Outlaw Cowboy (6 page)

He considered her over his shoulder, with sharp blue eyes identical to Caleb's, aside from the mass of wrinkles stretching out from the corners.

“Come inside, girl.”

“No, thank you.”

“I wasn't asking.”

“You'd probably get further if you did. And added a please. And a thanks for saving you. As it is, I think I'll…”

“You look like you could use a hot meal.”

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Apparently it was obvious she'd been barely scraping by with enough food to move. She could also see where Caleb got his reluctant but innate kindness from.

“
I
could use a hot meal, and I can't reach shit in that kitchen. So, come inside and make me something.”

“Do you demand all strangers cook you a meal? That's really damn weird.”

“I told you. I know who you are.”

“Yeah? Somehow I don't believe it.”

“One of the Rogers girls. One that used to hang 'round my boy.”

The way he said “my boy” with a kind of fatherly ownership made her throat close up again. What would it be like to
belong
to someone? Not to be owned by them, terrified of them, desperate to escape them. Just belong.

She could not go inside.

“I have to go.”

“Guess I'll have to let Caleb know you stopped by then,” he said so casually she almost agreed with him.

“Guess I'll have to let him know you were halfway across the yard and fell in a rut. Going who knows where.”

They regarded each other in silence for a long, stretching minute before Mr. Shaw's eyes drifted beyond her. Where he'd been looking before. She imagined it was his destination, but she certainly hadn't seen anything special he could be heading for.

“Come inside, girl.” He didn't say “please” or “thank you,” but there was a gentleness to his tone that hadn't been there before, and against every survival instinct in her head telling her to turn and run, she followed that gentle note like a moth to a flame.

Caleb pulled his truck into the gravel drive. Mel and Dan would show up in a few minutes, and he wanted to make sure he checked on Dad and did a quick run-through of the house before they got here.

Of course Mel and Dan would decide on an impromptu drop by on a Friday, meaning Summer spent the entire day in town, stocking shelves at Felicity's and then doing some music thing at the Pioneer Spirit in the evenings.

Meaning the house looked like…well, like it hadn't been cleaned since yesterday afternoon. Which could be a lot worse than it was, but he didn't want Mel clucking over anything. He didn't want to put that frown of worry on her face she usually left the house with.

Having to convince her to give him a few months more of running things had done that already today.

Luckily Mel had said it'd be a quick visit. Holy matrimony and all that bullshit had really gotten a bug up Mel's ass about getting through to Dad.

He pushed out a breath, trying to expel all the moodiness with it. He needed to hurry. He paused briefly at the muddy wheelchair mark on the ramp. Dad never left the house alone. Maybe Summer hadn't gone into town this morning. Not that Dad ever went outside with Summer either.

Maybe they'd made a breakthrough. Wouldn't that be a salve to the shit morning he'd had? Mel wouldn't even notice the mess if Summer and Dad were talking.

He paused in the entry. There
were
voices, and it wasn't the TV Dad liked to blare. Holy shit. It was really happening.

But any bubble of hope was immediately quashed by the low rumble of sexy laughter—definitively not Summer. He knew
that
sound, and he was so utterly confused and baffled that he couldn't even be pissed.

At least until he stepped into the kitchen to find his father and Delia laughing over something they were both eating.

His father, who Caleb couldn't remember even
smiling
for years, was
laughing
with
Delia
.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded.

Delia stilled, but she didn't turn. He couldn't see her face to see if her smile died the way his father's did, but that only made the anger slice deeper.

How could he…how could she…just,
how
?

He heard the rumble of a truck engine. Mel and Dan were here. He did not have time to explain Delia to Mel, and he did not have the wherewithal to somehow explain Delia away. Not when he had so much to prove.

“Get upstairs,” he demanded.

She finally turned, all languid ease—a mask, but he didn't care right now. She'd invaded his house, broken her own rule of staying unseen, and she was making his father
smile
.

“Excuse me?”

He grabbed her arm, propelled by anger, and was only slightly jarred by how too-thin it was when his fingers wrapped around and met his thumb. Still, the anger shoved away the jarred feeling, and he tugged her toward the stairs that led to the second floor.

“Let go of me, Caleb,” she said, her voice so low, so dangerous, he would do good to listen.

He wasn't in the mood to do any good. He gave her a jerk instead so she bumped against his chest. Any impressions, any electricity zinging over his skin, only flamed his anger higher.

