Outlaw Cowboy Read online

  If Mel could find love and comfort…well, there was something the world could do right. In spite of him, in spite of Dad. In spite of evil and ghosts and women with fuck-you smiles and revenge on the brain.

  Then Mel left and Caleb sighed. It was time to face some rather unpleasant music. Not the least of which was Delia in his room, unsupervised.

  After making Dad laugh.

  The anger was back. Maybe it was never really gone. Maybe it was in his blood constantly moving, every once in a while getting lodged behind a good moment, but always breaking free.

  “I didn’t teach you to treat a woman that way.”

  Caleb tensed at his father’s voice, but he took a page out of Delia’s book and didn’t turn. “Oh, so now we’re going to talk?”

  “You wanted to do it in front of your sister?”

  Caleb turned to face his father, sitting in his chair in the doorway to the mudroom. Caleb was certain it was the most words they’d exchanged in the course of a minute in years. Years upon years.

  “I see you touch her again like that, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Care more about a stranger than your own damn daughters? Because I’m pretty sure there are two women with your damn genes desperate for an ounce of the affection I saw you offer a stranger.”

  Any anger, any censure, any sign of emotion on his father’s face vanished. The normal glazed-over shutdown was back, and he said nothing, only wheeled himself away.

  Caleb looked around the room, trying to get a handle on all of the pain and futile fury coursing through him. What would change it? Why couldn’t he find a way?

  He glared up the stairs. Why and how had she?

  * * *

  First, Delia fumed. Then, she plotted. Because if she let herself, she might be tempted to relive the moment where he’d jerked her against the hard wall of his body, furious. Lost.

  He was angry, but it was the thing under all that anger she had trouble ignoring or fearing. It wasn’t the kind of anger that had permeated her life, the kind of anger she knew to be wary of. Underneath all that sizzling fury was a sense of futility she recognized—futility she knew so well it might as well be the coat she was wearing.

  She’d wanted to simply rest her head on his chest and comfort them both. It irritated her to no end, because sentimentality and understanding was not something she could afford.

  She threw open his closet, determined to make her presence noticed. He wanted to hide her away, well…

  You need to hide away, you moron.

  She ignored that voice in her head. She was so tired of being careful and reasonable. There had been a few years of her teenage life where she’d thrown careful and reasonable away, tired of nothing going right, but that had ended the night Caleb’s fist had connected with her father’s face. Repeatedly.

  She wanted to travel back before that moment, when she could afford to revel in restlessness for a few harmless minutes. So she rifled through Caleb’s clothes, though it was so messy in there, with jeans and T-shirts and boots thrown this way and that. She wasn’t even sure they were all clean clothes, though there were plenty presumably dirty on the floor outside the closet. There was no way he’d be able to tell she’d done anything.

  On a frustrated grunt, she flung away from the closet. But no knickknacks graced Caleb’s room. Not a family picture, not an old heirloom. Just clothes and ranch clutter.

  It struck her as sad and undermined the anger she was trying to hold on to. Even Eddie, the bastard, had had some old baseball posters gracing his bedroom walls. It wasn’t the height of sentimentality, but it spoke to a man who knew he belonged where he was. Who had a mark to make.

  Or maybe she was reading too much into Caleb simply because she wanted to feel like she understood something. Though Lord knew if she had the choice, she wouldn’t choose Caleb of all people to understand.

  She’d probably choose herself.

  She heard a door slam and an engine start. She glanced out the little diamond window: a man driving a truck, the brown swing of a ponytail in the passenger seat. Delia thought it was probably Caleb’s sister. Something about her profile poked at Delia though. She seemed so utterly familiar, and Delia couldn’t think of the last time she’d seen Mel Shaw.

  “I want an explanation.”

  Delia stilled, fighting the instinct to whirl toward his voice and hold her arms up in defense. She’d learned long ago stillness was as much of a defense against attack as bracing for a blow.

  Sometimes better.

  “Me too.” Making each movement graceful and easy, she turned. She waved an arm to encompass the room. “How do you live like this?”

  “Don’t screw with me right now, Delia. I don’t have it in me to rein in my temper, and you have seen the aftereffects when I lose control.” His eyes nearly glittered, and every muscle in his body appeared tense, poised to enact just what he was threatening.

  She raised her eyebrows at him, and she didn’t even have to feign the look of utter shock. “Are you physically threatening me?”

  Her incredulity spread between them, something like a glove thrown. For a few moments the anger blazed in his eyes, and his clenched fists stayed tense. For a brief flash, she thought he might not back down, that he’d finally snapped.

  But before fear could ice her insides, everything in Caleb’s posture slumped. “I’m not threatening you.” He inhaled raggedly. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice sounding pained and torn. She wanted to comfort him, the bastard. “But I’m not going to play your games. I want an explanation, and I will have one.”

  She blew out a breath, attempting to affect bored condescension, but really she’d needed to release her fear.

