Rebel Cowboy (14 page)

He dipped his head lower to press his mouth to hers and forget all that other junk, but she spoke first.

“Your phone is ringing,” she said quietly, her eyes steady on his, searching for something—he wished he knew what. He wished this not-knowing crap would go away already.

Or maybe he really didn’t want to know.

But his phone
was
ringing in his back pocket, a strange digital loop in the quiet of the mountain valley. “I suppose it is.”

“You should answer it. What if it’s about…hockey things?”

He still didn’t know what that searching thing was about, but he wondered if it had anything to do with the way she’d told him he didn’t belong here all those days ago.

Still, she was right. It could be about hockey, and…he didn’t want to think too hard about belonging here and what Mel might think of that. What
he
might think of that. So he rolled off her and answered.

“Sharpe.”

“Daniel.”

He immediately sat a little straighter, the feminine voice crackling through his crappy service shocking the hell out of him. “Mom. Hey, is everything all right?”

There was a pause, and dread curled in his stomach. Something must be wrong. Mom almost never called him.

“Everything is fine. I just hadn’t heard from you.”

“Oh, well, I emailed you when I got here.”

“Yes, but…” Another pause. The pauses that had begun in those weeks after she’d told him her and Dad were getting a divorce. Silences and watching and pauses, always so careful with what she said to him.

Because otherwise he might break again.

Because they were a reminder of all the ways he hadn’t handled anything, had caused his mother too much stress to stay, he couldn’t stand the pauses, the silences. To the point where they almost never talked. When he’d been a kid, it had been letters. Now, it was emails and the occasional text.

Calls on holidays only.

But if everything was okay, he didn’t understand the reason for this call. “My service isn’t the best, maybe we can—”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Worried about me?” Dan glanced at Mel as she got to her feet, brushing off her pants, her back to him. “Why?”

“I thought for sure you’d be home by now.”

“I told you this was for the summer.” Dan got to his feet, trying to decipher the tension in Mel’s shoulders.

“I know, but…” He wanted to beat his head against the impenetrable wall of those pauses. Her carefulness with him. Not thirty years between then and now, between acting out as a kindergartner and being a thirty-five-year-old man, had changed the way she approached him.

He watched Mel as she strode away.

What was that about?

“Surely you’re tired of that place. I know you didn’t agree with me that it was tossing money away, but you see that now. Surely.”

Dan tried to make sense of what Mom was saying. She hadn’t thought he’d…last this long? Figured he’d screw this up along with everything else? Well, yeah, why should he be surprised? He wasn’t the only one who thought hockey was about all he was good at, and he’d never given anyone any reason to believe otherwise.

But, good God, he should be beyond caring if his mommy had any faith in him.

“Actually, I think…” His glance landed on Mel hefting the giant toolbox out of the back of her truck. Mountains in the background, her hat pulled low, and that weird chest-expanding feeling again. “I think this is a good place to be. To build.”

Crackling silence. A sigh. More silence. Dan closed his eyes and tried to wait it out, tried to find a way to be a better son. Give her whatever it is she was always quietly wanting from him, to prove she hadn’t broken him irrevocably.

But he didn’t have it in him. Not the patience or maybe not even the desire. He didn’t know, didn’t want to know. He wasn’t broken. He was just…a person. “I have to go, Mom. But if you have any more questions or financial concerns, email me. I’ve got my Internet set up and everything.”

“Of course.”

An agreement that was anything but.

“Bye, Mom,” he said, because he honestly didn’t know what else to give her.

“Good-bye, Daniel. I…” Pause. Pause. Pause. Silence. “Well, take care of yourself.”

“You too, Mom.” Though it gave him a lump in his gut to do it, he hit End and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

He took a minute to watch Mel. She was busying herself with things. He had no idea what things. He had no idea…

He needed to shove it out of his brain. There were things he did have ideas about. Llamas. Talking Mel back into his bed.

He forced himself to leisurely stroll to where she stood next to his porch. “Sorry about that interruption.”

She shrugged. “Nothing to apologize for. I was thinking we could open up those stalls like we talked about, and then head to town this afternoon to get you a hose.”

“I thought I was going to make you breakfast.” He reached out for her braid, twirled a loose end around his finger.

But she didn’t relax. Didn’t loosen. She was coiled tight, no give in her. He couldn’t for the life of him figure that out.

“I’m not all that hungry,” she said, hefting her toolbox onto his porch.

“Does this have something to do with…” He trailed off because he felt strange about bringing up her outburst about her mother leaving, and because she looked uncomfortable, and he just wanted that moment in the grass again, when he’d been about to kiss her and that was all that mattered.

“She was checking up on you.”

