Heartbreaker

by Claire, Grahame

  “Merry Christmas. Why don’t y’all go inside, get a piece of red velvet cake, while I finish this up?”

  Leona hopped up on the porch without question, avoiding the steps. Mulaney didn’t move, even as the screen door bounced off the frame a few times when her niece went in the house.

  “If you want to help, then by all means.” I offered her the paintbrush, to which she gave an incinerating look. I resumed my work, whistling “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”

  “You already painted that,” she accused.

  I absolutely had, but if she were more amenable to spending time with me, I wouldn’t have to resort to petty tactics. The drive back to the Jacobs Ranch wasn’t long enough.

  “There was a time you could stand to be around me for more than two seconds without hightailing it away,” I said without looking up.

  “I don’t remember that,” she snapped.

  “Want a specific example?” I offered. “I’ve got a good one.”

  “No.”

  “Then you can tell me what’s got you all riled up.”

  “I’m fine—”

  “I’d be less concerned stuck in a room with an angry bull than with you right now.” A rock skittered behind me, but I didn’t look up, pretending to concentrate on the steps. “You’ve got that look you get when you’re about to detonate.”

  “You aren’t even looking at me. And what look? I don’t get a look.”

  “Don’t have to see you,” I said, knowing damn well her cheeks were turning a darker shade of red by the second and it had nothing to do with the cold. “And you definitely get a look.”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  Another rock sailed and landed not too far from me . . . on purpose. “Your mouth starts to do this twitchy thing. And when it’s real bad, your left eye does too.”

  “Twitchy? Where the hell did you learn a word like that?” she demanded.

  I casually turned around and pointed. “See? Twitchy?” That mouth couldn’t settle, one second flat, the next like a wave as it rolled back and forth. “Uh-oh. We’ve got some eye action.”

  Her fingers flexed at her sides, and though I was well aware decking me wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, I couldn’t stop. “Is that my hat you’ve got on? Again?”

  If looks could kill, I’d be laid out on the ground in my grandma’s yard, riddled with holes.

  “I’m sorry, Heartbreaker, but that’s my favorite. I can’t part with it. Not even for you.”

  She yanked off the ball cap and threw it at me. I caught it before it hit the ground and slowly rose. Her hair was all kinds of messed up, and even if it weren’t for the reasons I’d like, I still loved the sight.

  I ate up the yard between us in three strides and stopped short of touching her. She tilted her head back in defiance, those angry eyes meeting mine. I placed the hat back on her head, pulling her ponytail through the back opening.

  She slapped at my hands, but didn’t take off the hat.

  I tapped my lips with my index finger. “Come to think of it, I would be willing to give you my favorite hat for something.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  So help me God, it took all my strength not to toss her in the bed of my truck where we could both take out our aggression in a productive way.

  “That’s not true. If you didn’t, you’d have never agreed in the first place.”

  “It was a mistake.”

  The word was like a missile when it blew up. For as much as I loved her games, I’d had enough of this one. That she could so casually toss out the word mistake regarding something so important hurt. She was treating this like it was just any old business deal.

  “Like hell it was. Stop this nonsense.”

  “Just sign the damn papers. I can’t figure out for the life of me why you wouldn’t want to.”

  I leaned in until my nose almost touched hers. “Get this through your head. I’m. Not. Signing.”

  “You’re a stubborn ass.”

  “You knew that when you agreed to—”

  “Are you done painting those steps or not? We didn’t exactly announce we were leaving the house, and we’ve been gone awhile,” she said, done discussing the matter.

  “I’ve never seen you avoid anything. Should I be flattered I’m the first?”

  Her jaw ticked. She marched past me and swiped up the keys from the grass where I’d laid them. “You want your truck back? Come get it yourself.” She hopped up on the porch, propped open the screen door, and poked her head inside. “Leona. We have to get moving before they call out a search party,” she hollered.

  “I called Grandmama. She said for us to stay as long as we wanted.”

  Mulaney’s grip on the doorframe tightened, and she looked back at me like I’d conspired against her. “What are you smiling about?”

  “Mulaney Jacobs, you better come in here and see an old woman. It’s been a coon’s age,” Grandma Carter called.

  Her shoulders dropped. She pointed at me, all unrestrained fury. “You won’t always get your way.”

  The screen door slammed behind her.

  “Don’t need to,” I said to the empty space. Mulaney thought she could handle me like a business deal, that I’d sign a bunch of useless papers? Like hell I’d ever consider it. Soon she’d come around, and we’d burn the damn things in a fire, because when it came to our agreement, I most definitely would get my way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mulaney

  “You missed the turn.”

  We’d stayed over an hour at Grandma Carter’s house, and for as much as I wanted to be mad about it, I couldn’t. I’d missed her, missed talking with the Carters about things other than business. The last time we’d simply visited had been too long ago.

  Easton lifted a brow. “I’m going by the filling station. The truck’s on fumes.”

  My face heated. It was bad enough I had to spend more time with Easton while he took us back to the ranch, but it was my own fault I didn’t fill the tank before I returned the truck. I’d been totally focused on the mission at hand with Leona. “They won’t be open today.”

