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CLIVE FORCED HIMSELF to breathe, to behave himself. Clint was watching him like a hawk. His stepson wasn’t stupid; that was one thing the boy had going for him.
Clint was probably the smartest Gunderson in a long time.
Clive wanted to tell that girl exactly what he thought of her. To rip into her, put her back in her place, exactly where she deserved to be. Tylers were trash; had always been. He’d arrested more Tylers in his county during his tenure as sheriff than any other family. Good arrests, deserved arrests; Tylers were trouble. Every last one of them.
These girls were no different.
Why didn’t the rest of the town see that?
Clint drove him home. Boy didn’t say much until they were almost there. “You need to leave those Tylers alone. Those girls are not responsible for what Jay did. He made the choices. I’ve read the reports. I’ve been to the scene myself. Jay did it. Not those women. You need to be apologizing to them instead of harassing them. It was damn lucky that Perci and her twin and Masterson’s brother weren’t killed in the fire. Did you know a beam fell on the twins? A burning beam from a fire Jay set. Hell, if you were still sheriff, you’d have had to arrest him. Did you know that Pip and Matt went back in to get Jay? They could’ve left him to burn. And they didn’t. Those girls will always have the scars from what he did. They don’t need you making things worse. Leave her and her sisters alone. I mean it. You harass them in any way. and I’ll arrest you myself on something. Mark my words; I’m not joking with this. Enough.”
Clive didn’t say anything. No matter what Clint said, those girls were responsible for Jay. If Jay hadn’t seen them four years ago, his son would still be alive. That was indisputable.
“Those Tylers are trouble. Don’t you go looking in that direction. They may look nice, but they get men killed.” Tom Rutherford and Jay were indisputable proof of that.
Clint snorted. “I have no intention of looking at a Tyler woman. No matter how she gets under my skin. I don’t intend to look at a woman again for a very long time. I got problems of my own that I need to deal with first. But even if that wasn’t the case, a man would be damned lucky to get one of those girls. They are hard workers, kind, and loyal. Not to mention the whole lot of them are beautiful. They don’t need you making trouble for them. Not like you did before.”
Clive looked at the boy. Thinking once again how much like Clive’s younger brother he looked.
How can anyone not look at the boy and realize that this man was not Clive’s son but his nephew? Of course, he had covered the truth of Clint’s parentage up since the boy had been born. He didn’t see that changing anytime soon. He didn’t have his son anymore, but he had his nephew—who also happened to be his stepson. Why couldn’t he be happy with that? At least content.
Clint was all the blood relation Clive had left in the world—him and that baby girl.
Clive would never get Jay back. It was time he accepted that.
Because Clint would never be Jay. There were no other words to be said. Clint was never going to be his son. Because those damn Tyler women and those Mastersons had taken Jay away from him forever.
He didn’t have anything else to say until Clint dropped him off in front of his house. Clive had no intention of going in. He needed to get out. Underneath the Wyoming sky. To breathe. To think. He needed to do something.
Something to get the rage inside of him out. He just drove. Until he ended up right outside the country club. He waited until he saw the doctor’s truck go by, Masterson and that redheaded bitch inside.
Clive followed them.
And wept.