“Um, yeah. She thought I’d be back by now, I guess. She never did much like this place.” Or believe he could handle anything.
Because you haven’t.

That tension in her shoulders drew tighter, till she looked like a stick that had taken too many slap shots and was about to break. “Your mother lived here?”

“Well, yeah. She got out as soon as she could, from my understanding, but she grew up right here.” He gestured toward the house, not quite sure why they were talking about his mother’s past.

She still didn’t turn to look at him, didn’t stop fiddling with the toolbox. Acting like she was supremely busy when it was obvious she was anything but.

“How, um, how old is she?”

“Mom? Um, fifty…eight. Why?”

Mel shook her head. “I don’t know. Let’s—”

“Oh, you think maybe she knew your family? Like, your dad?” Funny, he hadn’t really considered his family knowing Mel’s, though it would make sense if hers had been around forever and so had the Paulle side of his.

“No, I, my dad is only fifty-two, they wouldn’t have—”

“Your mom?” Shit, he was an idiot. There was a reason she was all tense now, and it started and ended with a mother’s phone call. Something she’d probably never had.

“No.” Mel was staring hard at the mountains, and Dan wanted nothing more than to reverse time and never tell her who had called. “My mother wasn’t from here.”

“I bet your dad knew my—”

She turned abruptly. “It doesn’t matter. I think we should get to work on the stables. The sooner we get all this done, the sooner you can actually grow your herd…or whatever groups of llamas are called.”

“You need to eat something first.”

“I’ve done a lot of work without breakfast, Sharpe.”

“Okay, fine,
I
need breakfast.” Her calling him by his last name made a matching tension creep into his shoulders. But he didn’t have Mel’s control, and he’d be damned if he wanted to. “If you want to piss me off some more, keep calling me Sharpe.” His irritation, anger, whatever it was—it was a lot more familiar than the feeling of her underneath him, looking at him like he had some kind of answer. He might not understand what it stemmed from, the way she blocked him out, walked away, erected this maze he didn’t understand. He might not understand how she—or anyone—could just lock those feelings down and away. But…

Hell, he didn’t know. He didn’t know a damn thing, and since she was supposed to be the one teaching him what to do, maybe he’d just follow her lead.

Mel was still staring at the hammer in her toolbox when Dan’s front door slammed. She wanted to feel angry, but how could she? She’d been…

Hot and cold. Curt for no reason. Unnecessarily bitchy. She didn’t mind being bitchy as a rule, but it was the unnecessary part that had guilt lurching in her stomach along with…

Pain. A pain she thought had been buried deep enough it wouldn’t get churned up against her will. Listening to Dan talk to his mother, her obvious worry over him, that
was
painful.

She didn’t want that ache, and she refused to accept that it was about her mother. It wasn’t just that. It was anyone caring about anyone. She was human for wanting someone to care about her, even if she knew the care was a big old pile of horse crap.

Something hot and painful lodged in her throat as she remembered the feel of Dan’s finger wrapping around a strand of her hair. She’d had her back to him, but she’d felt the touch, felt the words as if
they
were a touch.
I thought I was going to make you breakfast.

Like he wanted to. Like he wanted to do something for her.

But there were other words that had dug in, and not just his mother, a staticky female voice in his ear.

I told you it was for the summer.

She didn’t like the way him saying being here was temporary had hit her hard. Like a horse kicking her right in the chest. Even though she
knew
he wasn’t sticking around; she’d
told
him he wasn’t sticking around.

He could build this llama ranch or whatever crazy scheme, but he was still going back to hockey, and if he ever came back here on some permanent basis, well, it’d be years and years from now, when he had nothing else in his life to give.

But she’d felt a little pang, and that was not good at all. Completely not his fault though, so she should probably stop being a jerk to him about it.

She forced herself onto the porch, tried to find apologetic words to say to him, except fear kept her rooted in front of the door, not walking inside.

While she could recognize the feeling of fear, identify it, she was having a harder time figuring out the reason for it. What was she afraid of? All she could work out was that she was afraid of the way he made her feel.

Which was so stupid it actually irritated her. What did it matter how he made her feel? She wasn’t under any illusion he was going to stay, so she wouldn’t be brokenhearted when he left. She didn’t want or need anything more from him than some super-great sex and the occasional not-suffocating company.

And what if he wants more from you?

She wanted to ignore that thought, the way the fear intensified, but how could she? It was right there, flipping in her stomach, urging her to run far, far away, because she didn’t need another person needing more from her.

It does not have to be forever. It’s
not
forever
. So, there was nothing to get worked up about. No reason for the flutters of fear to mix with the flutters of him looking at her like she was the center of the world.

