Forever Wild: A Camden Ranch Novel

by Jillian Neal

  “Luke, you have to see this! Now!” Grant shoved the file folder in his hands.

  “Wait, what the hell does he think is on my land?”

  “Bro, it doesn’t fucking matter. Read this!” His finger landed on a printed email from what appeared to be a lawyer’s office in Rapid City, South Dakota, probably working with the surveyor who was claiming the possibility of oil in Pleasant Glen if he had to guess.

  Annoyed, Luke took the stack of papers from his brother. A notary-sealed document was under the stack of emails. Starting with the email, Luke’s heart sank rapidly to his feet.

  “This can’t be real,” he choked as his eyes landed on the words, ‘This will need to be handled carefully. The paternity test you requested from the blood work done on Miss Melony Grace Harper when she applied for her marriage license proves that she and obviously her identical twin sister Miranda Carolyn are your daughters. As we discussed on the phone Thursday, keeping this under wraps might become difficult if you pressure their presumed father, Benjamin James Harper, for the land you wish to acquire in exchange for your silence on the women’s parentage. I have included a notarized copy of a petition to change legal name and lineage to be shown to Mr. Harper, if you decide to go forward with this.’

  Vomit and bile flooded Luke’s mouth. The words on the page blurred. His head spun. Blinking rapidly, he willed the words to say something, anything different. He was going to be sick.

  Grant looked up from the mineral plat Luke had been studying. “So, he wants to trade his daughters for oil, assuming there is any, which there ain’t. Real piece of work, our mayor. What are you gonna do?”

  For the first time in his entire life, Luke’s mind went absolutely utterly blank. He had no clue how to handle this, who to ask for help, and the most terrifying complication of all … what to tell Indie.

  “Ben would give him the land.” His voice was distanced and tunneled. He barely recognized it as his own. “He’d go along with this just to keep his girls from knowing, and that motherfucking asslicker knows that.”

  “Yeah, nobody’d ever deny that Ben Harper is the salt of this earth, man, but you have to tell Indie. You can’t keep this from her.”

  “I can’t. I just … can’t.” She would leave. He knew. She would run again, certain she was alone in the world. She would never stay if she found out that her precious baby sisters, the girls she’d give her life over for, weren’t really her sisters.

  Grant’s hand cuffed his shoulder stabilizing him. “I know you want her to stay, marry her, the whole deal, and I know you’re terrified this’ll make her run again. I do. But you can’t keep this to yourself. If she ever does find out …” he bit off the inevitable conclusion. If Luke told her, she would leave and never return. If he didn’t and she found out some other way, the outcome would be the same.

  His heart refused him the next beat as he tried to envision her reaction. He wasn’t certain she would ever recover from this. His sweet baby. He just didn’t know how much more she could endure at the hands of her mother and Ernie Perkins. All he knew was there was nothing he could say or do that would get her to become his permanently after this. Staring at the file folders like they contained a viper’s den, he watched his entire life dissolve before his very eyes.

  The click of boot heels echoed through the door. “Someone’s coming,” Grant hissed. He gathered up the folders and quickly shoved them back in the filing cabinet.

  “Luke, are you in there?” Indie’s voice rang through the thick suffocating air. His entire body shook.

  “Okay, deep breath. I’m gonna let her in. Don’t have to tell her anything just yet,” Grant eased.

  Somehow, the only ridiculous thoughts he could manage were that he still didn’t know why Ernie wanted his land or Tuck’s land, and that his Granddaddy Camden was right. At that moment, he would’ve given every acre he’d ever hoped to have, every head of cattle grazing in his pastures, every single thing that made him a cowboy; he would sell his soul to make certain Indie never knew any of this.

  A cool rush of air accompanied Indie’s appearance when the door opened. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Uh ...” His lungs refused him air. He couldn’t speak.

  “Just snooping around. Seeing what was up here Ernie was thinking you might’a found when you were making use of the office.” Grant tried for a teasing tenor but didn’t quite make the mark. She was onto him. A storm of suspicion gathered in her eyes.

