Chapter Nine
High noon.
Okay, that was poetic license since it was a quarter to one by time they’d reached her apartment in a former bunkhouse on the outskirts of Scottsdale out near Camelback Mountain. She’d lived here for the past year while her friend from high school, who’d inherited the property figured out what she wanted to do with it. Over the years parts of the former ranch had been sold off and whittled down to the remaining ten acres with a ranch house, empty barn, shop and bunkhouse.
Sky had loosely converted the shop into her studio. She loved the arrangement, but knew it was very temporary because already developers were contacting her friend, who was trying to get the zoning changed.
And now she was going to have another change. She knew she had to adjust. She wanted Kane and Montana to have a relationship. She did. She just wished she didn’t feel so pressured. Railroaded. He wasn’t giving her any time to process. She was trying to find the words to tell him that she wanted to slow down when he followed her up to the narrow porch that ran the length of the four-room former bunkhouse. He wore sunglasses and had his Stetson pulled low, but Sky had a feeling his head was still hurting, and the bright afternoon sunlight probably felt like an ice pick to his skull.
“Pack a suitcase for yourself and Montana for a couple of weeks,” Kane said low in her ear as she struggled to unlock the door. “I’ll get someone to pack up the rest of your things and move it temporarily to the ranch in Montana.”
She fumbled the keys, but his hand snaked around and unlocked the door effortlessly as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell.
“Home sweet home!” Montana sang out imitating what Sky often said when they arrived back at their quiet, isolated haven. She darted around Sky and disappeared inside. Colt had gotten out of the truck but made no move to follow them, while Kane seemed to feel he had every right to make himself at home. He walked in, not much more than a few inches behind her.
He looked around. Sky forced herself to stay relaxed. She knew Kane had grown up fairly poor until his mom had become a lawyer when he was in middle school, but who knew how he lived now? He said nothing as he took in the galley kitchen that ran along one wall and the small living area with a love seat and a rocking chair that she had found at Habitat for Humanity and sanded down and stained and made new cushions for. There was a small round bistro table she’d also refinished along with mismatched wooden chairs she’d painted a festive color where she and Montana ate and sketched.
The bedroom and bath were next door in the second bunk bedroom—long ago a wide doorway had been cut and framed with pinyon and a rough door made with reclaimed wood from some long derelict building. Sky had created an ocotillo design out of metal that she’d mounted on the door to make the rustic look just a little bit more artsy instead of slapdash.
“Daddy.” Montana stood in the doorway holding her stuffed bull, and a handmade rag doll Sky had made for her one Christmas. “Come see my room. I share with Mommy.”
Kane immediately followed Montana through the door. Sky automatically followed, but paused. She should give them some time alone. She looked at the empty doorway. She could hear Montana’s high voice talking fast, and Kane’s lower one, but he was mostly quiet, soaking it all in.
Sky looked around the small living area, feeling the need to do something, clean something or bake something. She didn’t want to pack. Packing would mean she was leaving, and she’d worked hard for this life. Reality was starting to set in that Kane was back in her life. She had the idea that he was still operating on adrenaline and hadn’t yet worked out the fine details of actually keeping them with him.
Dragging them around with him on tour would be hard on Montana, and hell on her trying to establish an art career. She had a lot of tools and equipment and supplies and required a lot of space. She also needed access to a large enough college or university where she could do her casting for her bronze sculptures. And that didn’t even count finding other teachers to sub in her exercise classes.
Too on edge to sit, Sky made a pot of coffee. She could still hear Montana talking. What was she showing Kane? Curiosity burned, but she wanted to let Kane know she trusted him alone with Montana. She looked through a window and watched Colt lean against his truck and talk on his phone. He made several quick calls, speaking briefly, listening a lot more. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t much of a talker. He hadn’t said much during the six-hour drive back, and Sky, sitting in the back seat with Montana, had been too intimidated and emotionally wrung out to attempt to fill the silence.
Kane hadn’t helped the awkwardness. He’d stared straight ahead, probably in pain, and eventually, he’d lowered the seat back and had closed his eyes. His features had been tight, and Sky couldn’t tell if it was pain or just the emotions that had been clawing at him and at her for the past twenty-four hours. God, was that all it had been?
When he’d winced and barely bitten back a moan, Sky hadn’t been able to handle it anymore. She’d slid her hands under his shoulders and began to massage his shoulders, neck and then lightly stroke his forehead and scalp. Kane sighed and settled into her hands. Sky had watched his face, trying to decide if he were awake, but then decided it didn’t matter. She couldn’t help how she touched him: care was in every stroke.
Memories crowded in of their summer together. How many different ways she’d touched him—massage, icing, taping, arousing, comforting, love. Sky knew she was doing it again, opening the door to her heart wide and letting him in. She’d tried to tell herself it was just kindness. He was hurt. They had a history. But truthfully, she loved to touch him, and she’d always loved his careless hair—the way it tumbled like night over his forehead, and he’d brush it back out of his face with his large, rough, but beautifully shaped hands. He had a widow’s peak hairline, like his mother, like Luke, and the new brother, Colt. She’d loved to trace it when they’d lain in bed together. She’d traced it in the truck, let the silky soft curls slide across her palm and through her fingers.
Memories were harpies swooping in to dine off her soul.
“Coffee?” she called out to Colt and then wished she hadn’t when he looked up at her. Even through his aviators she felt the burn of his gaze. She felt like an idiot fifties housewife or something. “If you want any,” she added because apparently she could be an even bigger idiot.
