Rebel Cowboy (20 page)

Or something.

“She must have already gone inside.”

“Smart girl, my llama.”

Mel’s laugh was…he had no words for what that sound did to his chest, to this evening. When he’d walked out with the charming
fuck you
on his lips, he was sure he’d blown it all, but he hadn’t been able to suck back in that anger.

It had worked out. For once in his life, expressing the conflict inside of him had turned out okay. Better than. She said she cared, she was holding his hand, and…

“I don’t see her.” Mel’s brows drew together as she looked in each pen. “Maybe I missed her outside in the dark.”

“I’ll go check.” A thorough check of the outside pen had a knot forming in his gut. Nothing. With the dark and the rain, surely they were just…missing a large, furry creature. “She’s not out here.”

Mel stood in the opening between pasture and stables, holding a flashlight. “She’s not here either. Should we switch and look one more time?”

He looked out into the dark storm. They could keep looking here, but how had they both missed her twice? That couldn’t be possible. “I guess if she mysteriously got in, she could have mysteriously gotten out.”

“You want to do a quick look around the fence line?”

“You go inside. I’ll look.”

“You’ll need help to corral her back. Come on. Let’s go.” Mel pointed the light into the rain in front of them, but he found himself leading the way. Thus far, Mystery hadn’t shown any inclination of trying to escape, but she did like to graze in the southern corner in the afternoons.

So he started there, and even though it was a little stupid, since he wasn’t searching for a dog, he called her name out into the steady lull of rain. They fanned out from the pasture, the beam of the flashlight not giving them much to work with.

When Mel’s flashlight landed on something white, she immediately jerked the light back to it.

“Christ.” Mystery was right up against the barbed wire, and that could not be good.

“Oh, damn,” Mel breathed.

Yeah, definitely not good. He stepped forward, but Mystery nipped and then made a truly horrible bleating sound.

“She’s stuck in the fence.”

Dan tried to get closer again. “What do I do?” Thunder rolled and lightning flashed, and what the hell was he supposed to do? “We have to get her out of there.”

“We need wire cutters. Another flashlight. Gloves.” Mel pushed a hand through her wet hair.

“You know where all that is, right? You could run back and get it.”

She didn’t even respond, just started jogging back to the stables. Dan turned back to Mystery. His heart thundered in his ears—or was that the thunder? Dan had no idea.

“Hey, girl. It’s all right.” He swallowed down the squeaky note in his voice. “We’ll get you out. But let’s keep still, huh?” He knew it was stupid to talk to a llama like it had any idea what he was saying, but it was the only thing he could think to do.

Mel returned with all the tools bundled in her hands and another flashlight. “I tried to call the vet, but he didn’t answer. I left a message. Once we get her free, I’ll try his mom. I’m pretty sure I have her number.”

“Small towns, huh?” he said, trying to keep calm. “So you cut her out of the fence and I’ll try to keep her calm. She’s a bit more of a fan of me than you.”

“You’ll want to keep her steady. Can you hold her still?”

“Let’s find out.” It was not something he particularly wanted to do, especially with the threat of actually being bitten or kicked, but it was the only option they had. So he did it. He stepped closer, and despite a few nips and horrible noises, he got close enough to touch her, to do his best to find a hold that would keep her from bolting.

Mel worked with the fence, but he could tell she was struggling.

“I can’t get a good enough grip to cut it. Everything is too wet. Damn, I wish I had my hat.”

Dan moved up Mystery’s flank, doing his best to keep his movements smooth, keep her calm. “Let me try.”

Mel handed him the wire cutters, and he tried to keep himself close enough to Mystery that she wouldn’t try to bolt once she was free. “You just stay put now, all right?” he murmured.

The rain was still falling at a steady pace, and with the gloves Mel handed him, he couldn’t get a good enough grip either. So he stripped them off.

“Be careful of the barbed wire. You don’t want to get hurt too.”

But he couldn’t get where he needed to be with the gloves, and if he got a little scraped up, so be it.