  She turned away from him and all the emotions radiating off of him. She doubted he knew that was what all the tenseness and clenched jaw impressed upon her. He probably thought he looked tough and manly, but in reality…

  The tornado of conflicting, lost feelings in his eyes made her want to cross to him. It would be a kind of strategy, to try and comfort him into acquiescence, but she didn’t trust herself. Caleb was one of the few men on the planet she knew she couldn’t find the upper hand with. Her best bet was even ground, which meant distance.

  “I can kick you out. I can call the cops and say you’re trespassing,” he said. “I can go tell your father exactly where you are.”

  He could do all those things. Like every moment of her life, someone else had all the power and she was nothing but a mistake, a burden, a devil. The best she could ever hope to be was someone’s diversion.

  “What are you? A child? Do I need to count to three?”

  She stared blindly out the window, willing herself to find some power, some fortitude, some rejection of the self-defeating thoughts. All she felt was her chest closing in on her, and the simple truth she’d always known.

  She was alone.

  Steph needs you.

  Then what?

  After that it didn’t matter, did it? But until then, some things had to matter. “He fell.” She hated that her voice was weak.

  “Fell?”

  “In the yard. I stepped outside to get some air and, well, you know how sound carries out here. I heard someone in pain. So…” The rest should be self-explanatory, shouldn’t it? She didn’t want to talk anymore, and she didn’t want to hear the exhaustion and betrayal in her voice.

  Why should she feel betrayed? Just because Caleb was possibly the only person who’d ever shown her consistent kindness, no matter how reluctant it was.

  “What was he doing outside?” Caleb demanded.

  She kept staring out the window, even though she could hear him, feel him move closer. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  Silence choked the air out of the room before he finally spoke. “What was he laughing at?”

  She glanced at
him over her shoulder, surprised that the question seemed so emotional. Why was he so baffled that his father would laugh with her? It took a few seconds to untangle, but it seemed to have more to do with his father than with her.

  “He was ordering me around like a slave, so I told him to fuck off and find some other stranger to nag.”

  “You told my father to…” He shoved shaky fingers through his hair, which was getting too long and dark from the lack of summer sun. “And he…”

  Baffled didn’t begin to cover his response, but then again, she’d been a little baffled at Mr. Shaw’s response herself. Which was why she’d laughed.

  “Why were you letting him order you around at all?”

  She shrugged and turned to face Caleb fully now, because he felt safe again. Because she felt safe again, and because it was so hard to deny the stupid affection she felt for him. “He was hurt. He was embarrassed and…” She probably shouldn’t say it, probably shouldn’t offer a piece of herself like this, but something about the day was wreaking havoc on her good sense. “He reminded me of you.” She’d seen that goodness both men seemed so determined to keep hidden and deny.

  Caleb looked at her for the longest time, and she couldn’t begin to make sense of it. A kind of surprised bafflement, mixed with hurt and fear and pain and… Oh, the poor idiot was so damn lost, and she wished she could help him.

  Which probably made her the poor idiot.

  “I have work to do,” he said, abruptly turning away from her. “Go back to the cabin and stay there.”

  “Can I help?” she blurted before she had time to swallow it down, to temper the panic at being alone again. She hated the silence and the dark and the lonely depression that skittered along the edges of everything. She’d prefer him threatening her. She’d prefer Eddie. She’d prefer any damn thing if it meant not being alone anymore.

  “Help?” He said the word like it was so foreign he didn’t know the meaning of it.

  “A payment of sorts. If there’s a chore or work I can do…” She felt stupid for offering, both because he was looking at her with such baffled suspicion and because offering help would only give him the impression she owed him, and even if she did, she didn’t want him thinking she thought she did.

  If that made any sense.

  “You’re supposed to be hiding. To be keeping out of sight.”

  “I can do all that. If your dad and Summer already know I’m here…” That’s when it all dominoed in her head. Who Summer looked like. Mel. An uncanny resemblance, really, and if Delia had spent any time around Mel recently, she might have recognized it right away. “She’s related to you?”

  Caleb jerked a shoulder. “Yeah. So?”

  “How?”

  “I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.” He stalked out of the room, and against every sensible thought in her head, Delia scrambled after him.

  Chapter 6

  Caleb shoved his feet into his boots. He ignored the way Delia stopped on the last stair and simply watched him.

  He hated the way she did that. Because unlike Mel or Summer, he wasn’t sure he was fooling her at all. It felt like she could see beyond the bravado, the anger, the intimidating looks, and see all the fear and confusion underneath.

  Worse, every once in a while he felt compelled to lay it at her feet, half convinced she’d know what to do with it.

  Luckily, he wasn’t a total fool—just half of one—and he kept it to himself.

  “Why won’t you tell me who she is to you?”

  He was relieved the smallness in her voice was gone. The wavery way she’d spoken to him after he’d… Fuck, he’d threatened her like some kind of monster. Proving yet again what he was. “What does it matter?”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded genuinely confused. He shoved his arms into his coat. He was an hour off schedule, and cows waited for no man’s problems. The last time he’d tried that, one had escaped and Mel had stopped speaking to him for days.

