David peeled his clenched fingers off the steering wheel one by one for the hundredth time since they’d left Rusty’s. Then he thought about Mary, and his knuckles went white again.
She lied. She lied. She lied. The refrain rang inside his head like a hammer on steel.
She’d been lying to him all along, playing him for a fool. No wonder she didn’t want him anywhere near Kylan. She was scared shitless what the kid might say. And now her worst nightmare had come true, damn her perfect little ass. Had she meant any of it? The kisses, the heat he’d seen in her eyes—had any of it been real, or had she just been humoring him?
“She told Galen she’d do anything.”
David pried his fingers loose again, rubbing clammy palms down the front of his jeans, first right, then left, as he steered the rig down Browning’s main drag. Kylan was mute with anxiety in the passenger’s seat. The stores and restaurants seemed as familiar as David’s hometown. He even recognized a couple of the stray dogs hanging around the grocery-store parking lot. Geezus. He had definitely been here too long.
Well, that was fixin’ to change. They’d swung by the county courthouse in Cut Bank on the way back. He had one signed, notarized copy of the contract stashed safely in his trailer, the other in his pocket. Muddy was officially his again, and there was nothing Mary could do to stop them both from leaving in the morning.
It remained to be seen whether he’d be traveling alone.
Kylan was determined to go along, but his bravado was pretty thin. Hell, he was so scared David could hear his teeth rattling from across the cab. Could he really stand up to Mary? David wouldn’t bet on it, but he knew one thing for sure. She was gonna blow a fuse when she saw what Kylan had done.
Bring it on, sweetheart.
As if in response to his mood, clouds had built up behind the mountains, churning gray and white around the peaks and sending a bitter wind whistling down across the plains. Gusts slapped at the pickup as they cleared the west end of town and made the short drive to Mary’s house. Her pickup was parked in front of the house, and she stepped out onto the deck as they rumbled down the driveway. David swung his rig around and stopped by the barn.
“We can do this, right?” Kylan asked, his voice small.
“Sure.” David stepped out of the pickup and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the mirror.
Mary met them halfway, her shoulders hunched against the wind, her steps tentative, as if she sensed trouble. Or maybe she could see the expression on David’s face. Her smile flickered and then faded, her worried gaze darting to Kylan. “How’d it go?”
“Awesome,” he said in the same tone of voice he might use to announce a terminal illness.
“Really?” Her gaze bounced to David, then back. “How come you both look so serious?”
Kylan shifted on his feet, sucked in a deep breath, and then blurted out, “I roped on Frosty and we did great and I’m gonna ride him at nationals.”
Mary blinked, confusion digging a furrow between her brows as she shot David a questioning look. “But…how? Frosty isn’t yours, David. You can’t leave him here. Can you?”
“No.” His face felt stiff, layered in plaster, his lips barely moving for fear the mask would crack wide open and all his rage would come pouring out. He pulled the contract from his pocket and shoved it at her. “Consider this my counteroffer.”
She fumbled, the wind trying to tug the paper from her fingers as she unfolded it. Her eyes followed the lines, left to right, left to right, the color draining from her face as she read. The paper crumpled in her fist, her voice climbing the scale as she stared at Kylan in disbelief. “You signed this without talking to me first?”
He ducked his head, unable to hold her stare. “It’s what I want,” he mumbled.
“What you want? Or what he talked you into?” She jabbed a finger at David.
“He din’t talk me into nothin’,” Kylan insisted. “We made a deal.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a hell of deal. For David.” When Kylan opened his mouth to protest, she stuck up a hand, shaking her head. “Go in the house. We’ll discuss this later.”
“But—”
“Go!” she barked.
Kylan shot David a pleading look. David considered arguing, but given that he was so pissed he could barely breathe and Mary was on the verge of a meltdown, there was a good chance things were gonna be said that Kylan shouldn’t hear.
“Go on.” David jerked his chin toward the house. “You need to start packing anyway.”
Kylan scowled but did as he was told. The instant the door banged shut behind him, Mary turned on her heel.
“Over here,” she ordered, and stomped across the yard to put the tipi between them and the house. The wind plucked at her hair, whipping it into a crown of spikes as she spun around to face David. “I knew it! I knew if I let you get too close, you’d find a way to get to him.”
