True-Blue Cowboy Christmas (14 page)

“Let me drive you home,” he offered, unable to let her face the vast emptiness of the space between their homes alone. It was freezing, and though she had a coat and boots and he'd made a path, in the dark, she could easily fall or get lost. “It's stupid to be walking through the dark and—”

“The moon and stars are bright enough.” She stopped walking away, turning to face him. He could only make out her faint outline, and the cowardly part of him was glad he couldn't see her face, didn't know what her reaction was.

She should be relieved, even happy he'd stopped things before they'd gotten even more complicated. Because even if they'd done irrevocable things, he had nothing to offer someone like Summer, so young and vibrant and full of cheer and hope.

“Please let me see you home.”

She whirled away from him, the swish of her skirts and jangle of her jewelry a testament to how violent the motion was. “Let me assure you, I'm fine.”

“Summer.”

“Good night, Thack.” She took a stomping step away, and he made a move to touch her, but she grabbed his discarded bottle from earlier and heaved it at the target instead.

The gesture and subsequent crash startled him enough that he didn't even move after her quickly retreating form.

She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Enjoy your erection, jerkface” on her way past the woodshed and toward the line between their properties.

He should go after her. He should go check on Kate and Dad. He was torn in two different directions, and this was the absolute last thing he needed. Another no-win situation.

And he couldn't blame anyone but his own damn self for this one.

Summer stormed through the dark trees and climbed over the fence, wishing she could bust through it like some kind of wild, feral animal. If she had any room in her brain for something that wasn't anger, she might have been afraid. Yes, the moon and stars lit the way, but that didn't make her any less alone in the dark of night in a cold, wild land.

She didn't even know why she was so angry. She should have stayed. They should have talked it out. She should never have thrown that bottle.

But,
damn
, she understood it now—how amazing it felt to fling something and hear it destruct.

Crash
.

She wanted to do it a hundred more times, and that scared her as much as it pissed her off. As much as him asking if she was a virgin—without even actually asking it, the wimp.

How dare he? How dare he? And…and…

Damn it. Why was she so mad? She didn't get mad. She was calm and levelheaded. She was a problem solver. And if she couldn't solve a problem, she ran away… Which was how she'd ended up here. Of course she'd run away this time too, but not before her temper had boiled over.

No one appreciates nasty words, Summer. Always smile when you want to frown. Always offer a nice word when you're uncomfortable. For once in your life,
try
to be accommodating. For me.

Summer stopped stomping in the clearing around her caravan. She wanted to cry. She wanted to get in the caravan and drive away from the memories, but more than that, she needed to drive away from the possibility that Mom had warped her irrevocably.

Neither Mel nor Delia bent over backward to make other people happy. They had a way of holding themselves, an inner strength, a belief of purpose and self. They didn't need to make everyone around them happy. They didn't defer to their husbands or their fathers.

They didn't do whatever a man wanted because he might grace them with a few dollars or a pretty necklace.

They wouldn't turn their daughters into servants or try to sell their virginity to the highest bidder. They'd never threaten their children.

“Summer.”

She whirled around, only managing not to squeak because she was so lost and upset and angry that it seemed perfectly natural for someone to pop out of the woodwork. She couldn't see him, but of course it was Thack's voice and Thack's ridiculous need to make sure she got back okay. As if she hadn't already saved herself from worse than him.

Once she caught her breath, she planted her clenched fists on her hips. He was still too shadowed to make out, but she glared anyway. “Oh my God, you
followed
me?” She was horrified. Angry. Irritated.

Pleased beyond belief.

Even though she couldn't see him, even though she was so angry she wanted to throw things
at
him, to know that he would come after her… No one ever came after her.

“Yes, I followed you. It's hotheaded and stupid to go off into the woods on your own.”

Well, that undercut any pleasure she might have taken in the moment. “The line of trees hardly constitutes woods. And you know what? I got myself here from California alone and without a cent to my name. Without help. Without some pseudo-cowboy who thinks he has to look out for everyone. I have done more alone and in the dark in my life than you have in yours, I can almost guarantee you.”

