So Tough to Tame

by Victoria Dahl

  “Oh, my God, Walker,” she called breathlessly. “I told you it would be perfect. Look at this place! It’s so beautiful, and you looked so happy with those kids. I thought they were going to climb right up on top of you and make you take them for a gallop around the yard.”

  He walked faster and hit the unlock button the moment he spotted his truck in the lot.

  “Walker,” she said breathlessly, jogging up behind him.

  “You had no right to do that,” he growled.

  “I’m sorry. I really did need to check out the ranch, I swear, but I admit that I hoped you would take to the place if you saw it.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he snarled. “That’s what you’ll admit to?”

  “Walker!” She grabbed his arm, and he swung around so suddenly that Charlie stepped back.

  “Damn it, I told you I couldn’t do this. I told you I wasn’t qualified. But you didn’t want to listen.”

  “If you’d only consider—”

  “No,” he snapped. “I won’t consider it. You don’t know anything about it.”

  She looked startled for a moment, but then she shook her head and frowned at him. “Are you kidding me? I’ve known you since you were sixteen.”

  “You don’t know me!” he shouted.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice low with shock.

  Walker took a deep breath, trying to control himself. He didn’t yell at women. That wasn’t who he was. “Look. I’m not doing this. It’s not the place for me. I don’t belong here. Leave it alone, Charlie.”

  “How can you say that? I’m sorry I manipulated the situation, but you obviously belong here.”

  “I. Do. Not.”

  “What are you afraid of? Not being good enough? Everyone thinks you’re amazing.”

  “I can’t do this,” he said, putting his hands on the hood of his truck. “Stop asking. Please.” His heart beat harder. And harder. He pressed his fists against the shiny black paint.

  “Walker. You love people. You’ve said it yourself. All you have to do is take a safety course for a few weeks. I know you don’t want to think about reading and writing, but it’s a temporary problem that could lead to a whole new life.”

  “Charlie...”

  “Why can’t you just try?”

  “Damn it!” he exploded, swinging around to face her. “I didn’t graduate, Charlie, all right? It’s not so simple and pretty and tied up with a bow. I don’t have my fucking high school diploma!”

  She drew her chin in, her eyes blank with shock. “What?”

  “I never graduated!” The words hung in the air between them, real now. As real as a dust cloud she’d kicked in his face. He’d said it. To Charlie.

  “But...” She shook her head. “You did graduate.”

  “No, I didn’t. And you need me to admit that, apparently, because you can’t take no for an answer. You need me to say that out loud, not just to you, but to half the fucking people I know. I can’t teach children anything because I didn’t even graduate from high school! There. Are you happy now?”

  “Walker... Just... We were at the same graduation ceremony.”

  “Yeah. Since I’d already been held back my sophomore year, they let me walk the stage out of pure pity.”

  She shook her head again.

  Walker felt his lips draw back in a grimace of a smile. “I was supposed to take one more class that summer. I didn’t.”

  Her eyes had gone wide. “But...why? Walker, why didn’t you do it?”

  He turned away and walked toward the door of his truck. “I was working.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He froze, hand reaching toward the handle of the door. “Really? You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m not kidding! Why wouldn’t you just tell me that?”

  “Ha.” He stared down the road toward the highway beyond and all the cars flying past. “Surely you know it’s not easy to talk about the most humiliating parts of your life.”

  “We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. You can trust me.”

  “I can trust you?” He spun around to face her. “This is how you convince me I can trust you? By tricking me into coming here and making a fool out of me in front of everyone?”

  “I didn’t make a fool out of you! No one knows.”

  “I guarantee Marlene’s going to call. We used to sleep together, FYI, so she has my number and she won’t drop the subject. So either I’ll have to tell her I don’t have a diploma or I get to be the asshole who doesn’t want to help these kids!”

  Worse than that, Charlie had shown him one more thing he’d never be able to do. He could hate her for that alone. But there were other things to be angry about, thank God. Plenty of things.

  “Walker, I didn’t know that about Marlene, obviously. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. But you can get a GED. You don’t have to—”

  “We know each other so well you think I should trust you with my secrets?”

  She closed her mouth and eyed him for a moment before responding. “Yes. I do.”

  “Okay, Charlie. Here’s another secret. I saw Nicole yesterday.”

  The pleading look disappeared from her face and Charlie stood straighter. “What? You saw her where?”

  “In my apartment.”

  “Oh.” Her chin went up. “I see.”

  He felt immediate regret for the way her face stiffened and he shook his head. “She wanted to tell me something about you.”

  “Yeah, right. What could Nicole possibly know about me?”

  He stared hard at her, willing her to give him a little truth. But she offered nothing. “Is that the way you want to play this?”

  She lifted her hands as if she were an innocent woman with nothing to hide. “I have no idea what you mean. The only thing I know about Nicole is that she’s a married woman you were messing around with.”

  He smiled at that and huffed out a harsh laugh. “Yes. Another terrible secret. Do you have any secrets you’d like to share with me? Since we’re such good friends? Because I heard some secrets about you, Charlie.”

