Unbroken: Country Fever, Book 3 (2 page)

Talk of her father sent a lump into Claire’s throat. Over the years, he’d hauled more loads from New York to California and Maine to Florida than Claire could count, working hard to keep his only daughter fed and clothed and given pretty much everything she ever dreamed of.

Except his presence. Letty had been left to raise Claire. Secretly, Claire believed her dad couldn’t face life without his wife, who’d died of a brain tumor a couple years after Claire was born. He found his solace in the landscape and behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler.

“Now don’t look so down, girl. Any man who could hurt you is not the right one. Believe me. I spent forty years of my life with the right one. I should know.” Letty used a spatula to scrape the potatoes into a serving bowl.

Claire climbed off the stool and gathered the plates and silverware. “I wish I’d known Uncle Dash.” The man had died years before Claire was given into Letty’s care. Her aunt was actually her great-aunt, and no one knew her true age, but she was definitely in her nineties. And likely to go well into her hundreds, if her spry step and bright gaze were indications.

A small, private smile captured her aunt’s lips. “He would have loved you as I do.” She set the food on the counter. “Now, you fill your belly with my good cookin’. Don’t want you eating that diner food in the wee hours of the morning. Indigestion.”

Claire never ate the food she served at that time of night. Placing platters of greasy breakfasts in front of truck drivers and rowdy teens and lonely bachelors had turned her long ago. Too many sad stories came with those late-shift encounters.

“It worries me, you working that dead-man’s shift. You have an innocent look about you that might invite trouble.”

Claire scooped some potatoes and gravy onto her aunt’s plate. “Don’t you worry about me. People talk to me, that’s all.” In fact, she often wondered if someone had stamped “spill your guts” on her forehead, because that’s exactly what people did when they saw her.

Women in grocery stores, telling her stories about their eating disorders and how they fought to even food shop for their children. Vacationers to the small town of Reedy, filling her in on their entire family’s criminal history. Hell, even the mayor had come into the diner once and talked Claire’s ear off about his wife troubles.

She shook her head. It was her lot in life to listen—one she was proud of, because she’d inherited it from her Aunt Letty.

Slipping an arm around the woman’s frail shoulders, she squeezed. Gently. “Love you, Letty.”

“Because I made your favorite country steak.”

Claire laughed out loud, a belly laugh that parted the sorrow in her heart over Tucker. “You caught me out.”

After dinner, Claire did the dishes while Letty rested, and then she got ready for her work shift. Peeling off her tank top and denim shorts and donning the navy uniform dress, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off Tucker.

She’d really smashed his truck all to hell. A hint of remorse filled her, but he just made her so crazed. Wild to make him hers. From the moment she’d set eyes on his blazing blue eyes and bad-boy swagger, she’d felt a shift in her soul.

This man was meant for her. Deep down, her gut screamed it. Except he’d stood her up last evening, and in the early hours of the morning, a woman had come into the diner, claiming to have just spent the whole night at Tucker’s place. As the pine and coffee smell belonging to Tucker clung to the curvaceous blonde, Claire had believed it instantly. She didn’t even have to prod for information—the girl gave it gladly.

She’d definitely spent the night in Tucker’s bed.

Claire’s shift at the diner ran from nine to nine. And the first thing she did was make two massive pots of coffee. One for her and one for the customers.

With her apron in place and the coffee brewing, she grabbed a pitcher of water and made her rounds to the tables and booths, refilling glasses. She stopped to chat with an older man who frequented the diner.

When the bell on the front door jingled, she automatically glanced up.

And saw
him.

The guy who’d found her in The Hellion’s parking lot.

Christian.

His name sparked in her memory and sent shards of electricity through her veins. The way he’d looked at her this evening still heated her, dammit. Like he’d eat her for breakfast, lunch and supper. Maybe even a late-night snack.

She shivered and drifted away from the table she was serving just as he slid his bulky frame into a booth. With broad, beefy shoulder muscles coiling under his tight white T-shirt and biceps that any woman would drool over, the man was sex in jeans and work boots.

And with that hat tugged low over his eyes…

No way. Any friend of Tucker’s is no friend of mine.

Steeling her spine, she approached with the water pitcher. Leaning over him, she flipped over the glass on the laminate table top and filled it.

He glanced up from his menu. And did a double take.

A country tune blasted through the restaurant—a crooning ballad that seemed the perfect backdrop for the man seated here. Something about his brooding expression called to her.

Maybe he’ll spill his guts to me.

Wait. Did she seriously just think that would be a good thing?

Yet something dark lived behind his pale green eyes that said this guy had secrets.

“Claire.” His low voice washed over her, sounding with shock. His gaze dipped to her breasts, which practically spilled out of her dress.

Prickling with irritation, she took a step back. “What will you have?”

He gawked at her for a full minute. “Huh?”

“To eat.”

He opened his mouth and shut it with a snap, then said, “Sit down.”

She backed up another step. In all of her years working the night shift, she’d never felt so cornered, her heart threatening to drum out of her chest. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m working.”

“I can see that. Just please sit. For a moment.” The urgent note in his voice resounded in her core like a gong.

He knows something about Tucker.

The wellspring of love she felt for that man overflowed and she drowned in memories of Tucker’s lips brushing over her temple, of his smoldering stare, of sitting locked in his arms at the movie theater, popcorn between them.

Damn, she could almost smell him. Or was that masculine scent coming from Christian?

Wordlessly, she sank to the plush seat opposite him, clutching her pen so hard that it dug into her palm.

Christian’s chest heaved as he gazed at her. Seconds passed, with only the ballad and the
clink
of silverware on plates to break the silence.

“I’m sorry for the way Tucker treated you.”

