Unbreakable

by Alison Kent

  Casper stood back, rubbed a hand down his jaw to his throat, thinking for not the first time that he was in over his head, but for the first time understanding exactly what that meant. How in the hell was he going to help this boy when he was at the root of Clay’s problems?

  He held his gaze, fighting the urge to walk away…which wasn’t about running, but about getting help, doing right by this boy, making up for the life he’d lived before coming to Crow Hill. Maybe making up for some of his own.

  Then Clay collapsed, the fury driving him draining away. “Are you going to get me out of here?”

  “Soon as I leave, I’m headed to see a lawyer. He’ll find out what’s going to happen, though I can’t imagine much of anything.”

  “And you’ll take care of Kevin?”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Clay. It’s not like you’re headed for the big house. You can take care of him when you get home.”

  It took several long seconds, but a slow smile spread over Clay’s face at that.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not laughing. I just like the way you said home.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  THERE WAS SOMETHING about the smell of leather in a law firm that set Casper’s nerves on edge. His saddle was one thing. The binding wrapping transcripts and precedents and what the hell into tomes was another. Not that he’d ever been in any real trouble during his life, or had any real reason to fear the legal system, but there was always the chance of his past catching up with him.

  He didn’t like thinking about his past. He didn’t want to open himself up, even for a confidential flaying. He didn’t talk to anyone about the things he’d seen and done, why he’d made the decisions he’d made. Except to Faith. Faith made it easy. Greg being a virtual stranger, and Clay being the one in the most trouble, didn’t.

  Even as a teen when he’d run with Dax, Casper had never stepped foot in the Campbell law firm. The building sat on Yegua Creek Road just off Main, as far away as possible from the Municipal Plaza that housed the sheriff’s substation, while remaining inside Crow Hill’s city limits. Its lot was landscaped in low-growing scrub and cactus, the firm, like the succulents, thriving.

  He imagined the place was a lot quieter now than when both Dax’s sister and father had practiced law here, too. Now it was just Greg. The bastard son. The brother Dax had never known he’d had. The son Dax was supposed to have been.

  What Casper had said to the sheriff was true enough. He’d taken on a kid who had no one else, his mother a friend and unavailable. He’d left out all the rest—the mother being dead, the kid being a runaway, Casper knowing all this and not turning him in. But none of that had been relevant, so he didn’t see any reason to share it with Ned.

  Sharing it with Greg was bad enough.

  His legs crossed, a legal pad on his lap, Greg sat in the big leather chair next to Casper instead of in the one behind his desk. His black shoes and black pants and white shirt had Casper thinking of Faith. Two of a kind. Professionals. Neither one of them smelling like a horse.

  Greg clicked the end of his pen. “You want custody of this boy who’s been staying in your house. The one who was arrested and is now in jail. Whose mother died a year ago, and who two months ago ran away from his foster home in another state. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Put that way, it made him sound insane. “It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

  “Custody is permanent, Casper.”

  “What about him being an emancipated minor?”

  “Is he old enough to support himself? Old enough to get a driver’s license if he needs to drive to a job?”

  Crap. “Okay, then, I could foster him or something.”

  “So, you want to apply to be a foster parent.”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “And he’d live with you at the ranch? Or in the house on Mulberry Street?”

  Jesus. Did everyone know about Mulberry Street? “The ranch,” he said, leaving out the part about how long Clay had bunked at the house. What potential parent would leave a kid in that place? Sure, it hadn’t been long. Casper had lived there longer. But it was enough, and it gnawed at him. “I moved him there from the house as soon as I got the okay from the boys.”

  “Then they know about this, too.”

  “But none of this is on them. Just me.”

  “Has he been working for you?”

  “Around the house. Some other chores. He cooks.”

  “Do you pay him?”

  “Just room and board. A few bucks for allowance. It’s not like I’m made of money here.”

  Greg didn’t comment, just pressed on. “And you could get him to school?”

