All the things she’d felt in that barn flooded back to her. All the things she’d shoved aside when Riley had appeared and given her something to fight.
Like the fact she’d told Brady she loved him and that hadn’t mattered.
Why exactly are you here, again? she asked herself sharply. You may have helped the Everett family bond, but you’re only making a fool of yourself.
But before she could make a break for it, she found Brady’s tough, hard hand wrapped around her elbow.
Her curse was she liked it when he got bossy.
“I’m going to find you an actual kitchen table,” Brady told Gray. And maybe everyone else too. “And I’ll clean this one up. But first, I have some business to attend to.”
He looked down at Amanda, and she loved him more than was probably wise, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t intimidate her with his dark, unreadable gaze. It just meant that her little shiver was only half intimidation. The rest was desire.
Ty stepped forward then, clapping Brady on the shoulder without that trademark grin of his. His gaze was direct and not the slightest bit lazy.
It occurred to Amanda that the Everett brothers really did all look alike. Especially when they were stern.
“That table had to go,” Ty told Brady gruffly. “I have a mind to burn what’s left into ash, in fact.”
“I’ll help,” Becca said hotly.
“And I,” Abby said in her usual quiet, capable way, handing the baby over to Gray, “will serve dinner on the dining room table for a change. You all do what you have to do.”
When her gaze met Amanda’s, it was clear. Faintly apologetic. And wholly lacking the condemnation Amanda had seen there before.
Of all things, that was what put a lump back in Amanda’s throat.
She had to blink, hard, to keep from collapsing into sobs.
Then Brady was ushering her outside. Straight out the back door and toward the car she’d driven out here on a mission, filled to bursting with all the things she felt.
Now she felt a little sick from it all, like she was teetering on the edge of one of those hangovers she’d heard a lot about, but had never personally experienced. If this was any indication, they were to be avoided at all costs.
Brady was walking her out pretty quickly, which couldn’t possibly bode well. And there was a limit to what her heart could take.
You have to love hard, her mother had told her.
She was sure there had to be a limit.
“You didn’t have to leave the barn like that,” she said as they walked across the cold yard. “I wanted to kill Riley, and believe me, he got an earful.”
“I believe you.”
That made her flush, but it didn’t make him stop, and her car was getting closer with every one of his long strides. She was sure it made her pathetic that she still didn’t want to leave him. Even if he wanted her to.
“I refuse to apologize for defending you,” she said, with all the urgency she could feel sloshing around inside her. “Though I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable. I know I overstepped my bounds. And I know you broke up with me, even though you claim we weren’t dating in the first place. I didn’t forget. I just don’t—”
“Amanda. Take a breath.”
She took his advice. Reluctantly.
“I came to see if you were okay,” she said, more quietly. “I actually didn’t mean to tell your whole family our business. Or yell at them. It all just kind of … blew up.”
They reached her hatchback then, still parked haphazardly near the corral. She’d driven out here after she’d finished her knock-down, drag-out fight with Riley. After he’d told her that he would drive her back to her apartment, and had taken her to the sheriff’s department instead.
Where he and Zack had gotten into their own little scuffle over whether or not Zack could lock her up, arrest Brady, or any combination of the above.
Amanda’s response had not been appropriate in any way, and she didn’t care if her mother heard about it. Or was appalled.
She had been sick to death of her brothers by the time she left town—even more than usual—and she’d taken the mountain pass with more temper than sense. Something no one who’d been born and raised here should have been dumb enough to risk—and she was lucky the weather was cold tonight, but not actively dangerous. She’d promised herself that when she got to Cold River Ranch, sanity would return. She would be reasonable. Understanding. Quiet and elegant, like the woman she imagined she was sometimes.
Like her mother.
But Brady’s face was bruised, his brothers were idiots too, and she’d lost it.
Completely.
Sorry, Mom, she thought.
Now they were standing outside as the last of the October sun put on a little show to the west, on its way toward the gleaming white mountaintops. The temperature was plummeting. Her hopes went right along with it.
Amanda wouldn’t take anything back, but that didn’t mean she felt good about any of this either. Especially not when Brady was looking at her the way he was now. Like he didn’t know what to do with her.
When she knew exactly what she wanted to do with him.
“I’m not going to stop being in love with you,” she threw at him, feeling helpless and defiant. And once again, unable to stop herself. Brady was bad for her self-control, that was the only conclusion she could reach. “I don’t think it works that way, no matter how much you might wish it did.”
“No one’s ever defended me like that,” Brady said quietly. She stood at the door to her car. He stood in front of her, not quite trapping her there. She wished he would. “Or at all, I guess. Especially not in this house.”
“Maybe that will change now.”
“Maybe it will. If it does, I know who to thank.”
She searched his face and couldn’t read anything there, in the shadows. But she could feel her hope rolling back in, like the tide. “You chopped up that table. I think Ty really will throw it in a fire.”
“I have no doubt.”
