Dalton's Undoing

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Morgan folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "I'll try, but I don't think he'll pay attention to either me or Grandpa."

  Probably not, she conceded. Nobody seemed to be able to get through to Cole. She'd thought moving to Idaho to live with her father would help stabilize her son, at least get him away from the undesirable elements in Seattle who were leading him into all kinds of trouble.

  She had hoped his grandfather would give the boy the male role model he had lost with his own father's desertion. So much for that. Though Jason tried, Cole was so angry and bitter at the world—more furious with her now for uprooting him from his friends and moving him to this backwater than he was with his father for moving to another continent.

  She glanced at her watch and groaned. The school board meeting started in ten minutes and she was scheduled to give a PowerPoint presentation outlining her efforts to raise the elementary school's performance on standardized testing. This was her first big meeting with the school board and she couldn't afford to blow it.

  The therapist she'd gone to after the divorce suggested Jenny's chronic tardiness indicated some form of passive aggression, her way of governing a life that often felt beyond her control.

  Jenny just figured she was too busy chasing after her hundreds of constantly spinning plates.

  "I've got to run, baby. I'll be home before you go to sleep, I promise." She kissed her on the forehead, wondering as she headed out of her room if she had time to hurry down to the basement to say goodbye to Cole. No, she decided. Besides her time crunch, any conversation between them these days ended in a fight and she wasn't sure she was up for another one tonight.

  "Bye, Dad," she called down the hall as she grabbed her laptop case and her purse. "Thanks for watching them!"

  "Don't worry about a thing." Jason Chambers appeared in the doorway, wearing his favorite Ducks Unlimited sweater and jeans that made him look far younger than his sixty-five years. "Give 'em hell."

  She mustered a distracted smile, grateful all over again that they'd been able to move past their complicated, stiff relationship of the past and find some measure of peace when she moved to Pine Gulch.

  Juggling her bags and her keys, she yanked open the door and rushed out, then gave a shriek when she collided with a solid, warm male.

  With a little gasp, Jenny righted herself, registering the muscles in that hard frame that seemed as immovable as the Tetons. "I'm sorry! I didn't see you."

  She knew who he was, of course. What woman in Pine Gulch didn't? With that slow, sexy smile and those brilliant blue eyes that seemed to see right into a woman's psyche to all her deepest desires, Seth Dalton was a difficult man to overlook.

  Not that she didn't try her best. The youngest Dalton was exactly the kind of man she tried to avoid at all cost. She'd had more than enough, thank you very much, of smooth charmers who swept a woman off her feet with flowers and champagne only to leave her dangling there, hanging by her fingernails when they decide young French pastries are more to their taste.

  What earthly reason would Dalton have for showing up at her doorstep? He had no children at her school, he was years past his own education and somehow she couldn't picture him as the type to bake cookies for the PTA fundraiser.

  She couldn't think of anything else that would bring him to her door and the clock was ticking.

  "May I help you, Mr. Dalton?"

  Surprise flickered in those eyes for just a moment, as if he hadn't expected her to know his name. "Just making a delivery."

  She frowned, impatient and confused, as he reached around the door out of her view, tugging something forward. No something, someone—someone with a sullen scowl, a baggy sweatshirt and a chip the size of Idaho on his narrow shoulders.

  "Cole!"

  Beneath her son's customary sulky defiance, she thought she saw something else beneath the attitude, something nervous and on edge.

  "What's going on? You're supposed to be down in your room working on geometry!" she exclaimed.

  "Geometry blows. I went out."

  "You went out," she repeated, frustration and bewilderment and a terrible sense of failure rising in her chest. How could she possibly reach the students at her school when she couldn't manage to find even the tiniest connection to her own son? "Out where? I didn't hear you leave."

  "Ever hear of a window?" he sneered. Nothing new there. He had been derisive and mean to her before they ever came to Pine Gulch. He blamed her for everything wrong in his life, from his short stature to Richard's affair and subsequent abandonment.

