Before The Night Is Over (12 page)

“
Hey, Nat.”

“
So this is your girlfriend’s daughter?”

He spun around and saw the teasing glint in her eyes and the saucy grin on her lips. “Laurel isn’t my girlfriend,” he replied, pulling open the door on the passenger side. “She’s a friend.” Once the car seat was unbuckled, he lifted Kimberly from the truck and set her on the ground.

“
Doggie!” the little girl screamed and ran toward the big white dog sitting on his butt with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Kale knew the dog wouldn’t hurt Laurel’s daughter except maybe to lick her to death.

“
Just a friend, huh?” Natalie teased, stopping next to him and cocking her head before she reached up and wiped something from his lip. Holding her thumb up for his inspection revealed a smear of strawberry colored lipstick. “Have you slept with her?”

“
None of your business.”

“
Never mind. You just told me the answer.”

A heavy sigh rushed from between his lips and he glanced at the barn in the distance.

“
How long have you known her and why didn’t you tell me about her when we caught you at the bar the other night?”

“
It’s not like anything is going on, Natalie. She moved to town not long ago and I met her at the bar about a few days ago.”

“
A bar fly?”

The snort from his mouth made her smile. “Not even close. Laurel is a cop.”

“
Really. Interesting.”

“
Are you going to be all right watching Kimberly? She’s not going to be too much trouble is she?” he asked, scuffing the ground with the tip of his boot.

“
Please, Kale,” she huffed and rolled her eyes. “I take care of twenty-five six year olds every day. Karen and Audrey should be here soon with Jacob and Anna so she’ll have some other kids to play with.”

“
How’s my godson by the way?” he asked while he kept an eye on Kimberly running around the yard chasing Natalie and Cade’s white German shepherd.

“
Getting big. You need to come out for dinner next week or something. You haven’t been out for a while.”

“
I know. Things are getting busy at my place and I’m down a man now.”

“
Oh?”

“
Yeah. I had to fire one of my guys the other day.”

“
Fire him, why?”

“
Seems he’s been heavy-handed with his wife and it’s something I won’t tolerate.”

“
How did you hear about it?”

He scuffed his boot in the dirt again, debating on how much to tell Natalie since it all came back around to Laurel and his friend sure didn’t need to grab onto anything else to do with Red.

“
Fess up, Kale. You’re keeping something from me. I can tell. I’ve known you way too long.”

“
All right, fine. The night I met Kimmy’s mom, she came into the bar and decked Jeff Cox. It seems he had been beatin’ on his wife who is Laurel’s sister. Laurel took matters into her own hands, came to the bar and laid Jeff out on the floor.”

Her eyes widened and she put her hands on her hips. “Seriously? She hit him?”

“
Not only did she hit him, but she dropped him with one punch.”

“
Wow.”

“
Yeah. Anyway, I told him I wanted to see him in the mornin’ and to bring his gear. He was done on my place.”

A white truck rumbled down the driveway toward the house.

“
Must be Karen and Audrey.”

“
I’ll leave you to your friends then. I’ve got a few things to do at my place, but when Laurel calls me, I’ll call you and let you know when we’ll be coming by to pick up Kimberly.”

“
Did she say what was going on?”

“
No and I didn’t pry. It’s not my business, but I know it had to do with police work,” he replied, pulling out his truck key. “Thanks again for watching her, Nat. You’re the best.”

“
Remember that when I bug you for more details later on. And I’m really looking forward to meeting Laurel.”

“
Great,” he grumbled, pulling his cowboy hat down lower on his forehead.

“
I heard you.”

“
Good.”

She kissed him on the cheek and then turned to wait for her friends to unload from the car. The other two women waved and he raised his hand to wave back.

Climbing into his truck, he sat for a moment and watched Natalie while she greeted her friends and then chased Kimberly down to take her into the house. He often wondered if Natalie felt any self-conscious issues having to do with him, but her attitude when they were around each other didn’t let on anything was amiss. The one and only time the two of them had sex was when he and Cade had a threesome with her. The friendship between her, him and Cade might seem weird to some people, especially if they knew about what happened. Not like he told anyone, but he knew people talked.

Natalie had returned to Red Rock to help care for her grandmother after her grandfather passed away a couple of years ago and to convince the older woman to return to Oregon with her. Mrs. Oliver wouldn’t hear of leaving her home and Kale had to smile. Natalie’s grandmother was an independent, don’t-take-no-shit-from-nobody type woman and she wasn’t about to leave her home. She had even encouraged him and Cade to date Natalie while she visited, but Natalie only had eyes for Cade. From the beginning, band geek turned gorgeous woman had wound his friend around her pinky finger. He only hoped someday he could find a woman like her to complete his life.

Several minutes later, he pulled up next to the porch on his house and stared at the front. The ranch meant everything to him. The land, the ranch hands, the cattle and horses—all of it completed him like nothing else could. Ranch life came naturally. He’d grown up on a cattle ranch along with his two brothers and three sisters. Up at dawn to feed, water and clean stalls, became his life from the time he could walk. His parents had instilled hard, honest work would get you ahead in this life, but it didn’t guarantee happiness.

