Full Texas Throttle

by Katherine Garbera

  And while he saw her as someone who could bring him something he needed, he wondered what he brought to her life. Other than banging-hot sex. She had been wild last night but today, she was all buttoned up and keeping her distance from him again.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he needed to bring something else into their relationship. Spontaneity? Passion? It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with Cal but maybe his older brother could offer a few tips. He’d see how the road trip went and once they were back in Last Stand, he’d do what needed to be done.

  While he might not be sure of anything in his life, Lancey was important to him. For some reason she was easy to talk to and she calmed the parts of himself he didn’t necessarily like. She was the person he was going to hold on to with both hands while he found his balance again in a life where he wasn’t driving.

  “Highwater will find a way. That’s kind of his thing. While our families haven’t always gotten on well, he is a decent man.”

  “Yes, he is. It was hard when he showed up to tell me about TJ. I don’t know many men who would have handled it the way he did.”

  “Yeah. I got a call from Cal and it was…well, the worst moment of my life,” Finn said, realizing that Rose’s death gave him some perspective on losing his ride. Compared to the loss of his beloved younger sister, not driving wasn’t as bad as he’d been making it seem.

  “Same. Losing Gran was hard, but she was old and we knew it was coming. Same with Mom. Cancer is hard on the body and when she went, I was sad, but I knew she was in a better place. The thing with TJ was…he and I were just starting to become friends. As adults. I mean, he’d really made up his mind to stand by Rose and Lane. He was making plans and for the first time, I felt like he had grown up.”

  Her voice got deeper and huskier and she turned her head away, he guessed, to keep him from seeing her cry. He reached over and took her hand in his. “They were too young.”

  “They were,” she agreed.

  “I didn’t always like your brother—actually, I thought he was a punk when he ghosted Rose after Lane was born—but when he came back, I saw something in him that I hadn’t realized before. That Maverick steely backbone. You’ve got it, too.”

  She shrugged and squeezed his hand before pulling it away to take her napkin and blow her nose. “He said that once he was on his own, he hated it. He couldn’t stop thinking about Rose and Lane. That freedom hadn’t been what he’d thought it would be. Being alone just made him keenly aware of what was waiting for him back in Last Stand. Honestly, he made me wish I had someone like Rose in my life. She made him a better man.”

  Finn’s heart felt like it had taken a punch. His sister had been the best of all of the Delaneys and he missed her so damned much. The emotions overwhelmed him, and he pushed back from the table and walked away. He knew he couldn’t keep running every time he felt like this, but damn, he didn’t know how to handle it.

  Rose and TJ had been a family. How unfair was it that they were gone, and he was still here? He was in the biggest mess of his life; he hadn’t figured out what TJ had in those three months he’d been gone. How to come home. How to process grief and pain and admit he was hurting and wrong. How to finally accept who he was and the life he had.

  These were things that had always been just out of his grasp and the older he got, the harder it was for him to figure out how to just accept it. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

  “Unca. I need the potty,” Lane said, coming up and slipping his little hand into Finn’s. He glanced around to see Lancey standing at the counter, taking care of their check.

  He lifted Lane up and hugged him, burying his head in his nephew’s neck. He’d do better, he promised himself. No more abandoning Lancey. She hadn’t asked for this either, but she was manning up.

  He took Lane to the bathroom and when he came back out of the restaurant, Lancey was leaning on the truck, just waiting for them. But he knew he had to start stepping up because a woman like Lancey, a Maverick woman, wasn’t going to wait forever.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lancey drove, concentrating on the traffic and getting back to Texas. The beach had been nice but she realized what a tough nut Finn was. There was something dark and dangerous inside of him and the more time they spent together, the more she wondered if that was the reason she was drawn to him.

  He was hot, but then she’d seen a lot of hot guys in her time. It was more than that. It was the way that he seemed to always be on the edge of control. It was exciting and different. She’d always counted on her safe little rules and regulations. But it also made her realize how much she was risking by agreeing to start something with him.

  Was this how her gran had felt when she’d met Lancey’s grandfather? Was this how Mom had felt with her dad? God, she hoped not. She hoped she wasn’t following down some crappy predestined trail that generations of Maverick women had taken before. But honestly, she had no clue.

  She liked the danger that he brought to her life. And if she was totally honest with herself, she knew if it hadn’t been for Lane, she wouldn’t have hesitated to ride along with Finn wherever this wild adventure took her. But she did have Lane, and he had to be the priority in her life. She’d committed to that. Committed to him. And no matter how addictive Finn Delaney was, she wasn’t going to let herself forget that.

  “You mad at me?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Talking about the accident gets to me, too. I know how hard it is.”

  “Yeah,” he said, pushing his sunglasses up on the top of his head and turning to face her.

  She glanced at him, saw the pain in his eyes and understood it in her heart. But then she forced her gaze back to the road. “Did you talk to anyone after it happened?”

  “Uh, no. That’s not my thing,” he said.

  She kept her mouth shut but she thought he could benefit from help. “What is your thing?”

