by Alison Kent
The fact that he’s my father, too.
Another short log, another bouncing swing, another resounding crack. Sharing a father with that prick made them half brothers. Half brothers. He didn’t want a half brother, and he sure as hell didn’t need one. He had Boone Mitchell. He had Casper Jayne. He had Darcy. And he had Arwen. Half of anything more was half too much.
The fact that he’s my father, too.
Again with the log, the swinging, the cracking. Greg Barrett. Greg Campbell. Dax wondered if while his sister was working with the bastard, Darcy had considered the possibility they shared Wallace Campbell’s genes. If they did. Which only their old man or a DNA test could verify.
Even if there’d been nothing to tip her off, she had to have wondered what an urban pretty boy was doing practicing law in Crow Hill. Dax hadn’t been curious enough to ask, but it had struck him as strange. People were born here. People moved away or they died here. No one purposefully chose Crow Hill as a place to live.
The fact that he’s my father, too.
Log. Swing. Crack. And what about their mother? Did she know? Had she kept their father’s secret? Was that why she’d put herself in the middle of other families’ dysfunctions? Trying to fix them and forget what was happening with her own? Convincing herself her husband spawning a son with another woman wasn’t such a big deal?
Knowing his mother, that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t imagine her hanging around all these years if she’d known. About the affairs, sure. Those were well enough hidden and no surprise. She was married to a powerful man who couldn’t keep his pants zipped, her own Clinton or Spitzer or Edwards. But not the kid.
His mother would never put up with another woman’s kid reaching for a slice of the Campbell pie. Image meant everything to Patricia Campbell, but since she wasn’t around now, and none of Darcy’s questions had produced answers as to their mother’s whereabouts… Could she have found out? And how, if only the two men at the center of the deception knew?
He had to decide what to do with the information—though he couldn’t do anything without confirmation from his father that Greg Barrett had sprung from his loins. And since a DNA test was out of the question—even if he’d had the money, no way was he asking for Greg’s toothbrush or hair—that wasn’t going to happen until the old man came out of his coma. Until then, Dax would be carrying Greg Barrett’s words alone.
Before he could grab another log from the dwindling pile, two long shadows fell over him. Casper and Boone, Casper saying, “It’s the dead hell of summer, dude. Drought. Wildfires. What’s with the wood?”
“I’m thinking it’s about the ax, not the wood,” Boone said, and Casper snorted.
“If he’s in the mood to go medieval, I’ve got a post hole digger with his name all over it. Diego just got done clearing the space for the new holding pen to go in behind the bunkhouse. Seems that would be a more productive way to expend all that energy.”
Then Boone again. “Though I thought Arwen was taking care of that energy expending thing.”
Muscles burning, sweat rolling into his eyes, Dax straightened and said nothing, jamming the ax head into the stump and reaching for his shirt. He dried his face, his neck, his pits, then shrugged it on, wincing. The skin on his back was burned to a crisp. He’d lost track of time, lost his head, been out here too long looking for lost answers.
Breathing hard, he shunted off Boone’s dig about his sex life along with the crap he wasn’t ready to deal with, much less share, even with the men he held closer than brothers, half or not. “July Fourth’s coming up. The barbecue cook-off. Are we not keeping up tradition and entering?”
“Hell, Dax. Which one of us knows how to barbecue at a competitive level?” Boone bent, picked up a stick of mesquite and brought it to his nose. “But damn if that stuff doesn’t have my stomach rumbling.”
Casper raised his gaze from the chips and chunks and sticks of mesquite scattered in a circle around the oak stump. “We don’t, but I hear the cook-off’s going to be held on the back lawn of the Hellcat Saloon this year.”
“Arwen’s hosting,” Dax said. “And she’s got a team entering. She’s not judging, and wouldn’t do us any favors even if she could.”
“Huh.” Boone tossed the stick back to the ground. “Wonder who they’re going to get to judge if your old man isn’t up and around by then.”
Casper put in, “I heard the committee was thinking of asking Darcy and that Greg guy from the office to wave the Campbell and Associates flag.”
“Fuck that.” Dax spat wood dust and frustration and anger to the ground.
Boone, his frown darkening, circled Dax, working the ax head from the stump and carrying it out of his reach. “Thought you and Darcy were getting along.”
“We are.”
“Well then.” He pondered that, checking the cutting edge of the ax with his thumb. “Didn’t know you knew Barrett.”
Dax mopped his forearm over his brow, clearing the sweat he’d missed, then pulled down on the brim of his hat, weighing how much to say. “Met him at the hospital earlier.”
The men both went silent, both went still. Dax looked from one to the other, hoping to leave things at that. He didn’t want to talk about the visit until he’d tamped down enough of the initial shock to better handle the things he was feeling.
Finally, Casper spoke. “You went to the hospital?”
A nod. “Arwen made me promise.”
Casper considered what he’d said, looking to Boone who only shrugged, then back. “So that’s the way of it, then? You’re doing what the little woman tells you to do?”
“Fuck you, asshole. I promised Arwen, but I did it for Darcy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You saw her the other day. The shape she was in. I was a shit not to go when Arwen first told me. Darcy shouldn’t have had to deal alone.” The way she’d been dealing alone since she was sixteen years old.
