Heartbreaker

by Claire, Grahame

  “Did I understand you correctly? You used an innocent girl and your son to get revenge for something that happened how many years ago?” Easton’s features hardened.

  “Twenty,” I volunteered.

  “Do you know how cold it was that day?” Bryce asked.

  “Not sure that mattered,” I said. He lunged for me.

  Easton grabbed him by the throat and held him against a shelf of potato chips. “You’re a grown man. Act like it.” He shook him before he let go. “If I ever find out you do something like this again, you’ll wish you were back out in that cold.”

  I’d heard Easton angry many times, but this fury? For the fact I was wronged? I’d never heard him so enraged before. He was fierce.

  Bryce’s gaze landed on me. “What happened to the day you did your own fighting?”

  “You better be glad he’s got hold of you because if I handled it the way I wanted to, I’d shoot your dick off.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “I’m the best shot in the county, and I’ve got the ribbons to prove it,” I said. “Stay away from my nieces, and keep that punk kid you’re raising away from them too.” I leaned in until I was only inches away from his face. “You don’t know just how big of a hornet’s nest you almost stirred up.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Easton

  “Thanks for taking up for her.”

  I nearly dropped the three drinks I carried from the convenience store to the truck. Those were words that didn’t come easy for Mulaney.

  “That guy is scum.”

  “He’s always been a pain in the ass, but this is over the top even for him.” She looked down the road and grimaced. “He did that to her because of me. She’s a good girl, tenderhearted. She deserves so much more than paying for my past.”

  “We’ll have to help her move beyond it.”

  She halted and snatched a drink from my hand. “You think I won’t?”

  “All I’m saying is we won’t let her deal with this on her own.”

  “I know that.” She yanked open the passenger side door before I had a chance. “And there is no we,” she hissed.

  Now wasn’t the time to argue. We were both still fired up after the confrontation with that asswad. She passed an Icee to Leona, and I handed her the other two before securing her in the cab.

  Bryce jumped in his own truck, squealing out of the parking space and shooting us the bird on his way. Mature. Very mature. I’d seen Mulaney angry, but there had been a wariness under her hostility in the convenience store. She was passionate, seemingly unafraid of anything, though this felt like something beyond defending Leona. The root of our problem was somewhere tangled in the past I knew nothing of but intended to find out when I could get her to open up to me.

  “You okay?” Mulaney asked as I cranked the engine. She twisted to look in the darkened back seat.

  I checked in the rearview, finding Leona folded in on herself.

  “Is what Coach Green said true? That Luke never—” The girl choked before she could finish the sentence and bloody murder rolled through my veins. What kind of cold-hearted bastard used kids for his own—what was it exactly? Revenge? That seemed strong, considering what little I knew of what happened all those years ago sounded harmless.

  What he’d done was twisted in the most sickening way.

  “I’m so stupid,” Leona whispered.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Mulaney beat me to it. “You say something like that again, and I’ll make sure you spend all winter shoveling out the barn.”

  The woman had no tender bedside manner, but it seemed to work.

  “I believed him,” she argued. “I should’ve known better.”

  “Honey, we’ve all fallen for bullshit before, and we will again.” As much as it irritated me, sometimes Mulaney’s bluntness was one of the things I liked best about her. “It pains me to say this, but it sounds like Bryce’s boy was a pawn in the game too. Think there’s any chance he ended things to make his dad happy?”

  I looked over at her in surprise. That was as close to sugarcoating as I’d ever heard from Mulaney. Would she be that way with her own children? My guess was she’d threaten her son with the same thing she had Bryce if he did wrong by a girl, but she’d go right after the girl if she hurt her boy. Seeing her with Leona now, she’d handle a daughter with more tenderness than Heartbreaker probably thought she possessed.

  Leona slid down farther in her seat. “No.”

  “Now hold up,” I said. “It’s possible. I want to make my parents happy. Mulaney’s no different, and I bet you aren’t either.” What I didn’t say was if some boy had done this to my daughter, I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do, but this situation had brought out a form of crazy I didn’t know I possessed. I still hadn’t ruled out stopping by Bryce Green’s place after I dropped them off.

  “You wouldn’t do that to make your dad happy,” Mulaney said, a hint of question in her voice.

  “Of course not,” I defended, realizing this parenting thing was hard. I’d wanted to ease the blow to Leona but instead had justified actions that were beyond explanation.

  “I know what you meant.”

  Something in me twisted at the defeated tone that floated up from the back seat.

  “Why don’t you come to New York with us on Sunday? Stay until everyone else comes up for New Year’s?”

  “Can I?” Leona asked, perking up.

  “Sure. Getting away from here might make you feel better,” Mulaney said as if speaking from experience.

  “As long as you aren’t running from your problems,” I added. When it came to ours, that was all she’d done.

  Mulaney looked ready to spit fire at me. “You aren’t insinuating that my niece doesn’t face things, are you?”

  The mama bear claws had come out. I’d never known anyone with such a strong love for their family.

  “Cool your jets. I’m merely pointing out that avoiding difficult situations doesn’t resolve them.”

  “Sometimes you need perspective,” she spit back. “And it can make them go away.”

