Wild On My Mind

by Laurel Kerr

  “Bowie, I didn’t want to let you into my heart,” she confessed. “I couldn’t afford to. I didn’t want to get hurt again.”

  He shoved his hand roughly into his hair. “Katie, I don’t know what else I can do to show you that I’ve changed. You won’t let me take you on dates or do anything that shows I care. You wouldn’t even give me a chance to buy you a birthday gift.”

  A sick feeling spread through her as she suddenly realized how callously she’d treated him. She’d been so worried, so focused on protecting herself that she hadn’t given much consideration to his feelings. When she had, she assumed that he liked casual relationships. Most guys as attractive as him preferred to play the field.

  Bowie exhaled and shook his head. “I’ve been trying like hell to prove to you that I won’t hurt you, that I’ll treat you like something precious to me, but it’s no use. Josh is right. I’ll always be your villain.”

  Katie knitted her eyebrows. “Why do you keep referring to yourself as a villain?”

  “Josh showed me the comic you guys drew for your college newspaper,” Bowie said flatly.

  “What does my college newspaper have to do with us?” she asked in confusion. Her head was still hurting, and she couldn’t follow the connections Bowie was making.

  “Josh was kind enough to point out that I’m the spitting image of your personification of Self Doubt. Hell, Katie, all your villains look like me, even the computer virus.”

  Horror, understanding, and rage boiled inside her. Josh had no right to attack Bowie like that. It was cruel and mean. Katie could see Bowie’s buried pain. She couldn’t imagine how she’d feel to be the inspiration for a battalion of bad guys.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I came up with those characters years ago, if that helps.”

  “No, Katie, it doesn’t,” Bowie said. “It doesn’t explain why you constantly push me away. It doesn’t fix the fact that you think so little of me that you wouldn’t even tell me about your birthday.”

  “Bowie—”

  “Katie, I charged a man holding a gun to save you, and all you could talk about in the hospital was how Mike shouldn’t tell your mother about us.”

  “Bowie, I thought you’d want to be in a casual relationship…one that didn’t involve meeting the parents or anything serious,” she protested.

  “Why the hell do you think I asked you to that fancy restaurant at the national park? I’ve introduced you to my family. You have dinner with us on a regular basis. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’d like to get to know your folks? That I wouldn’t like to be treated like some dirty little secret? Like something to be ashamed of?”

  “I didn’t think it would matter to you.”

  That brought Bowie up short. He blinked and stared at her in disgusted confusion. “Why would you think that?”

  “I guess I never thought I’d mean that much to you. I certainly didn’t think you’d believe that I was embarrassed about our relationship. You never seemed to care about other people’s opinions, and you’ve always been so confident. You just didn’t seem capable of being hurt.”

  “Everyone is capable of being hurt, Katie. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She realized she was making a mess out of her explanation, but her head hurt. The more upset Bowie became, the more her brain seemed to buzz. “You’re the hot, good-looking guy. You were the popular one. You could have had any girl you want…and you still can. Kids laughed at your jokes. You were the escort of the homecoming queen. The internet currently loves you. You had such a charmed life. I didn’t think—”

  “What do you think has been so charmed about my past that it wouldn’t bother me to be treated as inconsequential by a woman who I’ve made part of my life? Who I’ve made part of my daughter’s life?” Bowie demanded, his voice full of fury.

  Katie opened her mouth, although she didn’t quite know how to respond. Bowie barreled ahead, saving her from answering.

  “Let’s see. Could my amazing ironclad self-confidence come from the fact that neither of my parents wanted me? It’s such a great confidence builder when your parents constantly argue over who is going to take little Shithead this weekend. I know firsthand that teenage pregnancies aren’t easy, but you don’t tell your kid you wish he’d been aborted and how much he screwed up your life. You certainly don’t nickname him ‘Shithead.’”