  “Well, did you find anything?”

  “No,” Luke’s voice returned to him just in time to pound the first nail in the coffin. He lied to her.

  “Tucker’s looking for you. Says you need to get everyone’s tuxedos before they leave.”

  Luke managed a nod. The knowledge that he’d promised to return the tuxes to the rental place the next day filed itself in a domino of fracturable thoughts. Ben. Miranda. Tuck and Mel. Oil. Money. What an absolute douchebag Ernie Perkins really was. The undeniable knowledge that he’d refused to ever even consider—Miranda and Melony Harper looked nothing like their older sister. Did Carolyn know who her children’s father really was? Had Ernie done this on his own or with her knowledge? Wait. That was why she was so insistent Ernie walk Melony down the aisle. It had to be. Did Ben ever suspect? And … Indie.

  “Okay,” he managed as he dragged Indie into his arms. The scent of her hair steadied his breaths. If he could just freeze time in that moment, he might survive this. His arms strengthened their hold.

  “Luke, what’s wrong?” she demanded.

  “He’s worried about you.” Grant certainly wasn’t lying. “Uh, he told me about Ernie and the secretary chick. You know how much he loves you. He don’t want you to go through all this again, darlin’.”

  “Oh.” Indie pulled out of his grasp and offered him her sweetest smile. “I’ll be fine. I always am. I cornered Tiffany, but I couldn’t get anything out of her. It ain’t like I didn’t know Ernie is nothing but a piece of shit. If he’s screwin’ around again, maybe this stupid town will finally get rid of him. I mean,” she faltered momentarily, “I feel bad for Mom. Kind of. I don’t know. Can we just go? I don’t want to think about it all right now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Luke sat on the back porch of his parents’ house, mentally damming the universe to hell. Indie was still in the kitchen with his mama having coffee and a second helping of dessert. At least she was eating. If he was going to have to watch her walk away again, maybe he’d finally convinced her that she was the most beautiful thing to ever grace his earth or anyone else’s.

  Half of him wanted to return to his mother’s table and demand that she come home with him. Their moments together were inevitably numbered now. The other half was afraid to be alone with her. She knew him like no one else ever could. She’d already asked him twice what was wrong. With every lie, he hated himself more.

  He’d been through every scenario he could come up with. If he confronted the mayor with what they’d found, it would only push him to go through with his plan more quickly. Ernie, technically hadn’t done anything illegal. Blackmail would be tough to pin on him, since it hadn’t yet occurred. Far worse, if Luke took any action at all, Indie would know he’d kept it from her and that would be the end of everything he’d ever lived for in the first place. Of course, even if he marched in there and told her now, she’d still run away. He was nothing more than a sitting duck waiting on the rat-bastard to make his move.

  If there was an affair and it was revealed, Ernie Perkins would most surely be run out of town on a rail, making his desire for money all the more. Luke momentarily wondered if it had yet occurred to Indie that her family would become the laughing stock of the town yet again. Seeing as she was sitting in his mama’s kitchen being loved up on instead of flying back to Oklahoma, he doubted she’d considered that as of yet.

  Ev and Grant sauntered to the back deck, both eyeing him cautiously.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Ev
urged. Luke was well aware it was not really a request. He rolled his eyes.

  “Not really in the mood to talk, Dad.”

  “Well, I am in the mood to know what’s got my oldest son looking like he’s either been ordered to hang at sunrise or he’s lost his best friend, so walk with me.”

  “Pretty sure he’s on his way to that last one, Dad. Ease up, okay,” Grant sighed.

  A single nod of understanding accompanied the shuffle of Ev’s boots away from the porch. Luke and Grant begrudgingly followed.

  “A week ago, I told you your mama and I would do anything in our power to help you convince your sweet Indie to stay. Looked to us like things were going just the way you wanted them to. My offer still stands, son, but I need to know what happened between this morning when you were putting her up on Summer’s horse and having the time of your life and tonight.”

  “Grant and I snuck back up to Ernie’s office after we talked to you.”

