by Dahlia West
Erin might have even earned a little actual sympathy from the man. And God knew she was short on that. She wasn’t short on cash now, though. As he mounted the wooden steps, he handed it over.
Frowning, Erin took it. “What’s this?”
“Rebate.”
Chapter Twenty
‡
Somewhat bewildered, Erin tucked the money into her front pocket and followed Jack inside the house. She wasn’t sure how he’d done it. It was notoriously difficult to squeeze even a dime out of her father. God knew he never sent her mother any.
“Well…” she said haltingly. “Thanks.”
Jack shrugged and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You can feed me,” he countered.
Erin nodded and opened a cabinet for the cast iron skillet. She lit the stove and cracked a few eggs, one-handed, into the heated butter.
Jack seemed duly impressed, which made sense when Erin watched him try, and fail, to butter the toast that popped out of the toaster.
“Damn it,” he hissed as he speared the bread.
“You have to be gentle,” she told him.
Jack gathered himself up and looked her squarely in the eye. “Does it look like I do gentle?”
Erin resisted the urge to point out to him that he’d re-tied her to the bed when he thought the cord was too tight. It didn’t seem prudent to bring up how they’d met.
They took their plates to the table and sat across from each other.
“So,” Jack said, stabbing at his eggs with the mangled toast, “that was your old man.”
Erin sighed and twirled the fork in her hand. “Yep. In all his somewhat fading glory.”
Jack grunted. “Prickly bastard.”
She snorted. “That about sums him up. He runs off most people. Foremen, farmhands…my mom. Though I think she would’ve tolerated his winning personality. If it hadn’t been for the…other stuff.”
Jack paused, fork at his lips. “Other stuff?”
“Buckle bunnies,” Erin bit out. It still stung her, even though it was pain once removed, borrowed from her mother. “That was the problem.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “A what bunny?”
“In the rodeo, you win a trophy…and belt buckles. Big ones. All gold, or silver.”
Jack nodded. “I know. I saw his.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “There are women who hang around rodeos, like the cowboys are rock stars. And in some ways, I guess they are. It’s not easy to do what they do, I’ll give them that. The women are called Buckle Bunnies. And they’re always looking for the cowboy with the largest…buckle.”
Jack snorted and grinned.
“I think she’d resigned herself to living with it,” Erin mused. “I really think she did. She’d been in love with my dad since high school. And she knew how he was. She prayed while he strayed and I guess she figured that was her lot in life. I think she would’ve been okay, so long as he kept it on the road.”
Surprisingly, Jack actually nodded. “What happens on the road stays on the road. I know some people like that. Or, I did.”
Erin frowned, not wanting to think about what Jack did ‘on the road.’
He saw her looking, though, and shrugged. His tone was quite a bit sharper than he perhaps wanted to seem. “Them, not me,” he clarified through nearly clenched teeth. “I don’t have an old lady. Never have, never will.”
“Well, anyway,” Erin fumbled, surprised by his seething tone, “one followed him home. A bunny. And she knocked on our door.” Erin sighed and lifted up her hands. “And that was that. My mom packed a suitcase, left for her sister’s house in Saint Louis, and she’s never been back.”
“My mom took off, too,” Jack told her. “My old man had his own…bunnies.” He chuckled darkly. “But that’s not what we call them.”
His hard look told Erin that she definitely did not want to know what they were called.
“Anyway, he was a halfway decent pop, as far as pops go. I guess. But he was a shit husband. I’ll admit that. Gave her a couple of nasty infections. Knocked her around too many times, to boot, and…well…she gave him the boot. That’s how I remember it, at least. It was either the slap or the clap, one too many times. That’s what made her leave.” He sipped his water thoughtfully before adding, “Probably both.”
Erin frowned. “Where are they now?” She wasn’t certain he’d answer, but he surprised her when he shrugged.
“Haven’t seen my mom since I was a kid. My old man died. ’Bout twenty years ago now.”
Something about the look on his face told Erin that Jack’s father hadn’t died peacefully in his sleep.
Erin opened her mouth but her words only came out in a whisper. “I used to wish he’d fall off his horse. And die.”
Jack looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “You never told anyone that before?”
She shook her head.
He looked at her hard, watching her, assessing her. Or maybe himself. “I used to wish my old man would fall off his hog. Get run over by a truck. But only sometimes. Sometimes he was okay.”
Erin cleared their plates, not wanting to dwell on old, unhappy memories. She wiped her hand on the dishtowel and followed Jack outside.
“Might rain tonight,” he said.
Erin looked up at the sky and agreed with his assessment. The tarp was still loose and it had to be fixed before the next storm.
He turned to her then and pressed his lips together.
Erin did the same, not sure what to say. “Don’t…don’t get caught in the rain.”
He gave her a half-grin. “I won’t.”
Jack turned away and headed down the driveway, away from the house.
Erin watched him go for a moment and then she turned her back to him, as well. She had work to do. And it started with the tarp. She had to beat the storm that was threatening to close in.
At the back of the building was the ladder. She picked it up with one hand and hooked it with her other elbow. Hauling it was incredibly awkward, though, and it banged into her already bruised legs.