He’d left her. He’d thought only of himself and he’d split. Yeah, he’d been eighteen and stupid, but he was older now, and his sister deserved better than that same sort of selfish douche-baggery.
He looked at Casper. “You got the holding pen marked, or you want me to just start digging?”
“Hey, you still got demons to work out of your system, I’m happy to get out there and be the brain to your brawn.”
Boone snorted. “You’ve had to resort to thinking because the ladies aren’t digging your wrangling moves?”
Casper gave Dax a wink. “Figured I’d give it a shot. I hear Faith likes her men hung upstairs as well as down.”
“You son of a bitch,” Boone said, advancing with the ax in his hand. “We don’t do sisters. You’d better not be laying a hand on Faith.”
Dax grabbed the ax as Boone walked past, a grin taking over his face. “I’m thinking it’s not his hands you need to be worrying about. Or even his well-hung brain.”
“Hey now.” Casper began backing away, enough steam coming out of Boone’s ears to power a locomotive. “I can’t help it if Faith’s of a mind to compare the head I’ve got on my shoulders with my big one.”
And then he took off for the barn, Boone after him, leaving Dax shaking his head. He settled the ax in the stump again and took in the mess of mesquite. At least it would be easier to clean up than the mess of his life—and he’d get some good barbecue out of it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE SIGHT THAT greeted Arwen as she stopped behind the Dalton’s ranch house had her pondering the size of her mistake. Really? She’d thought she’d be able to get Dax Campbell out of her system for good? Was she out of her mind?
How could she when just looking at him left her unable to draw a normal breath? When watching his body brought to mind his moving inside of hers? When seeing his hands at work reminded her of his calluses scraping over her skin, the reach of his fingers, their deft and nimble strength?
She shivered, clenched the muscles of her sex, blew out a long, steadying breat
h. He was tossing sticks of split wood into a wheelbarrow; mesquite, she thought, most likely for smoking meat. The blade of his ax was embedded in a stump, and she wished she’d arrived earlier to watch him at work.
She imagined the force behind his swing, his muscles as they bunched and released, sweat glistening on his skin. And then she stopped imagining because she’d come here to talk to him, not for more of what she couldn’t get enough of—a truth that dug its powerful claws deeper every time he came to her bed.
She was certain he’d seen her arrive, though he’d yet to acknowledge her presence. Her truck was big and red and hardly inconspicuous, and driving across the property to park had raised a monster cloud of dust. She was letting it settle before leaving the cab, and the wait allowed her to pull herself together.
More than any other time in his company, her trip to tell him about his father’s heart attack proved she couldn’t talk to him if she was scattered. Emotions—and, yes, lust was a potent emotion—got in the way and turned the rational side of her brain to mush. Today wasn’t about sex. Today was about his promise.
It was time to see if he’d kept it. If he was the man she knew he could be.
She jumped from the cab, walked toward him, breathing in the heat of the day and the dry, brown dirt and the richly pungent spice of the wood. She wondered how much mesquite grew on the Dalton Ranch. Then wondered if buying several cords for the saloon would help them financially, or if Dax would balk at any hint of charity—especially coming from her.
She walked all the way to the stump before stopping, her thigh bumping the ax’s haft. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she gave him another ten seconds to break the silence, but he chose to continue punishing her for forcing his hand.
And so she asked, “Did you go?”
He was bent forward, grabbing all the wood he could hold, kicking sticks closer to the wheelbarrow as he cleared a small circle. “You come all the way out here to check up on me?”
“Yep.”
He snorted, shook his head, did some more kicking, some more tossing, this time with more vigor than before.
“That looks like a lot of anger.”
“That’s barbecue.”
“Are y’all entering the cook-off?”
He shrugged, straightened, twisted, and popped his back. “We’re talking about it.”
“It’s safe, you know.”
“Safe how?”
“Your father won’t be there to judge.”
He went back to his task.
“Any change in his condition?” she asked, because it was obvious he’d done his duty as Wallace Campbell’s son but wasn’t dealing with it well.
“You mean is he still a son of a bitch? Does he still guzzle Glenlivet like water?” He kicked at the wheelbarrow. Kicked it again. “Will he ever give a shit about anyone but himself? Or stop fucking with other people’s lives?”
“Then he’s awake?” Because now she was confused.
“No, he’s not awake. He’s the same self-centered ass he’s always been. He’s going to lay there until the daughter he doesn’t even acknowledge wears herself out waiting.”
She got his concern for Darcy, but… “I don’t think he’s in a coma on purpose.”
“Knowing him, I wouldn’t doubt it. Anything to inconvenience everyone else.”
“Was Darcy there?”
“Not when I went by, no.”
Okay. “Have you talked to her since?”
“I don’t know where she is. Thought about calling Josh, but figured that’s not my business.”
“You could make it your business.”
He slammed more sticks into the wheelbarrow, biting off a string of sharp curses when most of them bounced out. “Or I could stay out of it and let her live her life the way she wants.”
“Without you in it, you mean?”