  She was mortified that a stranger had to witness it. She was even more mortified when Seth Dalton raised one of those sexy dark eyebrows and placed a firm hand on Cole's shoulder. "Now, do you really think that's the proper way to address your mother?"

  Jenny gave the man a polite smile, wishing him to Hades. "Thank you, Mr. Dalton, for bringing him home, but I believe I can handle things from here."

  For some reason, either her words or her tone seemed to amuse him. His mouth quirked up and a masculine dimple appeared in his cheek briefly. "Can you, now? I'm afraid we still have a few matters of business to discuss. May I come in?"

  "This isn't a good time. I'm late for a meeting."

  "Sorry about that," he drawled, "but I'm afraid you'll have to make time for this."

  He didn't wait for permission, just walked through her father's entry into the living room. She had no choice but to follow, noting as she went that Jason and Morgan were nowhere to be seen.

  "Cole, you want to tell her what you've been up to?"

  Her son crossed his arms, his expression even more belligerent, but again she caught a faint whiff of fear beneath it. Her stomach suddenly twisted with foreboding.

  "What's going on? Cole, what is this about?"

  He clamped his mouth shut, freezing her out again, but once more Seth Dalton placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

  Cole suddenly seemed to find the carpet endlessly fascinating.

  "Istolehisride," he mumbled in one breath and Jenny's heart stopped, hoping she'd heard wrong.

  "You what?"

  Cole finally lifted his gaze to hers. "I took his car, okay? What did he expect? He left the frigging keys in it. I was only going to take it for a mile or two. I figured I'd have it back before he even knew it was gone. But then I crashed…"

  "You what! Are you hurt? Did you hurt anyone else?"

  Cole shook his head. At least he had enough guilty conscience to look slightly ashamed.

  "He scraped a mile marker post and front-ended into an irrigation ditch. The only thing damaged was my car."

  She sagged into the nearest chair as her career suddenly flashed in front of her eyes. She could almost hear the echo of gossip across shopping carts at DeLoy's, under the hair dryers at the Hairport and over beer at the Bandito.

  Did you hear about that new principal's wild boy? She can't control him a lick. That little delinquent stole a car. Crashed it right into a ditch! Seems to me a woman who can't control her own son sure don't belong in that nice office down at the elementary school.

  She screwed her eyes shut, wishing this was all some terrible dream, but when she opened them, Seth Dalton was still standing in front of her, as dangerous and sexy as ever.

  "I am so sorry, Mr. Dalton. I…don't know what to say. Are you pressing charges?"

  She thought she heard Cole make a small sound, but when she glanced at him, he looked as prickly and angry as ever.

  "It's going to take me considerable work to fix it."

  "We will, of course, cover any damages."

  He suddenly sat down on the sofa across from her, crossing his boots at the ankle. "I had something else in mind."

  She stiffened. "I'm an elementary school principal, Mr. Dalton. If you're looking for some kind of huge financial settlement, I'm afraid you're off the mark."

  "I'm not looking for money." He glanced at Seth. "But I will need another set of hands while I'm doing the repair work. I fi
gured the kid could work off the damages by helping me out with the repair work and around my ranch with my horses until the bodywork is done."

  Cole straightened. "I'm no stupid-ass cowboy."

  Seth Dalton gave him a measuring look. "No, from here you look like a stupid-ass punk who thinks he's living out some kind of video game. This isn't Grand Theft Auto, kid, where you can always hit the restart button. You broke it, now you're going to help me fix it. Unless you'd rather serve the time, of course."

  Cole subsided back into his customary slouch as Jenny considered his proposal. Her gut wanted her to tell him to forget it. She didn't want her son to have anything to do with Pine Gulch's busiest bachelor.

  Cole had had enough lousy male role models in his life—he didn't need a player like Seth teaching him all the wrong things about how to treat a woman.

  On the other hand, her son stole the man's car—not only stole it, but wrecked the blasted thing. That he wasn't in police custody right now seemed nothing short of a miracle.