Without the gloves, he managed to cut through one side of the fence, but to get the other side that needed to be cut, he was going to have to go around the llama again. “All right, little lady, I’m going to move to the other side, but
you’re
not going to move. Got it?”

Mel didn’t say anything, but she kept the flashlight trained on the fence so when he got to the other side he could quickly snip it free.

The problem was…now what?

He took a deep breath. They needed a vet. Surely someone who knew anything about animals. What was he doing acting like he had any clue what to do?

“You’ve got her pretty calm. Should I go try to call the vet again?”

“Shine the light on where she was caught.”

Mel trained the flashlight beam on Mystery’s leg. It was matted with blood and a piece of the barbed wire was stuck. Deep and unsettling. Dan had to look away, take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m not sure what more I can do.”

“You’ve done so much, Dan. Really. I’m going to call him again, and if I can’t get a hold of him, I’ll find someone who can. Just keep her calm and as immobile as possible.”

“Yeah. Just…hurry, I guess.” Surely blood and barbed wire couldn’t be good. How long would it take to get a vet out here? A while, surely. Dan rubbed a palm down Mystery’s wet, shaggy wool. “It’ll be okay.” Which he didn’t believe and she didn’t understand, so he wasn’t at all sure why he said it.

Mel returned, and then after a while, the vet. All three of them worked in the dark to get Mystery sedated and moved back to the stables, where the vet carefully removed the barbed wire and bandaged her up, saying she was lucky it hadn’t caused damage to any bone or tendons. Dan stayed by her side the whole time—this strange creature who’d come into his life and given him a purpose.

A few hours later, Mystery sedated and dry in the stables, Mel and the vet long since gone, Dan finally forced himself to leave her in search of dry clothes.

When he stepped inside the cabin, Mel was in the kitchen, scribbling something on a piece of paper. But she turned to him and smiled. “I was about to come get you. Sit. You’re probably starving.”

“I don’t know what I am,” he said. Which was true. He was beyond hungry, beyond exhausted. But Mystery was okay. So said the vet, as long as infection didn’t set in, and Dan was sure as hell going to make sure it didn’t.

Mel placed a bowl of soup in front of him, and then slid a piece of paper next to it. “What’s this?” He frowned down at the paper. There was a stick figure drawn on it,
Rancher Badge
written across the top.

“You’ve just earned your first rancher badge. Dealing with a hurt animal. Congratulations.”

He slumped in the chair, exhaustion settling even deeper. He’d actually handled it. Really well, all in all. Maybe not on his own, but he’d gotten in there and snipped the fence and helped the vet. “I think I’m going to need something a little more official.”

She crossed to him and framed his face with her hands—something he wasn’t sure she’d ever done. Her calloused palms were rough against his damp skin. She felt warm and dry and perfect, and her smile was like a blanket on a cold day.

“You, Dan Sharpe, did it.”

“I had a lot of help.”

“You knew just what to do, and you directed it. If I hadn’t been there, you’d have done it on your own. It would have been harder, but you would have done it. Because you didn’t once back away.”

He didn’t say anything to that, didn’t know what he could say. Beneath the tiredness and the headache and chill of the rain and the night and the fear…satisfaction bloomed, soft and warm.

You didn’t once back away.

She brushed a kiss over his mouth. “Now eat.”

She went to step away, but he liked having her there more than his stomach rumbled for the soup. So he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, resting his cheek against her abdomen.

She chuckled softly, but her hands brushed over his hair, then her fingers trailed through it. He was pretty sure he could fall asleep right here. Sitting in a chair, pressed to Mel.

You didn’t once back away
. No, he’d handled the whole thing, and there hadn’t been time to overthink it or worry he was screwing it up. He’d just done it.

Mel kissed the top of his head. This was the weirdest damn day.

“I’ll work on getting you a more official-looking badge.”

Dan looked at the sad little drawing and managed to laugh. “Actually, this might be about perfect.” He released her and focused on the soup.

