Change of Heart (14 page)

“Then you know what it’s like,” Miguel said.

“I do.” From where he stood, Gage could see the fire flickering in her eyes and wondered if it was a reflection of the bonfire or simply the painful memories of her past. “And you can imagine what it must be like for a young girl.”

Hector and Miguel exchanged a glance before looking at Leah again. “But all of the foster homes weren’t bad. Some were good people who legitimately wanted to help. They just didn’t know how to best handle someone like me, with the anger I tried to hold inside. Until Nicole. When I moved in with her, things changed. She made them change for me, made
me
change. She’s the reason I graduated high school, went to college. She’s the reason I’m here.

“At this ranch,” Leah said, focusing on Jude as she used his own words back at him, “with a bunch of young men who just need to realize that someone believes in them and can help show them a better way.”

The kid narrowed his eyes at her before looking at his three foster brothers. “Show
them
. I’ve got everything I need right here,” he said, poking one finger at his temple. “I don’t need your help.”

Jude stood up and strode away from the fire toward the corral where the horses were eating, leaving Leah and the others to stare after him in silence.

“W
HAT THE HELL
is your problem? She’s trying to help you.” Gage was having a hard time holding back his temper with this ungrateful brat. “You do realize they could have just sent you to juvie instead, right? But Chase and Jessie and Leah are all—”

“It’s not really any of your business, is it?” Jude barely gave Gage a backward glance. “Sorry if your girlfriend is on a mission to save the world, but I don’t want to be a part of it.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Jude rolled his eyes. “Sure she’s not, and I’m not a genius,” he said sarcastically.

Gage leaned over the pipe corral fence. “Stop bragging, it’s not that big an accomplishment. I should know.”

Jude narrowed his eyes but didn’t ask even though Gage could see the curiosity eating at him. “If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d be doing something besides causing trouble. Obviously, you’re a bright kid. Instead of being a criminal, why don’t you try following the rules for a change and watch how much easier life gets?”

“Where has following the rules gotten you?”

Gage didn’t miss the sarcasm in the kid’s tone. The truth of the matter was that he’d always been a guy who followed the rules, did what he was supposed to, the right thing, but that wasn’t helping him now. Kids like Jude, who hadn’t followed the rules, had made him look bad, breaking the rules and pushing through an untested program had ruined his reputation, and a partner who wasn’t following the rules might force him out of his business. Where had following the rules gotten him?

As if sensing Gage’s misgivings, Jude pressed on. “You probably sit in some cubicle, filing papers, slaving away for every dime you earn while someone else is sitting fat and happy with the millions you earn him.”

Gage almost laughed. If this kid had any idea how much money Gage actually earned each year, let alone how much he’d lost because of a kid like him, he’d pass out. “Not exactly.”

“Whatever, dude.” Jude waved him off, dismissing anything Gage might have to say. “I’m not going to work my ass off for someone else. I’m too smart for that.”

“So you’re too smart to work for someone else but not smart enough to avoid getting caught hacking into the school computer. Come on.”

“I only got caught because they think I threatened Mr. Greene. I was just reminding him that I could get into his head.”

Gage tipped his head to one side, focusing on the kid’s face in the dying light of the sunset. “Bull, you wanted to get caught. Why?”

“Don’t act like you know me.”

“You just wanted to prove to the teacher and the admin that you could do it, right? That they’d underestimated you.”

Jude looked up, meeting Gage’s gaze with apprehension. He suddenly looked like the lost sixteen-year-old kid he was instead of the hard-ass he wanted everyone to think he was.

Gage moved closer, recognizing the struggle of a kid as bright as he’d been in school. “So, school is boring and teachers just can’t teach to your level, right?”

Jude didn’t answer, but he also didn’t walk away. “And you don’t even bother to do the homework, because it’s as simple as basic addition.”

“I’m in all advanced courses, and I feel like a freak because everyone around me keeps saying how hard the work is.” He crossed his arms over the metal railings of the corral panels and leaned his chin against his forearms. “But it’s not and they look at me weird when I say it.”

Gage took a step closer, standing beside Jude, and hung his wrists over the railing. “So, you don’t even bother doing the work anymore, right? Inside you want so much more than just existing, but there’s nothing you can do on the outside.”

