I Knew You Were Trouble: A Texas Kings Novel (17 page)

He kissed her, stubble grazing her chin slightly as he pulled away. “See you soon, gorgeous.”

Faith watched him pull on a leather jacket that had been slung over a chair, collecting his keys on the way past. She was under no illusions about what they had—she knew that this was a fun part of her life that she’d never forget in a million years, but it was just fun. Nate was sexy and successful and everything she’d ever admire in a man, but he was also ruthless, and she doubted he’d ever be happy with a woman who wasn’t a perfect Stepford wife, at home and popping out his babies. If he ever admitted wanting someone permanent in his life.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’d like the idea of having a permanent girlfriend one day who didn’t expect a lot from him. Either way, it wasn’t going to be her. She was young now and fun was fine, especially after the relationship she’d just come out of. She’d thought Cooper was a nice guy—he managed the bar; he owned his own home; he’d had a plan. But in the end he’d just shown her why she needed to rely on herself and make her own plans. Nate was different, because she could trust him and she respected him. They might be having sex, but he’d agreed to help her before he knew that anything was going to be happening between them.

Faith reached for her iPhone and checked through her missed calls and texts, leaning against the cool marble of the counter. She’d neglected her girlfriends with everything going on and she owed them phone calls, plus she had to deal with Sam. But first she called her friend Rachel, who’d worked part-time at Joe’s with her.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Rachel answered after a few rings.

“Hey,” Faith replied, dropping onto the sofa and making herself comfortable. “Sorry I’ve been MIA.”

“Rumor has it that Cooper’s black eyes and broken nose have something to do with you.”

Faith sat back up, pulling a cushion closer and hugging it against her. “You’ve seen him?”

“Um, yeah, we’ve seen him. He stormed in here about an hour ago, all pissed off and yelling orders, and said he wasn’t going to be back in for a while. He put Fran in charge.”

“Hmmm,” she mused out loud.

“‘Hmmm’? That’s all you’ve got to say? How about doing some explaining?” Rachel demanded. “You guys get in a row, you call it off and disappear, and then he turns up all beaten up. There’s definitely a juicy story there.”

Faith cleared her throat. “He hit me, Rach. He turned out to be an asshole, so I packed up and left. I don’t know what happened to him, but he sure as hell had it coming.”

She managed to steer Rachel onto a different topic, chatted for a bit, then said good-bye. When she looked down, her hands were shaking and she had to sit on them to stop it. Faith knew she shouldn’t have cared about Cooper being beaten up, hell, Nate had made it clear that he’d done something, but to know the man she was shacked up with could be so kind and gentle with her and so ruthless with another human being was kind of scary.

Her phone vibrated then and she glanced down to where she’d discarded it and saw it was Sam. She sighed, trying to decide whether to answer or not and deciding she’d be a bitch if she didn’t.

“Hi, Sam,” she answered.

“Hey. How are you?”

“Good. You?” He sounded way too normal, not anywhere near as angry as she’d expected.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for flipping out last night,” he said. “I was out of line, and I shouldn’t have—”

“Your girlfriend made you call me, didn’t she?” Faith asked, stifling her laugh. “What did she threaten you with?”

“Moving out,” he muttered.

“So you actually still want to kill Nate and you’re pissed with me, but you can’t say anything right now because she’s listening?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Yep, pretty much.”

At this Faith laughed out loud. “Look, Sam, when I came to Nate, he was the perfect gentleman. Anything that has or hasn’t happened between us is because of me, because I’ve initiated it, so give him a break, okay?”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’ve seen it all before, over and over. Why won’t you listen to me?”

“I’m a big girl now, Sam. I’m gonna be fine.” She paused. “And from the rumors I’m hearing, someone dealt with my ex. I’m guessing it was Nate, so don’t be too hard on him.”

“I’ll give him that. Someone hurts someone he cares about, he takes matters into his own hands, does his own dirty work.”

Faith reached for the TV remote. “I’m going now. Talk soon.”