  “That’s always a bad way for a story to start, but keep going.”

  “Indie and I had … uh … been up there earlier, and there were some files on the desk I saw, but when I went back they were gone, so Grant and I got to looking for ‘em.”

  “I take it you found them.”

  “Yeah, we found ‘em, all right.” A clot of Nebraskan dirt from the worn path they were walking met the toe of Grant’s boot and rolled away.

  “And …?” Ev urged.

  “Ernie wants Ben’s land because he thinks there might be oil there, and we found a letter from his lawyer. It’s kind of a long insane story, but basically …” Luke glanced back towards the house, terrified to say this aloud, “Miranda and Melony are Ernie’s daughters, not Ben’s.”

  “What?!” Ev stopped in his tracks.

  “Yeah, that’s what we said, too, only a lot more colorfully,” Grant added.

  “Dear merciful Lord in heaven. Ben and Carolyn didn’t even move to the Glen until the twins were toddlers. How the hell long was she having an affair before Indie walked in on them?”

  “No idea.” Luke longed to drive his fist into something, anything that might turn the horrendous emotional toil into a physical pain that could be dealt with.

  Ev shook his head. “And now you know and Indie Jane don’t know and when she does know ….”

  “Luke’s afraid she’ll run away again.”

  “She will.” Luke saw no reason to hold onto some ridiculous hope that she wouldn’t. The outcome was inevitable. Time was the only variability. There was no way out of his only life, and time slowed for no one.

  His father cuffed his shoulder and gave it a consolatory squeeze. There really was nothing he could say that would make this different, and he knew it.

  “You know, Holly was near ‘bout four years old when she grabbed the wrong end of the branding iron on my watch. She still has a scar on her palm, and I still have a scar on my heart. I’ll never forgive myself for not catching that little hand before it got to that iron.

  “Took me ‘til Austin was fourteen and damned and determined to kill himself on a bull to understand that I couldn’t keep my kids from getting hurt in this life. He shattered his ankle and shin that summer, and I would’a given anything to be the one trying so hard not to cry laying on that gurney in the emergency room. But I couldn’t be. He had to hurt, and I had to watch and that just never did seem right to me. If I can hurt so you and Indie don’t have to, son, I will. If you need to leave our land to have her, then that may be what you have to do.”

  Luke was too far gone to even feel the shock of his father’s words, but he tried to absorb the love and the sacrifice he was being offered. “Thanks, Dad, but it won’t matter. Soon as she finds out I knew and didn’t tell her even for a second, she’ll never trust me again. She’s been hurt too many times. She doesn’t trust anyone. Never really has.”

  “Never say never, Luke. A woman who opens her heart to you while it’s still broken is braver than any person you’ll ever meet. Indie did that for you, and you have no idea what else she’s capable of. Maybe you should go tell her now. If you knowing and not talking is gonna be her undoing, go talk.”

  “I got no earthly idea how to tell her Mel and Miranda aren’t her full sisters. They’ve always been her anchors. She took care of them and … hell, I got no idea how to tell Tuck he married Melony Jenkins, not Melony Harper, but somehow I gotta figure that out, too.”

  “I’ll tell ya God’s truth, their mama ought to be the one telling all of ‘em.”

  Grant and Luke made grunts of agreement.

  “I’ll tell ya this, too, Indieanna’s always been a wild hurricane of a girl. Powerful, beautiful in her might, with a few weak spots that she’s always tried so hard to protect. Problem with all of that is she needs someone … no, she needs you … to remind her to breathe, son. She gets whipped up in her own winds and ends up drowning in her own storm.”

  “She don’t need me. It’s me who needs her. ‘Sides, she wasn’t ever looking for a hero. She was always looking for a weapon.” Luke turned back towards the house like he was being beckoned by a siren’s song. His body ached with what he should do and what he somehow knew he wouldn’t. Weakness pervaded his soul. Helpless to resist, his traitorous boots led him back to his parent’s porch, back to her.