This was dumb. She was letting Kane take over because she felt guilty. She was guilty, but she needed to figure out a way to work with him. To have him work with her. She walked quietly to her bedroom door.
Kane sat on the white, wrought-iron twin-sized bed she had pushed against one wall and heaped with colorful cushions embroidered with flowers. His boots were kicked off, and his legs were crossed. Montana sat on his lap, one finger in her mouth, as she pointed to pictures and told stories about them.
Sky’s heart sank. Of course Montana would pull out the daddy book. Sky kept a scrapbook of articles and pictures of Kane—interviews from local media, articles printed from the AEBR website, cutouts from ads he’d been in, even some stills from the documentary about bull riders that had come out last year that he’d been featured in. She’d made a separate scrapbook about Kane as a teenager—pictures she’d taken of Bennington and Kane swimming, hiking or horseback riding.
She also had pictures from later, a few selfies she’d taken when he’d met her for lunch or dinner or to catch a movie or a round of mini golf when he was on tour break. Then there was the book she’d made of their summer together. A few of those pictures had made it into the regular daddy book, but the book of her and Kane was more private, intimate, not sexual exactly but it had all centered on her and Kane or shots she’d taken of him when he hadn’t been posing—taping his ribs or shoulder, smoothing on arnica for his bruises, holding her hand while the tattoo artist added to his bull tat using the artwork she’d created, putting rosin on his rope, watching bull tapes, reading, swimming in the river, him paining her toenails. Their life in real time.
“There’s another book Mommy hides under her mattress,” Montana startled the snot out of Sky by saying. She slid off the bed and slipped her small hands under the quilted comforter on the opposite full-size bed and pulled out the third scrapbook where Sky had tucked it when they’d moved in. Sometimes she’d take it out and look at it. Usually at Kane in happier times, but also at the few pictures she’d included of herself pregnant and just after Montana’s birth before she switched over to making Montana her own baby book and daddy book.
“This is my favorite. Mama looks so pretty and happy. You too, Daddy.”
Carrying the book in both hands like it was something that could spill, and it could—all her secrets—Montana returned to her throne on Kane’s lap. Sky stared at the book and the shining eagerness on her daughter’s face. She had to get the book away from them. Kane would take one look at that book and know the truth. That she’d loved him with her whole heart. That she’d never stopped. For a moment Sky froze even though her brain screamed at her to grab the scrapbook and run.
Kane was slow to respond to Montana’s eagerness. He seemed to be in a dream, and as Kane reached for the book, Sky managed to unlock her muscles. She tried to snatch the book mid handoff. Kane held tight.
“Ahhhh…” Sky paused, trying to think of the right words. “Kane, those are private.”
Those words were definitely not the right ones.
Twin pale blue, nearly gray eyes sparked. “No more secrets,” he said. “Not one more.”
“Kane.” She didn’t let go of the book either. Words were like space junk pummeling her from all sides. She wanted to run, give herself time to think, but she’d created this situation, inadvertently—she’d had no idea Kane would have been so angry, so hurt that she hadn’t confided in him about her pregnancy. She still couldn’t reconcile what she’d thought with reality.
“Nothing off limits,” he said.
“Does that go both ways?”
Silence. Sky let go of the book. Typical. She’d done everything but drain a vein for him to prove her love but he kept his thoughts and feelings and history locked up tight.
No thanks.
“Do you want to see the book, Daddy? It’s my favorite.”
Trapped. Stuck. Everything Kane’s way and she had no time to think.
“Maybe later, Montana,” Sky said. “Daddy wants us to pack some clothes. We’re going to take a little trip.” Sky spoke each word slowly and carefully.
As a distraction, it didn’t work. Kane had already opened the book. The first picture was of Kane, Sky and Bennington in her parents’ back courtyard. They’d been swimming and were wrapped in towels. The sun was setting so everything was pink, gold. They were squished in a giant pool chair, a bonfire blazing before them, and they’d clearly been roasting marshmallows for s’mores. Bennington and Kane wielded their sticks like swords, marshmallows flaming. Sky’s attention in the photo had been wholly focused on Kane.
Obsess much?
Sky wanted to grab the book and run far, far away. Kane’s head was bent over the book. He turned the page, lingered, turned again. Montana’s eyes sparkled but Kane’s gaze was shuttered. She could see the brewing storm clouds barely contained. He was angry. Angrier than he’d been when he’d pulled over in the desert. He should have been having a sweet moment with his daughter as she shared her treasurers, but instead he was furious.
Sky had never known how to deal with anger. Her father had been coldly critical and cutting. Dismissive. Her mother had yelled and screamed and cried. And thrown things. Sky knew she needed to step up and say or do something to ease the tension, but she always froze. Shut down. Became so exhausted that she could lie down and sleep like a turned-off computer.
Montana broke through her fugue by taking her hand.
“Mommy sit,” Montana said. “Sit here.” She slid off the bed and pushed Sky down next to Kane. She perched lightly, trying not to touch him. “Sit with Daddy.”
Montana stepped back as if surveying her work. Sky stifled a sob. It was so sweet and painful and such a perfect blend of them both—bossy and artistic, going for the emotional heart of the visual. Montana climbed back up on the bed and knelt beside Kane. She whispered something in his ear and then sat down beside him. Impatiently because he still hadn’t moved, she turned the page. Then another.