A fist of surprise struck her gut. She curled forward around it, unable to process what he’d said. “What?”

“He treats girls like shit, and you didn’t deserve to be one of them.”

She knitted her brows together, mirroring Christian’s look. “And you know this how?”

“Because I know Tucker. He runs when he gets scared.”

The breath whooshed from her. Scared? Of her?

Of what he felt for me?
Oh God, it was too much to hope for.

“I-I don’t understand.”

Christian doffed his hat and set it on the table at his elbow. Scraping his fingers through his hair, he fixed her in his gaze. Warmth blossomed in her belly, an awareness she didn’t want to own.

“Tucker’s a good man. A great friend…” Breaking off, he struggled for a moment before plowing on. “He’s driven to make his ranch the best in the county and his horses the most sought-after. But he has holes in him—the kind that you can’t mend.”

Her throat closed off, narrowly allowing air to pass. The hot, dreaded tears gathered in her eyes and bulged at the rims, ready to spill over at a single word.

The pain in her heart that Tucker had cheated on her was bad enough, but—

“You know about his fiancée, don’t you?”

Jesus.
Her world spun, a slow revolution like a carnival ride. She clamped the pen harder, allowing the stab of pain on her palm to ground her.

“You don’t know.” Christian slapped a hand off the table and sat back, shaking his head. “Damn him.”

“Tell me,” she heard herself say from far away.

Christian inched a hand across the table and stroked Claire’s tense white knuckles. She jerked away. His thick eyebrow rippled then settled over his concerned gaze. Taking a deep breath, he said, “He and Heather were engaged for a year. They were literally days away from the wedding. Hall decorated, tux rented, dress hanging in her closet.”

Claire’s stomach pitched and heaved, and it wasn’t helping that the house special tonight was meatloaf.
Heather.
Now that the name was emblazoned on her brain, she’d never stop wondering what the girl looked like, if she was prettier or more fun than Claire.

“What happened between them?”

“She died in a car accident. It took her swift. On a dark road at night, coming home from a concert with friends, a sort of last hoorah as a bachelorette.”

A ragged breath left Claire. “That actually explains a lot about Tucker.”

Christian bobbed his head and took a sip of water. “Unfortunately, I don’t know if he’ll ever pull out of his grief. It’s like he caved in when she died. I’ve tried for two years to yank him back into the living, but…”

“But no one can compete with a memory,” Claire murmured, staring blankly at Christian’s clenched fingers. She ticked her gaze up to his and saw raw pain there as well.

“None of us can.” His voice was calloused, rough across her skin.

And though he didn’t come out and say it, she knew that the man before her was in love with Tucker too.

Thick mud clung to the soles of Tucker’s boots as he crossed the pasture to meet the riders on horseback—his kin, though they looked like a posse coming to string him up.
Well, that’s probably what they’re here for, in a way.

High grasses churned around his calves as he strode toward the two riders. From a closer look at the expensive drover coat of the man on the right, he recognized his Uncle Leon. That meant the other rider was his cousin Dale.

“Fuck,” Tucker growled and dug his boots in, taking out his frustrations on the very land they were fighting over.

In the distance, the steady beep of a back-up alarm on heavy equipment broke the peaceful quiet of the Wyoming ranch.

Tucker tugged on the brim of his cowboy hat. “Boys,” he said as his relatives drew up a few feet from him.

“Tucker,” Uncle Leon acknowledged. The man was decked out in expensive new jeans and boots, and his hat didn’t have a speck of dust on it. He definitely liked his money, which was probably why he wanted Tucker to sign off on more of his land so he could gain more of the green stuff.

Dale’s horse danced a bit, and his cousin gained immediate control, wrapping brand new leather reins around his gloved fist. The horse’s tack shone—not from a good polishing and care, but because it was new too.

“I like the new saddle, Dale. I see you even had your initials tooled into it.” Tucker peered up at his cousin, wishing he could rip him off the horse and beat him into a pulp. He and Dale were oil and water. Or in this case, coal and water.

Uncle Leon didn’t beat around the bush. He stared over Tucker’s head in the direction of Tucker’s house and barns. His lean, freshly shaven cheeks pulled in as he pursed his lips.

“Coal company needs those papers signed, Tucker. You get around to doing that?”

“No,” Tucker drawled, hooking a thumb in his jeans pocket. Adrenaline surged in his system, but he wasn’t about to let on that he was anything but cool. His bastard family would take advantage of any weakness.

Uncle Leon’s gaze snapped to his. “When you going to do that, son?”

“I ain’t your son, and don’t know as I am. If the coal company digs up all of your ground and ruins your water, that’s fine by me. Keep on supplying those people on the Gulf Coast. But they aren’t touching my land.”

“Not even for three million more dollars in your bank account?” Dale sneered.

To Dale, money was air. But Tucker thought more of the land, the ranch. He needed to preserve it if he wanted to raise healthy horses. And where Bradley Coal wanted to dig an escape access for a new mine, they’d surely contaminate Tucker’s water source. What good would his ranch be without water for his horses?

“Look here, Tucker, I didn’t want to play this card—” Uncle Leon began.

“Then don’t,” Tucker cut him off. He narrowed his eyes, coming just short of glaring at his family members. While he wished like hell he could just kick them off the property that had been left to him by his parents, a soft spot for the thought of family kept him from doing so. Hell, when he and Dale were little, they’d actually played in the sandbox together. Too bad the kid was such a jackass adult, greedy and money-hungry.

Tucker sighed. “I’m not out to start a family feud. You’ve taken your portion of Grandaddy’s ranch and turned a good profit from the natural resources. I intend to do the same—with my stock.”