  Bowie’s words struck Katie’s heart with an almost palpable force. She had never realized that he had been the result of a teenage pregnancy too or that his parents had made it clear they hadn’t wanted him. Katie couldn’t imagine growing up that way. No matter how awful school had been, her home had always been her refuge. Her family was loud and boisterous, and they loved her.

  “Bowie…” she began, but he plowed ahead.

  “What did you say about my looks? That they’re the reason for this amazing charmed life of mine? Do you have any idea how much grief my father and his friends gave me for being a pretty boy? Making fun of me was their favorite pastime when they were drunk or high, which was pretty much all the time. They made a drinking game out of pelting me with bottle caps or beer-can tabs. I used to retrieve the caps because, hell, at least they were paying attention to me. Mom was always too strung out or in the bedroom with a john.

  “Maybe my self-confidence came from helping Dad with the family business when I got a little older. His merchandise happened to be drugs, so I don’t know if that fits into the character-building category. At least when Dad realized that the cops didn’t check the backpacks of seven-year-olds, he didn’t mind having me around as much. ’Course that only lasted until he went to jail.”

  The images of Bowie as a lonely, neglected child pelted Katie. She wanted to reach out and soothe not just the man before her, but also the boy that he’d been. When she tried to touch him, he jerked angrily away.

  “Then my mother ended up in jail over solicitation and possession. I became a ward of the state, and foster kids really have a charmed life. I bounced around a lot. I did stay with a rancher for a couple of years. I lived like the hired hands…only they got paid. I broke my leg with a spiral fracture while baling hay and was told I’d be in a cast for months. The rancher called me a troublemaker, and Child Services collected me.

  “But there was always my popularity. Sure, nobody messed with me…or at least they didn’t after I punched out two guys in first grade. Still, parents don’t want their precious darlings going to the home of a known prostitute or drug dealer. My foster parents didn’t want a kid around unless there was a check involved, so that put the kibosh on having friends over. None of my guardians ever drove me to school functions or friends’ houses. Sort of hell on the social life.”

  “Bowie—” Katie began, not knowing how much more she could process. Each word slayed her.

  “I’m not finished. Women…they’re the other reason for my charmed life, right? Sure, I’m a pretty boy. We’ve established that. I can get laid. No problem. But a relationship? I’ve had two… Well, at least until today, I thought I’d had two.”

  Bowie’s gray eyes sharpened even further as they pinned Katie with accusation. She took an involuntary step backward at his anger. She had hurt him. Deeply.

  “The first relationship was with Sawyer, a girl who told me to my face that the main reason she dated me was because I was hot and I pissed off her parents. I amused her with my pranks. You know why I teased you, Katie?”

  She wordlessly shook her head, ignoring how the action made the world tilt and spin.

  “Because it gave me an in with her crowd. For the first time in my damn life, I belonged. I knew, though, that the moment I stopped pranking you, the moment I stopped entertaining them, I’d be the foster kid nobody wanted with his con dad killed in prison and his hooker mom dead from an overdose.

  “Do you know how my relationship with Sawyer ended? I had just turned eighteen th
e week before. Since there wasn’t a check coming in, I got kicked to the curb. Literally. I was living on the streets. Sawyer came to me in a rage. Blamed the pregnancy all on me. Said she wanted to abort my baby…just like my parents wanted to do to me. Just like with them, her parents stopped it. I said I’d take care of her and the baby. You know what Sawyer said to me? That I was a worthless, homeless piece of white trash who couldn’t even take care of himself. She and her parents harped on that theme for months while I fought for custody of my baby…a baby none of them wanted.

  “Then there’s you, Katie. My first relationship in years that wasn’t a one-night stand after a bar pickup. And all you want from me is a series of meaningless hookups. So tell me, Katie, what about my life has been charmed—other than my daughter, Lou, Gretchen, and the zoo? My confidence has been hard won, and it doesn’t make me impervious to pain. And you purposely excluding me from your birthday brought a lot of crap back up.”

  Bowie finally paused, his chest heaving. His anger fled as if he’d expended it to fuel his tirade. Horror replaced his righteous ire before he banked that too, making his expression unusually flat and devoid of emotion.