“That’s me,” Montana said importantly and pointing to a picture of Sky in a long skirt and form-fitting T-shirt. “I was in Mommy’s tummy,” Montana said. “I was this little.” She curled up in a ball and then rolled off the bed. She stood up and stretched her arms up. “And now I’m this big.”
Kane’s gaze slid helplessly toward his daughter. From his profile, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he looked to be holding so much in—emotions rattling around his caged heart—that Sky felt like something had just dropped on her head. Kane really did want to be in his daughter’s life. He really would have welcomed a baby. And as Montana stood on her tiptoes and stretched higher, and Kane stared at his little girl being playful, his finger unconsciously traced the rounded lines of Sky’s stomach in the photo.
She really, really had misread him four years ago.
As Kane had driven her and Montana to Santa Fe, she’d still convinced herself she had made the correct decision. She’d had all her rationalizations lined up, polished and ready to show off. One by one. Only they hadn’t worked for him. And she didn’t think they were working for her anymore.
She hadn’t wanted to be in a loveless marriage like her mother had been. She hadn’t wanted her child to be rejected by its father like she had been. So she hadn’t given Kane a chance to hurt her or his child. Only Kane wasn’t her father. And she could stand to see him hurting.
So now what?
“Mommy, I’m hungry.” Montana tugged at her fingers. She needed to move. To say something, the but weight of the mistake she’d made four years ago pressed down on her, made her feel like she was underwater, drowning.
Montana bolted away toward the kitchen and relief washed through her when she heard Montana talking to Colt and his deep voice answering something about grilled cheese. Then she heard the fridge open and the water turn on. Montana started singing the alphabet song. It sounded so normal when everything had gone to hell that Sky pressed her hand hard against her mouth the hold in the sobs.
Kane seemed in his own personal stupor. His head was lowered, and the book slipped a little down his legs so she wasn’t sure if he was still looking at it or…
And here they were—a family. And she was going to have to meet Kane in the middle to form some kind of custody arrangement or… She could barely even think about what Kane seemed to want—being a family. No way could that work. It was impractical. He traveled to a different city and risked his life on a weekly basis, and he hated her. He was angry and bitter, and she couldn’t blame him. She was loaded down with guilt and fired up with suspicion. She couldn’t trust him. He didn’t seem likely to forgive her.
Not exactly anyone’s idea of a happy ever after.
“Kane, I didn’t…I never intended to hurt you,” she whispered.
She’d loved him. Had been so crazy in love with him and if he’d stop glaring and accusing and ordering her around for five minutes, she’d probably find herself head over heels again.
“I was…” Scared. Confused. Wrong? How did she explain her teenage fears to a man who’d never had a doubt in his mind? “You were always so sure of yourself, of your place in the world.” She had craved that certainty and strength. “You had everything planned out—your career, how long you’d ride, the money you needed, the ranch you were going to have with Luke, and it was all going according to plan for you.”
He met her worried gaze. His eyes had gone silver, and Sky had to resist burrowing into him for comfort. She didn’t deserve it. She twisted her hands together.
“I thought you’d be upset about the baby.”
She’d been terrified that he’d suggest an abortion and even though she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant or have a baby at nineteen, she could never have destroyed anything that was part of Kane. And she’d known she could never give up his child. She thought the baby would be the only thing she’d ever have to love, or the only person who would love her.
“I know you don’t understand my reasoning.”
“I don’t accept it,” he said flatly.
“I thought I was protecting you,” she forced herself to continue in the face of his strong denial. “I did think that,” she repeated when his eyes flashed. “But yes, I was protecting myself and my baby too.”
“Our baby. Ours,” he whispered, but the words held more power than if he’d shouted. “Why did you need to protect our baby from me?” His voice hummed in anger.
“I didn’t think you’d want her,” she defended.
He reared away from her. Catching up the photo scrapbook before it hit the ground.
“Did you tell her that?” he demanded, his face pale and a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“No, of course not.”
“Didn’t she ask about me? Wonder why she didn’t have her dad?”
Hard to explain that one. The answer would probably hurt more, but maybe they just needed to unload all their personal crap, put their personal history on the table and sort through it.
“She’s three, Kane.”
“She’ll be eight one day. Ten. Not a stretch to think she would have wondered then. She would have felt that I had rejected her. It would have clawed at her heart and her confidence.”
“Kane?” He sounded like he spoke from experience. Sky realized then that she knew nothing about his father. He’d talked a lot about growing up with Luke, always trying to be faster, stronger, smarter than his big brother. He’d spoken fondly of his mother, but there had always been something in his voice that revealed there was something hidden, and she’d lacked the confidence to ever push him for more than he was willing to give her.
“What if she sought me out on her own later?” Kane paced in front of her now. Fluidly and crackling with energy. He stopped in front of her, and Sky, who’d found herself watching him helplessly, the now familiar guilt choking her, stared at the floor.
“Imagine all the wasted years then, Sky.” He tipped her chin up so that she was forced to face him—see his anger, but it was his pain that hit her hardest.
She would have seen that same pain on Montana’s face.
“I tried,” Sky whispered, gesturing vaguely to the two scrapbooks, suddenly realizing the total inadequacy of her effort.
“You turned me into a character in a book,” he accused, his voice echoing in disbelief. “Do you realize how insane that is? How stupid? Cruel? I can’t believe we made a baby and you relegated me to a goddamn book.”