  “Sure. I guess. If he has to go.”

  “Unless you’re going to home school him, then yes. He has to go.”

  Jesus H. Why the hell was he turning this into a federal case? Clay needed help. He wanted to help him. “I just want the boy out of jail, okay?”

  “I understand that—”

  “He doesn’t need to be in jail. Nobody does at that age.”

  “Casper, I’m on your side here.”

  “Then tell me what I have to do to make that happen.”

  Greg looked down, clicked his pen again, then lifted his gaze and made sure Casper held it. “He’s a minor and a runaway. I’m not sure any of us can make that happen.”

  “I thought that’s what lawyers did.”

  “Work miracles? Sometimes we do. But that’s when the law goes our way. I’m not sure in this case it will.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Casper brought a hand to his side, his taped ribs aching.

  “What does the sheriff know? About Clay’s people in Albuquerque?”

  “I don’t think he knows anything. Clay ditched his ID before leaving, so Ned’s only got my word that I know who he is. I told him there wasn’t anyone else to vouch for him.”

  “Knowing Ned Orleans, he’s started digging by now, looking for runaways, missing kids.” Greg shifted in his chair, recrossing his legs. “It’ll take him a while to get answers, work his way out of Texas.”

  “Then we’ve got time. Just do what you have to. I want Clay out of there before Ned figures out what’s up. That happens, he’ll be shipped back and lost in the system and it’ll be too late.”

  “I can probably get him out, but if Clay knows what’s coming, that we’ll be contacting New Mexico about custody, he could very well run away from you.”

  Casper shook his head. “I won’t let that happen.”

  “He’s run away before.”

  “But not from me. Even when I threatened to turn him in,” he said before he realized what he was admitting. “This is attorney-client privilege, right? I can’t get busted for harboring a runaway?”

  “As long as Clay keeps his mouth shut, I don’t see any reason Ned needs to know about the conversations the two of you had.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  Greg got to his feet. “Let me get over to the sheriff’s office. I’ll see where things stand and we’ll go from there.”

  “Thank you,” Casper said, slower to stand.

  “It’s what I do, Casper. The only thanks I need is a check that won’t bounce.”

  “Huh. My reputation precedes me?”

  “Something like that,” Greg said, though only his mouth smiled.

  “But you’re not asking for a retainer up front?”

  “This boy’s in trouble now. And you’re my brother’s partner. I doubt you’re going to skip town.”

  “He’d probably take your head off if he heard you call him that. Dax.”

  “Yeah, well, blood will be blood. He’ll get over it.”

  “HAVE EITHER OF you guys seen Clay?” Casper asked later that evening, walking into the barn where Dax and Boone were brushing down their respective rides. “Or Kevin, for that matter?”

  “Not since you brought him home earlier,” Boone said.

  “Huh. I checked his room.
Some of his stuff’s there, but I can’t find his backpack.”

  “Sounds like an invasion of privacy to me,” Dax said, jerking his chin toward Boone. “You know, like the way Coach used to go through that one’s things.”

  “I wasn’t going through his things,” Casper said, thinking this couldn’t be happening, that he couldn’t be so dumb. “And I’m not his old man.”

  “You’re the closest thing he’s got,” Dax reminded him, heaving that load of responsibility toward him like a hay bale. Or a bag of feed.

  “You didn’t find a note or anything?” Boone asked. “He could’ve gone out with the dogs roaming, exploring. Getting his head together or something. Might’ve needed the time alone after this morning.”

  “Shit.” Casper kicked at the corner of the closest stall, the impact like a shotgun blast against his side. “Greg said this might happen.”

  “Whoa,” Dax said, rearing away from the horse toward him. “Tell me I didn’t just hear the bastard’s name come out of your mouth.”

  “You told me to use him, you dick,” Casper said, knocking Dax’s hat from his head, biting off a curse at shotgun blast two.

  Dax snagged up his hat, dusted it against his thigh. “Why did he think Clay might split?”