  “Getting drunk and starting fights,” he said without any shame. “It’s just easier to deal with emotions that way.”

  “I remember, back in school, you were always in detention,” she said, as that memory popped up. Walking with Braden to meet his brother and staring into the window of the small room where all of the kids who had detention were sullenly sitting at their desks. Finn hadn’t seemed bothered to be there.

  “Yeah, I did. Mrs. Graham and I had an understanding,” he said.

  “Did you?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine that the assistant principal was too happy that one of her students was always fighting.

  “Yes, we did, Maverick,” he said very properly. “She said I needed a place to express myself. She is the one who recommended go-cart racing to me and my mom. She was right, too. Focusing on driving gave me what I needed to stop feeling so…”

  She waited for a moment then realized he wasn’t going to say it. She wanted to pull the truck over and take a good look at him—look at this man who couldn’t process his emotions. And she had agreed to a relationship with him. Sure, it was fun and exciting but there was also this—he needed someone who was sweet and caring, someone like Emma Corbyn actually. She’d be able to handle Finn.

  Lancey wanted to tell him to suck it up and face his feelings, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She’d seen that raw pain in his eyes and she couldn’t. She’d do whatever she could and hope it worked.

  “She was a smart lady,” Lancey said at last and meant it. Mrs. Graham had been the one to recommend she try Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in high school. She had been getting more and more…well, TJ used to call it “Lance-fied,” but the truth was she had been making more and more rules for herself, creating a safe box for herself after her dad had left. Only it really hadn’t helped.

  “She never tried to make me into someone I wasn’t,” Finn said after a minute. “She got that I wasn’t going to change.”

  “Yeah, I think she did,” Lancey agreed. “She was a really good person. Tough but fair. My CO was like
that. He got me.”

  “Oh, did he? Was he more than your CO?” Finn asked, his tone suddenly changing. Was that jealousy?

  “Uh, no. He is happily married with five kids at home. Gran used to tell me to never mix business with pleasure and I never have. The job was more important than any man,” she said, measuring her words carefully so he’d get the hint.

  “Got it. I did come on sort of strong, didn’t I?” he asked. “Sorry, Lancey. It’s just you bring out…something different in me. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll try not to do that again.”

  “It’s fine. You were curious. Just don’t think I’m someone who would value herself—”

  “That’s not what I meant. I was just jealous because I could hear the respect and affection you have for him in your voice,” he said. “He’s part of the life you chose. I’m a part of the life you’re stuck with.”

  “I never feel stuck with you,” she admitted, realizing she’d let old hurts dictate the way she reacted to him. She should know better, but he rattled her and left her feeling…lost.

  It was the same way she felt when Lane crawled on her lap at night for a cuddle. Of course, she was overwhelmed with love for her nephew but she wasn’t sure she could be the mother figure he needed. She was doing her best but was that enough? She was feeling her way in the dark with these two men and it was harder than anything else she’d ever done. She hoped she was getting it right but there were times when she was pretty sure she was failing miserably.

  *

  They stopped for the night at a motel off the interstate and Finn went in to book the room while Lancey got a sleeping Lane out of his car seat. The rest of the day had been spent singing songs that Lane liked, spotting different things out of the car window and for him to surreptitiously watch Lancey and wonder how he’d been so blind to her all of his life.

  Honestly, it had taken her wearing a dress and her hair down at the saloon for him to see her for the first time. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d missed out on something.

  He tried to get two adjoining rooms but the roadside motel didn’t have them. So he had opted for one room with two beds and asked for a crib. There was a restaurant attached to the motel so they could walk to dinner and Finn was ready for that. His leg hurt and though Lancey had followed his doctor’s orders and stopped every hour or so for him to get out and walk around, it still had been a very long day. He’d needed to get out of the truck. Lane had, too.

  He heard the sound of their laughter and his pace quickened. He wanted to get back to them. Talking about Mrs. Graham had helped him today. He’d forgotten how she’d urged him to find an outlet for himself in driving. It had made the difference. He had been fighting, not just at school, but at home with his father, too. And his mom had just started getting really sick, which had simply made him more aggressive. In many ways, Mrs. Graham had probably saved him from prison.

  She’d given him something to do. Someone to be. And now that was gone. He wasn’t a driver…of course his team hadn’t fired him yet but he knew if his body didn’t react positively to the medication, they’d have no choice but to let him go.

  They couldn’t risk their car or the other drivers on the track if he wasn’t one hundred percent. And he had no idea if he ever would be that again. There was so much uncertainty around the DVT. It wasn’t like a pulled muscle or a broken leg. He couldn’t heal or do physical therapy to get back into shape. His blood was the issue. He might heal now but it could come back in a few years. Had driving been the reason he had this? No one could say for certain.

  He rounded the corner and saw Lancey swinging Lane around in circles, holding on to his hands and making him “fly.” Lane’s head was thrown back and he was laughing from deep inside. And Finn stood there in the shadows, watching the two of them. He had never felt anything like this deep fondness that overwhelmed him now, except for what he felt for his brothers and sister. He could easily say that it was Lane he was reacting to now, but he knew it was also Lancey.