She winced and scrunched her eyes closed waiting for…something…she didn’t know. Him to hurl the book, knock something over. Throw something against the wall.
“I’m sorry, Kane. I’m sorry.” How many times would she have to say it before he knew that she hadn’t hidden her pregnancy to hurt him? Her throat felt squeezed, and burned with everything she was suppressing, but she got the next bit out. “I did what I thought right.”
He held her by her shoulders, his grip firm, but not tight.
“You fucking knew it was not right to run away from me.” He spit out that word like it tasted bad. “You knew it wasn’t fucking right to not tell me we’d made a baby. A child who would grow up thinking her dad didn’t give a fuck about her.” Sky flinched at all the profanity. Kane hardly ever swore around her and now it was like a storm brewing over her head, hurling lightning bolts. “Do you know what that does to a kid to know they weren’t wanted? Do you?”
Yes.
But she couldn’t speak. Share more of her shame.
“You look me in the eye and you tell me you think Montana will have a better life, grow into a happy and independent young woman, be more confident, more financially stable and secure without knowing that her father cherishes her and loves her and will put her first. You tell me that, Sky.” He used the word ‘you,’ like a curse and started backing her across the room as he spoke as if the words generated so much energy, he couldn’t hold it in. He backed her against the wall and her head bounced a little. “You look me in the eye and tell me you really believe that you did the right thing.”
“Hey.” The deep voice was like a gunshot. “Think you need a break.”
Sky jumped. Colt stood in the doorway, massive, nearly taking up the whole thing, tall, broad and looking a little mean.
“I’m not done,” Kane said, his voice and breathing harsh.
“Done for now,” Colt said and took a step into the room.
Kane looked at Sky and then took a step back, ran an agitated hand through his hair. He turned away from her.
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” she said to Colt although she couldn’t think of anything less okay than where she and Kane were at the moment. “Kane and I have a lot to discuss and work out, and that’s my fault,” she said firmly, forcing her body to stay relaxed so Colt would stand down—not think she needed help.
She could feel Kane’s hot stare burning through the back of her head.
She slowly turned around. She’d wanted to protect her daughter and her heart, but she’d ended up hurting all three of them so much more. She had to stop running away. Today would be the first step back on the path she should have taken so long ago. Kane was right.
“Kane.” She wanted him to turn around so he’d know she was sincere, but she was not sure of her reception. She still didn’t feel ready to tell him everything—about her family history and all the secrets and resentments—but still, she needed him to know that she was going to try for Montana’s sake to meet him halfway, to co-parent although how that would work was beyond her. One step at a time.
She took one more step to close the distance, and after hesitating a moment, she stroked one finger down the back of his hand. He didn’t pull away. Trying to hold on to her faltering nerve, she lightly laced her fingers with his. Something in her calmed. She’d always loved to touch him, and she admitted to herself that she’d missed this, missed him.
“Kane, I can’t say that Montana’s life would be better without you in it. She has been with you only a day.” Half of which he was on his back in the hospital. Her stomach lurched. It could happen again. He could get hurt worse next time. And then what?
One step at a time.
“She’s already so attached to you,” she whispered. “I was wrong to not tell you. I was just so scared,” she said.
He turned around. She expected anger. Derision. Fired-off questions. Instead his silvery eyes searched hers, curious, wary.
“I was scared that we’d hold you back and you’d resent us.” She sucked in a breath, but kept her gaze glued to his. “I was scared that I couldn’t handle your lifestyle—the danger and the traveling and the celebrity part.” She swallowed hard. “I still don’t know how I am going to do it, how we will parent Montana together, but I am willing to…and I want to try.”
What was he thinking? It took all her nerve to stand there and wait.
“Not try,” he said flatly, giving her nothing. “We succeed. We win. There can be no doubt in your mind.”
So much for meeting halfway. Kane did nothing by halves.
“Not so easy,” she said softly.
“We just commit,” he said. “And you can start by packing up a suitcase.”
Sky nodded. “You are in Phoenix for a week, Kane. I have exercise classes to teach, subs to find since I’m only giving a week’s notice,” she said quickly seeing that he was about to speak. “I can stay here with Montana and start sorting things out, and you can stay in a…”
He cut off the rest of her sentence with his mouth. Hard. Aggressive. Sky whimpered, not shocked so much as she was overwhelmed by the wave of instant hot and drugging pleasure that rolled over her and tumbled her head over heels, dizzy. She hadn’t felt this alive and intense for four years, and her inadvertent noise gave him his opening. His tongue delved inside her sensitive lips, traced her inner heat and then tangled with her tongue.
Kane Wilder could kiss. It was like he ate her alive. Possessed her. And she jumped in, fell three hundred feet into his liquid fire.
“Kane, we were supposed to be talking. Arranging things,” she said breathlessly when he finally broke the kiss.
“Done talking. Tomorrow,” he said his voice dark with promise, and she was helpless to not look at his mouth. “I’d do it now, but it’s Sunday.”
When the heck had Kane cared about keeping it G rated on Sunday? He’d loved Sundays because he had a reprieve from thinking about his next draw for the day, and if he hadn’t been too banged up, Sundays had been their lazy day just spending with each other in bed and out.
“Monday morning, first thing,” he promised. “No waiting period. No residency requirement. ID and seventy-six dollars buys the license I already checked.”
