Chapter Three
Lanie hauled the boy away from the fight, dodging fists as she dragged him into the barn. With a frustrated grunt, Connor shrugged her off and paced between the stalls, swiping at his bleeding face with the back of one hand.
God, he looked like his father.
Not so much the hard-edged, bottled-up man Jesse was now, but Connor very much reminded her of the boy he’d been back when she first met Jesse. All long limbs, tall and skinny, with the same blue eyes and shaggy hair. Except Connor’s hair was lighter, tawny instead of the dark umber of Jesse’s. And there hadn’t been quite so much anger in Jesse’s eyes at this age. No, for him, the anger had come later in life. Looked like Connor was getting an earlier start down that road, and her heart ached for him. She’d been forced to watch from a distance as his father wrangled demons strong enough to make a full-grown man self-destruct. It wasn’t fair that a boy should face those same demons.
“Connor—”
He smacked her hand away. “Don’t. You’re not my mom.”
She stepped back. “No. I’m not, and I don’t want to be. But you look like you could use a friend.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Or anyone, huh?” When he looked up sharply, she offered a smile. “I remember feeling the same way at fifteen. My parents weren’t around much, either, so I had to be tough. I thought I could take on the world by myself, and didn’t need anything from anyone. I wasn’t entirely wrong, but I wasn’t entirely right either.” She reached into the tack room on her right and grabbed a bandana someone had left behind on the bench. She held it out to him. “At least stop the bleeding.”
He snatched it away, but stared down at it for a second like he had no idea what to do with it. And in that second, his tough guy act faded away and she glimpsed the lost little boy underneath. Then he folded the bandana and pressed it to his forehead with a wince.
Sighing, she leaned against the door of a stall. “Why weren’t you in here helping your dad? He was counting on you, ya know.”
“For slave labor.” Connor’s lip curled as he glanced around. “I don’t like barns. I don’t like horses. I don’t know why I’m even here.”
“Jesse wants you here.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s always been too busy to care about me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Is so.” He started pacing again, just like his father did when he was agitated. The similarities were uncanny. “You said your parents weren’t around?”
She managed to hold back the wince. That was a can of worms she hadn’t meant to crack open. “Dad was a Texas Ranger. He was killed on the job, and after that Mom had to work a lot to keep the lights on.”
“But they cared about you?”
A vice clamped around Lanie’s heart and she had to draw a breath to ease the tightness. Peter Delcambre had been married to the job and was gone from their family long before his death, and Sharon had never recovered from the trauma of it all. She’d checked-out, mothered on autopilot until Lanie left for college, then up and disappeared. But Lanie had to think they’d loved her as best as they were able. “I think all parents love their children. Some just don’t know how to show it.”
“I don’t think so.” Connor shook his head, scuffed his bright red Vans in the scatter of hay on the concrete floor. “My whole life, I’ve been an inconvenience.”
“No.” Lanie infused the word with conviction. There was a lot she didn’t understand about Jesse Warrick, and even more that drove her crazy, but she knew for certain he’d never view his son as an inconvenience. “Connor, no. Jesse doesn’t think that about you.”
“Yeah, sure.” He rolled his eyes in the snarky way only teenagers could master. “Neither of them wanted me, you know? Now Mom’s happy with her new family and her perfect children. She doesn’t want me around anymore. And Dad’s always off fighting another war. He never cared about me.” He jerked his chin in the general direction of the training center. “But he cares about those guys. They’re like him, and I’m not.”
Ah-ha. So that was what this was all about. “Is that why the…” She made a vague motion toward her own face, indicating the bandana he held to his head.
He tossed the bandana aside. “Schumacher’s an ass. He wouldn’t shut up about his new sneakers. I said they were ugly, and he threw a punch. He started it, but I would’ve finished it.”
She decided now was not the time to remind him that he’d have been knocked sideways if his father hadn’t stepped in and saved his skin.
The barn door creaked open and Jesse stalked inside, his features set. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was calm, but she saw through the facade. Inside, he was boiling. Holding it back, though, as usual. For once, she’d like to see him let it go, lose control. It’d do him good to release some of the tension perpetually knotting his shoulders.
“Connor,” he said in a painfully level tone.
The kid’s spine snapped straight, readying for another fight. In that respect, he wasn’t like his dad. He didn’t hide what he was feeling. His expression was a whole damn novel of anger and resentment that anyone could read.
Oh no. This wasn’t going to go well.