  Fear flashed in her eyes. Real fear. She’d finally realized he knew something.

  When she looked away, he knew it was all true. She wasn’t the Charlie he’d thought she was. Maybe she never had been. Maybe she’d done well in school by cheating and working the system. Maybe she’d gone to Vegas because that was the natural place for someone to learn all the inside tricks.

  “Wow,” he huffed. “Just... I can’t believe all the shit you’ve been giving me. How I need to improve my life. How I can do better. You’re just...unbelievable.”

  “What did she tell you?” Charlie asked quietly.

  “Why do you want to know? So you can counter it? How about you just tell me what the truth is, and I’ll let you know if it matches up?”

  Her lips parted, but she only shook her head and took a step back. One tiny step that told him she wanted to hear his secrets but she’d protect hers with everything she had.

  “You were arrested for embezzlement,” he started. And Charlie froze.

  * * *

  THIS DIDN’T MAKE any sense. Why was this happening now? Here? And why did it have to be happening with Walker? His blue eyes were cold as ice as he stared her down.

  “That part is true, right, Charlie?” he bit out.

  She whispered the only thing she could think to say. “The charges were dropped.”

  “But you were sleeping with the embezzler.”

  “Alleged. Yes.”

  “The alleged embezzler. Who was your boss.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, helpless now. Trapped.

  “Your married boss.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Who promoted you to head of security after you started sleeping with him.”

  “Yes.” This time she felt her lips move, but hardly any sound came out.

  “And you were fired from that position for helping him embezzle money.”

&nb
sp; “No. I mean, yes. That’s why I was fired, but I didn’t help him.”

  “Right.” He looked past her toward the mountains and drew in a deep breath. “But you didn’t stop him from taking the money.”

  She finally felt a glimmer of hope about this. She’d made a lot of mistakes, but she could tell the absolute truth about that. “It wasn’t like that. I swear. I didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was married.”

  Walker raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Yeah, that kind of thing is real hard to pick up on when you’re working with someone for months.”

  “I didn’t know!” she yelled, starting to feel a little crazed that no one would believe her.

  “Sure. Well, that gives you the right to look down on me, then.”

  “I don’t look down on you, Walker.”

  “No?” He chuckled, and the cool sound sent goose bumps down her arms. “You sure do a good job of pretending, then. For the past week, all you’ve done is make clear that I’m not good enough. Not good enough at working. Not good enough at applying myself. Not good enough at choosing who I sleep with. And certainly not good enough for you.”

  “That’s—” She reached toward him, but Walker pulled his arms back so her fingers wouldn’t touch him.

  “Oh, to be clear, I’m good enough to play with. That much is obvious. But I’m not the kind of guy you’d ever bring home to Mom, right?”

  What the hell was he even talking about? “I’ve never said that!”

  “‘You’re not my boyfriend, Walker.’ ‘It’s not serious.’ ‘You know how it is with Walker.’ Oh, and ‘Feel free to do Nicole, too. I don’t care. You just can’t have us at the same time.’ If you were trying to make me feel warm and fuzzy, you did a really shitty job. It felt strangely like you were letting me know my place. You’re good enough to fuck, cowboy, but don’t go getting attached.”

  Her mind was spinning so fast she could barely grasp what he was saying. “I wasn’t trying to keep you in your place! I was letting you know I knew mine.”

  “Your place? That’s a little comical considering I’ve always treated you with respect. Jesus, Charlie. I’ve always known you were too good for me. Better than me. Always. From the first moment I met you. But I guess I was damn wrong about that, considering what you are now.”

  “But...I’m not...” She shook her head, trying to stop whatever he was thinking about her. “I’m not anything but myself. I just... I screwed up, yes, but I’m not that person. I don’t want to be that person.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here?” he snapped.

  “Here?” She looked around in shock at the Ability Ranch, trying to find one coherent thought to grab on to. “I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to hurt you. Even if I’ve been deceptive and stupid and wrong, I never wanted to hurt you or anyone.”

  “So you admit it?” Even beneath his beard, she could see the way his jaw clenched with fury.

  “I already did.”

  “You’re helping your brother steal money from the resort?”

  His flat words hung in the air between them. Blinking, she tried to decipher them. “What?”

  Walker tipped his head up and smiled bitterly at the sky. “All this time you’ve been trying to work on me, improve me, but at least I’m not a damn lying thief. I may be dumb as a rock, but I’ve got a soul.”

  “I’m not helping anyone stealing anything!”

  “Yeah. Considering that everything else Nicole told me was true, I’ll take that with a grain of salt.”

  “Nicole told you I was stealing?”

  He shot her an impatient look and reached for the door of his truck. “She told me your brother brought you in to pull off the same shit that went down in Tahoe. I don’t know what you call it to make it right with yourself, but I call it stealing. Come on. I’ll drop you off at the apartment and get out of your life.”

  “My brother...” she repeated. It didn’t matter that Walker got in his truck and closed the door, because she couldn’t say anything else. She couldn’t exhale, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.