“What?”
“We can get a judge or a justice of the peace to do it the same day.”
“Wait. You’re not serious,” she said. “We are not getting married tomorrow.”
“Yes, Sky. You. Will. Marry. Me. Tomorrow.”
Not a proposal. A demand.
“What is the rush?” she breathed.
“Rush. Four years late is not a rush.”
“We have to stop focusing on the past,” she said even though she certainly wouldn’t win any awards for her forward thinking. “We need to think about a future, building a stable life for Montana. We need to be thoughtful. Plan. Feel our way.”
Kane was not impressed.
“I’ve given it more than enough thought. Marriage. Pack a suitcase—enough for a week or two for you and Montana. At my next break we’ll go to my brothers’ ranch in Montana and decide where we want to have our home base.”
She sighed. “Kane, you still want to make up for lost time, but marriage isn’t going to do that. It won’t solve all that is wrong between us.”
“It’s a beginning.” Kane leaned forward and framed her face with his rough hands. She inhaled his scent. She had very little armor against him, and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to anymore. She was tired of fighting. One day and he’d worn her down. How did that bode for her future? “And marriage is only the beginning of what you owe me, Sky.”
*
Kane walked again through the tiny two-room house, rough plank floorboards creaking, unable to settle. Sky had pulled out two large canvas totes and a small suitcase to pack up some clothes, but she wanted to check on her studio first. He’d let her go. They both needed a breather. Colt was playing Candy Land with Montana, and he’d made her a grilled cheese sandwich. So normal.
He should be the one making her a snack and playing a game, but instead he was losing his mind. He had three years to catch up on, but he couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. He had a daughter he didn’t know. Sky, the one woman he’d trusted, the one woman he’d begun to let inside his paranoid and padlocked heart, had betrayed him on the most primal level.
She’d grown up with a loving mother and father in a sprawling, hacienda-style house in one of Scottsdale’s most prestigious neighborhoods with two acres of landscaped desert surrounding the house. She’d been cherished and safe. She’d always known who she was and that she was wanted. How could she deny his daughter that same security?
He still didn’t understand why she hadn’t come to him. She’d told him she’d loved him over and over and even he had started to believe it. He’d started making plans, but forced himself to wait because he wanted Sky to have the opportunity to finish school. Traveling on the tour with him would have been grueling, and he’d wanted to have enough money so that they could have a home base so she could choose—travel with him or pursue her art—and he’d come home during breaks.
But she’d left. Lied. He knew he had to get a grip. Accept. Forgive. Move on, but Kane didn’t think he could forgive this. Taking his child from him was too big a betrayal. He always believed he could do anything if he set his mind to it. It was just will. Determination. But forgiving Sky was like a huge wall between them. Three years. Three goddamn years. Lost. Stolen. Taken.
He’d faced a few paternity claims since he’d risen in the rankings, all totally baseless—three of the women he’d never even met. One he had, but she’d been drunk so he’d done what he always did when the woman hitting on him drank too much—taxi to her apartment or condo, help her inside and make sure she locked the door behind him, before he caught the taxi back to his hotel alone. Fucking ironic. The one woman he’d actually knocked up had done a runner.
He didn’t even remember the last bull ride in Santa Fe. Or dismounting. Hadn’t checked his score. He’d wanted to get it done. Get Sky and his daughter out of the arena and back to Phoenix to figure out the rest of their lives. But he did remember glancing up and not seeing Sky where he’d put her.
He pinched his nose hard. Usually he could climb above the pain that was nearly always there in his body, ride it like a wave, skimming across its surface, use it to focus himself. Now it was another wall he kept crashing into. Pain from the bull muscling him into the gate, wrestled with the pain of discovering he had a beautiful daughter who thought of him as character in her daddy book. Was she going to expect him to climb back in that goddamn thing once the novelty wore off?
Fuck the pain and fuck the past. That was the best he could muster for the moment. Sky hadn’t started packing. She’d gone to her studio to see if she had a larger suitcase, but she had pulled out a small carry-on and two large bright floral canvas totes that hurt his eyes to look at. He’d pack for her. He wanted to be clear. She and Montana were coming with him.
There wasn’t a closet in the small bedroom with two beds, but there were two small, clearly banged-up vintage dressers and a garment rack filled with pretty patterned sundresses in a see-through plastic garment bag. Kane unzipped it and reached for one strapless sapphire blue dress. Memories crashed—Portland, Oregon—Sky in his truck, holding his hand, sucking on his finger, the moist heat of her mouth jacking him up so crazy fast he’d veered off the main road onto an unpaved and unmarked dirt road and drove cursing while she’d worked his finger in a rhythm and style that left little doubt about what she intended next.
And when he’d finally found a turnoff and driven down that, ending up at a feeder stream to the Yamhill River, she’d unbuttoned his jeans and stared at him as if he were holy, then she’d looked into his eyes, one finger lightly stroking the moisture already leaking, and spreading it around his sensitive tip and down the underside that always made his body shiver and had said, “I love you, Kane.”
She’d meant it. He’d been able to tell by the deep purple of her eyes, the way they’d glowed, and the way her beautiful face was so serious and her touch so sensuous and reverent. She’d said it many other times, in many other places, but that had been the first time he’d started to believe it, and this had been the dress she’d been wearing. Kane let the soft material slip through his fingers. He leaned in and inhaled. Lemon and verbena. His head settled a little. Same for his gut.