“And maybe that’s how you exorcise a ghost,” she said, trying not to smile at him with all that foolish hope on her face. She could feel it all over her, like a sudden October sunburn. “You take the whole year, let it haunt you. And then you throw what’s left on a bonfire, and let it go.”
Brady’s expression was intense. And filled with something like wonder, then, there in the yard as the last night of his haunted year fell around them. He reached over and carefully, almost reverently, ran his finger down the line of her jaw.
“My father was a liar,” he told her, his voice as quiet as his gaze was fierce. “He never saw the back of a person without sticking a knife in. Deep. It was a game to him. The more harm he could cause, the better.”
“You’re not your father.” And she could hear how serious she sounded. How determined. “There’s not one part of you that’s like him.”
“That’s what I want to believe. But there’s no denying I’ve been sneaking around with my best friend’s little sister, is there? Riley wasn’t wrong about that.”
“Keeping something private isn’t the same as sneaking around.”
“I agree. But that’s not what we were doing, baby, and you know it.”
She wanted to shout at him, argue, convince him—but instead, she melted. “You called me baby.”
Brady didn’t smile, but his eyes seemed lighter. “I’m not going to stand here with that table in pieces, your brother’s fist imprinted on my face, a month of lies behind us, and make you any promises. I’m not going to tell you that I love you.”
“You’re not?” She scowled at him, even as her heart kicked at her, because what did that mean? “Why not?”
“Because, Amanda, I’m going to do it right. I’m going to earn it.”
“What are you talking about?” She reached up and took his face in her hands for a change—but carefully, because she didn’t want to hurt him. “There’s not one part of you that
needs to change. I love you, Brady. Not some idea of who you might become, in time, if you do something right. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
He turned his unhurt cheek and pressed his mouth against one of her palms. He took the other and put it near his heart. She could feel it beat, deep and strong, like him.
“Down in the city, I was a different man. I thought I had to be. And I behaved in ways that made sense for that man. But you deserve the real me, Amanda. And that’s not a man who would take the gift you gave me and pretend it was a casual thing.”
She didn’t try to fool herself into thinking he was talking about something other than her virginity. And she tried not to flush too.
“It was my gift to give,” she said stoutly. “And between you and me, Brady, I never thought it was all that casual.”
He smiled at that. “I’m looking at this like I’m playing a long game.”
“I know you were the quarterback and all, but I liked horses in high school. Not football.”
Brady smiled, then. A real smile.
He looked like a fantasy to her, even though she could feel that he was solid and real. All cowboy. All man. And this time, she didn’t get the sense that whatever noble impulse he was talking about was coming from fear.
Not when he was looking at her as if, finally, there was hope.
“Buckle up, killer,” he drawled. “Because I’m about to do what no man in Cold River ever has.”
Amanda didn’t know whether to be horrified or delighted. “You don’t mean—”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his eyes gleaming bright and his drawl like one the Wild West. “I’m not afraid of your brothers. Not even while I’m sporting this shiner, and I’ll prove it. I’m going to court you.”
* * *
Amanda could have waited for Sunday dinner to have a long overdue talk with her family, but she was too fired up after her discussion about courting with Brady to wait any longer.
She also knew her brothers. Given enough time, they’d all band together the way they had when she was younger and who knew? They really might lock her up again.
After Brady waved her off in her car, she had to ask herself why she was all right with confronting his family but not hers.
Maybe it was time the Kittredges buckled up.
So instead of going back to her apartment and letting Riley and Zack stir everyone up in her absence, she took matters into her own hands and called her mother.
“Can you ask everyone to come to dinner?” she asked. “Tonight?”
Ellie was silent a moment, and Amanda froze there where her car stopped at the end of the dirt road that led to the Everett ranch house. Because her family didn’t normally gather as a family in the middle of the week. And Amanda had never requested that everyone show up.
“Zack’s already here,” Ellie said. Neutrally.
Amanda squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for her mother to lecture her on her behavior in the sheriff’s office today. To tell her how appalled she was that Amanda had made a spectacle of herself, shamed the family, and embarrassed Zack.
“He’s always the hardest to wrangle,” Ellie said instead. Placidly. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to get the rest of them to come over. When can we expect you?”
“I’m coming from Cold River Ranch.”
There was another pause.
“Don’t take the back way through the high pasture,” Ellie said, with no discernible change in tone. “Your father says there’s too much water on the road for your car.”
Amanda was jittery, though she couldn’t tell if it was leftover adrenaline from what had happened with the Everetts, or the very idea of courting. It could have been that there was water on the road, which meant one of the creeks had swelled in the last rainstorm a few nights back. Then again, maybe she was getting ready to have it out with her brothers at last.
Stay calm, killer, she told herself.
But then she remembered that Brady had called her baby, and that had her smiling giddily for the rest of the drive.
When she finally made it to the Bar K, she went into the house and found her whole family waiting for her. They were all packed into the kitchen. And silent.