Just about perfect. Huh. Wasn’t that something?

Mel woke up to her phone alarm and Dan’s clock chiming at the same time. It was like the sound track to the past week. This weird normal that wasn’t normal at all.

Sharing a bed with somebody. A shower. A morning routine. Working together to build something.

No, that wasn’t normal, and it would be stupid to entertain any thoughts or feelings or fantasies that it ever might be.

She wished the routine, the difference,
Dan
would smooth over everything else, make her forget. But it felt more like limbo, a world that didn’t really exist. She was putting off the inevitable, only she didn’t know what the inevitability was going to be.

For the seventh day in a row, she woke away from the house she’d grown up in. She had never been away for so long before, and while waking up in Dan’s bed wasn’t such a bad exchange, it did nothing for the worry that gripped her every morning.

Were they okay? Had Caleb found a nurse for Dad, had he drunk himself to death, had the cows escaped and no one knew or cared? Should she go back? Was that weak? Was being here weak?

Was there some right answer she couldn’t find because she wasn’t strong enough?

She hated it. Hated this feeling. Hated that she didn’t know what else to do. She tried—she failed. She walked away—she failed. Everything was a failure when it came to Shaw.

And every morning she woke up next to Dan and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do
now
? When nothing she could think of fixed anything, and Dan was so damn careful with her. Like she was delicate, broken. Someone who needed ease and comfort, sweet touches, calming words.

Those things did nothing more than piss her off. Make her snappy and bitchy, but he just kept being so damn sweet and quiet and there. Saving llamas and changing their bandages like…

She didn’t know what. And she didn’t know what to
do
.

So for the seventh damn day in a row, she had tears in her eyes before she got out of bed, and Dan’s arms came around her, a comforting embrace that was anything but.

This wasn’t something to treat her like glued-together glass over. It was just life. Life once you gave up the illusion of anyone being able to endure, to give, to rise to the occasion. No one could do that.

Not even her.

Dan kissed the back of her neck. Sweet. Comforting. She wished she didn’t lack the ability to be comforted.

“I hate that you wake up upset every morning,” he said in a sleep-heavy voice.

The downright concern in that statement had her bristling. “I’m not—” His arms tightened enough that she couldn’t finish her sentence.

“If you tell me you’re not upset, I’m going to toss you out of this bed, Shaw.” The sleep was gone from his voice, but even though it was sharp, that underlying sweet, worrying
care
was there, and she wanted to escape.

His grip didn’t loosen, but she managed a breath and tried to change the subject. “Oh, now you’re last-naming me?”

“I’m taking all sorts of lessons from you, honey.” His arms gentled and he kissed the back of her neck again and, oh, screw him.

“Maybe it’s time you talked to them.”

“About what?” She pushed Dan’s arms off of her because that was some kind of spell. Feeling cared for and comforted and like there were answers. If she hadn’t found answers in the five years since Dad’s accident, why would Dan’s arms around her make her think she could now?

“Talk to them about what happened.”

She got into a sitting position, ready to bolt off the bed, but Dan’s hand curled around her wrist. She refused to look at the point of contact, even if she felt it everywhere. Even if it mattered despite her not wanting it to. She gritted her teeth. “If I knew how to make it right, I would have done that already.”

“I didn’t say make it right. I said talk. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m no expert on this. I haven’t really talked about anything…since my parents made me go to counseling, but—”

She whirled to face him. “Why did your parents make you go to counseling?” She could not even imagine.

“Oh, you know, divorce stuff. I was kind of a mess of a kid, didn’t take it well. But the point is I started running away instead of…well, the other night. We yelled at each other, but real stuff came out. Maybe that’s what you need to do with them too.”

She blinked at him, trying to wrap her mind around what that said about him. A mess as a kid. His thing about screwing everything up. It didn’t gel with everything she knew about him in the now. Sure, he’d messed up a few hockey games, but even a person who’d started with zero faith in him had to look around and see how much he had accomplished. She might have helped, but the llama ranch—that was all Dan’s hard work.

