An hour later, battered but calmer after watching his father sleep quietly—enviably unaware that the past had come back to haunt them—Eli left The Elms, walking past Caitlyn at the front desk.
“You all right?” she asked, that little wrinkle of concern popping up on her forehead. Her fingernails were covered in rhinestones; they were gaudy and wild, the furthest thing from what he knew of Caitlyn.
Everyone has secrets, he thought, numb all over.
When she caught him looking at her hands, she tucked her fingers away as if she didn’t want him to see that side of her, the rhinestone side. As if he’d blown the password.
“I’m fine,” he lied and even managed to smile. He gave her a two-finger wave and headed out into the last of the day, the sunshine pouring over his truck and the parking lot like honey.
He wished he could scoop some up in his hands, a little sweetness to chase away the sour. He wished, actually, that he could head on over to Uncle John’s and get stupid drunk. Totally shit-faced.
But he didn’t know what he’d say to his uncle. And if he even wanted to talk about it at all. Things were different lately with Uncle John, who acted as if Eli getting fired from Crooked Creek had been some sort of betrayal.
What he really wanted was to pretend he’d never seen that woman. That Victoria hadn’t lied.
Drinking seemed like the best way to accomplish that, but the horses had to be fed.
Work, as always, needed to be done.
And he had enough booze at home to put him into a coma, if that’s what he wanted.
He took the back way to his house; it was longer, but there wasn’t a chance in hell he was driving past the Crooked Creek. Not for a long time.
But when he spun his truck around to the front of his property, there was a black pickup sitting where he usually parked. Boxes were loaded in the bed, along with two horse-shaped phantoms.
Standing beside the truck was his mother.
He thought about his father, a stranger in that hospital bed. The man who had raised him was, for all intents and purposes, gone from this earth. He could handle that shit. It had taken years to distance himself from the skeleton that raged at him every time he went to visit, the ghost who didn’t remember him.
But he’d done it.
He’d swallowed every offense, every rock and stone of grief and regret and anger, until he felt nothing.
And he just had to do the same with the woman standing there, staring at him with his eyes.
With a craftsman’s precision he sanded all of himself away when he looked at her, every memory. He stared at her until she was a stranger, a collection of features that meant nothing to him, until finally, he could breathe again.
Carefully, aware of his temper, he turned off his truck motor and stepped out onto the gravel. He didn’t say anything, just watched her. Hated her.
“Where do you want this stuff?” She uncrossed her legs and jerked her thumb back at the load in her truck.
He chewed his lips, wishing he could tell her to go to hell, but that was his equipment in there. Equipment he needed.
“I’ll get it,” he said through his teeth.
He opened the back of the truck, grabbing the first two boxes and taking them into that messy office of his in the barn. He came back out only to find her carrying two boxes toward him.
He grabbed them, hissing.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I’m just trying—”
“Don’t. Just …” He took a breath and walked the stuff into the barn. “Don’t.”
Refusing to look at her, but painfully aware of her eyes on him, he unloaded all of the boxes, dragged the phantoms out of the truck, and wobbled them over to the barn.
She followed him a few steps, lingering outside the door while he arranged what he could.
“This place looks good. You’ve done a lot of work here,” she said, her voice unsure, which wasn’t how he remembered her. Sad, yes. Never unsure. And he didn’t want to remember her at all.
He grabbed his white bucket and walked right past her. Like she was dirt. Like she was nothing.
“Get the hell off my land.”
God’s mighty fist was punching Eli’s brain. It felt like God had a grudge, the sunlight had knives.
Soda, his dog, whined, and the sound scraped the inside of his skull. Soda’s cold nose bumped Eli’s hand, then dug under the blanket for Eli’s face, which he licked, breathing the stomach-turning scent of dog mouth all over him.
“Okay, okay.” Eli sat up and waited for the world to stop spinning before attempting to stand.
Looking down at himself, he realized he’d passed out last night cradling a bottle of bourbon like a lover, with one sock, no shirt, and his pants still on.
He dumped food in Soda’s bowl, getting half of it on the floor, but he didn’t bother to pick it up. Soda would take care of that.
Appalled, he pulled four condoms out of his back pocket. He remembered a half-formed plan to head into town to find Caitlyn or another woman who would make him forget his life for a few minutes.
Luckily, he’d been too drunk to remember where his keys were.
After getting dressed, he braced one hand against the door so he could fish his sunglasses from the bucket of crap by the front window without falling on his face. He burped up a mouthful of fumes, grossing himself out.
This was why he didn’t drink. He couldn’t stand himself hungover. The smell reminded him of his dad nursing a hangover every other morning. Sitting at the breakfast table, his head cradled in his hands, while Eli finished the toast he’d made himself. Eli used to drive himself to school those mornings, his father slouched in the passenger seat, his hat pulled low over his eyes as he dozed on the twenty-minute drive into town.
Like father, like son. The bitter thought was an angry bull and he gave it free rein as he jerked open the door.
As the sunlight attacked, his skin cringed in terror and his eyes screamed in surrender.