“Only when our foster mom notices.” Jude didn’t say anything for a while. He just continued to stare at the horses. “How’d you know?”

Gage inhaled deeply, letting out his breath on a sigh. “Would you believe I was just like you?” He turned to face Jude. “Except I kept it on the right side of the law.”

Jude glared at him, but there was little venom left in him now. He looked like a kid who wanted to believe in someone but had been burned too many times to trust anyone.

“I kept focused on school and grades, proving how smart I was. Following all the rules.” Gage saw the corner of Jude’s mouth lift slightly as he tried to hold back a smile. “In college, I found a great friend, George. We decided to start working together on programming. We wanted to show the world what we could do.”

Gage shook his head, thinking back at how idealistic he and George had been. They wanted to make a difference, to reach the stars. They’d been naive enough to think that money and power wouldn’t change them, or their ideas.

“Did you?”

Jude’s question jolted him back to the present, to the circumstances he now faced: turn his back on George or fight the money and power they’d let control their business.

“We did, for a while. Now some people who decided it was better to ignore the rules are trying to ruin us.”

Jude clenched his jaw and shook his head. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

Gage arched a brow at the kid’s expletive but didn’t say anything. He felt the same way. It was
fucked up.
To watch everything you’d believed in and worked for slipping through your hands.

“How do you think the school felt? You broke into their system, changed anything you wanted, and made them feel like fools. Even worse, instead of proving how smart you were, you just made them feel unsafe with you, like they couldn’t trust you.”

“But they won’t forget me, either.”

Maybe that was the point, for Jude to make his mark, but Gage read more into the comment. Maybe it was really a cry to have someone make him feel important, unforgettable.

L
EAH LOOKED TOWARD
the voices she heard coming from the corral. Part of her had wanted to get up and follow Jude, to explain to him how he could better focus his attention to stay out of trouble, how he didn’t have to change his personality but simply his perspective. Instead, she’d watched Gage follow him, keeping her eyes on the pair as they talked. The last time they’d talked it had turned into a shouting match, but this time, they seemed to reach some sort of understanding.

Gage moved closer to Jude, and she saw the boy’s stance relax slightly. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see that Jude was listening, taking in what Gage was saying to him, and that, alone, might be more than she could do at this point. He needed someone to reach him, and Gage was a good role model, better than she was.

Cody, Hector, and Miguel plied her with questions about her past, her experiences in foster care and how she’d managed to go to college after graduating. She’d answered them as honestly as possible without going into too many details that no one needed to know.

As the fire blazed bright in the darkening sky, the boys set up their sleeping bags behind the logs, close enough for warmth while still being protected from sparks from the fire. She moved closer to the railing that marked the edge of the cliff, overlooking the river that cut a path through the meadow below.

Pine trees scented the air, circling the ridge like sentinels, and the soft gurgle of the water flowing over the rocks below was soothing. She glanced back at the soft snap of twigs underfoot and saw Jessie walking toward her.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Would you have hired me if you knew?” Leah felt bad for keeping the truth from Jessie and Nathan, but she’d wanted this job—
needed
it—too much to risk being passed over due to a past she couldn’t change.

“I already knew some of it. I just didn’t expect you to talk about it.”

Leah looked at her in surprise. “Really?”

Jessie laughed quietly. “Haven’t you figured out yet that Heart Fire isn’t like most places? Broken people fit in here, Leah. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to your application from the start.”

Leah looked at the river below, shrouded in darkness, avoiding the sympathy she could see in Jessie’s gaze. “I’m not broken. Not anymore.”

A warm hand fell softly onto her shoulder and squeezed slightly. “We’re all broken, Leah, just in varying degrees. That’s what makes us human. That’s why we need other people.”

Leah kept her eyes trained on the landscape in front of her as Jessie walked away, feeling more secure in her position at the ranch but less confident about the illusion she’d wanted to portray. She wondered for a moment how Jessie would react if she knew all the sordid details of her past. Would they still want her working for them? Would she still be so understanding?

She shook herself from her reverie as Gage appeared beside her, his hands hanging loosely over the railing. She hadn’t even heard him approach. “I have to admit I’m a little surprised by how much you admitted to those boys,” he said.

