Beauty and the Brit (42 page)

“—my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die if you don’t leave a message, man.”

Everybody groaned while Rio waited for the beep. “Paul? Call me. If you haven’t heard, the police have Boyfriend in custody. It’s true. Tell Hector. Please? And please call.”

When she hung up Tanner Hewett smiled at her. “He’ll call you back, I’m sure of it. Just let me know when he does. We’ll find him and get him some help.”

“
Will
he go to prison?”

“Honestly? He’s an accessory to arson. But much will depend on his testimony and what he’s willing to do to break ties with the gang. I can’t promise anything. But I’ll help.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Rio said.

S
HE WAS WORTHLESS
the rest of the day, every nerve frayed waiting and praying for Paul to call. She’d gone so far as to open a novel in her room when her cell phone finally buzzed in her pocket. Digging it out, she went limp with relief at the number.

“Paul!”

“Rio. That was the truth? They got the asshole?”

“The police talked to me in person.”

“You aren’t just setting me up with the cops again?”

Her heart went out to him despite herself. “I can’t promise you’re done with the police, but it won’t be me who turns you in. Hector, though? I’d hang him from the nearest lynching tree.”

“I don’t know where he is. He split after the last run-in. He don’t want to get caught.”

“Can you at least get him a message to say Boyfriend can’t hurt him?”

“I can try. Where are you? Where’s Bonnie?”

She looked around the bare bones space that had been her sanctuary for five weeks. “I’m not telling you until Hector is caught. But if he’s really disappeared, I’ll meet you somewhere. I’ve been worried.”

“You don’t hafta worry.” A hint of the old Paul came through his exhaustion.

“Where are
you
?” she asked.

“A friend of Juan’s cousin has a place out on the other side of Lake Calhoun. I haven’t seen nobody in the Browns and Whites in two weeks. I’m a freakin’ upstanding citizen. I really want to see Bonnie.”

“Inigo, you big dumb jerk. You’d better be dang sure you’re telling me the truth if you want to see her. She’s truly safe for the first time in her life.”

Silence and then, “That’s good. That’s real good. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“It better be you who does the calling.”

A soft chuckle filled the space between them. “Bye,
Mamacita
.”

Rio slumped into the chair next to the small table that held her laptop. She didn’t use the computer for much. News. Gathering information about cheap hay . . . She wriggled the mouse and stared absently at the wallpaper—a running, gold-and-flaxen palomino.

She wondered if her little filly would ever look like this. She had a fighting chance now, but Rio might never know.

Or did she really have to leave?

The phone call with Paul had shaken everything back up. Her life in Minneapolis wasn’t truly finished. Perhaps Paul wouldn’t be able to travel to Wyoming. She didn’t exactly have the job. There were so many things she’d miss if she left Bridge Creek. Glory. Andy. Thirty-one . . . David. Oh David.

She moved the mouse again, and her eyes lit on the mail icon. The number four stared back at her. Curiously, she opened her inbox, and her stomach lurched. The top three e-mails were from Coyote Creek Ranch. She hovered over the first message, and clicked.

Dear Rio. We were extremely impressed with your résumé and your letter. I hope you’ve had time to explore our website and learn a little about our facility. We’d like to offer you . . .

Her hand flew to her mouth.

Well. Damn.

“N
O!
T
HERE’S NO
discussion.” Bonnie shot laser-hot fury across the kitchen from her narrowed black eyes. “You said it yourself. We lost that dream. We have to start new. Well, I’ve started new. I love this school. I love Dawson. I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s the answer to all our problems.”

“I don’t have problems, Rio. You didn’t either. What happened to make you so unhappy again?”

“I’m not unhappy.”

Rio had expected anger, but this was not the petulant foot-stomping of an immature teen. This was an angry young woman making valid arguments.

“We have the perfect setup here. This
could
be our answer, you know.”

“We cannot stay here forever. One way or another, we need to stand on our own. Give us a chance, Bons.”

“You take this chance.” She turned. “I’m not going with you.”

“Bonnie!”

She ignored the call, stalked out of the room, and seconds later banged out her anger on the stair treads heading for her room. Rio rested her elbows on the island and buried her face in her hands.

