Branded as Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  “Fuck Roman,” Valerie snarled the moment Mila got out of her car.

  Because Mila had done just that, she just stayed quiet and waited. She didn’t have to wait long for Valerie to continue.

  “You can tell Roman I said that, too. Fuck him. Do you know what he did?” But she didn’t give Mila a chance to venture a guess. Her guess, though, would have been that Roman had punched Lick because of something he said to Tate. “He punched Lick. Twice.”

  Yep, Mila had been right. “Was Tate there when it happened?”

  Valerie stopped in midpace and gave her a “what the hell are you talking about” look. “No. This all went on after Tate left. Roman was being a dick, and now Lick’s packing to leave.”

  Great news. Well, maybe. “You’re not going with him, are you? Because the doctor wanted you to be there for a therapy session.”

  Valerie grunted and kept puffing on that cigarette. “Tate’s fine. He didn’t even get upset when Lick called him a brat. And Lick didn’t mean it. He’s just tired, that’s all.”

  Everything inside Mila went still. “He called Tate that?”

  “So what? I’m sure Tate’s been called worse. He’s a teenager, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He’s never been called worse by his mother’s boyfriend.” Mila tried to tamp down her anger, but it was too late. She wanted to go inside and punch Lick herself. “Why would you bring Lick here with you, anyway? This visit isn’t about him. It’s about your son.”

  Valerie huffed. “You think you have the right to give me advice just because you’re fucking Roman? Well, you don’t. No one has the right to give me advice when it comes to me and my son.”

  There was probably nothing Mila could say to her that would help. Plenty she could do to hurt, though, and Mila was wishing she could slap some sense into her cousin. That would only make things worse for Roman and Tate.

  “Tate idolizes you,” Mila settled for saying. “Whenever you send him a card or call him, he tells everyone. Just those small gestures from you make him happy. Think how much good a therapy session with him would do. It would let him know that you love him.”

  “Of course I love him. He’s my kid,” Valerie snapped. For a moment it seemed Valerie was about to jump into another tirade about Mila minding her own business. She didn’t. She cursed, but Mila thought that might be aimed at herself.

  “I’m not good at this,” Valerie said under her breath. “That’s why I talked Lick into coming with me. Because I will never be good at this, and I thought it’d help to have him here.”

  Mila wasn’t sure what this encompassed, but maybe Valerie meant motherhood. She also wasn’t sure why Valerie would have thought a guy like Lick would have been of any help whatsoever.

  “Tate doesn’t need you to be perfect,” Mila explained. “He just needs you to be there.”

  “That’s just it. If I’m there, I’ll screw it up. I always do.” When Valerie looked at her, Mila saw the tears.

  Valerie had done so many hurtful things that it was hard to be affected by those tears and feel sorry for her, but Mila did. She could never dismiss all the things Valerie had done to Tate, but it was obvious she was at least aware of the damage she’d been doing. Until tonight, Mila hadn’t even been sure Tate was on Valerie’s radar.

  “I left the hospital because I could see you were all judging me,” Valerie went on. “The only thing I could think of was to pretend that I wanted Tate to meet Lick.”

  Mila just sighed. “Obviously, that didn’t work. And as for judging you, I wasn’t. I was actually thinking how beautiful you are, how beautiful you’ve always been. It’s no wonder that Roman was attracted to you.”

  She hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud. She’d learned the hard way not to bring up Roman because it usually caused Valerie to go into the insult/attack mode.

  But Valerie only dismissed it with another grunt. “When Roman picked me in high school, I couldn’t believe it. Here we lived, in a trailer. With Vita. And he still picked me. That’s when I knew something was really wrong with me. Because I didn’t love him. And I kept thinking if I can’t love someone like Roman Granger, then there must be something seriously broken inside me.”

  This was the first Mila was hearing of any of this. When Valerie had been with Roman, the only thing she’d ever talked about was the sex. Mila had assumed there’d been some love involved but apparently not.

  Not on Valerie’s part, anyway.

  But Mila was almost positive that Roman had been in love with her cousin. Ironic that he’d fallen in love with the very person who wouldn’t love him back.

  Valerie’s tears started up again, and this time she couldn’t blink them away. They spilled down her cheeks. Mila hoped she didn’t regret this, but she put her arms around Valerie and hugged her. She expected Valerie to push her away and start the barb-flinging, but she stayed there a few seconds, then eased away.

  “How can I fix this?” Valerie asked.

  “You can go to that therapy session with Tate.” Mila didn’t have to think long to come up with that answer. “You do what the therapist tells you to do. You rebuild your relationship with Tate and make it the way it should be.” Now, here was the hard part, and Mila had to tamp down years of jealousy to say it. “Even if that means moving closer to Tate so you can see him more often.”

  Valerie didn’t jump to nix that. What she didn’t do was verbally agree. She also didn’t even show any signs of agreement with her expression. Still, it was a start.

  The start came to a quick halt, however, when the door to the inn flew open, and a man with greasy blond hair came out. He had a suitcase in each hand and a woman’s purse on his shoulder.

  This had to be Lick.