He took another step, looming over her so she had to tip her head back to glare up at him. “Congratulations. You’ve been looking for an excuse to blame me since the minute I showed up. Now you’ve got one.”
“Oh, please.” She shook the contract at him. “You just scammed a teenager, and you’re still trying to pretend you’re the man in the white hat?”
“I’m not pretending anything.” He jabbed himself in the chest with one thumb. “I’ve been up front all along.”
Her eyebrows met in a scornful peak. “Uh-huh. Like the way you didn’t bother to run any of this by me before asking Kylan to head off across the country with you?”
“He’s eighteen years old. I thought he should be asked first. Unlike you and your attorney, who didn’t even include him in the conversation.”
“We were speaking on Kylan’s behalf,” she said stiffly.
“Because you didn’t want him to know what kind of bullshit you were pulling, or you don’t believe he has the mental capacity to think for himself?”
She sucked in an audible breath, let it out on a hiss. “How dare you say that about him?”
“How dare you treat him that way?” David shot back. “You talk a great game, Mary, but when push comes to shove, you rob him of the chance to make his own choices, keep him wrapped up so tight he can’t take a leak without your permission. And then you accuse me of disrespecting him?”
Her mouth dropped open, and for a moment, she was incapable of speech, but she didn’t back off, not even an inch. And he wanted her to back off—was willing to say damn near anything to push her away—for reasons he didn’t understand or care to examine.
Spots of hot color flared in Mary’s cheeks, her eyes glittering. “Kylan has been with me for five years. You spend two days with him, and you think you know what he needs?”
“Yeah. I do.” And he managed to sound like he meant it.
“What about that?” She waved a hand at the tipi. “If you think I’m such a horrible person, what the hell was that last night?”
That was perfect.
No. He couldn’t say that. Couldn’t think it. Not now. “Maybe I should ask you the same question. What was that, Mary? One more way to soften me up, squeeze the reward money out of me? How far were you willing to go?”
Her head jerked back as if she’d been slapped. The words left a taste like charcoal in David’s mouth, the ashes of the flame that had flickered between them. He wanted to reach out. Wipe that look from her face. But it was too late. For both of them.
She squared her shoulders and curled her lip into a sneer that matched the acid dripping from her words. “I don’t even know you. And you expect me to put Kylan in your hands and trust that you’ll do right by him?”
Trust. What a fragile, elusive thing. He’d thought he’d earned Mary’s, but it was only an act. “If you don’t know what kind of man I am by now, you never will.”
On this point, he didn’t have to fake his conviction. As far as he was concerned, he’d proven everything that needed proving, take it or leave it. She stared up at him for a long, tense moment, her face so pale, her eyes so bleak, his hands itched to reach out to her, to soothe the pain he was inflicting even as a deeper, darker part of him smiled in grim satisfaction.
You see? Didn’t I try to tell you to stay away?
Yes. He’d let desire squelch that little voice, but he was listening now. Best that he’d seen the real Mary before he’d touched her, held her again. One more night might have pushed him past the tipping point. Into what, he refused to consider.
She spun away, took five steps, and stopped, spine rigid. Her voice was a flat monotone. “I’ll discuss this with Kylan.”
“You do that. And tell him I’m leaving at nine tomorrow morning, with or without him.”
She gave a curt nod and finally, finally, strode away, out of reach. He wheeled around and stomped back to his rig, around to the rear door of the trailer. His hand was on the latch when he stopped himself.
What was he thinking? He didn’t have to unload here. It was over. He’d won. He didn’t have to leave Muddy behind ever again. He thumped a fist on the door in what should’ve been triumph and then headed for the pickup, almost losing a leg when the wind slammed the door behind him. Geezus. He thought it blew hard on the Colorado plains.
He reached for the ignition and nearly jumped out of his skin when something moved in the back seat. He jerked around, heart scrabbling up into his throat. “What the hell?”
“Shhh!” Kylan crouched behind the passenger seat, finger pressed to his lips. “Just go, before she figures out I’m not in my room.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I want to come with you tonight,” Kylan said with pleading, puppy-dog eyes. “Otherwise, she’ll talk me out of going.”
Oh hell. The kid was right. And, yeah, Kylan needed to learn to stand his ground, but this was no battle for a rookie. David huffed out an exasperated breath. “You can’t just run off. You’ll scare her half to death.”
Kylan gave him a wobbly smile. “It’s okay. I left a note.”