CHAPTER ONE
ROMAN GRANGER KNEW there were few advantages to being a badass over the age of thirty. Especially when you had a thirteen-year-old son. But this was one of those times when he could put his bad-assery skill set to good use.
“No,” he told the naked woman standing in his living room. “I don’t want whipped cream sprayed in my boxer shorts.”
Roman added “the look.” The slight sneer, chin down, the stare that he hoped conveyed that this whole whipped cream thing stood no chance whatsoever of happening.
The naked woman—Tiffany Ann Baker—stuck out her bottom lip in what he supposed was meant to be a playful pout, and she crooked her index finger, also playfully, for him to come to her. Roman wanted to tell her that if seeing her stark naked hadn’t already caused him to move in her direction, then a crooked finger sure wasn’t going to do the trick.
“How’d you get in my house?” he asked.
She smiled as if that was a good response to his snarled question. “Your housekeeper let me in before she left to do some errands. Oh, and she said to tell you that the upstairs toilet is making a gurgling sound. She jiggled the handle, but that didn’t work.”
Then he needed to have a chat with his live-in housekeeper, Anita, about allowing in women with whipped cream cans. Apparently, he also needed to call a plumber.
“You can’t stay,” Roman spelled out to Tiffany Ann. “My son, Tate, will be home from school soon.”
Plus, even if Tate hadn’t been on his way, Roman would have passed on the whipped cream sex. He’d just walked in from an overnight business trip where he’d gotten kicked by a rodeo bronco that he’d been in the process of buying. He was in pain, tired and hungry. Tiffany Ann would have stood a better chance of enticing him into having sex if she’d brought him a cheeseburger and some extra-strength ibuprofen.
“Oh, you devil, you,” Tiffany Ann purred. Using the nozzle of the whipped cream like a wand, she waved it over her body. “You can’t make me believe that you don’t want more of this.”
Believe it.
Since the badass look wasn’t working, Roman tried a different approach. He picked up her clothes that she’d tossed on the back of his sofa and handed them to her. “Get dressed and leave. Sorry, but I don’t want to have to explain a Brazilian strip wax and nipple piercings to my son when he comes through that door.”
Of course, Tate probably knew all about it. He was thirteen, after all—almost fourteen—but Roman didn’t want him to have a visual of the woman his dad had hooked up with twice.
Tiffany Ann stared as if waiting for him to change his mind. When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, she huffed, threw the whipped cream and started dressing. The can smacked into the fireplace and started spewing. Tiffany Ann was spewing in her own way, too, because her eyes narrowed, and she jerked on her clothes as if she’d declared war on them.
“I thought we had a connection, Roman,” she grumbled.
“We had sex,” he corrected. “Remember, we discussed it before we got naked, and I told you that I wasn’t looking for a relationship?”
It was easy for Roman to recall that because he had that same chat with all his potential lovers. Between his job as a rodeo promoter and being a single dad, he didn’t have time for anything more than just casual sex. And hell in a big-assed handbasket, it wasn’t as if he was the relationship type, anyway.
That’s why he had a three-fuck rule.
Three times or less was just casual sex, but anything more than that strayed into commitment territory. He’d spelled out that rule to Tiffany Ann.
Despite that spelling-out, Roman could tell from Tiffany Ann’s body language and expression that she hadn’t bought it. He could almost predict what she was going to say: I thought I could change your mind. I didn’t believe you were serious when you said that. Or, I was certain that I was different from every other woman and that you really cared about me.
He did care.
Just not in the way that Tiffany Ann or any other woman would ever want. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
But Tiffany Ann didn’t say any of those things or even a variation of them. “I hope your toilet explodes and dumps pee-water all over your stupid head.”
With that grade-school remark, she snapped back her shoulders and walked out as if she’d been the one to put an end to this tryst. It was a good spin on things for her and meant she’d likely move on fast.
Despite his badass label, he really didn’t want her hurt.
Definitely didn’t want her shedding any tears over him.
That was another reason Roman had told her the truth right from the start. Of course, he was learning that the truth didn’t always keep things as uncomplicated as he wanted. Celibacy didn’t, either. For some reason, women took that as a challenge to test his commitment to it.
He doubted Tiffany Ann would come back, but he locked the door just in case. Tate could use his key to get in when he got home, which should be in less than fifteen minutes. The reason Roman had bought this particular house was because it was just up the street from the middle school. Tate had insisted he’d rather walk than have a sitter drive him to and from school while Roman was at work. His son hated the idea of a sitter.
Actually, Tate hated a lot of things these days.
Roman included.
He took his suitcase to his bedroom, wincing with each move, and he headed straight for the bathroom so he could locate some pain meds. He downed them with water he drank straight from the faucet, stripped and got in the shower.
Hell, he had a fist-size bruise on his lower right stomach and another on his chest. He hoped he didn’t have a cracked rib to go along with it. If he did, it served him right. He’d ridden broncos for years and knew better than to get too close to one named Shit-kicker.
His phone was ringing when Roman stepped out of the shower, and he saw his sister’s name on the screen.
Sophie ran the family business, Granger Western, which Roman wanted no part of. That applied to a lot of things when it came to his family. He didn’t want the Granger Ranch, either, even though he legally owned it. And he definitely didn’t want to deal with his mother.