…
Jesse was so focused on his son, he forgot Lanie was there, too, until she stepped between them and held out her hands. “Whoa, hold up, guys. You’re both angry, so let’s take a minute.”
He glared at her. Unflinching, she glared right back. And, goddammit, she was right. He needed to take a breather because he was seconds away from an explosion. Connor could push his buttons like nobody else—except for Lanie. It was hard to say which of them took more delight in needling him.
He drew a breath, then another, and rolled his shoulders. “Connor.” He kept his voice calm and even. “Help me understand why you feel the need to keep causin’ trouble.”
“I’m not!”
“So gettin’ into fistfights when you’re supposed to be helpin’ me here in the barn isn’t causin’ trouble?”
“Whatever.” Connor stalked past him. “I’m outta here.”
How the hell was he supposed to get through to the kid when Connor ran off every time they tried to talk? “Where you goin’?”
Connor scowled over his shoulder. “Home. My real home.”
“You’re not goin’ back to Vegas by yourself.”
“Why not? You obviously don’t want me here.”
“Of course I want you here.”
“Which is why you’re taking off and leaving me on this stupid, dusty ranch?”
“I have to work—”
“You always have work.” Connor turned away. “What else is new?”
As his son trudged toward the exit, Lanie widened her eyes at him like she expected him to say something. When he only stared at her uncomprehendingly, she jerked her chin in Connor’s direction.
He still didn’t have the first clue what she wanted him to say. She sighed and shook her head. “Why don’t you have Connor come with us for the training?”
Connor stopped and swung back. Jesse about swallowed his tongue.
“What?” they said at the same time.
“No,” Jesse added.
“Why not?” she asked. “We won’t have live ammunition during the exercises and at night we’re just going to sit around and BS. Maybe he’ll learn something. Maybe you two will even bond. It’ll be good for you both.”
Jesse stared at his son. Connor stared back with eyes that were far too familiar. He’d seen those angry eyes before. They’d gazed out from the mirror at him for years. He didn’t want his boy mixed up in this part of his life, but at the same time, Lanie had a point. Again. He really wished she’d stop being so goddamn reasonable.
“Would you want to go?” The question went against every fatherly instinct he possessed, but Connor’s expression changed to something other than snide indifference. He couldn’t put a name to the fleeting emotion. It almost looked like…hope.
“Well?” Jesse prompted after a beat of silence.
“Okay.” Somehow, Connor still managed to make his acquiescence sound sulky.
Jesse’s belly knotted so tightly he had to swallow down a surge of sickness. “Whoa. I didn’t say you could.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Watch your language.”
“Whatever. I didn’t really want to go anyway.” Connor rolled his eyes and stomped away.
“Well,” Lanie said as the barn door banged shut. “You handled that like a champ. Good job.”
He speared her with a stare sharp enough to kill. “Don’t you have somethin’ to be doin’ elsewhere, Elena?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, which plumped up her breasts, and made the tops of those beautiful globes peek out over her tank top. With his blood already running hot, he barely contained the urge to back her into one of the clean stalls and vent his frustration…all over her.
His cock twitched behind his fly at the mental image of her naked in the hay, sweat-slicked and writhing with pleasure as he came onto her belly.
Dayam.
Not the road he wanted to start down with her. Now or ever.
He spun away, his heart beating too hard and too high in his throat, his cock rubbing painfully against his jeans with each step he took. “Go away. I have work to do.”
Behind him, she said something under her breath. Something along the lines of, “Like father, like son.”
He stepped out into the hot afternoon sun in time to see the screen door bang shut on the house. His partially deaf and mostly blind basset hound, Dozer, jumped up from a nap on the front porch and squinted at the driveway, letting out a confused woof. Jesse walked over and ran a soothing hand over the old dog’s head.
When had his life gone sideways? Granted, his personal life had always been a mess, and maybe he’d used his career to escape the crazy. Patching up soldiers in battle gave him purpose, something solid and meaningful that he’d clung to like a life raft. But now the two worlds were colliding.
Let Connor join the training?
Jesus.
At a loss, he sat down on the porch steps. Dozer, all slobber and wrinkles, scooted closer and flopped over for a belly rub. It made him smile. This dopey-looking dog was about the only thing that could nowadays.
He gazed over his shoulder at the screen door, which hadn’t shut all the way and now groaned softly in the hot breeze blowing through the valley. He hoped Lanie wasn’t right about the whole “like father, like son” thing. The very idea that she might have hit the nail squarely on the head scared the ever-loving hell out of him.