  Mila amended her thought about punching him. She’d rather kick him in the nuts instead.

  Lick thrust the purse and one of the suitcases at Valerie. “Are you coming with me?” he asked. He took some keys from his pocket, pointed them toward a rental car parked in front of the inn, and he hit the button to unlock the doors.

  Valerie shook her head, caught on to his arm. “Please, don’t do this. I have to stay for my son’s counseling session. Just one more day, and then we can go.”

  “I’m not staying in this hick-hole another minute much less a day. You can either come with me or you can go to the session with your ex.”

  More head shaking from Valerie. “Roman won’t be at the counseling. It’ll be just Tate, me and the therapist.”

  “I don’t care.” Judging from his face, he was telling the truth. He didn’t. Not about Tate, or Valerie for that matter.

  Lick waited what had to be three seconds at most before he threw off Valerie’s grip with far more force than was necessary, and he started for the car.

  “Please, don’t go,” she begged. But Valerie was talking to the air because Lick got behind the wheel and started the engine.

  Valerie looked at Mila as if asking her what to do. Again, Mila didn’t have to think about this for long. “You need to stay and be here for Tate.”

  “Get in or I’m leaving!” Lick shouted, and it was loud enough for them to hear it even though he didn’t lower the window.

  Valerie fired glances back and forth between Lick and her, and Mila gave it one last shot.

  “Stay for Tate’s sake,” Mila told her.

  For a moment she thought she was getting through to her cousin. But it only lasted for a moment.

  “Tell Tate I’ll call him,” Valerie said, and she ran to the car. The moment she was inside, Lick gunned the engine and sped away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ROMAN CURSED, AND because it didn’t help his mood, he cursed again. He was in Sophie’s office in the guesthouse on the ranch. There was a stack of paperwork for Granger Western on one side of the desk
. A stack of paperwork for his own business on the other side. Now, Buck Williams, one of the hands, had dropped off some ranching business contracts that needed his signature.

  He didn’t want to do any of this and considered putting a closed sign on the door of the guesthouse the way Mila did at her bookstore.

  And speaking of Mila, he cursed her, too.

  It’d been three days since they’d had sex and she’d left him that stupid-assed “peachy” note. No calls, no texts. Nada. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have something to talk to him about.

  Not sex, either, but Valerie.

  Since Mila had been the one to call Tate and tell him that his mother was leaving with Lick, Limp, Lash or whatever the hell his name was, then Mila must have some clue as to what had happened.

  Of course, Roman had a clue, too. Valerie, being Valerie, had just skipped out again, leaving him to pick up the fucking pieces. Still, Mila might have some insight that she could have passed along to him, but the one time Roman had walked by her shop to see her, she’d been doing story time with a bunch of little kids from a preschool group. She’d simply waved at him and smiled.

  Smiled!

  As if there was something to smile about.

  He reminded himself that a smile was better than her crying over him or feeling sorry about what they’d done. But apparently she wasn’t having any regrets. She was sailing on with her life as if nothing had happened. Pretty damn strange for a woman who’d hung on to her virginity for over three decades.

  “I’m busy,” Roman snarled when there was a knock at the door. Tate wasn’t home from school yet, Mila would be working at the bookstore and Sophie was at home with her babies. That meant there was no one else he wanted to see.

  Including the woman who opened the door and popped her head in.

  His mother.

  “I just need a minute,” Belle said. She frowned. “Why are you so cranky?”

  “You know why. And I’m not cranky. I’m busy.” He scribbled his signature on a bull sperm purchase and on an order for some deworming meds.

  “Sounds like crankiness to me,” Belle mumbled. Despite his having stated not once but twice that he was busy, Belle came in, anyway, didn’t close the door, and she sank into the chair next to the desk. “Does your mood have anything to do with Mila?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to give a “why the heck would you ask that?” stare.

  “Because of Mila and those dating sites,” she added.

  This time his stare was more along the lines of WTF?

  “Mila’s looking at the dating sites again,” Belle continued as if he’d actually asked that. “Not the fantasy ones, either. The real sites. She asked me for some old links I had gathered for Sophie before she fell for Clay. Anyway, I emailed them to her, but I left a couple of them off. I mean, she doesn’t need a webpage for well-endowed men.”

  Roman just went with another WTF? stare. He wouldn’t even address the well-endowed part, but he did have a question. “When did this happen?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  He’d had sex with her a couple of days ago. What, had she decided that once was enough with him and it was time to try someone else?

  Of course, that’s what he’d wanted her to do. Just not this bloody soon.

  “I think she looked at Sophie’s happy life,” Belle explained, “Garrett and Nicky’s, too—and Mila must have decided to go for the gold and get her own happy ending.” She paused only long enough to draw breath. “Maybe you’re cranky about Valerie, too.”

  “Valerie certainly didn’t help matters,” he growled, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to drop the subject about Mila. His mother obviously didn’t intend to go along with that, though.

  “Valerie helped by leaving. Do you really think it would have done Tate any good for her to stay around?”

  It was one of the wisest questions he’d ever heard his mother ask. Too bad he was in a shitty mood that wise couldn’t help. “No, but Tate doesn’t get that, and it means he takes it out on me and everyone around him.”