  “You know damn well it doesn’t,” I said, trying to keep my temper in check in front of Leona.

  Mulaney seemed to want to do the same. She looked out the window as I raced down the road. A thick silence descended on the truck, tense and uncomfortable. The night was dark, other than the stars and the bright moon, and it matched the mood in the cab.

  A stop for gas had turned into a shitshow. Why would I be surprised at anything else? This was Mulaney’s effect, and damn if it wasn’t one of the things I liked about her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mulaney

  I tapped my boot at a rapid clip against the floorboard.

  The past had cloaked me with the unwanted pain and embarrassment I’d had at seventeen and refused to release me. Things had worked out for the best. Bryce and I were never meant to be anything. It had never been about that.

  I’d liked him a lot, and he’d tossed that aside like yesterday’s trash. He’d destroyed my ability to trust another guy. He’d humiliated me. Betrayed me. And even though I’d promised myself no one would ever make me feel that hurt, it had crashed down on me in a fresh wave.

  The worst of it was Easton had seen it all. He’d backed me up without knowing anything. That just brought on a new kind of emotion I still didn’t know what to do with. Maybe if I hadn’t built a fortress around my feelings all those years ago, I’d be better equipped to handle all of it.

  Easton parked his truck near the front steps and killed the engine. He leaned over the center console and opened the glovebox, took something out wrapped in red and green paper, and set it on my lap.

  “That’s for you,” he said gruffly.

  Leona discreetly slipped out of the back seat, carefully closing the truck door and leaving Easton and me alone.

  “I don’t want this.” It was too much. My emotions were so scattered I couldn’t deal with
anything else.

  “I don’t care.”

  Damn it. When he used the tone that said he wasn’t to be argued with, it irritated the hell out of me. It also lit up my insides, like he’d thrown a match on gasoline.

  The gift was long and thin, but I didn’t dare touch it.

  “I’m going inside,” I said, anxious to get away from him. He’d defended my niece’s honor and pissed me off all in the same trip. I needed air.

  “You can open that later.” He pulled on the door handle and light flooded the cab as he got out.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Going to say hello to your family.”

  We stepped inside and heard loud chatter from the kitchen. The scent of pine hit my nose. I stood inside the front door, caught in limbo between past and present. This place was what had shaped me, the people who lived here were the ones whose mold I was made from. It was just a house, but it was part of me, a big chunk I sometimes took for granted.

  I remembered Christmas morning when I was six years old, plain as day. Mitch had gotten this big fire truck that had a siren and a ladder that extended and swiveled. We’d been sitting right there by that tree—still in the same place it had been for as long as I’d been alive—Mitch playing with his toy, me sulking because I wanted it. He’d loved that truck more than anything else he’d gotten that year. I remembered the way he’d howled along with the siren as he pushed it around on the old hardwood floors. All the adults had disappeared while the three of us kids stayed by the tree to play. Mitch had rolled the truck over to me, told me to take it. His pesky little sister who got on his nerves way worse than their little brother. But Mitch gave me that fire truck because he wanted me to be happy. Because he cared more about me than himself.

  Stone had broken the ladder when I let him play with it. Granddaddy patched it up as best he could, but it didn’t matter. Every time I looked at the toy, I remembered somebody loved me more than they loved their stuff. My big brother had taught me to be the same way.

  My throat got thick at the sound of my brothers laughing and my grandmother’s voice rising above it all from the other room. I wouldn’t change my life, but in the last few months I’d gotten lost. I’d forgotten that if I ever needed to find myself, this was the place to start. But when I wanted to hide, it was harder to be here. For the first time, I wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do. I had plenty of people here who would be more than willing to tell me, but I wanted to figure it out on my own.

  “Mulaney?”

  Easton was halfway down the hall when he realized I wasn’t behind him. No matter how cold I was to him, he bounced back easily, setting aside how he felt to make sure I was okay. He was so like Mitch in that way, which was one of the things I most liked in Easton Carter. But it also scared me.

  “I can’t do this right now.” I stowed the gift he’d given me in my purse and set it on the stairs before bolting back out the front door.

  It wasn’t just my own life I’d screwed up. Leona had been hurt because of my stupid pride. I was no better than Bryce. I couldn’t let go of what he’d done to me, and I’d had to have retribution. My niece had very nearly ended up pregnant with a boy’s child, who more than likely wanted nothing to do with her.

  Thank God for small miracles that the tests were negative. All the newlyweds eager to start their families around here had come in handy.

  I pumped my legs faster. Easton easily caught me, but instead of trying to stop me he ran right beside me. That only made me go faster. He matched me stride for stride.

  As soon as Ragnor caught sight of me, he charged in our direction. The sound of blood rushing between my ears was eclipsed by the solid thuds of determined hoofs trying to reach me. The second I touched the fence, he nudged my face with far more gentleness than a wild beast like him should be capable of. How he knew I needed him in that moment was beyond me, but he simply understood. He came straight to me.

  My movements were stilted as I stroked the side of his neck. He sized up Easton with cold eyes and made a noise of protest that covered my own when Easton placed a hand in the small of my back.