“Shit,” she muttered. But what was one more bruise at this point?
The feet scraped the gravel as she dragged it around the side of the barn.
“What are you doing?”
She turned and glanced over her shoulder.
Jack had re-appeared, just a few feet from her, thumbs hooked into his belt loops.
“The tarp,” she said, nodding up at the roof.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her brows knitted. “The storm,” she reminded him. “I can’t let the hay get too damp.” She lifted the ladder again and this time managed to lean it against the water trough.
“You’re going to fall,” he warned. “And break your other arm. Then what will you do?”
“Then I’ll use my teeth,” she snapped, getting frustrated at the heavy piece of equipment and its apparent unwillingness to concede to her new limitations.
She dropped it on the ground and it rattled in protest.
“Let me do it,” Jack growled, grasping the rail. “Before I head out.”
Erin watched as he lifted it easily, set it against the side of the barn, and planted one large, black boot firmly on the bottom rung. He hauled himself up carefully, one step at a time.
When he reached the top, he balanced himself with one crooked arm and re-tied the tarp, securing it under the eaves this time, which was what Erin was going to do. He checked it, tugging on the sides with hard jerks. She would’ve done that, too. Apparently satisfied that it would hold, he slowly worked his way back down to the ground.
When he turned, he looked at her, silently, in that way of his. Again Erin could see that so much was going on behind those eyes. She wondered at it, but didn’t dare ask.
She sighed and looked up at the roof, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Thanks.”
It was one thing done, at least, on a seemingly endless list. She scanned the property, ordering and reordering her list of prioriti
es. The fence would have to wait. She couldn’t fix it with one hand. The next grain delivery was due in a few days. She couldn’t bring it back herself, but she supposed the extra money in her pocket, Jack’s so-called rebate, would allow her to pay a few of other people’s farmhands to help her out for an afternoon.
She reached into her jeans pocket and fingered the bills there. She needed them. But then, looking at Jack, it was pretty obvious that he needed them, too. And whatever he’d said to Buck was the reason the money was there in the first place.
She could split it, she supposed. It was the least she could do. She pulled it out, separated the bills, and handed one to him.
Jack frowned at it. “What’s that for?”
“For the roof. And…” Well, she didn’t want to say. He could guess.
Jack’s dark eyes turned impossibly darker, even in the noonday sun. “I don’t want your money.”
“What do you want?”
She watched him take a deep, hitching breath. It was obvious that his ribs were still hurting him. Erin didn’t know much about injuries like that, but she suspected one or more of them were broken. Just getting up and down off the ladder had winded him.
He was broken.
She was broken.
Yep. They were quite the pair.
And he looked tired. Jack looked more tired than any man Erin had ever seen in her life. He looked like a dead man who was just waiting for his coffin.
“I…” Erin said, before she could stop herself. “I don’t know where you were headed, before you ended up here. But…” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
This was crazy.
She was crazy.
“You could stay. For a little while. I…I don’t know who else I’d hire. There isn’t anyone. And I can’t trust anybody.”
He didn’t answer at first. He just looked at her, hard.
Erin took a page from his own book and waited, letting the offer hang between them.
Chapter Twenty-One
‡
It was surprising to Jack how much they had in common. Shit fathers, long-suffering mothers. Erin hadn’t been abandoned at a young age by her mother, though, like Jack had been. But Jack supposed that there hadn’t been any other option. Vera Prior had needed to get away from her increasingly abusive husband.
Young Jack would’ve probably liked to have gone with her, but Scratch would’ve killed her if she’d ever tried to take the man’s flesh and blood away from him. Older Jack didn’t care anymore. He’d not only gotten used to MC life, he’d excelled at it. At least up until now, he thought darkly.
Like Erin, though, he’d been betrayed. The very people who were supposed to have his back had stabbed him in it instead.
Jack had no one to trust, either.
The bunk was dry and he didn’t have to sleep in the dirt. And in a few weeks he’d be healed and ready to pay his old friends a visit. “I’ve got plans,” he told her, just to let her know. “I’ve got to get back…and see some people. Not right now but later.”
She nodded and he was glad she wasn’t expecting too much. “Stay as long as you can. If you’ll help. I can’t pay you much, but it’s better than nothing. And…I can cook for us. I never did for Hank. He always went into town for his meals. But you can eat with me. That way you can keep your cash.”
Jack liked the sound of that, of the food anyway, so long as he didn’t have to get the eggs. “Okay,” he replied and pulled the ladder off the wall. He laid it down against the side of the barn, where it had been originally, and looked at Erin. “What’s next?”
* * *
The food was good, not that Jack had anything to compare it to. But Erin made a ton of it and it tasted good after a long, hard day, and that was all that really mattered. Within just a few days, he’d completed several projects around the place and even gotten used to sleeping in Hank’s old bunk—now that Erin had washed the sheets for him.
His body still wasn’t up to snuff and he had to take more breaks during the day than he cared to. Leaning up against the newly-fixed fence now, he watched as Erin had King in a round pen, tied to a long line that she called a lunge.