  “Because of his getting arrested on top of this runaway custody foster care bullshit,” Casper said, leaning a shoulder into the stall. “He thought Clay might realize this newest music on top of the other would have things swinging in the favor of the law.”

  “I can’t imagine Nathan’s will press charges,” Boone said, returning from the tack room fridge with two apples, handing one to Dax, slicing the other for Sunshine.

  “They’re not.” He and Clay had stopped and paid Lizzy Nathan for the cumin before ever leaving town, and she’d graciously accepted Clay’s apology, as had Kendall Sheppard when he’d made a second stop there.

  Arwen had fed them both lunch, telling Clay to ask for food if he was hungry. That most folks would see his need. Dax had found himself a good woman in that one, which took Casper’s thoughts to Faith, before moving back to Clay. “But he was still driving without a license. Sheriff Orleans is being an ass and making him go to court for that.”

  “He’ll get a fine, or a warning, but being a kid and a scared one, I could see him not thinking straight.” Boone rubbed a hand down Sunshine’s nose and over his muzzle. “Could’ve sent him running. He gets taken from you, who knows where he’ll end up.”

  Casper pushed up on his hat, rubbed at his eyes, then his jaw. “I didn’t think he’d do it. I should’ve listened to Greg.”

  “Been spending a lot of time with the bastard?”

  Casper gave Dax a look. “He’s not that bad of a guy.”

  “I don’t think I heard you right. Because if I did—”

  Boone stepped between them, a big hand on both of their chests. “Enough. You two fighting over Greg isn’t going to help Clay. Are we going to look for him? Go to the sheriff? Gather up a search party? What?”

  Pacing now, Casper shook his head. “I dunno. The sheriff finds him, he’ll lock him up.”

  “Maybe he needs to be locked up,” Boone said. When Casper started toward him, he added, “For his own good. Keep him safe. Out of trouble. It never hurt any of us, and we all spent more than a few nights behind bars when I, for one, would much rather have spent them at home and been served pancakes the next morning for breakfast.”

  “Yeah, well, you had a mother who made you pancakes. I was lucky if the milk for the cereal wasn’t sour. Or if I didn’t pour out a bowl of bugs with the Frosted Flakes.”

  “And what Clay has is you,” Boone said. “Not quite pancakes, but definitely not a bowl of bugs.”

  He supposed. “Getting locked up again means I won’t be getting him out. It’s going to make the custody thing a lot harder.”

  Both men looked at him, Dax the one who finally asked, “You’re filing then? For custody?”

  Casper nodded, waited, got the lecture he’d been expecting from Boone.

  “It’s gotta be about more than keeping him out of a bad situation. About keeping him from going through the shit you did. And it sure as hell can’t be about guilt. You may have bedded his old lady, but you did not have a hand in how he turned out, or any of what brought him here.”

  Casper couldn’t think of better reasons, but he knew what Boone was saying. “It’s the right thing to do. He came to me. And I want him to know he always can.”

  “Alrighty then,” Dax said. “We going out on horseback? Taking the trucks? Hijacking the sheriff’s chopper?”

  Casper took another swing at Dax’s hat, the other man scrambling for it as Casper headed out of the barn. “Y’all take the roads to Luling and Fever Tree. I’ll check between here and Crow Hill, then the other side of town. It’s only been six hours. He’s on foot and he’s got a dog. He can’t have gotten far.”

  THIRTY

  “ANY LUCK?” FAITH asked as she pulled open her front door, tightening the belt of a short silky robe before pushing a mess of hair from her face.

  He’d woke her. He hated that, but he’d had to see her. Being alone was driving him crazy, and no one else would get how worried he was. The boys, they tried, but they weren’t Faith. Faith knew what Clay had come to mean to him. Faith knew what he was going through.

  He shook his head, took his first full breath in hours. “Nothing. We’ll start looking again in the morning. Dax threatened to take my keys and hobble both me and Remedy if I didn’t get some sleep. I told him I’d be back by midnight.”