He wanted more than anything to crawl back into the house and hide until his head stopped hating him. But the sun was up and the animals were hungry and he’d already had a stomachful of self-pity.
Halfway down the steps he smelled something different on the breeze. Something delicious and life-saving. Coffee.
The sudden awareness that he wasn’t alone froze his muscles, wiped out what was left of his brain. And he could only stand there, numb. Refusing to turn around.
“Eli?”
His brain went red, his skin hot with a sudden spasm of a thousand emotions he had no interest in feeling. Anger, sure, but laced with a hurt, with a fucking betrayal, that made him murderous.
Victoria.
He thought he’d drunk the raw edges of all this misery away, but at the sound of her voice, it reappeared. Like a dead body bobbing to the surface.
chapter
15
She stood on his porch, staring him right in the eye like a dog who didn’t realize she’d shit all over the carpet. She was supposed to be cowering. Groveling for his forgiveness.
But instead those legs of hers were plugged wide on the wood of his porch. His dick twitched in admiration of her guts.
Cool it, cowboy.
She took a sip of coffee from the travel mug in her hand and his brain screamed like a toddler who wanted a new toy.
The wind blew past him, and a second later Victoria’s nose wrinkled.
“You’ve been drinking.”
He didn’t say anything, just stood there and wished he could lie down. She came down the steps, the cracked galoshes she wore squeaking as she walked.
“Here.” She handed him the coffee and for a second he wanted to slap it out of her hands, but the hangover took over his body and he grabbed the mug. Guzzling the coffee, ignoring the cream and sugar, desperate for the caffeine.
“I brought Lucky,” she said. “If you still want her?”
He glanced at her and away, unwilling to commit t
o this conversation, much less look at her, all serious but glimmery in the sunlight. “I paid for her,” he said and took another drink of coffee.
“She’s in the trailer.”
Then he saw the Crooked Creek horse trailer connected to a black pickup that he recognized as Amy’s.
It made him feel violated all over again, to realize the two of them were cozy enough to swap cars.
He walked over to the trailer and opened the locking mechanism. The door swung open and Lucky stomped, swishing her tail. Panicked, he knew, because she hated to travel. He slid in next to her, sidestepping up to her head to calm her.
She shook her mane at the sight of him, nosing his hand, spilling coffee over the hay at their feet.
Something happy beat back the jagged edges of his hangover. The press of her damp nose against his neck felt like comfort.
“Hey there, my sweet girl,” he crooned, stroking her nose, scratching her ears, taking his time with the moment, because every other moment in his life loomed large and clumsy. “Let’s go see your friends.”
Wrapping one hand around the strap of her bridle, he clucked and led her back out of the trailer, shushing her when she balked and shied away.
He ignored Victoria standing there, full of expectation and questions, and led Lucky toward the barn, past the stables and then out to the paddocks, where Patience whinnied in welcome.
He put her in with Darling. The two horses ran circles with enthusiasm and he smiled, taking another swig of the coffee.
“We need to talk,” Victoria said, from behind him.
The smile died on his lips. “I need to feed the horses.”
It didn’t take long, even though he tried to stretch it out. The feed bucket got emptied into the feed bags and he finished the coffee and finally, when he couldn’t put it off any longer, he turned to face Victoria.
She wore her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and resistant black curls hid behind her ears, along the tender skin of her nape. Those little curls were so at odds with the flinty look in her eye.
Looking every inch a Baker, she squared her shoulders and for a moment, for a raw, visceral moment, he hated her. He loathed her for her control. For her bloodline, and for her ability, despite the crushing blows that had been dealt her, to stand there on her own two feet trying to make a fucking go of it, when he was swamped by the past. Blown over by his own life.
Crippled by what his mother had done to him.
“I know … I know you must have questions. About Amy.”
At some point on his way through that bottle last night, he’d told himself he didn’t care why she’d lied; all that mattered was that she had. She’d looked at him, submitted to his every dark whim, even perpetrated her own minor perversions, which had seemed so endearing, which he’d been so damn grateful to be a part of. And then she’d lied.
But in the brutal sunlight, weak from the beating the hangover had given him, he found himself wanting to follow her lies back to the source.
“Why?” he whispered, knowing if his father were here and cognizant, he’d call him a pussy.
That hard wood façade of hers cracked and the woman he thought he knew peeked out.
“Because I’m a coward. Because I thought I was doing the right thing for me, for the spa, but I should have told you. Amy said she was going to …”
He scoffed deep in his throat. If it was the right thing to do, he could guarantee his mother wouldn’t do it.
She stepped closer and in a bizarre twist, he found himself stepping away. Not because he was repulsed, but because suddenly, all his windows, every door was thrown open and he felt everything, sorrow and anger, melancholy and regret. And under all of it, a loneliness so profound he could barely resist the need to touch her, to pretend—for as long as it took to fuck her—that he wasn’t totally alone in this world.
But she stopped, looking as if he’d slapped her.
Good, he thought, vindictive and despicable. Good.
“What were you scared of?”
“That you would pull away from me. After what we’d … done.”
“You didn’t tell me about my mom because you wanted to keep fucking me?”
She nodded, miserable.