Please. He’d been trying to get her to have sex with him. Beginning and end of that story. That was all she was after too, all that could ever happen. So.

So. This was all crazy, stupid emotion getting in the way of reason and sense, and that was not acceptable. She would push it away, bury it down, and find a way to get back to where they’d been.

The way he’d tackled her to the ground, his big, hard body on top of hers, popped to mind. Something so foolish and…fun.
And the way he looked at you, was anything but.

“Okay, brain, I have had enough.” She forced herself to turn the knob and open the door and step into Dan’s kitchen.

He was standing in front of his stove, still in his sweaty, grimy running clothes. It did not lessen the appeal of him, not when she could so clearly visualize him naked.

“I…” She cleared her throat because something clogged there. “Could I have…an egg?”

He gave her a one-eyebrow-quirked look, like she was crazy.
Yeah, you’re definitely crazy
. But he was so hot and he cooked, even if it was just scrambled eggs. There was no reason on the face of the earth not to let this little thing…be a thing. Temporarily.

So she cleared her throat again, and although she was too big of a coward to look directly at him, she forced the uncomfortable words out of her mouth. “I’m sorry. For getting weird. About things.”

“Weird. About things.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

“I’m not very good with people.”

“See, what’s funny about that, Mel, is you seem to do pretty damn okay with just about everyone in town.”

“I…” She didn’t know how to respond to that, mainly because it gave away something she didn’t want to be dwelling on too much. He was different. He was special. She wasn’t trying to get anything out of him, wasn’t trying to rebuild the Shaw name with him. He didn’t matter, and in some nonsensical way, that made him matter even more. “God, I’m tired.”

His mouth quirked at that as he pushed the eggs around in the pan. “You know why?”

“Not really.”

He actually chuckled that time. “You’re trying too hard.”

“It’s all I have,” she said quietly, perhaps more seriously than the situation warranted. But it hit home. Because she was trying hard, but what other choice was there?

He didn’t say anything to that, and she didn’t know what else to say, or what to do, so she stood there still next to the door, hat in her hands.

“As much as I enjoy waiting on you, honey, why don’t you make the coffee and maybe we can press reset on this day.”

“We seem to have to do that a lot.”

He shrugged and she could feel his eyes on her as she moved to the coffeemaker. “Better to start over and try again than walk away and stew over it.”

“Is that why you want to play again? To prove you’re not…that you didn’t?” She swallowed, because she shouldn’t care about that, or want to know. But she did.

What was the harm in knowing? In asking? What was the harm in any of this? It was like letting out the pressure valve—all that steam that had built and built and built in her life was about to explode. So instead of exploding, she’d let some steam escape. Have some fun and good sex, and then when he left, she could go back to her life and her responsibilities.

Until the pressure builds again.

Well, she made it through twenty-eight years without needing to let a little loose, which meant after this, she’d probably make it twenty-eight more. By that time, she’d find something else to release the pressure.

So, she could know and ask about Dan. She could be with him, and she could feel things, as long as she didn’t feel
permanent
things—and, honestly, what were the chances of that?

* * *

Dan blinked at the eggs. It was hard to keep up with her sometimes, the cold, the hot, the lukewarm. But he didn’t know what this was, her asking about hockey. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say.

Maybe because he didn’t know how to answer that question. Of course he wanted to get back into it to prove he wasn’t a cheat. Of course he wanted to prove he could handle the pressure. Once, at least once in his life, he could handle it.

But there was more, and he hadn’t wrapped his mind around that more. There was an ache, a hole that hockey left. There were parts of his life where he didn’t feel it so deeply—doing hard work, planning for the llamas, being with Mel…

It didn’t change the uncomfortable fact that being without hockey left a hole, and even if he got back next season…there would be a season he wouldn’t be able to go back. Someday.

It scared the hell out of him that the ache might never go away. That in using hockey as an escape, he’d made this temporary thing his whole damn life.

“No one wants to be known as a cheat.” He plastered the easygoing, for-the-crowd grin on his face and filled their plates with eggs. When he glanced at her, she was carefully pouring coffee into two mugs.

The moment struck him as something out of a movie or a TV show. Certainly something he’d never witnessed in real life. Two people working together to make a meal. Two people working together to make much of anything.

He’d seen teamwork, he’d seen people help each other out, but not the easy camaraderie of preparing breakfast as a unit. There was a fuzzy memory, dim and not quite fully formed, something to do with his grandparents and that table, but he couldn’t put all the pieces together and wasn’t sure why it was cropping up now.

“But is it just your reputation?” Mel was saying. “I mean, you said this place meant something to you, or you thought it could because of your grandpa, so… Is it just what people think that makes you want to play again?”