  Time was now fractured, marked, and measured, from this moment on. It fell in two distinctive pieces. Before she left and after. It might’ve worked as an analogy for his heart, but he’d existed without her often enough to know that his heart always remained intact — it just wouldn’t exist within its rightful cage. It abandoned his body to run with her each and every time she left. His chest remained hollow and void until the next time she returned to him. This time there wouldn’t be a return. He doubted she’d ever even fly over the Lincoln County line again. It would be far too painful. He’d never ask that of her.

  “You ever gonna tell me what’s wrong?” Her soft voice speared through him. There she was, waiting on him.

  “Yeah. I will. But not tonight, okay? Please. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Can I just have tonight?”

  “You can have whatever you want Luke Camden, but you can’t hide things from me. I know something fucked you up bad.”

  Yeah. Life itself. “Didn’t you used to tell me all the time that the whole damn world’s fucked up, sugar?”

  “Yeah, I did, but I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore?”

  “Oh yeah?” He held his hands out as she jumped from the porch railing into his waiting arms.

  “Well, maybe. I mean I endured a whole crazy, Carolyn-filled day, and I survived without hitting anyone. And I did it because I was with you. Maybe Pleasant Glen isn’t all that fucked up. Maybe just the mayor is, and maybe I could survive back here as long as I’m in your arms.”

  His breath vaulted from his gut like he’d been sucker punched. She’d just twisted the knife in his chest and she had no clue. All he was capable of in that moment was holding her to him and praying that somehow her body pressed to his chest would ease the stab wound.

  She lifted her head to study him. “Bet I can make you smile. Let’s go back to your house.”

  Cradling her precious face in the strength of his palm his lips sought hers, the only drug that could ever erase the pain. When he kissed her, he swore he could somehow taste the rest of his life. Every single thing he’d ever wanted, every single thing he’d ever hoped to be, the only life he ever wanted to live was penned in the delectable flavors of her mouth.

  He was a man slated to hang at dawn. His tongue sought hers. This might be their last kiss. She wanted to be taken to his bed. The last time he’d have the honor of worshipping her.

  They stumbled up his front steps. He tried to memorize that intoxicating grin on her beautiful lips, when he lifted her into his arms, and the scent of her hair. Memories would be all he got to keep. He had to tell her. And this would be the last time he held her this way, the last time he would exist within her, the onl
y way he’d ever wanted to be.

  Standing her by his bed, he wished for the millionth time that he could freeze time right here, right now. Her hands sought the hem of his shirt in a rush of need. He caught them.

  “Slow down, sugar. We got all night, okay?” His voice shattered. They had all of only one night.

  “Luke, what’s wrong? Just tell me.”

  Gently, he laid his index finger across her lips. “Not now. Just be with me. Just be right here with me tonight.”

  He lost himself in a whirlwind of their past and their present. The future no longer belonged to him. His future existed only with her.

  Lacing his fingers through her soft hair, he forced himself to remember the way it felt when he crushed it in his hands. The sweet sighs she made. The way her curves melded against his body as he laid over her.

  His heart hammered rapidly against her chest as he buried the pain deep inside of her. He longed to make it disappear entirely.

  “I love you, Indie. God, I love you so much,” he managed on his first full thrust.

  Out and in. Desperate to delay the inevitable ending. He slowed and relished the feeling of fitting her to him. God, it was so unfair. Why, why couldn’t he have her? He swore on his next thrust he’d give up anything to have this forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Luke slowed his death march to the barn the next morning, angry and raw from leaving Indie sound asleep in his bed so he could go do chores.

  “Hey, man, we moved your bulls already, and we’ll work your calves today. You go on back and get in bed with Indie,” Grant offered him a kind smile. Brock and Austin nodded their agreement.

  “For what it’s worth, Hope says to tell you everything will work out,” Brock offered tentatively. His wife had Gypsy heritage and frequently made predictions of this nature. Luke had never thought too much about them. He wasn’t certain if they ever came true, and just then he couldn’t find it in himself to care. What did working out even look like? Certainly not a wedding, babies, and a life on his ranch. That wasn’t even a fathomable option anymore.