From the time he could think for himself, he wanted out of Red Rock. A life in the big city. A life with a beautiful wife, two point five kids, white picket fence and an SUV in the driveway was his dream, so off to college he went for his degree in architecture. He found the beautiful wife and the house in the suburbs, but those things didn’t bring him peace. Life on the open plains of Montana called him home.

This house, his house and land gave him peace, but his wife had hated it from the time they had set foot in Montana. The only thing making it tolerable for her came from her friendship with Cade’s first wife. Kale had hope someday Judy would love their home like he did, but she hadn’t.

The crowning glory came when Judy and Cynthia dropped the mother of all bombshells on top of his and Cade’s head one night at dinner. The two women had taken their relationship beyond friendship into lover status. Betrayal, shock, and duplicity played over in his mind like a bad black and white movie, in the days following their declaration.

He recognized it now for what it was, God’s way of taking care of him and bringing him back to the life he should never have left.

“
If I can find the right woman to share it with, this would all be worth the heartache, time, sweat and hard work,” he grumbled as he slipped out of the cab and slammed the door.

Sunlight streaked across the living room floor when he walked into the house. The huge windows overlooking the pasture out back, gave him a bird’s eye view of the cattle and horses grazing in the distance. The huge rock fireplace gracing one wall, could heat the whole house in the dead of winter, but right now it stood black and empty.

Retrieving his cell phone from his pocket, he laid it on the island in the kitchen, and grabbed a mug for some coffee from the cupboard. There would always be something needing done on the five-hundred acres he owned, but for now he wanted to relax and think. With coffee cup in hand, he walked into the living room and took a seat in one of the recliners.

At thirty-two years old, it was high time he settled down. His mom had started hounding him about finding another wife—one who would compliment him and help him run his place—a local girl. Trouble with her theory, there wasn’t a local girl he cared to look twice at after a night in his bed. Not one of them could hold his interest or his thoughts.
Except Laurel.

“
She doesn’t count. She’s not a local girl,” he said out loud before he took two healthy sips of the strong brew in his cup. “Cowgirl she isn’t. She said so herself.”
But damn does she look good in a pair of jeans.
“A pair of jeans doesn’t the cowgirl make,” he rationalized even if he could think of nothing more than peeling the denim off her hips. Thoughts of the sexy underwear she’d been wearing this morning, made his cock swell behind the fly of his pants. “Shit. I don’t need to get all horny right this minute.”

With a quiet half growl, he stood and walked into the kitchen to place his cup in the sink. A little hard, sweaty work would get his mind off the temptation of daydreaming about one red-headed siren. One little kiss and she’d turned him upside down and inside out.

Thank God for the mind numbing routine of shoveling horse shit and dirty hay into a wheelbarrow.
Sweat dripped down his back, plastering the white T-shirt to his skin. The scent of horse droppings, dust and dirt filtered to his nose, but it was a gratifying smell. It meant the world to him because each horse, heifer and calf on the property belonged to him, lock, stock and barrel.

The sound of a diesel truck pulling in outside caught his attention and he wondered who it could be since he wasn’t expecting anyone. He set the shovel against the wall, grabbed his hat from the nail and walked toward the door, tugging the gloves off his hands as he moved.

“
Hey, Kale.”

“
Cade. What are you doing here? Nat said you were out of town.”

“
You talked to my wife?” Cade asked, stopping in front of him.

Kale nodded and pulled his Stetson lower to shade his eyes from the glare of the sun. “Yeah, earlier. Went out to your place about an hour ago.”

“
Oh?”

“
She’s doing me a favor and watching a kid for me.” One blond eyebrow shot up to Cade’s hairline and Kale almost laughed. “She’s not mine. She belongs to a woman I know.” Both eyebrows shot up and he did laugh at Cade’s expression. “There’s nothin’ goin’ on. The lady is a cop and she had to pull an extra shift or something this afternoon and her regular sitter wasn’t available.”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Knock it off. I met her in the bar about a few days ago when she decked one of my guys for beating on his wife.”

Cade folded his arms over his chest and braced his back against the fence. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere until he told him everything.

“
Her name is Laurel and he moved her not long ago at the urging of her sister. You know Jeff Cox?”

“
Yeah, isn’t he one of your guys?”

“
Used to be. I fired him.”

“
Go on,” Cade said, pushing his hat back on his head.

Kale knew he should leave out certain parts of what had happened between him and Laurel, but he and Cade had known each other since high school. They slept in the same bed as young boys, made love to several women together when they got older, got drunk together, puke together—hell they had done everything together.

“
Let’s get something to drink. It’s hotter than hell out here and I’m sweatin’ like a pig,” he said, walking toward the house.

Once they were settled inside, a beer clutched in their fists and a ball game on television for background noise, he told Cade everything from seeing Laurel come into the bar, punching out her brother-in-law to making love to her right there in his living room this morning.