Sam grumbled and said good-bye, and she curled up to flick through channels. She could catch up on all the other gossip from her friends tomorrow. Right now, she was tired and all she wanted to do was shut her eyes. She only hoped Nate would wake her when he got home, because she was still starving hungry and it was all his doing.

*   *   *

Nate had been surfing channels for a while and he’d ended up watching a documentary about wolves. Hardly his usual viewing, but he didn’t often just kick back with his feet up, so he wasn’t complaining.

“How long have I been out for?” Faith stretched and repositioned herself, curling into him like a cat.

“I arrived home an hour ago. So a while, I guess.” He smiled down at her, an unusual sensation running through his body. He wasn’t used to feeling content like this with a woman, and it equal parts scared the shit out of him and pleased him. “I couldn’t wait, but I’ve left something of everything for you to try.”

Faith’s stomach made a noise and they both laughed. “I think I need it.”

Nate got up and headed for the table, opening containers. “I got a few different dishes. It’s damn good Thai.”

Faith smiled as she sat down and he joined her. “How was your granddad?”

“Sometimes, like tonight, he seems like his usual self and all I want to do is get him the hell out of Dodge and back home.” Nate shrugged. “Then he loses his breath or the pain comes on so strong and he needs morphine and I realize I’m only kidding myself thinking he’ll ever get back here.”

Faith reached over and touched Nate’s hand. “So this is it for him?”

“That’s why he’s there now.” Nate’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat, reaching for a spare pair of chopsticks that had come in the paper bags. “We waited until we couldn’t keep him home any longer, and he didn’t want to be a burden on us, but I’m starting to think we should just have kitted the ground floor of this place out as a private hospital for him.”

“From what Sam’s told me, he was like a dad to you.” Her voice was soft, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should be asking or not.

Nate didn’t mind; it wasn’t like she was prying. They’d covered a lot of ground since she’d moved in, and he was surprised how much he liked talking to her. Getting information out of him was usually like extracting blood from a stone, but opening up to her wasn’t half-bad.

“As far as I’m concerned, he was my father.
Is
my father,” Nate said, poking around at some noodles even though he’d already eaten. Faith was using the chopsticks like a pro and watching her eat was making him hungry all over again. “My own dad was an asshole as far as I’m concerned. I mean, who treats their kids like shit after their mom dies, then walks out when his father-in-law offers him money to leave?”

“Your granddad…” Faith had stopped chewing.

“Yeah, he saw how our dad was treating us on a daily basis and offered him money in exchange for signing over custody to him,” Nate told her. “From what I gather, he didn’t need time to think about it.”

Faith’s mouth had turned down and Nate immediately leaned over to kiss her, smiling at the hotness of her lips when they connected, fresh chili making his mouth tingle as it transferred between them.

“Don’t look so sad, sweetheart. I’m long over what happened. There’s no me lying on a psychiatrist’s couch lamenting over what could have or should have been.”

“But you never blamed your granddad?” she asked. “I mean, don’t you hate what he did?”

Now it was Nate frowning. “Why would I hate him for it? It’s like that adultery Web site for married people. They tried to put the blame on the guy who started it, but he wasn’t forcing anyone to participate. He was providing the platform, not coercing anyone. My granddad didn’t make my father the way he was, but he did make sure he wasn’t around to screw us up, gave him the choice to man up or ship out.”

Faith set down her chopsticks, folding her arms and sitting back in her chair. “For starters, I freaking
hate
that Web site and what it did to so many couples, so don’t even get me started, but—”

“Like it or hate it, it’s not the Web site making people cheat. They were going to cheat anyway; the site just makes it easier and a whole lot more honest,” Nate interrupted. “My point is that my dad was an asshole every way you looked at the situation. Offering him an out when he wanted exactly that was the best thing my granddad could have done. He and Grams raised us, and we had this amazing stable family home. The only sad thing that happened was Grams dying, and our realizing our dad really didn’t give a crap, because he never once reached out to contact us. He didn’t even bother to come to her funeral, and if he comes to Granddad’s I’ll escort him off the property with my shotgun.”

Faith had picked up her chopsticks again, but she was picking now rather than eating with the gusto she had been earlier.

“Do you still remember your mom?”