  “They’ll be open.”

  “Didn’t you do that to Great-Granddaddy too?” Leona asked, little smarty-pants.

  “I don’t know what either of y’all are talking about.”

  “Daddy said you used to leave the car on empty all the time.”

  I bet he did. “You know he’s always trying to make me look bad. He can’t stand I’m the favorite.”

  “Grandmama says I am,” she said without an ounce of boastfulness.

  I turned around and looked at her through the opening between the seats. “You mean to tell me I’ve lost that spot with Mama too? This is that younger brother of mine’s fault. Everything was fine before he came along.” I righted in my seat and folded my arms over my chest.

  “If you need to be someone’s favorite, you can be mine.”

  I hugged myself even tighter as I stared straight ahead.

  “Problem solved,” Leona said. “I get to be Grandmama’s favorite and you can be Easton’s.”

  I wanted to be irritated, but the girl had had a hell of a day. Taking pregnancy tests on Christmas Day wasn’t ideal, though necessary. We’d gone overkill, using no less than five different tests to be absolutely sure. I’d never realized the power those little sticks held until this afternoon, and now they were on the back seat floorboard as if they couldn’t have possibly changed our whole lives. The residual effects of the scare would linger with both of us for a while. Her showing signs of her old self was progress, even if it was at my expense. I wouldn’t even think about what Easton had just said or how it affected me more than I cared to admit.

  “Problem solved,” I muttered.

  Dierks Bentley and Elle King sang low in the background about how things were different for girls. I’d yet to turn off the blasted custom playlist, but this was the first song Easton missed the mark on.
If I ever was fool enough to have my heart broken again, I’d definitely tape it back together with a whiskey and Coke. That was a far better solution than wallowing in emotions I didn’t have time for.

  “You think you’ve switched off what you feel, but you haven’t,” Easton murmured.

  He wheeled up to the gas pump and jumped out of the truck. I shoved open the door, desperate to get out of the confines of the cab. Couldn’t switch it off? Bullshit.

  I rounded the back of the truck and got in his face. “I don’t have to switch my feelings off because I don’t have any toward you.”

  His expression softened, like he felt sorry for me. “Then why are you out here making sure I know just how much you don’t feel about me?”

  I stomped off, my equivalent of running from a situation I didn’t like. The bell above the door to the old service station jingled when I pushed inside. I went straight for the Icee machine.

  I yanked a large cup off the stack. When I got to New York, my number-one objective was to put as much distance between Easton and me as possible. We needed to work together, but I’d have to figure a way to do it as briefly as I could.

  “Aunt Mulaney? I was only giving you a hard time. Everybody loves you the best.” Leona’s soft voice came from behind me.

  I spun around. “I’m not upset with you. I just—” Damn it. Maybe Easton was right. I couldn’t simply turn off my emotions, whatever they may be. “You want an Icee?”

  I handed her a cup before she could answer and let her go first.

  “You’re tough as nails,” I said. Her hand slipped off the lever on the drink machine. “The way you handled today, there’s not a more difficult situation to be in, and you faced it without flinching.”

  She mashed a dome lid on the cup, refusing to look up. Under the curtain of her light brown hair, her nose and cheeks had turned red. If I made her cry in the middle of the filling station, I’d kick my own ass . . . twice.

  “I thought the mighty Jacobs were all about family on the holidays.”

  Nails on a chalkboard, a sharp stick in the eye, a hole in the head—anything—would have been preferable to running into the person who owned that voice. It was like I’d entered a time machine and was seventeen all over again. Same place. Same person. Same hurt.

  Only the pain was worse because it had had so long to fester. I faced Bryce Green for the first time in a few years. Fresh humiliation and anger sliced through me when I saw him. The last time we’d been in the filling station together I’d confronted him about cheating on me. He was in the exact same casual stance, like he didn’t give a damn about anything. Because he didn’t.

  “Pretty obvious I’m with my family,” I finally said as I fought to regain control of my scattered emotions. The very same ones I’d mastered to avoid feeling exactly as I did now.

  Leona fumbled several straws onto the floor as she tried to grab one.

  “Haven’t seen you around much.” Bryce shifted his attention to my niece. “You know, I just knew you and Luke were going to work out. Damn shame it didn’t.”

  I looked back and forth between them. “What’s he talking about?” I demanded, the empty cup in my hand crushing under my grip.

  “We were almost family, Mulaney. I thought for sure in a few years we’d be coming out to the Jacobs castle for Christmas,” Bryce sneered.

  No. This asshole’s son couldn’t be the one who had hurt Leona. What kind of cruel twist of fate was this?

  “As I recall, you did come over one Christmas Eve. You puked up moonshine on Ruby’s nativity scene.” That had been before he’d taken my heart and stomped on it. I’d been fearless and had let myself be vulnerable, a mistake I’d never repeated.

  He gripped the can of dip in his hand. “Turns out it’s a good thing my boy got away from the likes of you. His new girlfriend is a looker.”

  “Excuse me.” Leona abandoned her drink and bolted for the door of the convenience store.

  Easton caught her as he came inside.

  “You keep your son the hell away from my niece.” I shoved my finger into Bryce’s chest. The anger I’d been holding inside bubbled to get out in my words.