  Careful, rule-following Lancey, who was near a parking lot, swinging her nephew around like it was the only thing she wanted to do. At the end of a long day of driving, it was as if she wanted nothing else but to chill out like this.

  Seeing her embracing this changed life just made him want her even more. He wondered, if he made love to her, would he be able to absorb some of that from her? It hadn’t worked yet but then again, he hadn’t seen her this way before this moment.

  He wished he knew the right things to ask her to figure out how she’d gone from being so lost in the saloon, a little more than a week ago, to this. She seemed confident, like she’d figure everything out. And he was still standing here, a total and complete mess.

  She set Lane down and they both turned toward him. “Did you get us a room?”

  “I did. One room, two beds. Hope that’s okay.”

  “That’ll do. We needed to burn some excess energy,” Lancey said.

  “I do, too,” Finn admitted. “Ideas?”

  “Auntie said I could jump on the bed,” Lane said.

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. I hope that’s okay. My mom used to let TJ and me do it whenever we stayed in a motel.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m looking forward to seeing you do it,” he said.

  He had a hard time thinking of her jumping on a bed. But then he realized that he was just as guilty as everyone else of seeing only what was on the surface. He saw the military woman because that was what she wanted everyone to see. But of course, there was much more to her than that.

  “Well, I might not do it tonight,” she said. “I’m a bit old for jumping on the bed.”

  “I’ll jump too,” Lane said.

  He ruffled his nephew’s hair as he led them to their room. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s check out our room.”

  “I’ll grab our bags and meet you,” Lancey said.

  “I’ll come back and get them,” he offered.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Are you sure?”

  “I am. I might not be able to drive but I’m going to be pulling my own weight from now on,” he said.

  He owed her that. He wanted her strength and her inner calmness and he knew that he had to start by stepping up. He’d meant to do it earlier, when they’d stopped in Santa Cruz. He’d made a start at it but then they’d talked about Rose… He stopped himself from going there. He was still overwhelmed with grief over the loss of his sister but he knew he needed to learn to handle it slowly. And he would. He didn’t make it a promise because he didn’t want to break it and he wasn’t sure enough yet that he could do it.

  The room they’d been given was clean and spacious and as soon as they got inside, Lane noticed the cowboy prints on the wall above the bed. “Cowboys!”

  “Yee haw,” Lancey said.

  Yee haw, he got to spend the night with these two. And for the first time since his mom died, he felt like he had a home. He wasn’t like Cal who was good at being the hometown hero or Braden, who was so smart, no one ever gave him flak. Finn had just always thought that Last Stand was too small to hold him. Then again, he’d never been there with these two people.

  *

  It seemed to Lancey that Finn was reluctant to get back to Last Stand. They were within spitting distance of Hill Country but he wanted to detour to New Braunfels to take Lane to Schlitterbahn. And while she was all for more fun time with her nephew, she had an interview with Police Chief Highwater in two days, and she needed time at home to prepare. But if she’d had a secure job to return to and was on vacation, she’d have wanted this time to last forever as well.

  “Let’s plan to do it the weekend after the rodeo,” Lancey said.

  “Okay, but why are you in a hurry to get back?” he asked. “Have I been a man-child again?”

  She smiled. “I never should have admitted that I called you that in my head.”

  “To be fair, I was thinking you’d have called me an a-hole,” he said, stretching out as
best he could in the passenger seat.

  She looked at the GPS and saw there was a rest stop coming up where they could pull over and Finn would have a chance to get out and walk around. “I wasn’t mad at you, just irritated.”

  “Good to know. So what’s up with the hurry to get back?” he asked again.

  She shrugged. The last few days on the road had served to demonstrate just how different the two of them were. She liked structure, routine and sticking to a schedule. Finn was more the ‘there’s a barbecue place that’s awesome; let’s drive two hours out of the way to eat there’ type. He’d been right—the food had been good—but she’d had to really force herself not to drive longer hours to make up for the lost time.

  “You can tell me,” he said. “I’ve admitted that if I can’t drive, I’m probably going to lose my shit.”

  She smiled but she knew he was joking. He might not be sure what was coming next but she had quickly realized that Finn was way smarter than he let on. He always seemed to have a plan. He might not call it that, but she recognized his thoughts for the future for what they were. He’d talked about owning his own team or using some of the Delaney ranch property to build a decent track and trying to get on the go-cart circuit so that he could help train young drivers in the area.

  “So…?” he prompted.

  “Ugh. I need time to prepare for my interview with the chief of police. I don’t want to go in there and wing it. The last time I saw Shane Highwater was when he came to tell me that TJ had died. I want to make sure he’s impressed with my skills and not offering me a job because he feels sorry for me.”

  Finn shook his head. “Darling, Highwater isn’t a feel-sorry-for-anyone type guy. And you are impressive, just as you are. But if you want to get home and prepare, then let’s do it. What can I do to help?”