  Sifting through the pain and guilt his words had evoked, Katie realized two important things. First, Bowie had not intended to reveal his painful past. She’d already made him feel vulnerable, and anger had propelled him to expose old, unhealed wounds. He didn’t trust her with his secrets, and right now, she didn’t blame him.

  Second, Bowie’s eyes had looked like that in high school—studiously blank. The seemingly confident, sexy bad boy had been just as lost as her, probably more. Much more.

  She’d never considered that he’d made fun of her to preserve his own precarious social standing. It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but it explained the mystery of how the cruelest guy in school became a loving father and good man.

  Bowie was that. A good, decent man who deserved more than life had given him and certainly more than Katie had. She had messed up, maybe even worse than he had in high school. He’d been a kid; she was an adult.

  Katie’s mind scrambled for the right words. Her concussion made that difficult. She had obviously hurt Bowie, hurt him badly. Saying the wrong thing could cause irreparable harm to their relationship—if she hadn’t done so already.

  She sensed that he didn’t want to talk about his past with her. Not right now, at least.

  “I was wrong, Bowie,” Katie told him honestly. “I should have gone on those dates with you. I don’t see you as inconsequential or just a bed partner. I can’t go back in time, but I can start now, and I’d like to begin by asking you, Abby, and Lou to my birthday party. My mom always makes tons of food, and she’ll be thrilled.”

  Bowie just stared at her. “Why?”

  His question confused her. “Why what?”

  “Why are you inviting me? Is it because of what I said? Because you feel sorry for me?”

  “Bowie, I’m feeling a lot of things for you right now, but sorry isn’t one of them. I want you to come because I want to try to start a relationship with you…an honest, heartfelt one.”

  He scrubbed his hand over the lower part of his face. “Katie, last night—hell, two hours ago—that would have been enough explanation for me, but I need more. I can’t let you into my life—or Abby’s life—any further until I know that this isn’t some fling for you. I think I’ve already proven that it isn’t for me. That it never was.”

  Bowie’s words both warmed and terrified Katie. She’d never had a real adult relationship, never really wanted one before. But deep down, she did now. With this man. It was time to trust. Bowie might have triggered her commitment phobia years ago, but he also might be the one to cure it. After all, he’d faced down an unhinged man armed with a pistol to save her.

  She sucked in her breath. “I might not say this well. My head isn’t quite right yet.”

  Bowie’s expression softened. “I’m not trying to judge your answer. I just need to understand where we stand. You can’t suddenly switch from excluding me from your private life to inviting me to a family function.”

  “You hurt me last time,” Katie blurted out. “Badly, and it didn’t stop. You kept doing it for two and a half years.”

  Bowie’s eyes clouded. “I know, Katie. I’ve beaten myself up about it. I want to protect you, but I am the guy who hurt you the most. That kills me.”

  She reached out and cupped his cheek, trying to get him to understand. “I didn’t want to feel that pain again, so when I started to fall for you, I did everything to pretend it wasn’t happening. I thought I was protecting myself.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” Bowie promised. “Not this time.”

  “You won’t hurt me like last time,” Katie agreed, “but there will be hurt. It comes with the territory of love. When you open yourself up to someone, you invite in a whole slew of emotions. Most of them are good, but there’s also pain. That’s how I know I’ve already made room for you in my heart. Because despite everything, despite all my efforts, nothing—nothing—has hurt me like hearing about your childhood.”

  * * *

  Bowie’s throat tightened at Katie’s words. He hadn’t meant to reveal his history. He’d never told anyone those details. Even Lou and Gretchen only knew snatches. He didn’t like to think about his past. It resurrected an ugliness that he didn’t want touching his life or, especially, Abby’s. He’d finally found his family and had defied statistics by becoming a decent father.

  That didn’t mean there weren’t times when the blackness reared out of the depths and clobbered him. He’d buried it, not vanquished it. In the darkness lay hurt, unresolved anger, and the constant expectation of rejection. Bowie never told his story because he didn’t want to expose his vulnerability, and he’d always believed deep down that people would either turn from him or pity him.