Meaning they’d seen her car pull in and had stopped whatever conversation they were having about her so they could all loom around and glare at her as she walked in.
All except her father, who was hiding behind his newspaper.
She had the most absurd urge to laugh. Especially when she saw her mother over by the stove with an aggressively neutral expression on her face that matched the tone she’d used on the phone. Ellie was a mystery, always, but Amanda thought it was possible she was on her daughter’s side tonight.
“I’m so glad you could all come,” Amanda said sweetly.
Because she thought it would annoy them, and it clearly did. Connor and Jensen muttered something back and forth.
Riley scowled at her like he was this close to shouting and punching things again.
“Did you come here to apologize?” Zack demanded. He was standing in the kitchen with his back to the sink, looking about as furious as he had when she’d expressed her sentiments on his controlling ways back in the sheriff’s office. “I’m going to have to hear about how my kid sister tried to have one of my deputies arrest me for abuse of power for, oh, I don’t know, the rest of my career. Thanks for that.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Amanda said. She made sure her smile was as sweet as her voice. “And you’re welcome.”
“Nice attitude,” Jensen rumbled.
It was different to defend herself than it had been to defend Brady. She’d been filled with righteous indignation when she’d looked at Brady’s brothers. Yet when she looked around at her own, there was part of her that would always feel like the little girl they thought she was. She told herself to ignore it because there was no changing it.
“I’ve put up with all of the overbearing nonsense for years,” Amanda announced. “But I’m officially done.”
“Is this what happens when you spend time with Brady?” Connor demanded. “This is what he brings out in you?”
“Brady is a good man,” Amanda said. She wanted to start screaming, but she held it in. She knew they wanted to see her freak out. It would prove their point. “And I know that because of all of you idiots have been best friends with him since birth. Not my birth. Riley’s.”
Ellie made a small, disapproving noise. “Do not call your brothers idiots, Amanda. Even if that’s accurate.”
Everybody protested, or rather, all her brothers who were currently verbal complained. But when Amanda looked at her mother, she saw Ellie’s small smile in return.
Her mother’s blessing, she was pretty sure.
“He’s a good man,” Amanda said again, when the complaints died down. “And every single one of you thinks so too, or you wouldn’t have all spent all these years hanging out with him. Especially after he moved to Denver.”
Jensen muttered the word Denver like it was a filthy curse, as if he hadn’t spent time there himself.
“I’m going to have to rethink a friendship with a man who would sneak around with my baby sister,” Riley growled. “That’s not much of a man, Amanda. Maybe you’re too young and infatuated to see it.”
The jitters she’d been fighting off turned into temper, pulsing in an alarming way behind her eyes. But Amanda didn’t have the luxury to give into it. No whaling on people or shouting for her.
“Weirdly, Riley, he was afraid you might have a bad reaction.” Her voice was scathing. “And it turns out he was correct. He didn’t tell you something. You attacked him. Which one of you is a worse friend?”
“He is,” Riley retorted.
“Everett, one hundred percent,” Jensen growled.
Zack nodded. “Agreed.”
“That’s a cosign from me too,” Connor chimed in. “There’s a code, Amanda. There’s a freaking code.”
“I never agreed to your code, sorry
,” she replied.
“It’s not for you to agree or disagree,” Riley snapped. “Brady knows what he did.”
Amanda wanted to snap right back at him, but she wasn’t here to squabble. Squabbling suggested she was open to their interference, and she wasn’t. It had to end. She looked around the room.
“I hope you’ve all had a lot of fun intimidating any boy who ever thought about looking at me twice. But that’s over now.” She lifted a hand when Connor started to object. “I know you love me. I know you think you’re helping me. But I want you all to really think about the fact that I had to move out and get a job in the sleaziest bar in the Longhorn Valley to get away from all that love. You need to dial it back to a dull roar. All of you.”
Her brothers exchanged those looks that had always driven her crazy, because they were designed to communicate while excluding her. Tonight was no different. But again, she kept it to herself.
“Amanda,” Zack began, in that voice he used to disperse crowds.
“I don’t need to be placated,” Amanda said, trying to channel her mother’s calm. “I need to be heard. I’ve met a man. I like him.” She loved him, but there was no point throwing that bomb into the middle of this gathering. Not yet. “The good news is, I know and you know that you already like him. A lot.”
Connor snorted. “I’ve never liked him that much.”
“What are his intentions?” Zack demanded.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “You’re not Dad, Zack. Nice try, though.”
They all looked at the newspaper at the end of the table, but Donovan Kittredge clearly had no intention of weighing in.
“Typical,” Jensen muttered.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen with Brady and me,” Amanda said quickly, before this whole thing turned into another rendition of all the ways her brothers felt their father was a disappointment. Another conversation Donovan would refuse to participate in, but that never stopped them. “And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you until I was ready. Because it’s my relationship, not yours. None of you get a say. Do you understand that?”
The Last Real Cowboy Page 27