  What choice did she have, really? Seth could easily have called the police. Perhaps he should have. Maybe a hard gut check with reality might be just what Cole needed to wake him up, as much as she hated the idea of her son in juvenile detention.

  Seth Dalton was being surprisingly decent about this. From what little she knew about him—and she had to admit, most of her biased information came from overheard conversations and breathless comments in the teacher's lounge about his many flirtations—she would have expected him to be hot-tempered and petulant.

  Instead, she found him rational, calm, accommodating.

  And extremely attractive.

  She let out a slow, nervous breath. Was that the reason for her instinctive opposition to the man's reasonable proposal? Because he was sinfully gorgeous, with that thick, dark hair, eyes a stunning, heartbreaking blue and chiseled, tanned features that made him look as though he should be starring in Western movies?

  He made her edgy and ill at ease and that alone gave her enough reason to wish for a way to avoid any further acquaintance between them. She was here in Pine Gulch to help her little family find some peace and healing—not to engage in useless, potentially harmful fantasies about a charming, feckless cowboy with impossibly blue eyes and a smile that oozed sex.

  "I'll know better after I tow the car out to the ranch and take a look at her but from my initial look, I'd estimate there was about fix or six hundred dollars' damage," he was saying. "The way I figure it, if he worked for me a couple afternoons a week after school and Saturday mornings, we should be clear in a few months. Is that okay with you?"

  She looked at Dalton and then at Cole, his arms still crossed belligerently across his chest, as if everyone else in the room was responsible for his troubles but himself.

  He disdained everything about Idaho and would probably consider being forced to work on a ranch every bit as much punishment as going to juvenile detention, she thought.

  "Yes. That's more than fair. Wouldn't you agree, Cole?"

  Her son glared at both of them—and while Jenny felt her own temper kindle in automatic response, Seth met his look with cool challenge and Cole quickly dropped his gaze.

  "Whatever," he muttered.

  "Thank you," Jenny said again, walking with him to the door. "As tomorrow is Saturday, I'll drive him out to the Cold Creek in the morning. What time?"

  "How does eight work for you?"

  "We'll be there. I'm very sorry again about this. I can't imagine what he was thinking."

  His smile was slow and wide and made her insides feel as if she'd just done somersaults down a steep, grassy hill.

  "He's a teenage boy, so I'd guess he probably wasn't thinking at all. See you in the morning."

  Jenny nodded, wondering why that prospect filled her with an odd mix of trepidation and anticipation.

  Chapter Two

  "This is totally lame," her son muttered the next morning. "Why do I have to give up a whole Saturday?"

  Jenny sighed and cast Cole an admonishing glance across the width of her little Toyota SUV. "You prefer the alternative? I can call Mr. Dalton right now and tell him to go ahead and file charges if that's what you'd rather see happen here."

  Cole sliced her a glare that told her quite plainly he considered her totally lame, too, but he said nothing.

  "I don't think it's fair, either," Morgan piped up from the backseat. "Why does Cole always get to do the fun stuff? I want to help with the horses, too. Natalie says the Cold Creek horses are the prettiest, smartest horses anywhere. They've won all kinds of rodeo awards and they sell for tons of money. She said her uncle Seth knows more about horses than anybody else in the whole wide world."

  "Wow. The whole wide world?" Sarcasm dripped from Cole's voice.

  Morgan either didn't pick up on it or decided to ignore it. Judging from past experience, Jenny was willing to bet on the latter. Her daughter tended to ignore anything that didn't fit into her vision of the way the world ought to operate.

  Even during her frequent hospital stays after bad asthma attacks, she always managed to focus on some silver lining, like a new friend or a particularly kind nurse.

  "Yep," she said eagerly now, with as much pride in Seth Dalton as she might have had if he were her uncle instead of her best friend's. "People bring their horses to the Cold Creek from all over the place for him to train because he's so good."

  "If he knows more than anyone else in the world, why is he stuck here in Buttlick, Idaho?"