That seemed to shut him up. Why was he here, lecturing her as if he cared? He probably just wanted to make sure he hadn't defiled the poor, innocent virgin. She wanted to laugh at the thought. Sure, technically. But only because her mom had been using it as a bargaining chip.

She felt sick and angry, and he was the perfect target for her anger. Hey, he'd followed her, and this was her domain. She deserved her anger, had a right to it, and he deserved to get the blunt edge. “And furthermore,
you
are going to have to walk through those ‘woods' alone and back to your ranch. So, if you want to talk about hotheaded and stupid, go look in a mirror.”

Silence followed, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut. Oh God, that was so not the way to talk to someone who had a hand in her employment. Someone she liked, someone she genuinely respected.

Sometimes the worst thing is someone you can't trust with your anger.
Why did that foolishness keep coming back to her? Like she was going to believe something her father had uttered. The man was the most nonfunctional person she'd ever met.
Oh, but you'll listen to your mother telling you that you need to be accommodating and sweet?

“I know this land better than you.”

“Whoop-de-doo.”

“Whoop-de-doo,” he repeated. “You really say the weirdest things.”

“And I think I'm over being insulted on my own property,
Thackery
. You can leave now. Or would you like me to call someone to escort you back to your home, so you can be safe? Oh, I know—you want to kiss me again and then grill me on my sexual history?”

It had ruined the entire moment. Because there was no real answer. That was why she was angry. There was no easy answer when it came to her experience, and she never wanted to have to explain that to anyone.

She needed to be alone. She needed to meditate or find some other way to get away from all these thoughts and memories and gross feelings. What she'd really love was a shower, but she could hardly go up to the big house now and explain that one away.

Tears stung her eyes so she whirled away from him and made for her caravan. It was her sanctuary, the place that had meant safety and peace the past two years. She reached the end of her battery-powered string of Christmas lights and turned them on. It was just a little pop of color in an otherwise bleak, dark night, but it made a difference.

Thack's footsteps followed her across the yard. “Summer. Stop. Listen.” After a moment when she did not
stop
, he uttered the word that made her finally acquiesce. “Please.”

She turned, folding her arms over her chest. Mortification flooded through her for losing her temper over something so silly, but she wanted—she was
determined
to be like her sisters. She wanted to be like
them
, not like what her mother had wanted her to be.

“I apologize.”

Her first instinct was to slump and say he was forgiven, smile and comfort him and move on, but that was not the right answer. She didn't even know what he was apologizing for. “For?”

“I don't have…room. In my life. That's not personal. I'm not pretending I'm not attracted to you. I'm not pretending I don't care. I simply don't have room for anything else, not now.”

Wait. H
e
…
cared?

“So, you shouldn't be angry. Or upset. Because…”

“Because you get to decide whether I'm allowed to be angry or upset?”

“No!”

It was weird to have an argument in the dark. Though it had been shadowy back at the Lanes' bunkhouse, there had been a semblance of light not just from above, but silhouettes made by the lights from the house, from the barn.

Here, there was only darkness. All that filtered through the blackness were the faintest hints of silver moonlight, which didn't offer a true glimpse of either of them, and the little dots of color hanging from the eaves of her caravan.

She and Thack were only voices. It gave her the illusion of freedom and strength—the illusion that she could be whoever she wanted to be. She didn't have to make him happy, or make him like her, or put any effort into helping him.

She could just be her. But who was she? A woman trying to copy her sisters? Or was she her own person?

Or are you just a mess?

“Summer, I need you to understand that what happened back there can't happen again. It doesn't have anything to do with you or your…history. It simply can't happen.”

“What part?”

“All of it. The losing my temper. The kiss. Touching. And that is all on me. The way my life is. I don't have room for women in my life. I thought maybe I could try, but lunch reminded me why this is always impossible. There's too much. There have been no women in my life since my wife died because there's just not room for another thing.”

“No…women.” She tried to make sense of that.
None?

“None.”

“Oh.” Now she felt like an idiot. If his wife had died when Kate was a baby, that was…years.
Years.
And he had to have married fairly young.