She forced herself not to look at him. Even with more than a foot between them, she could feel the heat coming from his body, as if he was a bonfire on his own. And that was the problem. Getting too close to Gage was going to end with her getting burned.

“They needed to hear it, to know they weren’t alone here.”

His hand slid to the side and covered hers, his fingers twisting through hers, and she stared at their hands. His was large, engulfing her smaller one as the firelight played over them. However, it was gentle in spite of the size and strength of it. She flipped her hand over so that their palms were together. For such an innocent touch, it felt incredibly intimate when Gage’s thumb stroked the side of hers. Leah looked up at his face, lit only from the dying bonfire, shadows and light playing over his cheekbones and eyes.

“Gage,” she whispered in warning, but she didn’t remove her hand from his. She couldn’t deny herself his touch, any more than she could convince the warmth emanating from his body not to seep into hers. Or maybe this was some wildfire he’d ignited within her, sending waves down her body to nestle low in her belly.

Gage let go of her hand, and she felt a moment of disappointment until he stepped behind her, surrounding her with his body and curving his arms around her. “I know, just friends.” His chin rested on her shoulder as her brain ceased to function. “I just wanted to let you know you did great with those boys today.”

His breath was warm against her neck, and her traitorous body responded of its own volition, leaning back against his chest, letting the burn rage out of control.

“Jessie is lucky she found you.” His lips found a spot behind her ear and brushed against it, barely caressing the flesh as he spoke, sending a shiver of yearning through her body. She dug her fingers into the railing of the fence. “You should be proud of yourself.”

“Gage.”

This time her voice barely came out as a whisper of sound, a plea on her breath, begging him. But she didn’t know what she was begging for. Her body ached for him to touch her, to kiss her again the way he had in the early morning hours, but her mind was ordering her to get as far from him as possible. Her heart was caught in the middle. She liked him too much to push him away, but she was too afraid of the hurt he would bring to let him any closer.

His hands moved over hers on the railing, and he pried her fingers loose, twining their fingers and wrapping his arms around her again. “Leah, I won’t hurt you.”

“Yes, you will.” She dropped her head forward. “You aren’t staying.”

His lips found the outer shell of her ear. “What if I did?” Gage slid the tip of his nose behind her ear, his lips sending jolts of white-hot lightning through her body.

She sighed, frustrated with him and herself for feeling torn. “I don’t do relationships.”

Gage chuckled quietly against her neck, dropping his chin to her shoulder. “Have you ever tried?”

He let go of one of her hands and ran a finger over the line of her jaw, gently turning her face toward him. His voice was a gravelly sound, making parts of her body throb. “You’re asking those kids to step outside the box people have placed them in, to figure out another way to live the lives they have. Shouldn’t you be willing to do the same?”

His lips hung just above hers. If she tipped her head even slightly, she could taste him again. And she wanted to, damn it. Every part of her body was practically crying out to be kissed by him again. But Gage wasn’t moving any further. He’d conceded as far as he was willing. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she was certain he was waiting for her to meet him halfway, to commit to wanting this from him. He wouldn’t take a kiss, he wanted her to give it.

“Do you trust me?”

His words were a plea, whispering over her. She could feel his breath, moist and sweet, against her neck. It surprised her that after only a short time with him, she did trust him. She didn’t
want
to trust him, but she did. Her life had been simple without the complication of friendships or lovers, but somehow this man had wormed his way past her usual impenetrable defenses.

“Yes.” Saying the word aloud was almost painful, but it felt right. It was something she needed to do, and in that moment, Leah felt like she’d just taken a giant step away from her past and toward her freedom. “I do,” she reiterated.

She stood on her toes, brushing her lips against his tentatively, unable to curb the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “But I still have a job to do tonight, and you’re distracting me.”

Leah took a step backward, trying to put some space between them so she could think, but Gage pulled her close again, his palm cupping her jaw. She sucked in a quick breath just before his mouth slanted over hers. This time the kiss wasn’t a sweet caress but a heated fusion. His groan rumbled against her chest, pressed against his, as his tongue sought hers in a duel that left her limbs languid and weak, swaying into him for support. He withdrew slowly, making sure she could stand on her own, but it was still too soon.

“Go do your job. We’ll talk tomorrow when we get back.”