  She shut the door behind him, stepped into his arms, and hooked hers around his neck, holding him, being there for him. “How far could he get in twelve hours? And how are your ribs?”

  He ached from head to toe, mostly in his midsection, but he was pretty sure that was his heart. “Ribs are okay. Sore. And he’s obviously gotten further than anyone’s searched. Unless he’s holed up somewhere waiting for the commotion to die down.” He thought back to Clay telling him he’d done just that on his trek to Crow Hill. “Or he could’ve hoofed it off road or something.”

  “What about a search from the air?” She stepped back to look up at him. “Dan Katz has a private plane, and Mike Banyon a crop duster.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start looking.” He tossed his hat to her couch, took her hand, and tugged her down the hall to her bedroom. “And I’m pretty sure that kind of attention would send him into hiding. He’s a smart kid. He’d know what was going on.” He sat in her desk chair to pull off his boots, watching as she shed her robe and climbed into bed.

  She tossed back the covers, giving him room, inviting him in, waiting. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

  She was doing it, and she didn’t even know. He tore off his T-shirt, shucked out of his shorts and jeans and socks, crawled in naked beside her, going instantly hard. He needed her, to be inside her, to lose himself in her. “It’s my fault. I should’ve kept an eye on him instead of siccin’ him on the upstairs bathroom so I could get back to work.”

  “This is not your fault.” She lifted her hips to pull off her panties, sat up just long enough to strip her short nightie away.

  “Sure it is.” He rolled over her, used his knee to nudge hers open. The heat between her legs warmed him, and he thickened even more. “I make bad decisions and ruin things.”

  “That’s not the first time you’ve said that.” She wiggled, drew one leg up his thigh to his hip. “About ruining things.”

  That’s because around her he had a big mouth. “You get it drilled into you enough, it becomes an easy excuse to reach for when things go wrong.”

  “Who drilled it into you?”

  “Who do you think?” he asked, slipping a hand between their bodies to toy with her, ready her, arouse her.

  She closed her eyes, shuddered, dug her fingers into the balls of his shoulders. “You know it wasn’t true, don’t you? That she was just sayin
g that to strike out?”

  “I know she never wanted any kids. So she blamed me for everything in her life that went wrong.”

  “Listen to me,” she said as he lifted his hips, as he found her entrance, as he slid into her in one long stroke that bound them to the core. She shuddered again as he settled, then squeezed him and pulled him in deeper, keeping him close, keeping him safe. “That woman may have given birth to you, but that woman was not a parent. You were around mine enough to know that.”

  He’d been around hers a lot, as often as he could. “I got a kick outta coming home with Boone. I didn’t show it, and I owe your folks a lifetime of apologies for being an ungrateful ass, but I loved being there. Especially at supper. Sitting down to eat a real meal at a real table was as foreign to me as eating barefoot on a bamboo mat with chopsticks.”

  She pushed up and ground against him, her voice shaky when she said, “You remember breakfast? Toast flying, juice spilling, permission slips for school ending up stained with syrup or milk. We were a mess trying to get all four of us out the door. Five, when you where there.”

  “I loved those mornings. And it had nothing to do with the food.” He brushed her hair from her forehead, moved higher into her body, slowly withdrawing and watching the play of desire in her eyes as he did. “I’d like them to know they had a lot to do with me holding on.”

  She rubbed a thumb over his cheekbone. “They know that.”

  “They say something?”

  “No, but they wouldn’t need to. That’s just who they are. How they are. Ours was the house where everyone wanted to hang out. They know kids. It’s why they do what they do.”

  “You were lucky. You are lucky.”

  She nodded in answer, her eyes damp. He lowered his head and kissed her temple, the moisture there salty on his tongue. Then he surged forward when she walked her fingers from the base of his skull down his spine. “But I’ve never felt as lucky as I do now.”