Loveland by Andrea Downing

Author:Andrea Downing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2012-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Jesse knew with Alex there would be no half measures, that once she accepted she was in love with him, she would want it all, the whole experience of love, the whole of Jesse in the same way she went at everything, a summer cyclone sweeping everything up into its vortex. But he also worried that, while what she felt was real at the moment, that cyclone could blow itself out. Without nurturing her love for him, without keeping that fire stoked, he would lose her. For Jesse, it was a conundrum. He needed his own independence, he needed to take charge, but he also badly needed Alex.

Independence was the key word. While Jesse was aware that Alex’s feelings for him were intense, almost consuming, they would conflict sharply with her desire for freedom. From the moment she had pulled the trigger at camp Boyd, their lives had become permanently entwined yet she had no idea how to accept Jesse into her life while maintaining her independence.

When Jesse told Alex one morning in mid-July he was going into Greeley for a haircut, Alex did not ask to go, nor did she question it. It was only later it struck Alex as odd he had taken the rig rather than one of his mounts, but before she had time to dwell on this too long, Jesse returned, his hair still shaggy and long, but with someone in the seat beside him.

“David!” screamed Alex seeing him there. Her brother hardly had time to step out of the buggy before Alex jumped into his arms and practically toppled the young man over. “Oh, David, David! I’m so happy to see you.” She cried and laughed all at once, gave Jesse a big smile and even her Uncle Oliver a happy glance. “You kept this as a surprise, the lot of you. Oh, how mean,” she added, although she didn’t really think so.

“Well, let him come into the house for heaven’s sake, Alexandra.” Her uncle gave his nephew a hearty handshake. “We all have a lot of catching up to do.”

Jesse sighed as he heaved another great case off the back of the rig and helped the footman get the bags inside. It wasn’t that after the two-hour ride back from Greeley he disliked David, but he had already ascertained Alex’s brother was far truer to his background than was Alex. In believing this, he couldn’t help but wonder if David posed a threat to Alex’s happiness in Colorado and, consequently, to their relationship.

As it happened, he needn’t have worried. Alex remained in her western pants outfit and David made constant good-natured jokes about his “hobo sister.” Cal told Jesse it was like watching puppies playing together, and Tom added that it was a lesson in how the “leisured classes behave.” David kept to his English attire for all occasions, riding in jodhpurs and hacking jacket, or otherwise wearing a white linen suit, which always managed, by some miracle, to stay clean. He

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