  “Well, he has been cranky,” Belle agreed. “But that should ease up soon once he figures out that she’s never going to be the mom he wants her to be.” She paused. “You figured it out when you were about his age.”

  Roman’s hand froze in midsignature, and he looked up at her. Were they actually going to talk about this? “You know why and how I figured it out,” he reminded her.

  She nodded. “And it made you very angry. You’re still angry.”

  Hell, yeah, he was. Like Mila and her virginity, Roman had also hung on to that anger for over three decades.

  “Have you ever done something that changed your and someone else’s life?” she asked. She didn’t look at him when she spoke. Belle twisted her wedding rings around her finger, the diamonds catching the light and giving off little flashes.

  Roman knew she wasn’t talking about Mila, but that was the first thing that came to mind. He had done something to change everything. And he wasn’t sure he’d changed it for the better. His mother certainly hadn’t twenty years ago, either.

  “I loved your father,” she continued. “I thought I would never love someone as much as I did him. That’s why I kept hanging on. Those other women didn’t mean anything to him, and he wasn’t going to leave me for them.”

  “He had sex with other women,” Roman pointed out. “He disrespected you, your marriage vows and those other women.”

  Again, she nodded. “And because of that, you don’t respect vows, either.” She gave him a nervous smile. “I watch those celebrity shrinks on TV. Plus, there’s something like this going on in one of the other TV shows.”

  Probably not the most reliable sources to get therapeutic help, but at least Belle finally seemed to be connecting the dots.

  “I’m sorry about how I handled that,” she went on. “God, am I sorry. I was wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix being wrong.”

  Roman opened his mouth to tell her that it was too late for an apology, but it hit him.

  It wasn’t too late.

  Maybe because he wasn’t filtering all of this through a thirteen-year-old mind, he couldn’t see any benefit to hanging on to this any longer. His parents had screwed up, he had screwed up, but it was time to let it go. Well, let it go as much as he could. It was hard to wash away a festering hurt with just a chat and an apology.

  He reached over and brushed his fingers over her arm to get her attention. And because he just wanted to touch her. “Truce?” he offered.

  Judging from the smile, you would have thought he’d offered her the world. Hell, maybe it was something like that because if Tate offered him a truce, Roman would be in seventh heaven. That didn’t mean he thought everything was suddenly going to be perfect between his mother and him. Belle would always be Belle. But Roman would take just not being at war with her. He had enough battles in his life without continuing to fight this one with his mother.

  “Truce,” she repeated. She used her pinkie to catch a tear that was about to fall. Roman was hoping that was a tear of the happy variety.

  She stood, gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ll let you get back to your work, but I wanted to ask your opinion first. Billy Lee wants to have s-e-x with me, and I’m considering it.”

  Oh, man. He hadn’t seen that coming. Roman had thought this was going to be about gardening or babysitting the twins. He did not want to talk sex with his mom. Still, with Sophie tied up, maybe he was her only option.

  “Do you want to have sex with him?” he asked. “Because I’m thinking if you have to spell it instead of saying it, then—”

  “I really want to,” she interrupted. “But I don’t want to mess up our friendship. He’s always been there for our family. Heck, he’s like family, and if this turns out to be a mi
stake, it could ruin things, you know?”

  Yeah, he did know. Firsthand. Because he’d done it with Mila.

  “Then just take things slow,” he said. Not stellar advice since his mother had been a widow for years and Billy Lee had been waiting in the shadows for her all this time. Billy Lee was a walking metaphor for taking things slow.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said. She headed for the door, but then she hurried back to his desk and hugged him.

  His mom was still hugging him when Mila stepped in. “Uh, am I interrupting anything?”

  “No, we’re done,” Belle assured her. “I’m going to have s-e-x with Billy Lee.” His mother moved away from him and hugged Mila. “And if you really want that site for well-endowed men, I’ll send it to you.”

  Mila had a similar WTF? look on her face that Roman was certain he’d had earlier. “That’s wonderful about Billy Lee, but I’ll pass on the site. You already sent me quite a lot of them. Thank you, by the way.”

  “My pleasure. I just want you all to be as happy as I am right now.” Humming—yes, humming—his mother left, and Mila walked in.

  His heart did a fluttering thing, maybe because he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about this visit. Especially since she was moving on with those dating sites.

  She motioned in Belle’s direction. “Are you okay with her and Billy Lee?”

  “Yeah.” But even if he hadn’t been, he hoped that his mother would go for it, anyway. She didn’t need her grown kids dictating who her sex partners should be.

  “I’m sorry about Valerie leaving the way she did,” she added. “For the record, I did try to talk her out of it.”

  He’d already figured that out.

  “And to set another record straight,” she went on, “your mother thinks that well-endowed site is about men with a lot of money.”

  He’d also figured that out. The one thing he hadn’t figured out was the woman standing in front of him.

  “How’s Tate?” she asked.

  Roman made a so-so motion with his hand. “I’m thinking when school ends, I should take him on a vacation. Maybe we can go on one of those cruises geared to kids his age.”