“She needs a firmer hand you know.” Kate rested a perfect hip against the kitchen door and folded her arms.

“Excuse me? You were eavesdropping?”

“It seems to happen a lot around here,” she countered.

“Well, this is none of your business.”

“She’s always allowed to do exactly as she pleases,” Kate continued. “And nobody likes that she’s still got potential contact with gang members, or that you’re talking with your brother, who could bring them all to the doorstep.”

“Are you
blaming
my sister for our situation?”

“I’m saying she’s had way too much exposure to violence and she talks to you like a bratty child. If I were in charge, she’d be going to a private school for extremely bright girls.”

“Thank God you’re not in charge.”

“I’m not alone in this. We’ve talked about it.”

“We?”

“Stella. Colin. David.”

“I don’t believe you.”

And she didn’t. This was Kate. Still spoiled, still flirting with David, still Bonnie’s ideal. Kate would like nothing better than for Rio to leave. She’d say anything.

“What’s going on?” David entered clad in the tight gray T-shirt Rio liked best on him, his breeches, and his chaps. She went weak in the knees before she steeled herself. “I just saw your sister do the oddest thing,” he said. “She climbed out her window and ran off down the road.”

“What?” Rio turned reflexively toward the door.

“Did you just see Bonnie climb down the side of the house, or am I mad as a March hare?” Stella popped in, confused and laughing.

“What did I tell you?” Kate asked. “She’s out of control.”

“For cripes’ sake, Kate. I’m not sending Bonnie to a private girl’s school. Didn’t you ever sneak out a window when you were a kid?”

“Certainly not.”

Rio threw up her hands. “Well, that shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. You ought to try it. Might loosen you up a little.”

“David, haven’t we all said that Bonnie needs some time in a good private school?”

“Private schools are wonderful, nurturing places, pet,” Stella said.

David frowned. “I agreed that Bonnie is worth putting anywhere she’ll be safe and protected. If that’s a private school, I’m all for it.”

“All for it!” Rio glared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Aren’t you serious about protecting her?”

Rio couldn’t even get angry. Things had gone from bad to out-of-control in this house. She was outmaneuvered, outplanned, outgunned. She’d promised to let David deal with his family as he needed to, but they’d brainwashed him and that would last long after they were gone. Furiously, she grabbed the letter from Coyote Creek off the counter where Bonnie had left it and shoved it in David’s hands.

“This is where she’ll be safe, David. No need to worry about a private school, which I damn well can’t afford anyway. I’m going to accept the job. I’m giving Bud two weeks’ notice tomorrow. Bonnie and her dangerous criminal groupies will be safely out of your hair soon enough.”

D
AVID TURNED IN
utter confusion to Kate and his mother once Rio had gone. “What did you say to her?” he asked.

“The truth,” Kate replied. “Her sister is out of control. David, you said yourself that you didn’t like her being in touch with the old gang members. She’s fighting to stay with them.”

He looked at his mother beseechingly.

“Love,” she said. “Bonnie’s a sweet girl. She deserves better than her sister can give her.”

“That’s enough,” he commanded. He’d never seen this side of his mother. He’d never paid any attention to the way she manipulated him or anyone else. But Kate was his mother on steroids. And suddenly, he knew he didn’t have to pamper either of them anymore. Nor did he have to be mean to be firm. He almost laughed as he took his mother by the shoulders. “Stella Pitts-Matherson, you evil old blouse. You are not welcome to speak that way of a girl I’ve become very close to. Rio is an amazing woman, and she’s raised Bonnie to be that sweet girl you talk of.

“Katherine. You’ve become hard since I knew you. I’m sorry if I ever gave you reason to think you could win me back, but you cannot. Ever. I moved on long ago. Now, I would love to have you stay for your full time here, another two weeks, is it? Or, and I say this with all firmness, the decorating budget is exhausted, the parties are over. If you feel like you could get more done back in England, I’ll dip into the scholarship budget to help pay for a ticket switch. I love you both—do whatever makes the most sense. Now I’m going to find Rio and, I hope, Bonnie, before they run away from home.”

