by Alison Kent
Boone brought up one hand to stroke the back of her head, and she nodded. “I think I’m okay now.” But her throat was so swollen her voice came out sounding like something from a cartoon.
“Try that again,” he said.
“I’m okay. I promise.” She took a deep breath, shuddering with it. “God, what a night.”
“Yep. Party was outstanding. You pulled off a miracle.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
He ruffled her hair. “Thanks for the okra. And the beer.”
“You’re welcome for both.”
He was quiet a moment, then said, “A heads up on the venue would’ve been nice.”
“I know,” she said, moving to his side, his shirt damp with her drooling, snotty sobs. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled the fabric away from his skin. “It’ll wash.”
“Not the shirt, goober,” she said, smacking his chest. “About the house. Not telling you.”
“I knew,” he said.
She frowned, treading carefully. “That I’d decided to have it there?”
“That you paid for the renovations.”
“Casper told you?” she asked, looking up at him.
His dark hair was finger-combed back from his face. His dark eyes glittered, reflecting the parking lot’s lights. His dark stubble shadowed his jaw. “Only after I pressed him about it.”
“I guess it was kinda obvious.”
“Yeah. Hard to believe he was making enough from Summerlin to turn that house around so fast.”
She closed her eyes, leaned into his side. “Pretty stupid of me to think I could keep it a secret.”
“We all do stupid things.”
“You think spending my money on his house was stupid?”
“Depends on why you did it.”
She shrugged, doubting he’d buy her brushing off the reason, thinking of the similar words her father had said. “Seemed like a good cause.”
“Because it was for Casper? Or because the money was burning a hole in your bank account?”
“I never wanted the money.”
“I know that.”
“I felt…dirty, I guess, taking it. I would never have talked about what happened with Jeremy. And Jon. Not to anyone. Ever. I didn’t need a payoff to hush me up.”
“C’mon, Faith. You think you’re the only one who’s found themselves eyeball deep in shit?”
“It doesn’t smell very good climbing out of it.”
“Doesn’t taste very good either.”
Eww. “Thank you for that.”
“Casper tells me the two of you are together,” he said after several more seconds ticked by, the parking lot lights buzzing, pulling the moths and mosquitoes out of their way.
Together? Is that what he called it? “When did he say that?”
“I dunno. When we were out riding herd the other day.”
Did he feel the same way now? Or had she ruined everything tonight in that tiny third-floor bedroom? “I tried to tell you.”
“I know you did.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me, Faith.”
“I need you here, Boone. But I need him, too. I didn’t know how to tell you that.”
“You could’ve just said that you love him.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head. “I haven’t said it to him, yet.”
“Criminy. You two need an intervention or something.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re not talking to each other.”
“We talk. I tell him things—”
“About Jeremy.”
“He knows.” Finally. Though she hadn’t stuck around for his reaction. What his knowing the truth of her past had changed, if anything.
“Good.”
“He tells me things, too.”
“Such as?”
“What it was like the years he spent in that house.”
“Like I said. You need to talk. Not tell stories trying to scare each other off.”
Was that what they’d been doing? Proving themselves unsuitable? Sharing the broken pieces that made up their lives? Warning each other off? Having sex before the truth of what they brought to the table became too uncomfortable?
She was too tired tonight to even think about it. “I guess I should go. I left everything to Arwen to clean up.”
“Dax is there helping her.”
Like the good man he was. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Sure.”
“I’m without a car. It’ll kill me to walk to Mulberry Street in these heels. Can I use your truck and you take Casper home in his?”
He dug in his pocket for his keys. “Take ’em off to drive. There’s a hole beneath the accelerator. Get one of those caught there you’ll hit ninety before you know it, and Ned won’t like that.”
She laughed. “Promise. And you’ll get Casper home?”
“You sure you don’t want to?”
“I want to. I don’t think he’ll let me.”
“Okay then,” Boone said, and nodded. “We’ll stop by the folks and pick up Clay.”
“Momma and Daddy have Clay?” The idea of her parents fussing over the boy made her smile.
“The way the party broke up, he kinda got lost in the shuffle.”
“Tell Casper. He was worried.”
“Will do. You got his keys?”
She nodded, then frowned as she dug through her purse. “I left them in the room. Crap. He doesn’t need to be driving.”
“I won’t let him. Just leave my keys in the truck.”
“Thanks, Boone,” she said, reaching up to kiss his cheek, then throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“We’re family, Faith. You don’t have to thank me,” he said, letting her go when she finally stepped away.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Because we’re family, I have to thank you most of all.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
HER FOOTSTEPS ON the staircase reached him before he heard her voice, and her sugar and cinnamon scent filled the room before he was ready. He knew she’d come looking for him. He hadn’t planned to still be here when she did.
He’d planned, in fact, to follow Boone and Clay back to the ranch, and things had been going well until Boone’s taillights had him seeing double.