  Katie had done neither.

  She cared…and that meant everything. He hadn’t known it, but he’d waited years for someone to say exactly what she just had.

  “I hate that I hurt you,” she said. “You deserve better than how I treated you, and if you’re still willing, I’d like to start over right now.”

  “I’m willing,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. He couldn’t manage more words, not with all the messy feelings slopping inside him. He felt both euphoric and strangely brittle, as though he might crack with exhilaration.

  “Good.” Katie beamed at him, her own joy and relief apparent. “I think we should start with the party.”

  Bowie pulled her against him with his good arm. “That’s a good second step. The first should be this.”

  His lips captured hers. Her mouth immediately opened. The heat was there, as always, but something else slipped between their tangled tongues and sliding lips—a sweetness Bowie hadn’t tasted before. It flooded his senses, sweeping him along in a torrent of pure magic.

  * * *

  Aside from the day that Bowie had ridden with Lou and Gretchen to bring Abby home from the hospital, he had never been this nervous. This time, instead of Lou behind the wheel, Bowie was driving the pickup. Abby bounced happily in the center of the bench seat, oblivious to his tension. Lou, though, was not. He kept sending Bowie supportive looks over Abby’s head.

  Bowie had never met “the parents” before. Oh, Sawyer had paraded him in front of hers a couple of times, but he’d felt no need to impress them. If he had, Sawyer probably would have dumped him. He hadn’t even attempted to chat with them. They’d glare, he’d slouch, and Sawyer would toss her head defiantly as they headed out the door.

  This time, this meeting mattered. Although Katie’s mother had initially set them up, she didn’t know Bowie’s whole history, and she might not like what she learned. Then there was Katie’s father. The man had arrested Bowie twice for vandalism. Chief Underwood had also hauled away his father and his mother. Even given his
own past, Bowie knew he’d be uncomfortable if a guy with those credentials started dating Abby.

  Following Katie’s directions, Bowie turned into a street lined with mowed lawns and tidy postwar houses. Instead of hosting Katie’s party at the ranch, her mom had decided to hold it in Katie’s childhood home where her lawyer brother, Luke, lived with his wife and children. It was a nice middle-class part of Sagebrush. After Bowie’s father had bought him a beat-up bicycle for delivering drugs, Bowie used to ride around this neighborhood. He’d see the kids out playing, sometimes with their parents, and he had wondered what it would be like to live here. As he’d pedaled, he’d imagined coming home to a house that didn’t smell vile, that was bright and clean instead of dark and dingy. A home where parents were glad to see you and asked about your day, instead of cussing you out for waking them up.

  Even as a foster kid, he hadn’t lived in places like this. Most of his guardians had been local ranchers or farmers, happy for another set of hands and a little extra cash. The few foster parents who had lived in town had places that were only marginally better than his parents’. Sawyer had lived in a big, fancy McMansion with a manicured lawn. Even Lou’s Victorian, although extremely well-kept, wasn’t a typical suburban home.

  Pulling into the driveway, Bowie sucked in his breath. Cheerful flowers lined the walk and spilled out of window boxes. A hanging basket decorated the lamppost.

  Everything was orderly and unexceptionally average.

  Bowie would almost have preferred it if Luke had lived in an impressive McMansion like Sawyer’s. Then they would have expected first-time visitors to be slightly daunted. People with normal upbringings didn’t find middle-class Cape Cod homes intimidating.

  Bowie did. Especially this one. He’d been inside a few suburban homes when picking Abby up from her friends, but he’d never been a guest himself. Then, he was just a parent. Sure, most were surprised by his young age, but other than that, he was unremarkable. The parents of Abby’s classmates were too old to have heard the gossip about his family. The chief of police would remember, though, and Bowie would be spending enough time inside the house that the rest of Katie’s family might detect his awkwardness and wonder about it.