He was back in his old truck, the blue one that had reminded him of her eyes, pulling Sky onto his lap, her skirt hiked up, the top of her dress pulled down so that his hands could palm her beautiful small breasts that had so obsessed him.
He’d wanted to say the words back to her. They were true although new and terrifying. She’d become his world so fast, so unexpectedly, but his heart had swollen so full he’d choked, and his eyes had pricked and burned, so instead he’d buried his face in her neck and had inhaled her scent and fought back stupid tears and did what he always did: talked with his body.
Kane heard a car. He re-zipped the bag of about ten sundresses and with one finger through the hangers, dangled it over his shoulder and strode out of Sky’s apartment. He unlocked his truck, hung the dresses next to his shirts on the custom bar and turned toward the other building that Sky had disappeared into a few minutes ago.
Of course the gallery prick would drive a silver Audi. Kane wasn’t sure why that irritated him so much. Maybe because if he didn’t usually haul a trailer or drive around his family’s Montana ranch helping out during his time off, he might have bought one himself. He didn’t want to have anything in common with Jonas, and he definitely didn’t want him alone with Sky. Slamming the door of the truck, he loped into the large, long metal building, but paused at the entrance as his eyes adjusted to the light. He couldn’t see Sky, but he saw Jonas walking across the cement floor with purpose.
He heard Sky’s soft musical voice. “Jonas, I wasn’t expecting you.” She didn’t sound tense, or apologetic or nervous like she’d sounded with him the past day and night.
Dammit.
“You should have been,” Jonas said looking preppy and smooth in his starched, white button-down and navy chinos. His sleeves were buttoned at the wrist with jeweled cuff links. Seriously. On a Sunday late morning. “You promised me a sculpture and you left your whole life in the gallery. Here’s your phone and your purse and…well I don’t know what’s in this bag.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and prim, not aching with emotion and defensiveness like how she’d sounded to him the last twenty-four plus hours.
Sky couldn’t like this guy. She absolutely couldn’t. She’d been raised in wealth and casual elegance, but she’d always been so sweet and down to earth. She’d liked to sew her own sundresses for Chrissakes. She’d even designed and tailored several shirts for him to wear during competition. He’d had them saved, and sealed in a garment bag with cedar balls. She deserved a man who would cherish her, not let her fall on her face in front of a bunch of strangers and leave her there for Chrissakes.
“So where’s the cowboy?”
“In the house. I needed a moment.”
Jonas laughed. “You and me both. Dr. Sheridan’s personal assistant, and I didn’t know doctors had those even if they are considered world class—” he put the last two words in air quotes, and finally Kane could get on board with Jonas’s snide attitude “—has been ringing me hourly about the damn sculpture and your disappearance. The press has been a boon both for the gallery and for the auction. I’m opening up early today. My sister’s already there, and she says there’s quite a crowd. The other artists are thrilled with the press and extra viewing hours so all in all your cowboy didn’t create a total cluster fuck. Even missing last night made you more mysterious.”
“That was not my intention,” Sky said.
Kane knew eavesdropping should probably have gone out of his repertoire when he’d been eight and spying on his eleven-and-a-half-year-old brother Luke, chatting to a girl from school who’d ridden by their apartment on a Razor scooter that Kane had coveted.
“Snow White and the Thieving Cowboy—one blogger posted the video of that idiot striding out with my art and you chasing after him like he was Justin Bieber. It has over ten thousand views already. Can you believe that?”
Damn.
Good thing Alicia would be busy with a family wedding. Not that she wouldn’t be looped in tighter than a bull rope within seconds of landing. Justin Bieber, his ass.
“And then that smoking hot kiss in the spotlight has definitely not gone unnoticed,” Jonas said, sounding peeved. “You had ample opportunity to tell me you were involved with someone over the past few weeks.”
“I wasn’t, but…” Sky sighed. “I am sorry, Jonas. I did say I wanted to keep things professional between us. My relationship with Kane is complicated.”
“Love always is,” Jonas said. “Or so I’m told, and I imagine cowboys are especially complicated. Never mind. I want to talk to you about something else. I am here hoping to talk you into giving me something.”
“You’d better be talking about art.” Kane walked fully into the building. His boots clicked on the cement with deadly intent. Yeah he was feeling more than a little mean right about now. “And I have a name. Kane Wilder.”
Jonas rolled his eyes. “Yippeekaiyay.”
“I don’t believe this.” Sky looked from Kane to Jonas. “You are men. Not boys.” She had her arms out and palms up in the international ‘stop’ pose and stood between them.
Kane had to fight the urge to circle around her to get in the rich and prissy gallery owner’s face.
“Kane, Jonas is here to return my phone, purse and clothes, and he is going to look at the other sculptures in the same series. Jonas, this is Kane, Montana’s father. He and I are planning on getting married.”
Immediately he calmed. She was admitting it. Accepting it. Still she looked pissed and adorable. Sky had never once been pissed off at him that he’d known. She’d always been calm and loving, which had soothed him, but Sky standing up to him was new and turned him on. But he had to remain focused on the plan—getting married, getting his financials in order to include her and Montana. Hell, he still hadn’t found out whether her was on her birth certificate. That questioned burned hot. If the father line was blank or said ‘unknown’, he really didn’t know what he was going to do.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe. Rage swirled around him. Taunts. Powerlessness. Fury.
Focus.