H
E WAS TOO
late. The trust he’d built had been breached—Rio’s family had been violated. He couldn’t explain away to Rio’s satisfaction what he’d said about Bonnie. Although his mother and Kate elected to leave early and seemed relieved to do so, David couldn’t convince Rio to stay.

Ten days after his mother flew out, Rio stood by her car beside her furious sister, two small suitcases, and Thirty-one. There was no sense in leaving the cat. She’d captured Rio’s heart, and vice versa, in a way David had failed to do.

“I will miss the hell out of you,” he said, checking to where Bonnie sobbed in Dawson’s embrace.

“I wouldn’t have survived this without you,” she said. “You know that’s true.”

“Don’t go,” he said, for the thousandth time.

“We have different visions,” she replied for the thousandth and first. “I need this. God knows it’ll be good for Bonnie, too. She’ll figure it out.”

She reached up on tiptoes then and kissed him before he could do it. She made it aching and hot and deep. She choked on her tears when she pulled away.

“I hope it’s what you want it to be,” he made himself say.

“It will be. I hope the same for your partnership.”

He didn’t reply.

She hugged Andy. She hugged Dawson. She hugged Kim. And watching her drive away was like having a thousand tears to the edges of his heart—not lethal but permanently crippling and excruciatingly painful. When he finally turned away, his father was watching the dust tail with pensive eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Three

C
OLIN STAYED THREE
weeks longer than the women, but he was leaving at last. David watched with little emotion as his father approached. Three more hours and David would leave for Minneapolis-Saint Paul International. Then he’d spend the night with Chase at Crossroads. Where
she’d
come into his life, triggered an avalanche of change, and, nine weeks later, left him down one cat and a fully functioning heart but up one partner.

A very bad trade.

But the eight-thousand-dollar deductible on his insurance claim had been paid, and the hole in the barn existed no more. Rio had been right. People with connections simply snapped their fingers and trouble evaporated.

“So, your Good Samaritan act with the rescue horses has paid off.” His father joined him at the fence. The horses were still scruffy and most far too ribby, but each had a shine back in its eye and they’d all started to play—nipping and chasing—like healthy horses. He wished Rio could see the changes.

“They’ll be fine now,” he said. “The two already adopted are doing well.”

“That little chestnut has some potential,” his father said.

“And that gray.” David pointed.

“Agreed.”

“So.” Colin’s hesitation was uncharacteristic. “I’m off to England for Christmas.”

“Oh?”

“Your mum’s invited me.”

“Get off it, Da’.”

“Right, yeah?”

Didn’t that bloody well figure? Even old Colin would get his happily-ever-after.

“Just don’t send me any details.”

“I thought perhaps you’d like to join us.”

The whole request made no sense to his brain. “Da’, thanks. But I don’t think the finances will bear that yet. Go. Make nice with me mum. You two never should have split.”

His father grunted. “Best thing for it at the time.” After a moment’s silence he shrugged into the distance. “Have you heard from her?”

David knew exactly who he meant. “Very little. Dawson hears from Bonnie, who’s miserable. However, the job is legitimate and busy. The ranch is huge. And they have horses to ride.”

A stab of sadness hit at that. He’d known there’d be holes when she left. He hadn’t foreseen how deep they’d be or that he’d fall into one pretty much every other minute.

“Sounds like what she wanted, doesn’t it?” Colin nodded. “So, almost time to go. You’re making your way with young Carter, then?”

Barely, David thought. “He’s a hard-arse. Needs a bit of polish and some people skills, but he’s got talent. He’s you without understanding.”

“You think I have understanding? There’s a shock.”

“I said you don’t understand me, not everything.”

“True. I stopped understanding you when you cocked up your discharge—”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare . . .” But Rio’s words came to him again: “You’ll never forgive your father until you forgive yourself.” Lord, how he’d been trying. “You know what, no. I hope you do bring that up again one day—when you want to know what really happened. To me. Not to you.”

A sharp voice carried from inside the barn. “That’s it, Mr. Manning. We no longer have need of your help here.”

David exchanged a confused look with his father but then anger blazed through his gut. He sprinted to the barn and found Andy and Carter faced off like two school yard bullies, purple-faced and huffing. A bucket lay sideways on the floor, grain splattered across the aisle.