King wasn’t lunging, though, he was trotting along at a steady pace.
Even a non-expert like Jack could see the slight swelling in one of the large stallion’s ankles, but Erin only worked him in short bursts throughout the day, giving him plenty of rest in between.
Quite a bit like Jack himself, actually.
He was distracted by the sight of such a small woman controlling such a huge beast and with such a practiced hand that the car behind him got a little closer than he would’ve liked before Jack actually noticed its approach. When he craned his neck, his mood turned even more sour to see a white car with a light-bar secured to the top.
Erin released King from his line and left him in the pen as she walked slowly—very slowly—toward them.
Instinctively, Jack stepped in front of her, putting himself between her and the LEO who’d gotten out of his cruiser and was now bearing down on them. It wouldn’t stop there, either. If it came to it, Jack would confess and shoulder the charges himself. There was no way he was letting Erin go to jail. And he’d never turn on her just to get a better deal for himself.
He wasn’t a rat like Haze.
The sheriff got to Jack before Erin had crossed the lawn. He smiled at Jack but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” the older man declared. “I’m Sheriff Powell.”
“Jack.”
“Sheriff?” asked Erin, doing a passable job of hiding any strain in her voice, Jack thought.
The old man kicked the dirt at his feet and looked a little sheepish. Jack got the feeling it was all for show, though. The man’s eyes were too steely, too sharp, and Jack hadn’t missed the fact that he’d scanned every visible inch of the property as he’d slowly made his way toward the house.
Jack wasn’t fooled by the Small-Town Sheriff routine.
“Well, now,” said Powell. “Roger Perkins finally got around to giving me a call. Says he hasn’t heard from his brother in a few days. I asked around, the usual places, Darcy’s diner, Stephenson’s feed store. Seems no one’s seen him around.”
Erin bit her lip and Jack silently held his breath, praying she could hold herself together. “Well…”
The sheriff waited patiently, hat in hand.
“I had to fire him,” Erin finally told him.
The old man pursed his lips. “How’s that?”
“He…” Erin licked her own lips as Jack and Powell watched her mulling over her answer. “He was drinking,” she finally replied, corners of her mouth turning down. “And it was getting to be a problem, Sheriff. I hated to do it, but…I’ve got a ranch to run. And I can’t have that going on. I was grateful to have him, or thought I was, but I had to let him go.”
“Well,” Powell said, drawing out the word and thumbing the brim of his hat. “It is tough these days to find good help.”
It was obvious the sheriff took Erin’s reluctance for embarrassment at having hired a drunk to work for her and keeping him around for as long as she had.
She nodded encouragingly. “I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just sent him away quietly. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s reputation, with talk around town.”
Erin hit on the word reputation and it was obvious she meant her own, too.
“No,” said Powell, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t want to damage anyone’s reputation. Not without cause.”
Jack saw Erin’s shoulders relax. It seemed no one’s tongues would be wagging in Highland about her or Thunder Ridge. At least not due to the sheriff.
Jack’s jaw twitched a little, though. He didn’t much care for the way no one said what they meant in this place. Jack took what he wanted. Or bought it. Or traded for it. He couldn’t imagine anyone simply asking for a favor. Or getting it, for that matter.
Looking around the place, however, it was
obvious that Erin didn’t have any money to offer this asshole to leave her alone. Jack supposed that she could have offered him…something else—provided the old bastard could still get it up. But she didn’t do that, either.
Either Sheriff Powell was Highland’s Andy Griffith, or Erin was too good to get her hands dirty. Maybe both.
The old man turned his eyes to Jack and looked him up and down slowly. “So, you’re Hank’s replacement?”
“I met him on the circuit,” Erin answered for him. “And when Hank didn’t work out, I called him to see if he wanted a job.”
“The circuit, huh?” the sheriff asked, looking right at Jack.
Jack could only assume the circuit meant the rodeo. “Yes, sir.”
“Horseshit,” the sheriff replied.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the old man. “Think what you want.”
The old man lowered his eyes. “No. I mean you’ve stepped in horseshit. It’s on your boots.”
Jack looked down and saw the man was right. He cursed under his breath and wiped the sole on the grass.
“Guess you didn’t work on the circuit for too awful long,” the old man mused.
Jack didn’t reply. It didn’t seem wise to give the man too much false information.
“I don’t know where Hank is,” Erin declared.
For both their sakes, that last part was true. Erin had no idea where Jack had left the body, so her words had the ring of truth to them.
Erin shrugged for effect. “He left and I haven’t seen him since. I gave him his final paycheck. I guess he doesn’t have any reason to come back.”
The sheriff nodded. “And you got banged up,” he observed, indicated Erin’s arm.
“I got thrown,” she told him. “Just an accident.”
Powell made a sympathetic noise and then turned to Jack. “Did you get thrown, too?”
“Threw a punch,” Jack muttered grudgingly.
The sheriff smiled. “Caught one, too. Hank?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
Jack shook his head. “Never met Hank. Erin called after he was gone. I was in a bar, way down in Nebraska. Got too drunk, I guess.”