He stood at the counter, two plates in his hand, and she stood next to the table, a mug in each hand. Sunlight streamed through the window across from the table, spotlighting Mel in golden light and dust motes.

Fuck, this day was weird. Had he suffered a concussion last night and forgotten about it?

“Dan.”

Well, at least no more Sharpe for the time being. “It’s a lot to do with reputation,” he said, forcing himself to cross the tiny kitchen. “But it’s not just
my
reputation that could suffer.”

Her brows drew together. “Who else’s would? Your agent’s?”

“No.” He placed the plates down and studied her. “You don’t have a clue about hockey, do you?”

She shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t have a lot of leisure time to follow sports.”

Dan’s mouth quirked. “My dad was kind of a big deal. Hockey player. Like Hall of Fame, did commercials, Olympics, whole nine yards.”

“Oh.”

“And, anyway, he’s a front-office guy now, and there are things he wants to do and…well, having stuff said about me doesn’t help him any.”

“And it means you couldn’t do something in the front office?”

“Oh, I’d never be any good at that shit. Can you imagine me in a suit saying all the right things to smooth people’s ridiculous egos?”

She blinked and didn’t respond, which almost seemed like she could picture it. Weird. It was just another thing in a long line of things he knew Dad would always be better at doing.

So, no, he couldn’t imagine doing that.

“Anyway, we should eat.” He gestured to the table, because this was all awkward and not at all what he wanted to talk about. Llamas. Sex. Her. That about completed the list of things he wanted to discuss. “Cold eggs and coffee are less than appetizing.”

She gave a little nod and slid the coffee mugs onto the table, but before he could sit, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his.

He was surprised enough by the move he couldn’t do much more than put his hands on her shoulders. Mel didn’t do a lot of initiating, but this wasn’t exactly sexual. It was more sweet, like an offer of comfort or sympathy.

Why the hell should she feel sorry for him? Offer
him
sympathy? This was all…picnic stuff compared to her life. She should go back to telling him people with money had their problems smoothed away.

But when she stepped back, she only looked at some point behind him, sheepishness wrinkling her nose.

“What was that for?” he demanded, feeling off and wanting to feel something familiar. Irritation would do.

Her eyes were wide, but serious when they met his. Always so damn serious. “I don’t know.”

It was like that moment in the grass—the overwhelmed feeling again, part sweetness, part the sharp need to bolt. But something pulled them tighter, pulled them close, and though part of him wanted nothing more than to bolt, that instinct was no match for the sweetness, for the pull.

“Cold…eggs,” she said, her voice hoarse, the green and brown of her eyes mesmerizing. She cleared her throat. “And work to do.”

Work. Right. That had been the main thing that had lifted his spirits this week, so maybe that’s what he needed to return focus to. Forget hockey and Mel and all the things that made his nerve endings go haywire.

“I’m going to start emailing breeders. Get a firm date for when we need everything done.”

She lifted a bite of eggs to her mouth, but then stopped and set it down. “Maybe you should pause on the breeders. Focus on getting this place ready.”

“Why? I have to know when some are going to be available so I can be ready for them by that time. I suppose I could just pick up some more misfits like Mystery, but I’m not sure how I’d go about doing that.”

“Speaking as your consultant, I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring more animals in until you’re more certain of your future. If you’re going back to play in the fall, there isn’t much sense in—”

“I’m not going to back out or screw up. I may not be good at a lot of things, but the things I can do, I don’t stop until…”
Until you fuck up two of the biggest games of a hockey player’s life and are forced to stop. Forced to try out. Forced to…

“Dan.”

A warm, calloused hand slid over the top of his, which he hadn’t realized he’d been clenching into a fist.

“Listen, this isn’t about your ability to do something,” she said. “This is about the fact that it doesn’t make sense to grow a herd if you’re going to try to get back into hockey. I mean, how long is a season?”

He took a deep breath at the tightness in his chest. The pressure. The little voice in his head telling him this was a dumb plan that wouldn’t erase the real problem. “Start reporting in August, but the season can last until April.” If they got to the playoffs, it would be longer.

“It doesn’t make any sense to add animals if you won’t be here.”

He hated that gentle note in her voice, as if she were trying to break bad news to a small child. As if
he
was a small child, too stupid and foolish to understand what he was trying to do. Like Mom, like everyone, thinking this was some dumb thing he was doing to while his time away. “I’ll hire a caretaker.”

“But…why?”

“Because I’m building something. Like I told you before. I’m building something here because I need something important, and this is going to be it. If my career isn’t over, it doesn’t matter. I’m building a place to come back to. And if I can’t get back into hockey”—he paused to make sure his voice didn’t shake, the pain and fear didn’t show—“then I’ve built something for the now.”