Okay, the money he had helped, but that wasn’t the heart of this place. It was the lucky break that got him here—everything else was Dan’s sweat and care.

The usual discomfort with that had her pulling her arm out of his grasp. “Look, that’s not bad advice, but I’ve done it. I tell them and they don’t care.”

“Do you think that’s what it is?” He folded his arms behind his head, all shirtless, conversational ease. “Because there are a lot of ways you act like you don’t care, and I think you do. But you protect yourself. Same way I run away. To protect myself from the choke. Or the aftermath of the choke.”

“I can’t believe you’re…”

“Making so much sense? I know. I’m surprised myself. Apparently Dan Sharpe is a pretty astute guy.”

“You’re something that starts with
a-s
.”

“Admit it, you love me.” He cleared his throat, the ease disappearing as he sat up and scratched a hand through his hair. “Uh, not quite what I meant.”

“We should probably…” She gestured toward the door, because this was too weird to deal with. All of it. The neck kissing and the insightful words and the…
that
.

“Get up. Get going. Yeah.” He got off the bed and headed for the bathroom. Their normal routine was that he showered while she made breakfast and coffee, then she got ready while he fed and watered Mystery.

It was a nice routine. She liked it. A lot. It was so much more…companionable than the way she’d been existing the past few years. Sure, she worked side by side with Caleb, but it had never felt like working together. Caleb kept so much from her, and she kept so much from him.

Working together felt good. Like before Dad’s accident, when she’d been an integral part of Shaw, but so had Dad. Teamwork. A common goal. Respect and…

Crap, there was that
L
word again. Well, that was so not going to be considered, because it was out of the question. Whether it was real or not, she didn’t want it, because love did not last. It screwed everything up.

“You could unpack some of that stuff, you know,” Dan said, and she suddenly realized he hadn’t disappeared into the bathroom. He was standing in the little hallway, watching her. “It’s not like I don’t have empty drawers sitting around.”

“Dan…” No, she could not unpack that bag. It was her last line of defense against heartbreak. She had too much breaking things in her, too little wherewithal for heartbreak. This was the end of the line with them. As far as it could go.

She really hoped that hockey tryout swooped in and saved her from having to do the breaking herself.

“Let me guess,” he said. “This is the part where you turn into the douchey guy who doesn’t want me getting any ideas.”

“Dan—”

“I’ve been that guy on occasion, so I think I know the signs.”

“Dan—”

“Stop saying my name, unpack your damn bag, and get the pained look off your face. What are you so weirded out by? It’s not like you can’t pack up and go in a hurry if you want.”

He stepped into the bathroom, effectively ending the conversation, which was good. Because if he had stayed, she might have been tempted to tell him there were a lot of things to be afraid of. Mainly that if she unpacked, even with her worry over Shaw, she might never want to leave.

Would that really be so bad?

It was a question she didn’t know how to break down and answer. She could think of all the ways it would be terrible. Awful. Fights and abandonment and resentment and bitterness. She could picture it all as if it had already happened. All she had to do was conjure up a memory or two of her parents’ raucous fights there toward the end.

Mom wanted more. Dad wanted exactly what he had. Secrets had been born and flourished into vines that choked everyone out. And, oh, could she see history repeating itself one way or another.

Because if she hadn’t been able to fix it then, what in her now would be able to fix it if it happened with her as a participating party?

No, she had to keep that line of defense. So she left her bag packed. She went to the kitchen to make the coffee and to keep things going as they had been. All she had to do was keep everything as it was and…

Well, she had no idea what followed that, but she’d rather keep her head down and not think about it.

* * *

Dan had learned a lot about himself since coming to Blue Valley over a month ago. Firstly, he liked llamas. Not that he’d ever considered his feelings on them one way or another, but now he knew. He liked working with them. They were kind of standoffish and weird at first, but it was all the more rewarding when they treated you with respect.