He’d been woozier than he’d realized. And since he hadn’t relished nosing his truck into a ditch, he’d circled the block, waving on Boone and Clay when they’d come back to check on him.
Not that he’d get far now after crunching over the broken glass out front. And since he wasn’t in any shape to change a tire…
He braced himself as she grew near. He really wished she’d waited. He hadn’t had time to sort out the things she’d told him. He didn’t care about any of them, but knew she did.
He needed to be clear-headed to say the right things. To let her know her past, like his past, had brought her here. But they’d both carried these things too long, had been weighed down by baggage they needed to cast off. It was time to let the past go.
“I thought Boone was taking you home,” she said, a silhouette in the door when he turned.
“He tried. I would’ve punched him, but he was good enough to take care of Clay. Plus…” He lifted his hand that was beginning to wake up. “It would’ve hurt.”
“How’s it feeling?” she asked, coming closer.
“It’s not feeling. But it will be soon.”
“Do you want me to drive you back to the ranch?” She hesitated, added, “Or to my place? You can sleep there tonight if you’d like.”
Sleep there. Not sleep with me. “Thanks, but I’m fine. If it gets bad before I’m ready to leave, I’ll just stay here.”
Time ticked away what felt like the rest of his life before she said, “I can stay with you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, needing her, wanting her. Loving her so goddamn much.
&
nbsp; “I want to do that.”
“I don’t know why.”
She came all the way across the room then, her feet now bare, her steps silent, stopping in front of him and looking up as she lifted one hand to his cheek. “Because I love you.”
Something in his chest split like parched ground, the crack widening, deepening, aching, and making him weak. He wanted to blame it on the pain meds still in his system. He wanted to wait it out, let it heal and close, but the crack became a gully before he could move, and a great wash of sobering emotion rose to the surface.
He reached for her wrist with his good hand. He wasn’t saying anything else until they got this out of the way. “You know I don’t care about the money, about how you got it. I need you to know that it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I was afraid to tell you,” she said, her voice breaking. “I was so stupid—”
“You were a girl who knew what she wanted,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the palm of her hand. “You took it. A boy got hurt because he couldn’t handle the truth, but he was the one who got behind the wheel. He was the one who didn’t fasten his seat belt. Who didn’t brake.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“I know it’s not. Not to you. But it is to me.” That’s what he needed her to know. She was the only one who mattered.
“Why?”
He looked into her eyes as he kissed her hand, then said, “Because I love you, too.”
“Oh, Casper,” she said, but he shook his head before she said more. He wasn’t finished.
“I’m all I have to offer you, Faith. Me. I don’t have any sort of steady income, and I sure as hell don’t have health insurance. I do have one bitchin’ house, but then that’s on you. I’d never have been able to do this without you.” He laughed to himself. “That’s the funny thing. I don’t think I can do anything without you.”
“Shh.” She moved her fingers to his lips. “Don’t say that. I’ve never known a man as strong as you are.”
If he was strong, it was for her. Because of her. “I don’t want you to regret us.”
“How could I ever regret us?” she asked, her eyes shimmering in the light from the moon.
“Because I’m reckless. I don’t think—”
“I’m reckless. I don’t think—”
“I don’t want to hurt you because of it.”
“And I don’t want to hurt you.”
They really were two of a kind, a perfect fit. “You could never hurt me.” And then he laughed. “Besides. I’m really, really good at hurting myself.”
“Maybe having me in your corner will help you throw your punches in the right direction.”
He sighed. She couldn’t begin to know. “That was kinda dumb, wasn’t it?”
“Epic. I’ll call Bandy’s tomorrow and get your window fixed.”
“No. I’ll call Bandy’s when I can get the money together to have my window fixed.”
“It doesn’t matter who pays for it.”
“Faith—”
“It doesn’t matter.” She took his face in her hands. “I want us to be partners. And I’m not talking about the fifty-fifty agreement we made, but true partners. Lovers. Best friends.” Then she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. “And I think you want that, too, so don’t argue. Besides, if I hadn’t gone after Luck, you wouldn’t have had a reason to strike out.”
Wrapping her close in his good arm, he leaned his other shoulder against the wall and cradled his bandaged hand close to his body, staring out the window into the shadows and the night. “Everything I knew here is gone, you know. The trees are still here, but that’s it, and yet…I still see all of it. Every crack in the window. Every gap between the doors and the facings. Every hole in the ceiling and the wall plaster.
“But it doesn’t hurt anymore because I can see Clay and Kevin playing in the yard, and I can see you standing in the kitchen sink with dirty water dripping down your arms. I can see the look on your face when I told you about the spiders. And I can see you looking at the papers I left burning here on the floor.”
“Oh, Casper,” she whispered, her breath a sharp sob.
“Don’t, baby. I don’t want you to cry. We both went through what we went through. We are who we are because of it. And now we’re here, together.” And then he let her go, but only long enough to reach for the jewelry box he’d brought up from his truck’s glove box and set in the window.