  “Luke never would’ve noticed her if I hadn’t pointed her out.” His sinister smile sent a shiver down my spine. “All he needed was a little nudge.”

  He moved my hand, and I balled it at my side. “She’s innocent.”

  “But you’re not.”

  I took a step back as if he’d doused me in Icee the same as I’d done to him in this very spot when we were teenagers.

  “Are you seeing Becky?” I screamed as another fissure tore through my heart.

  He stared at me, tossing a can of dip in the air, as if I’d asked him what time it was. I batted the can away. It hit the linoleum floor with a thud and rolled under a rack of candy.

  “Are you?”

  Some part of me begged him to tell me it wasn’t true, that Mitch was mistaken. I pled with him in my head to say the kisses we’d shared by the pond meant as much to him as they did to me.

  Instead, he stood there looking at me like I was stirring up a fuss for nothing.

  I shoved at his chest. “Are you?”

  He shrugged, exactly the same as when I’d suggested we be more than friends. “She’s pretty, wears a dress occasionally.”

  The fissure in my heart cracked wide open. I thought—I thought we were having fun. I thought he liked me. Not once had he ever mentioned a dress or makeup was required to do that.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He smirked. “Yeah, it does.”

  The pain that washed over me was consumed with rage. I grabbed the Icee I’d left by the machine, ripped off the dome lid, and tossed it in his face.

  He spluttered, red liquid dripping down his face and shirt as I threw the empty cup at him. I opened my mouth for the last word, but for once, words didn’t come. The bell clanged over the door as I shoved it open. So help me God, I was never ever going to feel like this again.

  The memory threatened to take me under, but I held myself together.

  “She is not a pawn. If you’ve got a problem with me, you deal with me.”

  “See, that’s what I did.” He tugged on the brim of my baseball cap, and I knocked him away. “As heartless as you are, you actually do give a damn about your family.”

  I stiffened at his closeness. My hands twitched at my sides, ready to strangle him. “You better not be saying what I think you’re saying.”

  Easton stepped between us. “Is there a problem here?”

  I looked around him at Bryce. “Nope. I’m going to fix him right up,” I said evenly.

  “You just can’t get over the fact I didn’t want you. Still don’t.” He glanced at me like I was no more than dog shit on the bottom of his shoe.

  “Funny, that’s not how I remember things,” I flung back. I wasn’t that hurt little girl anymore, and having Easton by my side gave me strength I didn’t realize I needed.

  His expression turned from disgust to fury. “Your view of the world don’t mean it’s the right one.”

  “Did you or did you not beg me?” I asked sweetly.

  Easton stiffened, angling so I couldn’t get around him.

  “It ain’t my fault nobody wanted to date you. From the looks of it, not much has changed.” He looked at my bare left hand in victory.

  If he thought that was the way to rile me, he was wrong. That was no news flash.

  “It’s time for you to go,” Easton said, his tone menacing.

  “I don’t give a damn if your grandmother lives in this town, you aren’t from around here, so stay out of this.” Bryce widened his stance and slipped the can of dip in his back pocket.

  “Can’t do that.” Easton didn’t seem fazed in the least by Bryce’s posturing.

  “I took one for the team,” Bryce said, his attention returning to me.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?�
��

  “When I kissed you, I did it because Mitch asked me to since nobody else would.”

  My blood went cold. Mitch? Mitch had done that to me? No. “I asked you to go fishing, asshat.”

  “Saved me the trouble. I did the best I could, but damn.” He shuddered as if recalling the worst experience of his life.

  “That’s enough,” Easton growled.

  “Is that what you call what happened a few years later?” I taunted, trying to get around Easton again. “Because it sure as hell didn’t take much to get you to go back out to that same spot.”

  “You wanted it, you just got scared,” he said, voice rising.

  “Then why were you the only one who ended up with no clothes on?” I scratched the side of my head, pretending to think hard.

  “You took all of mine and left me out in the woods,” he yelled.

  “Now, you know that isn’t true. I left you your boots. And it was only a couple miles from your house,” I said, pretending to study my nails.

  “I was buck naked,” he shouted and then checked the convenience store nervously.

  “If I heard you brag once about how stacked you were, I’d heard it a thousand times. Did you get embarrassed that Sheriff Donovan saw you in all your glory and picked you up for indecent exposure?” I asked innocently. That son of a bitch thought he could cheat on me and I’d forget about it. No way. All it took was a tight dress and a little makeup to seduce him. I still hated him, but I’d gotten my revenge.

  Easton’s posture relaxed a fraction, and I was pretty sure I saw the corner of his mouth lift.

  “That went on my record.”

  “Probably wouldn’t have if you’d controlled your temper.” I shrugged, not sorry. Everything ended up fine. He got his head coaching job at the high school.

  “The whole town knew. My parents made me talk to Pastor Adams about sex for a whole afternoon. People still razz me about what happened when I go to the diner for breakfast. Nobody did anything to you, and they won’t let me forget something from when we were kids,” Bryce said. “You got what was finally coming to you. Too bad your niece had to cry, but that’s the only thing you care about.”