“I will not be explaining
you
to the people who are about to walk in that door. Get upstairs. Don't make a noise, and don't even think about leaving until I tell you it's all right.”

The doorknob jangled, and it surprised Caleb to realize he was still holding on to Delia. In fact, she had to wrench herself from his grasp to do as he'd asked.

What the living hell was wrong with him? All this putting himself back together since Mel left, and Delia was erasing it. Shaking all the pieces loose. But he didn't have time to dwell on it. “Second door on the right. Touch nothing. Do nothing.” He had no idea why he was saying it—it was probably like giving her an engraved invitation to touch
everything
. She'd probably burn them to the ground, and it'd be hard to blame her.

The door swung open just as Delia muttered something that sounded like, “payback is a bitch,” and disappeared around the corner.

Caleb had to steady himself on the rail.

“Get it cleaned up?” Mel asked cheerfully.

He had to force himself to breathe, to unclench, to calm the thundering beat of his heart and the sparking, fiery anger bouncing around in his gut. “Not what I was doing.” Hey, it wasn't a lie.

“How's Dad?” Mel toed off her boots, then gave Dan a look until he rolled his eyes and did the same. It shamed Caleb into taking off
his
boots, even though that was a Mel rule he'd always hated.

Why couldn't he destroy that selfishness that lived inside of him? Why did it have to be so heavy? So
him
?

“Haven't found him yet,” Caleb managed, though his voice was scratchy, and that earned him twin looks of speculation from Mel and Dan.

He straightened, forced his lips to curve, and then coughed a few times. Maybe he'd convince them he was coming down with a cold, not some sort of trying-to-stay-on-the-straight-and-narrow crisis.

He did his best to forget Delia existed, let alone existed on the floor above them. They walked through the kitchen, Dad having wheeled away somewhere. They found him in the living room after trading minutes of fake pleasantries.

Mel's smile was painful to look at as she sat down. Some mix of sad and hopeful and hurting. Why did she keep doing this to herself? Why couldn't she give up on the old bastard? He didn't want them.

Well, maybe it was different for Mel, since at one point Dad
had
wanted her. Caleb didn't know what that felt like.

Mel and Dan tried to talk to Dad, but Dad sat in the corner and grunted occasionally. His gaze almost never left Caleb.

It was not an easy gaze, or something that was usual. It was strange enough, he was sure Mel noticed. But they went on as normal. For twenty-some minutes, Mel and Dan made excruciatingly stifled conversation, and Dad refused to give an inch.

He'd been
laughing
with Delia. Caleb's fingers curled around his knee. He gripped it as hard as he could without drawing attention to it, met Dad's gaze as best he could without demanding to know what the hell he'd been
laughing
at.

It was a painful exercise of futility on a normal day, sitting through any attempts at reaching Dad. Today, Caleb knew he
had
been reached, and the perpetrator was hiding upstairs doing who knew what in his room. It was like filling his insides with sandpaper and flame, and he didn't know how to fix it.

He wanted to yell. He wanted to pound something to dust. He wanted to drink. Instead, he sat clutching his knee and trying to find some way to breathe, until finally,
finally
Mel and Dan got up to leave.

Caleb would have preferred to have left it at that, but it had become habit to walk them out.

They all—barring Dad of course—went to the mudroom and began to pull on their boots.

“Why don't you go start the truck?” Mel said way too brightly to her husband as he pulled on his jacket.

“Why don't you come up with a better excuse, honey?” Dan muttered before dropping a kiss on Mel's temple and then exiting the house.

Mel turned to Caleb, any false brightness completely gone. She reached out and touched his arm, worry all over her face. He'd been on the end of that look so many times, and it never got any easier.

He'd never found a way to make it go away completely. Never found a way to be the kind of man who wouldn't cause trouble and worry and pain everywhere he went.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?” Because he sure as hell had learned how to pretend, if nothing else.

“You both seemed tense.” She squeezed his forearm. “You'd tell me if something was going on? That was the deal, right? We tell each other what's going on, when we need help? You prom—”

“It's nothing. I swear.” Her face fell, so he clutched her arm the same way she was clutching him. “Mel, I swear to you. There is nothing wrong.” Nothing that pertained to Mel or Shaw, exactly. So, it wasn't a lie. “I was giving Dad a hard time about Summer. Maybe he's feeling some guilt. I don't know. But it isn't anything you can swoop in and fix.”

Mel blew out a breath, ruffling her hair. She was always so quick to take on the responsibilities of this family. Was it because she knew he couldn't handle it? Or just innate Mel-ness?