Since Sophie’s call was likely about one of those things—mother, ranch, business—he let it go to voice mail. He’d talk to her later, after the pain meds had kicked in and he’d gotten something to eat.
Roman made his way to the kitchen, located some leftover chili in the fridge and went through the mail on the island while he zapped the chili in the microwave. Junk mail, electric bill, junk mail. And his stomach tightened when he spotted the return address on the next envelope that had been sent to his son.
Valerie Banchini.
His old high school girlfriend.
But more importantly, Tate’s mom.
It’d been over six months since she’d communicated with Tate in any way. That had been a birthday card that was four months late. Hell, it hadn’t even been a real birthday card. Valerie had scratched out “Be My Valentine” and scrawled “Happy B’day, Baby” instead. On the inside, she’d lined through “Love, Doug” and written “Mommy loves you!!!!”
Maybe this was an early card to celebrate his fourteenth birthday, which was still weeks away. Or it could be just a “thinking of you” note.
Either way, it would send Tate into a tailspin.
Anything from his mother always did. His son had never come out and said it, but Roman suspected that the meager contact was a reminder for Tate that the only part his mom had had in his life was regifted cards and an occasional phone call. It sucked. And Roman despised her for it.
But not nearly as much as he despised himself.
He should have done better by his son. Should have been able to rewrite the past and give the kid a mother he deserved. Instead, he’d started out Tate’s life in a tangled mess.
Roman had been just eighteen when he’d gotten Valerie pregnant. No three-fuck rule back then. They’d been going out for a couple of months, had had sex too many times to count, and one of those times the condom had failed. Hard to curse the condom company, though, because he’d gotten Tate.
Of course, he’d also gotten “Valerie baggage” since she’d skipped out on both of them shortly after Tate was born. Too bad that baggage wasn’t just his and only his, but this crap always got on his son.
His phone rang again as the microwave dinged. Not Sophie this time but his brother, Garrett. This would be about ranching business, so he also let it go to voice mail. Apparently, though, his brother wasn’t taking no-answer for an answer because Roman’s phone rang again right away.
But it wasn’t Garrett. It was Tate’s school.
Everything inside Roman went still, and he hit the answer button. “Mr. Granger?” a woman said after Roman greeted the caller. “This is Principal Wilson.”
Yeah, Roman recognized her voice. That was because he’d been called in for chats with the woman about Tate’s sullen behavior and slipping grades. “Is Tate all right?” Roman immediately asked.
He heard something he didn’t want to hear. The principal’s heavy sigh. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Tate got in a fight at school. He got a cut on his lip. He’s fine physically. The nurse is treating it now.”
“I’ll be right there.” Roman grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
“Good. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to come. Tate said you were away on business again.”
Roman didn’t miss the again, and he couldn’t argue with it. He was gone a lot. That’s why he’d hired Anita, but a live-in housekeeper couldn’t fix something like this.
He tried to tamp down the emotions that bubbled up inside him. And failed. His boy was hurt. “Who gave him that busted lip?”
“A classmate. But you should know that Tate punched him first. The other student has a cut lip and a bruised face. Since we weren’t sure if anything was broken, that student’s being sent to the hospital.”
Roman bit back the profanity, barely, and he hurried out the door. Not walking, but rather running, which wasn’t exactly easy in cowboy boots and with his side throbbing like a bad tooth. He got in his truck and took off, heading for the school.
“Why did this happen?” Roman asked her. “How did the fight start?”
“Neither boy will say, but Tate might talk to you about it.”
Roman doubted it. He wasn’t his son’s go-to person for any form of communication.
“You should know that this is very serious,” the principal went on. “Tate will be expelled for this.”
Now Roman cursed, and judging from the sound of disapproval the principal made, she was convinced that Tate’s cursing, badass, black-sheep father was the reason for this mess he was in.
And the principal was probably right.
“Expelled?” Roman questioned. “That seems pretty extreme for a schoolyard fight.”
“We have a zero tolerance policy for this sort of thing when injuries are involved. Mr. Granger, you’ll need to find Tate another school. I also think you should get him some counseling. We can talk about that when you get here.” And the principal ended the call.
He’d tried to coax Tate into counseling, and hadn’t succeeded in doing that, either, but Roman would try it again. He would also somehow convince Principal Wilson into nixing the expulsion so Tate could stay in school. Tate had several friends there, and Roman didn’t want the kid to have to re-create his life.
Roman pulled into the school parking lot, took the first spot he could find and hurried into the building. The principal’s office was just off the main hall so he headed there and immediately spotted Ms. Wilson standing next to another woman.
Both turned to him when he came through the door.
Roman instantly knew something was wrong. Something more than the obvious.
“Mr. Granger,” Principal Wilson said. “This is Mandy Rodriguez, the school nurse.” The two women exchanged glances.
Uneasy glances.
This was where Roman’s experience created some very bad scenarios in his head. He’d been in bar fights. Had had his face punched and his lip busted. But not once had those injuries been serious enough to send him to the hospital.
“Is Tate okay?” Roman asked.
The nurse nodded but then shook her head. “I left him alone for only a couple of minutes when I went to get some cotton swabs to clean his lip.” She paused, swallowed hard. “When I came back, Tate was gone. Mr. Granger, I think your son ran away.”