Maybe llama respect was crazy, but he didn’t have to admit it to anyone. It could be his little secret.

So there was that, and then the surprise that hard work didn’t necessarily mean forgetting everything else. Sometimes hard work gave him more than ample time to think about hockey, but it was a good kind of thinking. Effective. Decisive.

If Scott got him the tryout, that was great, but he wouldn’t drop everything here. He would make sure everything was settled before he went back. He’d spend his summers here, and when the time came—if the time wasn’t now—he’d retire here.

This was his present and it was his future, regardless of what opportunities arose. If no opportunities arose, here he was.

He looked around the stables. They were making sure everything was set for his herd delivery tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would have a whole group of llamas living here.

He grinned, couldn’t help himself. He had built this, and he would sustain it.

He glanced at Mel, who was working to repair the hinge of the door from the stables to the enclosure. She was bent over, twisting a screwdriver around as she cursed under her breath. The sun from outside haloed her profile, and it reminded him of the third thing he was slowly inching his way toward learning about himself.

He was shitty at holding his tongue when he cared about somebody. With Mel not just working with him but living with him, trying to keep his mouth shut was a daily battle.

This morning had been more of a failure than a battle on all counts. Too much of himself was bleeding all over every moment. He should rein it in, pull back a little. Escape.

But he saw her there, flannel shirt pushed back to her elbows, a few strands of brown hair escaping her braid, and her face lined with sheer determination…and he didn’t want to escape. He was drawn to that, to her, to this.

He wanted more. All of it. She had let part of that wall she kept herself hidden behind down, and he kept thinking that next thing would be enough, but she was still holding something back.

There were moments that were comfortable—far more comfortable than that night at the hockey rink, the way she’d said she cared about him as if he was wresting a criminal confession from her.

But the stronger he felt about this place, about what he could do here, the stronger he felt about his ability to make something with Mel. Which meant comfort wasn’t what he was after.

He stood from where he’d been organizing the feed, suddenly filled with a kind of purpose. He wanted better than this strange limbo they’d found themselves in.

He wanted more.

Like you’re not going to fuck up more.

His phone rang,
Scott
popping up on the caller ID. Dan cringed. He wasn’t quite ready for a dose of his other life when he was becoming so good with this one.

But he’d made his decisions, right? Even if he left, he was coming back. Mel’s gaze met his as he swiped his finger across the screen.

“Scott?” she called.

He nodded, holding the phone to his ear.

“Good luck,” she said before turning back to her work with the gate.

“Sharpe,” he answered, Mel’s “good luck” ringing in his ears. Because he didn’t know what she was wishing good luck for. Getting a tryout? Leaving?

“Hello?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“You’re breaking up.”

Dan sighed and stepped out the back entrance of the barn to higher ground and better reception. “Better?”

He didn’t answer that question. “I got you the tryout.”

For some reason, he hadn’t been expecting it to actually be the tryout. He’d expected more
I’m working on it.
But, hell, time was running out, wasn’t it? “Tryout?”

“Phoenix. They agreed to take a look at you, man. I’m getting you a flight out tomorrow and the tryout will be Friday.”

“Tomorrow?” Any excitement, any burst of adrenaline went cold. “Scott, that’s not possible.”

“Of course it is. Look, I know you might be a little rusty, but if we get you an early flight tomorrow, you’ve got all day to prepare.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Then what the hell is?”

“I have responsibilities here. I have…” Well, he wasn’t going to tell Scott about the llamas being delivered tomorrow. “I have responsibilities and I need more than twenty-four-hours’ notice.”

“You’re shitting me right now.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Dan, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t need to know. All I need is for you to be on a plane tomorrow morning, and be ready to try out on Friday. This is your shot. I’m not sure I can get you another one.”

Dan looked around him. The way the sun blazed on the cabin, the stables, the mountains. Everything was bright and brilliant, too brilliant—too much. Overwhelming, and that wasn’t going to change. This was always going to be a big place, bigger and older and steadier than him. Always.