He breathed in to a count of seven, held for seven, breathed out for seven. Seven times. If it were blank he’d get his name added. Montana was only three. She wouldn’t know. Probably wouldn’t remember much of her life without him in it.
Unless he died in the arena.
That brought him up short. Hell, it was always a possibility. Every bull rider knew that. He’d seen it fucking happen. He’d seen riders go down and not get up and live but never ride again. He’d seen them die. His best friend had died by the hoof of a bull. He could be doing that to Montana. Here today, memory tomorrow.
For the first time, seriously the first time, his determination to ride to age thirty had a big fat question mark. Did he still need to do that? He knew his savings amount to the penny. His retirement. His investments in Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and LA apartment buildings. The largest amount of money set aside for purchasing the Wild Wind Ranch in Marietta back for his family, his much larger family now since Luke had married Tanner McTavish this past Christmas, and he and his sister-in-law were expecting twins, and also in the past year he’d discovered two more brothers that his mother had birthed at age fifteen after being seriously injured in a car accident. Her father had set up two separate adoptions for the twin boys before his mother had recovered enough to leave the hospital or know that she’d given birth to twins, not just one baby. One brother, Colt was married now and had adopted his wife, Talon’s, son, Parker. Laird, his other brother was engaged to Tucker McTavish.
Seeing his brothers settled and happy had been a mixed blessing. He’d been relieved to see them so in love, but he’d never felt more alone. Wrestling the Wild Wind ranch back from her ailing and estranged father’s nearly bankrupt hands had been his mother’s dream, not his although it had made sense. They had ranching in their blood. Luke had ridden the rodeo circuit for ten years. He and his wife Tanner bred bucking bulls for the AEBR and pro circuit. Tucker had been a winning barrel racer and now helped breed bulls but also she wanted to breed and train horses. But was ranch life right for him and Sky now?
“Do you still want a cowboy-themed sculpture for the donation, Jonas?”
“Yes. I’d love the one you took.” His thoughtful gaze settled on Kane.
“Not going to happen.”
“It is a trademarked pose, I’m afraid,” Sky said. “I did sell the rights to that image, not just the picture. I didn’t realize what I was signing away. But I had…” she broke off and blushed and Kane found himself fascinated by the convulsive swallow of her delicate throat and her pink-stained cheeks “…thousands…um…a lot of pictures that I took while researching bull riders. I mean bull riding. I can show you more sculptures from that series.”
“Researching,” Kane said, surprised to find himself amused. “Is that what you were doing?”
Her blush deepened, and for the first time since yesterday at nine thirty-seven a.m., the roaring in his head stopped, and his gut stopped burning.
“Yes. For my masters in fine arts,” Sky said primly. “Follow me, Jonas.” She hesitated and looked at Kane, uncertainty clouding her eyes. He preferred the blush. “Do you want to see them?” she hesitantly asked him.
“Of course.” Kane frowned. Why the hell wouldn’t he?
She nodded. “Then behave,” she whispered. She jumped when he linked fingers with her.
“Depends on what your definition of behaving is.”
Sky nibbled on her lip and then a hint of a smile chased across her face.
“Jonas.” Sky walked across the concrete toward the back of the converted shop or barn. “I hope you find one of these an acceptable substitute for me to donate for the guild auction next weekend.”
Her voice caught, and he hated that. She didn’t need Jonas’s approval on anything.
“I’ll buy the sculptures, Sky,” he said, wanting to be gone from the reminder of their years apart and start his life with Sky and his daughter. What had her parents been thinking letting her raise their only grandchild in a former bunkhouse when they had a hacienda-style mansion a few miles away?
“Like hell!” Jonas burst out, stopping. “You can’t buy all of her sculptures.”
Kane longed to pull out his black Amex just to shut Jonas up and show him that yes, he most definitely could. And would, but Sky would not define that as behaving.
“How will Sky establish her career if you take an entire series off the market in a private collection?” Jonas breathed, like Kane had just suggested giving everyone Hep C. “She’s getting incredible buzz. She needs to build on that, not disappear.”
Kane didn’t want anything of Sky’s going to the cheating and lying squirt of sperm’s hospital wing named in his exalted family name. But he didn’t want to hurt her career when she had so much talent and had worked so hard.
“Kane, maybe wait in the house,” she suggested gently. “You really don’t have a say in this part of my life.”
“Is that so?” he drawled, furious again she was dismissing him. “No say,” he repeated even though he hadn’t intended to have a say about her art, but now he walked toward her full of purpose. Saw her swallow and clench her fingers. Her eyes widened, pupils dilated and the beautiful blue deepened to smoky purple. “Not even if it’s a sculpture of me?”
He stopped toe-to-toe. Her breathing was shallow and ragged. Finally something he could control. Sky’s reaction to him. She still lit up like a Christmas tree. He’d been handling her all wrong. Fuck talking, being practical and trying to comprehend her twisted illogic and childish reactions. He should have just tossed her delectable small handful of an ass in his truck and taken her to a hotel and fucked her blind and stupid to remind her of what they’d had and what they’d have again when she finally got on board that Montana was his child, and he intended to raise her all the way to walk her down the aisle, and he wasn’t going to be a single dad, divorced or married to a woman not Montana’s mother when he did it.
“Not everything is about you.” Her whisper fractured, and he could see the blush that stained her cheekbones flush down to her collarbone that he’d so loved to trace with his fingertips and then his tongue because it had caused her to moan and shiver and beg.
