overdraft?” Juniper calculated quickly in her head. It was the twenty-second of the month; she’d get paid tomorrow. Which meant— “I should have $24.85 in that account. Until tomorrow when my paycheck clears.”

  If there was one thing Juniper knew in this world, it was the balance on her bank account to the penny. Other than her paycheck, there were no other deposits coming and no checks to clear.

  Except… Evan had sent a check last month for the child support. Juniper had kept it in her purse all that time, knowing it would be useless to try to deposit it. When Evan did bother to give her money, it was almost always cash—a check was nothing more than a way to get the state off his back about his delinquent payments. And lucky for her, he got paid under the table in cash, so there were no wages of his to garnish either. Evan was clever that way.

  So Juniper had held on to that check, thinking it worthless. Until an impulse had her slipping the check into the ATM two days ago when she went to get cash. It was going to bounce, but what the hell. Juniper didn’t have anything to lose.

  Except it looked like she did. Fucking Evan.

  “Is this about the check I deposited? I don’t understand how—”

  “Yes, it is,” Melanie said in her opaque, professional tones. “The check was refused for insufficient funds. There’s a twenty-five-dollar fee for that.”

  “You’re charging me because his check didn’t clear?” Juniper was going to kill him when she saw him next. If she ever saw him again.

  The bank person didn’t care about Juniper’s righteous indignation. “It’s very clearly spelled out in the account terms.”

  To be honest, Juniper hadn’t read the terms that closely. Mostly because the credit union didn’t have a balance minimum on their checking accounts. Beggars couldn’t be choosers when it came to who took their money these days.

  “And since the account is now overdrawn,” the woman went on, “there’s an additional seventy-five-dollar fee for that.”

  Juniper’s stomach crashed. Oh no. No, they couldn’t do that.

  That was one hundred whole dollars gone, just like that. Yes, she’d get paid tomorrow, but making up a hundred dollars? She grabbed for the counter as dizziness swirled behind her eyes. All the carefully arranged dominos of her financial situation were about to fall—thanks to a well-timed hit from the bastard who also happened to be the father of her kid.

  Bile climbed into her throat. And the bank—wh
at kind of assholes charged a fee when you were overdrawn? Apparently the same kind who didn’t require a minimum balance. So they’d kill her with the fees instead.

  “Okay. Okay.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t have a plan, but she needed one quick. Her first impulse—to swear a blue streak at the bank clerk—was a useless one. But damn would it feel good.

  Juniper couldn’t ask her mom for the money—she’d hit that well one too many times. And there was no one she felt comfortable asking for a loan. What to do?

  “I could pay you.”

  Ash’s velvet, dark voice echoed in her head. No. No, that was crazy. She couldn’t marry a man to get a hundred dollars. That was… That would make her as untethered from reality as Ash was.

  “Thank you very much for telling me,” she said quickly, realizing the woman was still holding. “My paycheck should clear tomorrow.”

  She hung up before Melanie could give her any more bad news.

  Juniper looked wildly around the house. What could she sell? Maybe that bookshelf. But that would only bring twenty-five bucks, tops. They didn’t have a TV, but there was her phone… No, she needed that.

  Nothing. There was nothing she could slap up on Craigslist to get a quick hundred dollars. There was Evan, who should be the one to get her out of this, but when had he ever helped her?

  “I could pay you.”

  Ash said it differently this time in her imaginings—more teasing, more cajoling. Not that she’d ever heard him talk like that.

  Juniper shook her head. No, not for a hundred dollars. Not actually marrying a man.

  Once Evan had made it clear that he wasn’t going to propose to her, once it was clear that Juniper was utterly and completely on her own with the pregnancy, she’d resolved never to trust a man again. Which was clichéd and stupid, but Evan had screwed her pretty good, in more ways than one.

  Juniper clearly had poor relationship-choice skills, so it was best to never choose a relationship at all. And once Owen came, there wasn’t time in her life for anything but him.