  He threw the door open and pointed outside. “Go.”

  “So…” Her dark, wide eyes stared at him. “I can’t help?”

  She made it sound like he was denying her water, when he was providing her shelter and had given her food and money. She was still making him feel like it wasn’t enough. He was risking everything just by having her here—Tyler certainly would consider Delia Rogers a “person he used to associate with”—and she was acting as though he weren’t doing enough.

  “What are you trying to do, Delia? What do you want from me?”

  She didn’t blink, didn’t move from that bottom stair. Still and wide-eyed, she didn’t respond. He wanted to shake her. Except that was a lie. If he touched her shoulders, the last thing he’d want to do with his hands would be shake her.

  “I guess I don’t know.”

  “Then go back to the cabin. Figure how to get the hell out of my hair, and leave me alone. Got it?”

  She lifted her chin and finally moved off the stair, her expression regal and icy. The too-thin woman in the too-thin coat. Why did he have to notice shit like that?

  She sailed past him and out the door, the kind of silent fuming that could never be good. His assessment proved accurate when she turned abruptly, so he had to come to a skidding halt or run right over her.

  It was tempting.

  “I want to help. I’m going crazy in that place, and I need to think. I need something to do to help me think.”

  “Not my problem, sweetheart.” He tried to walk around her, but she grabbed his arm. He glared, and she stared at her hand clutched to his forearm as if she wasn’t quite sure how it got there.

  Slowly, her gaze traveled up to meet his, but she took her time. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, or what she was about, and he knew that the smart thing would be to jerk his arm away and drive to the farthest part of Shaw to get as much distance from her as possible.

  Instead, he met her gaze.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked on a whisper, and he knew it cost her something to ask that.

  Hate her? Was she screwy in the head?

  “I only want to help. To be of some use.” Her fingers clutched reflexively tighter before she seemed to force herself to release him. “It seems as though you need help, based on the way you’re stomping about, always in a foul mood. It only stands to reason, I’m that horrible to have in your sight you won’t even accept help from me?”

  “That’s the only possible reason?” He shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have hinted there might be a second, far more dangerous reason for treating her like he couldn’t stand to be around her. She was the worst kind of temptation. The visceral kind, the kind he’d never been any good at resisting.

  Except, by some miracle, when it came to her.

  So. He wasn’t going to touch her, kiss her, sleep with her. He wasn’t going to give into the relentlessness of this shitty day. Not with Delia. In some strange way, she seemed like the last sacred thing. If he touched her, what virtue did he have left?

  It’s in you.

  Yeah, well, he was here, and the woman who’d uttered those words to a five-year-old wasn’t. So.

  So.

  He started walking. “First up, we check the feed.” The chances of Tyler stopping by today were slim, since Caleb hadn’t given him an answer. Besides, Caleb would see and hear anyone coming onto Shaw before they got to them. Help would be nice, and he wasn’t risking anything as long as he was careful.

  “I thought cows just ate grass.”

  He flung an arm to encompass the vastness of snow. “We have to feed them until there’s enough grass. Slowly, over the next few weeks, the grass will come back, and we’ll feed them less as they graze more on their own.”

  He stomped toward the barn where they kept the feed, Delia managing to match him stride for frustrated stride.

&nbs
p; Still, the walk across the slushy snow, which had turned muddy from sun and the many trips between house and barn, did what it always did. It seeped into his clothes, his skin, his soul. Something about the clear air and the hard ground always smoothed away the hard edges of the day.

  For a few seconds anyway, until the reality of responsibility reminded him he was still learning how to be responsible, how to care. That everything this was to him rested on somehow making a failing ranch solvent in a few months.

  Nearly six years since Dad’s accident, he should have found it by now, but it seemed there was some illusive ingredient to peace somewhere outside his reach. All he could do was keep going and hope someday it would be enough. Hope he wasn’t destined to always fall into his weaknesses, his vices, his bad blood.

  Caleb reached the barn and pushed the door open with its usual screech of metal rod against metal guide. He opened his mouth to explain how she could help, though he doubted she had the strength for half of what he needed to do.

  Delia stopped though, not entering the darkness of the barn. She slowly turned her face to the sky, and breathed.

  “I thought you wanted to help,” he demanded. Her stillness now was different than when she was frightened or startled. This stillness was something closer to…peace, and he envied it—a sharp pain of longing hit his gut.

  “It’s…” She inhaled, the gray clouds parting to let a hint of sun land on her face. For a second it highlighted all the sharp angles there, both natural and produced by what he could only imagine was hunger and being on the run.

  Then she smiled, and he was taken in by the way she inhaled, by the way she seemed to drink in that weak ray of sun, the way it infused her with light and hope and softened all the razor-sharp edges.

  “Maybe I would miss Montana if I left.”

  “It’ll keep you going on a bad day,” he muttered, looking away when she met his gaze. It was a thought he was familiar with, because every time he’d ever thought of running away, he’d remember what it felt like to know the land beneath him was Shaw, for centuries, and the sky above him would always be there.