He flipped it open with his thumb. “This belonged to Tess. The tie tack and cuff links were Dave’s. They gave it to me when they knew I was leaving. Dax was already gone. I’d been itching to split for days. I meant to take it with me. I didn’t mean to leave it. I’d actually forgotten about it being here.”
“I could tell when Clay found it that it meant a lot to you,” she said, taking it from his hand.
“It makes me think of what they had. It was never Tess this, or Dave that. It was always the two of them.” He looked at her then, lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers. “That’s what I want, Faith. For us.”
She nodded, her throat convulsing, her eyes glassy with tears.
He pulled the false bottom from the box, picked up the ring Tess had given him without Dave knowing. The ring that had belonged to Dave’s mother, and his grandmother before. The ring Dave had put on Tess’s finger the day he’d proposed.
He lifted it for Faith to see, watched her eyes go wide, her chest catch. Then groaning, he lowered his aching body to one knee, his ribs complaining, his hand bitching like a motherfucker, his heart so full of emotion he had to blink it away to see her face.
“I love you, Faith Mitchell. I love you more than my own life. I love you in ways I never knew possible. I have probably loved you longer than I’ve known, and I will love you forever. Will you love me, too, and be my wife?”
She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, dropping to her knees in front of him before throwing her arms around his neck and nearly knocking them both to the floor. They held each other, weaved and rocked together, probably cried a little bit together, too, but he didn’t see any reason to admit to that part.
When she finally pulled back, he took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. She lifted her arm, the light from the moon glinting off the tiny diamonds.
“It’s beautiful,” she said reverently.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, having eyes only for her.
“I guess you being reckless turned out okay after all,” she said, cocking her head to one side, her smile the brightest thing in the room.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, his chest so full of what he felt for her, breathing wasn’t coming easy at all.
“Think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t broken the no-sisters rule?”
“I can tell you what wouldn’t have happened.” He lifted his bad hand, tucked her between his sling and his chest, wove his fingers through her silky dark hair, and lowered his head. “This.”
And then he kissed her with the promise of the rest of their lives spent as one, knowing this moment in this house was what he’d look back on forever.
KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM
ALISON KENT’S NEXT DALTON GANG NOVEL
UNFORGETTABLE
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2013
“I’M NOT WEARING a costume,” Boone Mitchell said, staring at his sister and the Dalton Gang member she’d tamed. Boone was the last of the hell-raising trio still standing, and he had no plans to fall—especially if falling meant wearing O Brother, Where Art Thou? black-and-white prison stripes the way Casper Jayne was doing now.
“It’s a costume party,” Faith said. “Of course you are.” Her own getup consisted of boots, hat, a cropped denim vest and a matching miniskirt, both with leather tassels and brass hardware. She also had a silver star pinned to what fabric there was covering her chest. And what looked like a real gun hanging from a belt at her hip.
“I’m not wearing a costume,” he repeated, glancing from one of t
he ridiculously garbed two to the other. Calf nuts on a cracker. If this is what relationships did to men…
“Sorry, dude,” Casper said, his arms out as he tested the length of plastic chain between the matching black shackles binding his wrists. “The woman’s the boss.”
“Not on my ranch,” Boone grumbled, leaning against the sink in the kitchen of the house Casper and Faith shared—a kitchen that would easily hold four of the one he cooked in for no one but himself since Casper and Dax Campbell had abandoned him. The fact that they’d done so for women…
“It’s an Old West theme, so just go as a cowboy,” Faith was saying as she crossed to where he was trying to stay out of the way. She had a length of black fabric in her hands and a look in her eyes that bode no good. She reached up to tie it around his head, catching his hair in the knot and swatting away his hand when he tried to free it. “I’m not finished.”
As far as he was concerned, she was. He had no idea why he’d agreed to stop by the house on his way from Lasko Ranch Supply back to the ranch when he’d known this would be the outcome. Faith had been reminding him of the charity masquerade party for weeks. She’d bought him one of the pricey tickets when she’d bought hers and Casper’s, even though he’d told her she was wasting the cash.
“There,” she said, stepping back with her hands at her hips to take him in. “Perfect. Or it will be as soon as you put your hat back on.”
He slapped his hat against his thigh, raising a cloud of dust that had his sister waving her hands. “What? I’ve been working.”
Faith scrunched up her nose. “Maybe you should shower first, change clothes.”
‘Clean clothes means a trip to the ranch. And if I go home, I’m staying.’
“You could wear something of Casper’s.”
“Uh-uh,” Casper was quick to put in. “I don’t have enough shirts that I can afford losing any to his shoulders.”
“You would if you’d let me buy them,” Faith said, then turned to Boone. “You’ll have to go dirty then.”
“Or I could just not go.”
“You’re going.” She tapped a finger to her chin and considered him. “But you need…spurs or chaps or something.”