“There's a reason I haven't been with anyone aside from Michaela, and it isn't that she was my soul mate or one true love or whatever other bullshit people want to believe in. I loved her, I did. I grieved, and there is a part of me that always will, but that's not what keeps me…”

“Alone?”

“I'm not alone. I have Kate and my father. And the ranch.”

“But…” Summer chewed on her lip, wondering why she felt so compelled to have this conversation, why she was so bound and determined to push when he obviously didn't want to be pushed. When had her anger vanished? When she learned that he hadn't been with anyone since his wife? No, it was more than that. It wasn't just that he was alone—which he was, whether he wanted to admit it or not. It was that he seemed to think he
ha
d
to be.

She'd been there. She'd tried to make herself believe it had taken two years to get to Montana because of money, because of life, but it had been more than that. She hadn't thought she'd deserved to find this place, hadn't thought she'd be wanted.

She hadn't been, not at first, but Shaw was the one place she would be safe. She'd found that she did belong, that she did deserve the family who actually hadn't known she existed.

So Thack needed a similar push, and she couldn't ignore that. He
needed
someone, and she was good at that sort of thing. She was good at picking up the threads of people's lives and weaving them into something workable. It was what she could give people, what she offered in return for them allowing her to belong.

“You are alone. Kate, your father, the ranch. They're responsibilities. I know you love them and they love you, but that doesn't change the fact they take much more than they can give. That will change with Kate as she gets older, but she'll always be your
responsibility
as much as your daughter.”

“Everyone is a responsibility. Having someone in your life is a responsibility. It requires time and care and things I simply cannot give.” He was so matter-of-fact about it and so certain. He'd had years to grow certain of it, years spent carrying around the weight of other people.

“Don't you think you deserve someone who can give that
to
you?” Summer asked, taking a few quiet steps toward his shadow.
Let me give you something
. The Shaws let her
do
things. They accepted her presence and her help, but they didn't allow her to give parts of herself. And more than that, in a lot of ways, she was afraid. Afraid to ask them for more than they could give.

“It doesn't matter. What matters is that I can't look beyond those three things. I don't have the time or space for anyone or anything else. I am at the limit of what I can do, and I can't imagine that getting any easier as Kate gets older. So, when I say that…me not saying the right things is inexperience, I mean it. And when I say I can't let it happen again, I mean it.”

He sounded so bleak. Not even resolute anymore, just hopeless, and it hurt her heart. That he'd been through so much and still thought he had room for so little.

“Of course, Kate is your world. You have no idea how much I admire that about you.”

She could hear a released whoosh of breath. “Good, then you're not angry and we can go back to…”

“Go back to what exactly?”

“I…” He stepped into the clearing, so the moonlight touched his face. It seemed to find all the lines and grooves life had carved into his skin.

He was standing here telling her he had no room for her, no space in his life for a person, for a relationship. Not even for a kiss after his daughter had gone to bed.

But she couldn't resist crossing to him. She couldn't resist thinking through the arguments that were piling up in her head. He might not have room, but he needed someone, he deserved someone to take some of that load he was so determined to carry on his shoulders.

“I've been helping, haven't I?” she asked softly.

“You've been a lifesaver.”

“I'm good at that. At helping. At swooping in where I'm needed and setting things to right. You don't need to make any more space for me. I'm already right here.” She placed her palm on his chest. So warm and sturdy. So troubled. She wanted to soothe his pain away.

He deserved to have someone to step in and help. He deserved comfort where he wanted it, and if that was in her, why would he resist?

She'd never known a man who would so nobly place his own needs completely behind everyone else's. She'd never known a man so determined to do the right thing for his daughter, no matter the cost.

No, she'd
never
seen that, and she would forever hold him in high regard for that alone.

“I won't kiss you again. I won't be upset that you walked away. But I do want you to know, I am here. For whatever it is you need. You don't need to make
space
for me. I'm very tiny.”

“On the occasions when my brain is particularly cruel, I think about the likelihood that someday my daughter will fall in love with some asshole.” He cleared his throat, and that glimmer of emotion kept her from asking about this odd subject change.

“I'm forced to think about what I would want for her from that relationship. It would be more than this.” He paused and then took a step back, away from her hand, away from her and into shadow. “You deserve more too.”