  Her brother had brought her in to embezzle money? That didn’t make any sense. She couldn’t just embezzle unknowingly via osmosis. She’d have to be in on it.

  But it did make more sense than Brad helping her out of the goodness of his heart. And Nicole would be in a position to know. She was sleeping with Keith and her husband had sold the land to Brad at what seemed like a steal.

  What the hell was going on?

  Walker started the truck with a roar. Charlie jumped almost a foot, her heart scrambling into her throat, but she still couldn’t do more than stare at him past the glass of the windshield.

  He rolled down his window and stuck his head out. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  She watched him. His normally warm eyes were distant now. His deep voice was rough and damning, when it had once been so sweet and rumbly in her ear.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll find my own way back.”

  “Get in the truck, Charlie. I’m not leaving you here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “There are plenty of people here. I’ll find a ride.”

  “Get in,” he snapped.

  She looked back at the ranch and thought of trying to explain her predicament to someone. But she was so embarrassed. Mortified at what Walker thought of her. She couldn’t deal with more of that today, so she forced her feet to carry her to his truck and she got in.

  They didn’t say a word to each other. He didn’t even look at her.

  Charlie felt her fingers trembling and pressed them to her thighs. The fear was back. She’d left it behind sometime this past week, but it was back now, like a beast lurking in the dark, stalking her, waiting.

  Was she being set up? Was this what her life had come to? Bad enough that she had to work at a place she hated, but now she was being set up, too? There couldn’t be another explanation for it. She wasn’t in on it. She wasn’t helping. She was just...an easy target. A pawn. Something to be used and tossed away. By her own brother.

  But just because Nicole had said it didn’t make it true. Maybe this was a move in a game that Charlie wasn’t part of. Maybe Nicole had said it just to win Walker back.

  “It’s not true,” she repeated, her voice cracking around the words.

  Walker didn’t respond.

  Because even if it wasn’t true, some of the other stuff was. The things she hadn’t wanted him to know.

  He was right. She hadn’t trusted him, but she’d expected him to fall in line behind her lofty demands. Do this. Do that. Make yourself better. And pay no attention to the woman pulling the levers behind the curtain.

  But he didn’t understand the why of it. She hadn’t wanted him to know, but only because she’d wished she was better for him. She’d been ashamed, just as he had been, but with so much more reason.

  Walker had been the last person on earth who’d believed in her, and she hadn’t been able to let that go. And now he was lost to her forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE MOMENT WALKER pulled away from the curb, Charlie rushed upstairs to grab her laptop. Email and internet access alone weren’t going to solve this mystery. In fact, she wasn’t sure they’d be any help at all, but her computer might come in handy.

  Instead of settling down with it, she ran back downstairs, tossed her laptop in the car and took off for her brother’s house. “What the hell? What the hell?” she chanted the whole way.

  His place was in Teton, of course, not in the town of Jackson. An important developer like him needed slope-side access and a prestigious address in addition to a very slim and well-mannered wife. Charlie had never visited her brother’s home, but she’d gotten the obligatory architecturally focused Christmas card every year.

  In fact, she recognized the place from the cards when she finally pulled up, but the big For Sale sign out front was new. Charlie pulled carefully onto the steep, curv
ed driveway and got out. Even before she knocked, the house felt deserted. It was too quiet and too dark, even in the noon sunlight.

  Shit. Noon. She’d be missed at work soon. She’d emailed both Keith and Dawn to let them know she’d be in after checking out the Ability Ranch, but coming in after noon was stretching it.

  Charlie shifted from foot to foot, waiting for an answer to her knock. She rang the doorbell and knocked again, but she knew it was hopeless. Her brother had probably been kicked out, and his soon-to-be-ex-wife was obviously not home.

  She called his cell phone and left a message when he didn’t answer. “Please call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.” Then she sent a text with the same message.

  Damn him.

  He couldn’t really have done this, could he? Yes, he’d always been an asshole, but this was just malicious, even for the sake of money.

  After pacing back and forth for a few minutes beneath the portico of his ridiculous house, Charlie did the unthinkable: she willingly called her mom.

  It was always the other way around. Her mom called Charlie. Usually to ask for a hundred bucks or so, to get her through the month. Back when she was flush with cash, Charlie had been happy to send it. It had been like paying an insurance premium. She sent the money, and her mom wouldn’t call again until she needed more. No late-night phone calls to lament about her latest true love. No unexpected visits on the arm of some new loser who’d never been to Vegas before. Charlie sent money, and the reward was silence.

  The phone clattered as her mom picked it up. “Charlie? Is that you, honey?”

  “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

  “I’m good, honey. I’m really good. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. Have you heard from Brad lately?”

  “No, not since Christmas,” her mom answered. “Why?”

  “I’m just trying to track him down here in Jackson. I guess he’s moved out of his house. I don’t suppose you have a new address?”

  “No, nothing. But I think Jacqueline is still living there, so you could drop by.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure he’ll call back in a few minutes. Bye, Mom.”