  Morgan's enthusiasm faded into a frown. "Just because you don't like it here, you don't have to call it mean words."

  "I thought that was the name," Cole said with a sneer. "Right next to Hairy Armpitville and across the holler from Cow's Rectum."

  "That's enough." Jenny's hands tightened on the steering wheel and she felt familiar stress weigh like a half-ton hay bale on her shoulders. She wasn't at all sure she was going to survive her son's adolescence.

  "I hope you treat Mr. Dalton with more respect than you show me or your sister."

  "How can I not, since apparently the man knows more about horses than anybody in the whole wide world?" Cole muttered.

  Who was this angry stranger in her son's body? she wondered. Whatever happened to her sweet little man who used to love cuddling up with her at bedtime for stories and hugs? Who used to let her blow raspberries on his neck and would run to her classroom after school bubbling over with news of his day?

  That sweet boy had been slipping away from her since the year he turned eleven, when Richard had moved out. Through the three ugly years since, he'd pulled deeper and deeper into himself, until now he only emerged on rare occasions.

  This obviously wasn't going to be one of them.

  Somehow Cole had come to blame her for the separation and divorce. She wasn't sure how or why she had come to bear that burden but the unfairness of it made her want to scream.

  She, at least, had been faithful to her marriage vows. Though she hadn't been perfect by any means and had long ago accepted her share of responsibility for the breakup of her marriage, in her heart she knew she had tried to be a good wife.

  She had supported Richard through his last years of medical school, residency, internship. She had scrimped and saved throughout their twelve-year marriage to help pay off his student loans, had run the household virtually alone during that time as he worked to establish his career, had tried time and again to bridge the increasing chasm between them as he focused on his practice to the complete exclusion of his family.

  She had tried. Not perfectly, she would admit, but she had wanted her marriage to work.

  Richard had had other ideas, though. He went to Paris for a conference and met his Giselle and decided family and vows and twelve years of marriage didn't stack up well against a twenty-year-old Frenchwoman with a tight body and pouty lips.

  Jenny had long ago come to terms with Richard Boyer's betrayal of her. But she would never forgive him for what his complete a
bandonment of his family had done to his children. Morgan had stopped crying herself to sleep some time ago and seemed to be adjusting, but Cole carried so much anger inside him he seethed with it.

  Lucky her, she seemed to be the only outlet for his rage.

  She tried to remember what the therapist she'd seen in Seattle had told her, that Cole only lashed out at her because she was a safe target. Her son knew she wouldn't abandon him like his father, so he focused all the force of his rage toward her.

  She still wasn't sure she completely bought into that explanation. Even if she did, she wasn't sure it would make his rebelliousness and unhappiness any more palatable.

  With each mile marker, he seemed to sink further into gloom on the seat beside her.

  A large timber arch across a gravel side road proudly bore the name of the Cold Creek Land & Cattle Company in cast-iron letters. She slowed the SUV and turned in.

  "It won't be so bad," she said, fighting the completely juvenile urge to cross her fingers. "Who knows? You might even enjoy it."

  He rolled his eyes. "Cleaning up horse crap? Right. Can't wait."

  She sighed, wondering if Seth Dalton had any clue what joy was in store for him today.

  The ranch house was shielded from the main road by a long row of trees, which made the first sight of it all the more dramatic. It was perfect for the landscape here, a bold, impressive structure of rock and logs, with the massive peaks of the Tetons as a backdrop.

  She'd always considered November a particularly lonely, unattractive month, without October's swirling colors or December's sparkling anticipation. In November, the trees were bleak and bare and everything seemed frost-dead and barren.

  The Cold Creek seemed to be an exception. Oh, the gardens out front had been cut down, the beds prepared for winter, but the long rows of weathered fence line and the sheer impressiveness of the house and outbuildings gave a stark beauty to the scene.

  Not sure quite where to go to find Seth Dalton, she slowed as she reached the house and then stopped altogether when she saw a figure emerge from an immense barn, carrying a bale of hay by the baling twine.