“Yes,” Nate answered immediately. “I remember the smell of her shampoo and the way she used to turn and look at me. I loved her hair, curling up with her before bed, and listening to her read. I was the oldest, so those moments meant everything to me. I had her for longer than the others did, so I remember a lot more.”

Faith’s expression was hard to read, but the fact that she had tears in her eyes wasn’t escaping him. She’d lost her mom, too; he knew all about that because Sam had shared everything with him. He knew how badly she’d hurt, that it had affected her worse than it had Sam, and maybe it was one of the reasons he was telling her what he was. Only his mom had been his world, would never have left them if there was anything she could have done about it.

“I think there’s a reason we understand each other so well. We’ve both lost a lot.”

Her smile was sad. “Yeah, except your mom sounds like an angel and she probably would have traded anything in the world to have more time with you boys.” Faith shrugged and speared a prawn with one chopstick. “Mine couldn’t leave fast enough once she’d gotten us through to what she called an
independent
age.”

“You were only thirteen. I remember,” he said, wishing he hadn’t even opened up to Faith, because then they wouldn’t both be dredging up painful memories.

“So am I guessing correctly that the reason you’re so happy being no strings attached is because you’re scared of being hurt by a woman again?”

Nate chuckled. “What is this? Therapy? I thought I told you I didn’t need that shit.”

“No, just putting the pieces together. You loved her, it broke your heart, and you don’t ever want to feel pain like that again. Am I right?”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, not about to tell her that she’d just given him the best, and only, therapy session of his life and that she was bang on the money with her diagnosis. “Except for the fact that the pain I’m feeling over losing my granddad is pretty close to what I felt as a boy losing my mom. The pain is just as real, only I should know how to process it better.”

She laughed, but it was a quiet, pained laugh. “You know, we’re not so different, you and I. My mother leaving the way she did taught me to never let anyone tell me what I want, to never let anyone walk all over me or make me feel like second best. I might not have stayed entirely true to that, given my most recent bad choice in men, but it’s only made my resolve stronger.”

Nate reached out to touch her arm, trailing his fingers across her skin absentmindedly. “But you will, one day, meet someone you let yourself fall in love with. You’ll have children, be happy, all those things.”

Faith smiled. “Maybe. Maybe not.” She smiled at him before showing interest in the takeout again. “It’s not what I’m going to let define me, Nate. I want to be my own person, not compromise on what I need and want. But yeah, I like the idea of finding a man who’ll let me be me, being a mom if that’s what I want someday, but not because it’s expected of me.”

“And you’ll find that man, darlin’; you will.”

Her smile was infectious. “But right now, you’ll do,” she said with a laugh, climbing into his lap. “Fun, fun, and more …
fun.
”

Nate kissed her lips, his mouth pressed to hers in a lip-lock that she hoped wouldn’t end for hours. He wanted her, so badly that he almost wanted to promise her more. But that would be a promise he couldn’t keep. And Nate King never made a promise he couldn’t keep.

“I’ve got to admit that you’ve kind of surprised me,” Faith mused, pulling back a little so she could look into his eyes, her hand cupping his cheek. “It makes me wonder whether you let anyone else see this side of you.”

Nate looked back at her, into beautiful brown eyes that seemed to see straight into his soul. “The truth? No. I don’t.” He stroked her hair. “There’s something about you, Faith, and I don’t know what the hell it is, but I like it.”

She let him draw her closer again. “You’re nowhere near as tough and scary as you look on the outside sometimes.”

“Ha,” he grunted, “you just haven’t been on my bad side yet.”

And he doubted she ever would be.

Chapter 11

“HONEY, I’m home!” Nate called out, cracking himself up. He was so far from the kind of guy who’d ever imagined saying that when he got home from work at the end of the day that it never failed to make him laugh that he said it every day now. “Faith?” he called out when she didn’t reply.

“In the bedroom!” she called out.

Nate took the stairs two at a time, following her voice. “What’re you doing up here?” He half-expected her to be lying on the bed waiting for him to join her, which made him hard just thinking about it. “I hope you haven’t been waiting for me too long. I had a late meeting and—”