“That’s not what I said.” He took a break, wiped his sweat with his sleeve. “But she’d probably be better off.”
“She’d be alone, Dax.” Time to press the point. “But then she’s been alone all this time, so I guess you’re off the hook.”
He jammed his hands to his hips and faced her, squinting from beneath the brim of the hat he wore pulled as low as she’d ever seen. “What’re you doing here, Arwen? Trying to make me feel guilty over my sister now?”
“I came to see how it went. The visit with your father.”
“For one thing, you were wrong.”
About which, of many, things? “I’ve been known to be on occasion.”
“Well you were this time for sure.”
“How’s that?”
“Seeing him didn’t make me feel better at all. In fact, it made me feel goddamn worse, if you want the truth of it. I hate him more now than I did two days ago, so thank you for that.”
Lord, he was totally overreacting. “Uh, maybe you could wait until he’s awake before deciding that. You know, have a conversation? See where things stand?”
“I don’t need him to be awake. I don’t need to talk to him. And I know exactly where things stand.” He slammed the sole of his boot against the side of the wheelbarrow, knocking the load of wood back to the ground. “What I need is for you to butt out of my business.”
“Fine,” she said, turning away.
“On second thought, you butting in settled things a whole lot faster than if I’d trusted my instincts, so thank you for that.”
“You’re an ass,” she tossed over her shoulder. “You know that?”
“Like father, like son.”
She kept going, then she stopped, spun, came back, and jabbed a finger in the center of his chest. “And that right there is where you’re wrong.”
His eyes glittered from the shadow of his hat. “How do you figure?”
“If you were like your father, or at least like you claim him to be, you wouldn’t have gone to see him. You wouldn’t have done it to settle things between the two of you, and you wouldn’t have done it for Darcy so she wouldn’t feel abandoned by everyone in her family. And you certainly wouldn’t have done it for me.” She poked him again, poked him harder. “You may think you’re some badass black sheep come home to raise hell, but that’s not who you are at all.”
For a long moment, he said nothing, his gaze moving from her finger to her face and back. And then he cracked, the corners of his mouth turning up, his dimples like crescent moons in the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave. “You’re pretty sexy when you get all worked up, steam coming out of your ears, lighting up your eyes.”
“Steam is not coming out of my ears, and my eyes are no more lit up now than they ever are, and I am not going to have sex with you.” She had to say it, even though her heart was pounding and the truth of the matter was something else entirely.
“Sure you are,” he said, advancing, one step, another, then a third that had her turning and sprinting for her truck.
She was fast but he was faster and she heard his thudding steps behind her, gaining, and because she had no desire to be hit from behind and tackled, she skidded to a stop and let him catch her. He grabbed her, lifted her, and spun her around, then very awkwardly walked the two of them across the yard.
He used one hand to lower her truck’s tailgate, then lifted her to sit and hopped up beside her. But that’s all he did, swinging his legs, hanging his head, touching the length of her thigh with his. “Lucky for you hefting that ax all afternoon has me beat. I doubt I could get it up even if you begged.”
That had her wanting to put his words to the test. But she didn’t. “What happened to you being mad at the world?”
“I’m still mad. Just not at you.”
Funny, but she wasn’t really mad at him either. “I’m sorry for pushing you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“No you’re not. You’re just sorry it didn’t go the way you’d hoped.”
Was that true? “Why do you say that?”
“I know living with Hoyt couldn’t have been eas
y, all that stuff about Santa Claus and shoes. But that doesn’t mean what worked for you in settling things with him is going to work for me.”
She wondered how much to tell him. If he’d hold the truth over her, use it against her. “I never settled things with my father, Dax. I should have, but all I did was help him pack up the house and load the U-Haul. I didn’t even make the trip to Austin with him. I didn’t even wave when he drove away.”
“That’s pretty harsh.”
“He was a drunk. He spent twenty years not remembering he had a daughter. I grew up without a parent. I grew up with an adult living in the same house. I took money from his wallet to buy food and clothes and supplies for school. I ate nothing but sandwiches and cereal for years until I could cook.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, reaching for her hand and holding it.
“No one knew. Well, Buck knew.”
“That’s why you have the booth, isn’t it? More for Buck than anything else.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know why I have it. I tell myself it’s so I won’t forget. So I won’t make the mistakes he did.”
“You won’t make them.” He squeezed her fingers. “You won’t ever forget. And even I know you don’t need the booth for that.”
“You’re probably right.”
He waited a minute, still swinging his legs, bouncing their joined hands on his thigh. “Are you going to have sex with me now?”
Eyes rolling, she tugged at her hand but he wouldn’t let her go. “What happened to you being too tired?”
“I’m all rested up.”
“Is there a minute of the day you’re not horny?”
“That’s your fault, woman. I’d been doing the monk thing just fine before you made me walk you to your truck that day at Lasko’s.”
“Made you walk me to my truck?” She laughed. “That is not how it happened, and you know it.”
“Close enough.”
She let him have that one. “How long had you been doing the monk thing?”
“Hmm. Three years? Maybe four?”
“You? Dax Campbell? Hadn’t had sex for three or four years? No wonder I can’t get you out of my bed.”