Karma. He thought of every woman he’d ever lied to, every woman he’d hurt, just so he could keep on fucking her. They’d all be lining up and laughing right about now. Son of a bitch.
“Did you know?” he asked. “What she did?”
“Enough that I knew you’d be upset. Enough that I didn’t tell you.” She rattled on about Ruby having the idea to call Amy and how Amy had come to the ranch looking for him, but pretending otherwise, and how she’d taken a pay cut in order to get the job.
A pay cut? The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Bullshit. Why his mother was here, out of the blue, after all these years suddenly made so much sense. And the laughter, like acid, churned out of his gut.
“What’s so funny?”
“You need to get another architect.”
“What? Why? We’ve already given her a deposit.”
“Because I can guarantee my mother will not finish this job. She isn’t the kind of person who finishes things; she walks away.”
“Eli—”
“She didn’t tell me she was here, did she? Despite her promises?”
Victoria lifted her chin and he knew he was right. It would be Victoria’s just desserts to get screwed by Amy, but the thought didn’t bring him much satisfaction. It practically levitated him off his feet with anger.
“And there’s a really, really good chance she is only here to tear that place to the ground. She hated the ranch. She’d have no interest in seeing something on this land succeed.”
Including me, he thought. Especially me. A yawning cavern opened under his feet and he was breathless with vertigo.
“What …” Her hand touched his sleeve, burning through the fabric to scorch his skin. His bone. “What happened, Eli?”
There was no way he was answering that question, no way he was prying open his brain to pull out those memories, so he grabbed her hand, relishing the connection. Needing it.
Apparently she didn’t need to worry about lying to him in order to keep him in her pants. Her knife could go right between his shoulder blades and it wouldn’t make any difference.
He was mad at her, so filled with anger he shook with it, but he wanted her. Craved her, craved the silence and stillness she could give him. The scales in his head tipped toward relief. Toward succor. His blood began to pound in his veins, inflating his skin, filling him with something besides ghosts and cobwebs. Slowly, carefully, he tugged her closer.
Her eyes popped open and she stumbled against his chest.
“Eli? What—” He kissed her. Pressed his thirsty lips to hers. He cupped the back of her head, carefully reading her reaction through the haze of his own dumb animal lust. He could taste her surprise, but under that the sweetness of her surrender, the warmth of her welcome.
He didn’t want to talk or think. He just wanted to feel and forget and let this woman take away the worst of the pain.
This was wrong. Way wrong. And Victoria was going to stop it in just a second. Any minute now, she was going to push this man and his magic mouth away.
His tongue touched the corner of her lips, sweeping inside, and she felt herself tipping toward not caring. Not caring that he used sex as a distraction.
She pushed away, not far and not with much conviction, but enough so that she could breathe. With his scruff and his bloodshot eyes, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his muscled chest, he looked like a rogue cowboy. An outlaw.
Her blood thrilled and her imagination longed to take that little fantasy and run with it, add some subplots and costumes.
“Eli, I can’t … I can’t just sleep with you. We need to talk.”
“Trust me.” He kissed her neck, his hands cupping her hips, pulling her closer. “We don’t.”
“I can’t—”
She groaned, her head filled with static, as the stubble across his chin scraped her skin. She stepped away, breaking all contact so she could think. “Do you even like me? Do you … forgive me?”
“Does it matter?” His hand slipped over her butt, grabbing the curve with his whole palm. Oh, she loved that.
“Of course it does!”
“Fine. I forgive you.”
“Stop it. Eli. Stop it.” She pushed him away again. A terrible spark lit the air between them, his rage given room to burn, and she longed to step back even farther, like behind the house, to find some safety. But she’d been cowardly enough already.
“I’m so sorry, Eli. I really am. I didn’t do it to hurt you.”
He turned away and she grabbed his arm.
“Your mother is here,” she cried, stunned by his willing obtuseness. “After twenty-seven years. I brought her here. Hired her. I like her, Eli.”
“What?”
She hadn’t meant to say that, but she couldn’t take it back.
That did it. She felt the change in him like electricity in the air even before he turned on her, even before he stepped toward her, his eyes wild and feral.
“You like her?” he roared and the ground shook. “She left me, Tori. Her son. And I was a kid.” He pounded his chest. “I was eight and I loved her and she just walked away and she never came back. She didn’t call, she didn’t write, she just vanished. And it was just me and my dad. And he didn’t care. He couldn’t be bothered to stay sober, or get me to school, or see me fed. And she left me with him. Like I was a dog that she didn’t care about. Like I was nothing. And I missed her. I missed her so much …”
His voice broke and her heart broke with it.
He shook his head, once, a hard shake like that of a horse tossing aside a rider, and she knew it was over. The storm had passed, that window into him was nailed shut.
His sideways glance revealed all sorts of pain, a million shades of agony. A red flush swept up his neck.
This beautiful man didn’t deserve what had been done to him. Not by his mother, and not by her.
And she knew it was wrong, and she didn’t care if he hated her, if he didn’t forgive her, but she was going to have sex with him. Right now. Probably in the barn. Hopefully against a wall.
Can't Hurry Love Page 17