For a man who’d always been highly sexed, Sky had been his perfect match—scorching hot and ready to burn within every time he even started to think about sex, which with her had been a lot. But it had been her sweet and her total acceptance of him, win or lose, good or bad, that had stormed his heart.
“Really?” He let his voice go deep and leaned in closer to her, allowing his body to brush against her so she could feel his monster hard-on. Her eyes fluttered shut, but then she opened them again as if gathering up her tattered willpower. His Sky had been so sweet and giving and totally his. Whatever he’d wanted. Always. This Sky was new. More of a fighter, and he would never have guessed that that would have turned him on.
“I’m going to make you prove that later, Sky,” he said, leaning even further into her space, and curling his finger under her chin to tilt her face up so that she could see his intent. He leaned closer slowly so she had plenty of time to move away, but no, not his girl. She held her own. “I’m going to make you beg.” His lips feathered along her ear.
“You can try.” She trembled, but didn’t push him away, nor did her midnight blue eyes look away. “I won’t,” she promised.
God, he’d forgotten how utterly beautiful she was, how she just looked at him and it was like she could climb inside him and wrap around his soul, warm all the parts that were ice cold and rigid.
His hand spanned her throat, and he felt her swallow in his palm. Desire pierced. He knew she would. He wanted her to beg. He’d string her out as long as he could stand it.
“You remember what I do for a living?”
Rhetorical question, and she didn’t answer it.
“That I live and breathe challenge, right?” His mouth descended toward hers. Her lips parted.
“Kane,” she whispered, more of an invitation than a protest.
He huffed a laugh and stepped back.
Sky blinked. Spell broken. He felt like a torch ignited in his belly. Sky still wanted him as much as she ever had. They’d been good together. Too good. That summer with her was the only time in his entire life he’d come close to wavering from his goal. Make more money than his so-called biological father’s family had. Get his mother’s birthright Montana ranch back for her, him and Luke. But during the summer with Sky for the first time he’d tasted peace. He’d experienced happiness. He’d felt normal. A regular man, and he’d wondered what it would be like to be that man with a wife and a house and a regular job and to not be driven by things set in motion before he’d been born.
“Later,” he said, the word as much of a promise as it was a dare.
Her eyes flared. She looked at Jonas who was standing further into Sky’s studio in a shaft of light coming in through the windows up high near the roof line. He stood still, staring, mouth slightly open.
“Stay,” Sky told Kane. “Behave.” She hurried after Jonas.
Kane was not a dog. He followed.
Sky switched on a light and a semicircle of six bronze sculptures shimmered in the golden light from the small halogen spot lights mounted on a dropped beam. Each sculpture, four of a bull and rider, and two with just a cowboy, one back to the viewer, walking away, rope in hand, the uneven tilt of his shoulders indicating pain and loss. One hand dangled loose at his side, and Kane felt a lump in his throat. It was him. He’d been tossed at the seven-second mark. It had been the last time Sky had watched him ride, and when he looked at the empty hand, he couldn’t stop the thought that he should have been holding on to something—his wife and child. Instead nothing. The invisible family.
The final sculpture was of a cowboy climbing up out of the dirt. Each sculpture had its own pedestal of a different size and height, and the way the light hit the metal created shadows and a shimmer as if the image were alive.
Kane’s breath seized in his lungs. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. More powerful. The images were so immediate, raw, still yet pulsing with energy, tension. His heart thumped hard. He swore the sculptures breathed. Moved. Sky had created these with her hands and her mind and her imagination and her heart. While he’d been riding for money and the win, she’d been watching, analyzing, remembering.
He felt awed.
The images captured a split second in time, but so much more. Each sculpture was a dance between the fury of the bull and the will of the rider. They were also a taunt to nature, gravity and balance. And how did she create the shape and color of the metal? He felt mesmerized and humbled.
While he’d been playing the short game and challenging death and the laws of physics, Sky had been creating something eternal. She’d been memorializing her lover, her child’s father, while he’d been trying to forget the only woman he’d loved existed by burying himself mindlessly in the bodies of other women until he couldn’t take the boredom and loneliness of it anymore. Lately his life had felt like a black hole monk stage he hadn’t had the stomach to crawl out of.
He felt tired. He felt worn down.
“Amazing, Sky,” he said unable to stay in her presence another moment until he could wrap his head around what an idiot he’d been and how much time he’d wasted. He’d failed her on an elemental level. He’d kept his feelings close and secret. He hadn’t understood her. Hadn’t even tried. He’d let himself get lost in her body and what she did to his.
She’d left him because she hadn’t trusted him.
And he hadn’t deserved her or her trust, but he sure as hell was going to work hard to win it this time. No failure.
He took her cool hands in his and rubbed them briefly to warm them and then brought them to his mouth. He kissed one then the other.
“I have no words.” It was a confession. Her talent and vision humbled him. “Sort out what you need with Jonas.”
He walked out of the studio and back to the house before the protest clawing for supremacy, the one that didn’t want a piece of him or Sky’s to help out anything associated with the hated name Sheridan, burst out like an unleashed, unmuzzled id. His shit was his own to keep a tight lid on. He couldn’t hinder Sky’s career. She had too much talent and had worked too hard. So she could donate a sculpture, get the buzz, lay her foundation, continue her work. He’d build her a studio wherever they landed, but he was still going to change her life.