Chapter 39

Delon had timed his arrival almost perfectly. As he pulled into Tori’s driveway, Shawnee was loading her buckskin in her trailer. Delon intended to smile, wave, and skedaddle past without stopping to chat. Shawnee cut him off and drove two stiff fingers into his solar plexus hard enough to make him yelp like a kicked puppy. Geezus. Why did women keep doing that to him?

“You are a total piece of shit.” She turned on her heel and stomped to her pickup. As she climbed in she added, “She’s in the barn. Take your phone. You’ll need 911 to come and gather up the bloody scraps.”

Delon sank back to brace himself against the car, reeling. Son of a bitch. Tori knew. How? His stomach rolled into a queasy ball. He’d planned to start off with the surprise he had tucked in his pocket, then once she was softened up a bit, throw himself on her mercy while she might have some. He rubbed a fist over the throbbing bruise on his sternum. Too late for that now.

He pushed away from the car and started toward the barn, step by dreaded step. Inside, only the light in the tack room was on, spilling a rectangle of illumination across the dirt floor. His heart thumped like his grandfather’s old Navajo drum as he crossed the threshold, squinting into the shadows.

“I didn’t realize you planned to stop by tonight.”

Delon jumped at the voice that seemed to come from nowhere. Then he saw her shadow in Fudge’s stall. She pulled the saddle and blanket off the horse and shouldered open the stall door to carry them across to the tack room, her cap pulled low over her face. He could read absolutely nothing in her body language as she set the saddle on the rack and hung the blanket over a bar mounted on the wall above it.

“I…forgot to call.”

She made a noise that could have meant anything from No big deal to Fuck off. He dared a couple more steps while she scooped sweet feed from a metal can into a bucket. Her movements were brisk and efficient as usual, but it seemed to him that she deliberately kept her face in shadows.

“It was an asshole thing to do,” he said.

“Won’t get any argument from me.” She went back into the stall, clipped the bucket to a strap on the fence, then stood fingering Fudge’s mane as he ate, obviously waiting for Delon to either go on or drop dead.

“I’m sorry. It was just…” He grasped at a random straw. “I was nervous.”

“And having me there would make it worse?”

Her voice was still so damn neutral. How was he supposed to know how to play this? Claws scritched on wood overhead. Delon took an abrupt step back as the cat shimmied down a pole from the hayloft, prowled along the top rail of the stall until she reached a post directly between Delon and Tori, and settled down to regard him with unblinking contempt.

He kept a wary eye on the cat, lowering his voice. “I was afraid this first time would be ugly, and I didn’t want to disappoint you, after all the work…”

“Don’t.” Tori whirled fast enough to make Fudge jerk his head up, scattering drool-soaked oats. Her body was rigid as a quivering arrow, her face a pale blur in the dark stall. “At least we’ve never lied to each other. Don’t start now.”

“What do you want me to say?”

She laughed, a sound brittle enough to make the cat’s upper lip peel back. “You really should run for office. You’re a natural. Just find the right words, smile the right smile, and let the people think you gave them what they wanted.”

“I’m not blowing smoke.” Anger fingered in between the strands of panic tugging at his heart. “I’m trying to explain.”

“No need. I get it.”

“Get what?”

“You.” She brushed at the slimy grain Fudge had drooled on her leg, the motion dismissive. “Everything in its place, right? Me over here, them over there. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I was important to you.”

The razor-edged words sliced open his gut, letting every dark, slithering secret fall out. He recoiled, anger the only weapon he had left. “All I did was get on a few bucking horses.”

“At the Jacobs Ranch.” She cocked her head, her voice mocking. “Was everyone present and accounted for? Miz Iris. Steve. Beni. Violet’s cousin…what’s his name? Maybe I’d remember if I’d ever been introduced.” This laugh was razor-sharp. “And Violet was there, of course. Your whole happy family. Imagine, if you’d told me ahead of time. I might have insisted on coming along and meeting them.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “The horror.”

“You and I have only been together for a few weeks.”

“Together?” She snorted. “Funny. It feels more like I’m sitting in one place again while you circle around, making sure you never get close enough to get burned.”

The fingers of anger clenched into a red-hot fist in his gut. “Oh. Right. You want me to just bail in and assume you’re going to stick this time, based on…what?” He flung an arm toward the house. “Most of your stuff is still in boxes. You could back your trailer up to the front door and be gone tomorrow. You haven’t even named that damn cat.”

The cat bared its teeth and made a low, yowling noise that puckered Delon’s skin.

Tori ignored it. “What does my cat matter?”

“Nothing, apparently, just like your house and your yard. Show me one thing that proves you give a damn about anyone or anything around here.”

She went very still. Then she took four steps forward, until the light from the tack room fell across her face and he saw her eyes, red and swollen from tears that had left tracks in the dust on her cheeks. Worse, so much worse, was the look in her eyes. Utter devastation, and she put it right out there for him to see. She couldn’t have knocked the stuffing out of him faster if she’d hauled back and punched him.

“Take a good look,” she said. “And for the record, it’s nowhere near the first time on your account.”

Son of a bitch. He wanted to hold her, kiss away the evidence of her pain, promise never to do it again. He wanted to shake her. With all she’d suffered after losing Willy, how could she let anyone do this to her? Why couldn’t they just have something comfortable and safe?

“What do you want from me?” he asked again, desperation leaking into his voice.

“Everything.”

He didn’t…he couldn’t…he turned his palms out and lifted them away from his sides. “This is it.”

“It’s not enough.”

He let his hands fall limp and gave a bitter laugh. “What’s new? But it’s all I’ve got.”

“Bullshit.” She folded her arms, everything about her posture screaming a challenge. “I had all of you for one night. One morning. Before you chickened out.”

“Chickened—” He stepped toward her, outraged, but the cat hissed a warning that stopped him dead.

“That’s what I want,” Tori said. “What we had the very first night. I won’t take anything less.”

Delon shook his head. “Well, you’re shit out of luck, because that man was not me.”

“You’re wrong.”

“So you say. But hey, you’re your mother’s daughter—you’ll find a way to be right, and to hell with anyone else.” He turned, then paused, pulling the card out of his pocket and tossing it into the empty wheelbarrow beside the door. “Consider that a token of appreciation for being a great therapist, even though it doesn’t look like you intend to be around long enough to enjoy it.”

She didn’t try to stop him from leaving. He didn’t look back.