He wanted to believe it was the latter, but somehow he always wound up thinking it was the first.

“Maybe we should try for a dinner again. With Dad and Summer and—”

“I'll run it by Summer. Now, don't you have llamas to herd or whatever?”

Her smile—so much easier these days—lit up her whole face. “I can't wait for the day some woman with bizarre animals changes
your
whole life.”

“Ha! Pretty sure I'm allergic to llamas.”

“Squirrels then. Maybe a raccoon?”

“A wolf would be more my style.”

She rolled her eyes. “You wish. Call if you need anything. If anything changes. Got it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he drawled, the teasing managing to relax the iron tenseness inside of him the minutest degree.

If Mel could find love and comfort…well, there was
something
the world could do right. In spite of him, in spite of Dad. In spite of evil and ghosts and women with fuck-you smiles and revenge on the brain.

Then Mel left and Caleb sighed. It was time to face some rather unpleasant music. Not the least of which was Delia in his room, unsupervised.

After making Dad
laugh.

The anger was back. Maybe it was never really gone. Maybe it was in his blood constantly moving, every once in a while getting lodged behind a good moment, but always breaking free.

“I didn't teach you to treat a woman that way.”

Caleb tensed at his father's voice, but he took a page out of Delia's book and didn't turn. “Oh, so now we're going to talk?”

“You wanted to do it in front of your sister?”

Caleb turned to face his father, sitting in his chair in the doorway to the mudroom. Caleb was certain it was the most words they'd exchanged in the course of a minute in years. Years upon years.

“I see you touch her again like that, I'll—”

“You'll what? Care more about a stranger than your own damn daughters? Because I'm pretty sure there are two women with your damn genes desperate for an ounce of the affection I saw you offer a
stranger
.”

Any anger, any censure, any sign of emotion on his father's face vanished. The normal glazed-over shutdown was back, and he said nothing, only wheeled himself away.

Caleb looked around the room, trying to get a handle on all of the pain and futile fury coursing through him. What would change it? Why couldn't he find a way?

He glared up the stairs. Why and how had
she
?

* * *

First, Delia fumed. Then, she plotted. Because if she let herself, she might be tempted to relive the moment where he'd jerked her against the hard wall of his body, furious.
Lost.

He was angry, but it was the thing under all that anger she had trouble ignoring or fearing. It wasn't the kind of anger that had permeated her life, the kind of anger she knew to be wary of. Underneath all that sizzling fury was a sense of futility she recognized—futility she knew so well it might as well be the coat she was wearing.

She'd wanted to simply rest her head on his chest and comfort them both. It irritated her to no end, because sentimentality and understanding was not something she could afford.

She threw open his closet, determined to make her presence noticed. He wanted to hide her away, well…

You
need
to hide away, you moron.

She ignored that voice in her head. She was so tired of being careful and reasonable. There had been a few years of her teenage life where she'd thrown careful and reasonable away, tired of nothing going right, but that had ended the night Caleb's fist had connected with her father's face. Repeatedly.

She wanted to travel back before that moment, when she could afford to revel in restlessness for a few harmless minutes. So she rifled through Caleb's clothes, though it was so messy in there, with jeans and T-shirts and boots thrown this way and that. She wasn't even sure they were all clean clothes, though there were plenty presumably dirty on the floor outside the closet. There was no way he'd be able to tell she'd done anything.

On a frustrated grunt, she flung away from the closet. But no knickknacks graced Caleb's room. Not a family picture, not an old heirloom. Just clothes and ranch clutter.

It struck her as sad and undermined the anger she was trying to hold on to. Even Eddie, the bastard, had had some old baseball posters gracing his bedroom walls. It wasn't the height of sentimentality, but it spoke to a man who knew he belonged where he was. Who had a mark to make.

Or maybe she was reading too much into Caleb simply because she wanted to feel like she understood something. Though Lord knew if she had the choice, she wouldn't choose Caleb of all people to understand.

She'd probably choose herself.

She heard a door slam and an engine start. She glanced out the little diamond window: a man driving a truck, the brown swing of a ponytail in the passenger seat. Delia thought it was probably Caleb's sister. Something about her profile poked at Delia though. She seemed so utterly familiar, and Delia couldn't think of the last time she'd seen Mel Shaw.

“I want an explanation.”

Delia stilled, fighting the instinct to whirl toward his voice and hold her arms up in defense. She'd learned long ago stillness was as much of a defense against attack as bracing for a blow.