  “So you’re the famous Ragnor,” he said, though I barely heard him. All I could focus on was Easton’s touch and the energy that raced through my body. “He’s impressive.”

  Easton held out his hand, and I knocked it down. “He’s also unpredictable.”

  “You worried he’ll hurt me?”

  “I’m worried he’ll hurt himself,” I said, in a feeble attempt to mask my concern for Easton’s safety.

  “I can handle him.”

  Easton lifted his hand. Rage’s nose twitched as he sniffed. When Easton lowered his arm, my horse nudged him.

  “You weren’t finished, huh?” Easton pressed his fingers into my back. “Looks like we’re not the only ones who like Dr Pepper Icees.”

  I snorted and nearly choked when he licked Easton’s fingers. Then a warped jealousy took hold. Ragnor and I had connected from the start, but it had taken a long time to get where we were. It was rotten how much I liked that Rage only trusted me. Completely selfish. I wanted him to learn the right people weren’t so bad. But seeing how easily he yielded to Easton . . . a part of me was jealous.

  “You want my horse too?” I spat, letting my envy show.

  Easton cupped my cheek. Ragnor reared and squealed in protest. I couldn’t tell if he was upset because Easton had stopped touching him or because he was touching me. The metal gate clanged as Rage pushed at it, and Easton dropped his hand. Rage charged off, but he was back in a flash, stopping right in front of me.

  “Hey. Easy there, handsome,” I soothed. “What’s the matter?”

  He touched his nose to my cheek, his way of seeing if I was okay. I stroked behind his ears.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” I confessed against his hair. “Please don’t hate me for it.” I was afraid I’d be gone for months at a time and Ragnor would never forgive me. He blew against my cheek. “I love you too, handsome.”

  Easton gave us our moment, and I should have been embarrassed for letting my guard down in front of him, but I wasn’t. Ragnor turned his head and blew at Easton, his way of saying they were all good. One last nuzzle, and Rage trotted off, never one for much emotional stuff. Just another way we were so much alike.

  “What happened with Leona isn’t your fault.”

  I whipped around. “Oh no? Who the hell else’s is it?”

  “Bryce Green and his son.”

  I stepped into his space. “I put myself out there, and that numb-nuts hurt my feelings. There. I said it. He. Hurt. My. Feelings,” I punched out. “I couldn’t let it go. I had to show him he’d messed with the wrong person. And it was over nothing.”

  My voice echoed in the night. Rage made a pass by us to check things out and trotted away.

  “Doesn’t sound like it was nothing.” Easton’s calm only fueled my anger.

  “I couldn’t grow a pair and just get over it.” I shoved at him because he was the closest thing. “You chastised Bryce for holding a grudge this long. I’m no better than he is. I let what happened shape my whole life.”

  I clamped my mouth shut. Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that.

  Easton covered my hands that were still planted on his chest. I didn’t want his tenderness. I needed his temper, disappointment, anything but what was in his eyes.

  “That’s why you won’t—”

  “It has nothing to do with it.” Whatever he was about to say was loaded, and I was in no state to hear it. I’d already admitted too much.

  “You know something you taught me?” I shook my head. “That it’s okay to hurt. It strengthens us for the times when we need to be our toughest.”

  “You’re wrong. When you let feelings get tangled up, things go south. We saw proof of that tonight.”

  He tapped my heart. “You feel a lot more than you think you do.”

  I took off toward the house, unable to stand
and listen to this. I wasn’t Ragnor. I couldn’t open up my heart for another person. Even though so much of me wanted to know what it was like to relax into someone’s kindness. It was so draining. The running. The hiding. The fear.

  My pace was clipped though Easton was on my heels, his warm fingers wrapping around my bicep to slow me. He pulled me to a stop, aligning me so I was flush with his body, his eyes pleading as he looked at me.

  “Heartbreaker,” he said softly, with so much tenderness behind the endearment, it nearly sent me to my knees.

  He palmed my face, and I leaned into the touch, my resistance failing. I was so tired of fighting him. This battle hadn’t started a few months ago. It had been going on twenty years, and every reason why he was a bad idea had dissolved to the point where they were no longer valid.

  “Please don’t do this,” I whispered.

  “Do what?” he asked, inching his face closer to mine. “You mean this?” The bottom fell out of my stomach when his lips touched mine, a reminder of who he was to me and what that meant.

  I shoved at him, but his tongue coaxed my lips apart and slipped inside, the last of my resolve fading. My hands slid up his chest and around his neck, my fingers working their way into his hair. His arms banded around me like I’d stepped into a trap and he’d captured his prey.

  The kiss grew more possessive, victorious even. He’d waited me out, been patient, and I’d finally caved. Shame filled me that I had no more resistance than this. When I knew I was being selfish, succumbing to something I wanted so desperately but couldn’t have, I told myself it was wrong to lead him on. Wrong to give myself this false hope. Yet I couldn’t manage to rip my lips from his. In fact, I was scrambling to get closer to him. Just one more touch. One more moment of insanity and clarity.

  I hated the moan that escaped into his mouth. It took all the self-control I possessed not to grind against him. I hated that I handed every bit of power to him.